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Tom Sewell

Wednesday, November 13, 2019

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8 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

In my view, the whole, "You are married to God, you don't need a partner" thing is begging for trouble. But so is "abstinence based education" aka "ignorance based education", which is not just RCs.

Making abstinence a job requirement would tend to attract people who are uninterested in taking a wife in the first place . . . and yet somehow lifelong virgins are supposed to be the most qualified people to tell everyone else how to conduct their sex lives and how to raise their children.

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1 hour ago, The Old Hack said:

Maybe you ought to consider the possibility that even if you do not intend offense, it is still very possible to cause it. :(

That is because she was NEVER a boy. She got assigned male gender to her at birth when she had no possible way to resist it or even experience enough to realise it was wrong. Then she was forced to act like a boy until she finally realised that something was wrong and started to fight back. And she is STILL fighting because you still aren't getting it. :(

I recognise all of this very, very well. *sigh*

You ought to think of her as one person and that the person you used to treat her as was something she never was and never wanted to be. And for your information: SHE WAS ALWAYS THERE. You just used to treat her in a way that badly hurt her, and you are letting your old bad habits continue to harm her. :(

Your presence does not bother me. Your internalised homophobia and transmisogyny bother me a great deal. I would ask you to please, please, please look into what being trans or queer really means. Not for my sake -- you don't have to engage with me and I am just a stranger on a forum, but for your sister's sake. You are hurting her. Your intentions do not matter. Results do. I am sure you don't want to hurt her, and you badly need to work on learning how not to. And I can't help you, for I am too distant, I don't have the resources to, and you have no reason to trust me. :(

~tOH.

Daughter actually. If she was always a girl, there were no indications whatsoever. Well that's not exactly true, no major indications, no outward questioning, not assignment surgery; she did play well with her sisters on occasion, played dolls with them, but mostly did boy stuff. I had no reason to ask her at seventeen if she was a girl, but if I had, I'm fairly certain he would have been offended.

Her decision to transition was a sudden thing, outwardly. She came to talk about what she was planning; it was evident for her discussion that she had done her homework. She must have put at least months if not a couple of years into the research. I reassured her that she would be loved whatever she decided.

She discussing her plans with various sibs as well, then she discussed her decision with her live in girlfriend, who had entered into a relationship with her as a boy; that did not go well, they broke up. Then she began being a woman outwardly. It was months before she could legally get hormones, then she began a series of surgeries. Lots of voice coaching (her larynx has not been shaved, unless she's done it recently). 

Re: "Maybe you ought to consider the possibility that even if you do not intend offense, it is still very possible to cause it. :("

I'm well aware that it is possible to cause offense without intending to. I'm also aware that it is possible to take offense beyond all reason. I wonder if you are projecting from a situation you are experiencing.

Re: "That is because she was NEVER a boy."

She has said this. I don't dispute it.

Re: "She got assigned male gender to her at birth when she had no possible way to resist it or even experience enough to realize it was wrong. Then she was forced to act like a boy until she finally realized that something was wrong and started to fight back."

Not sure what you mean by assigned. She was born a baby boy, no surgery was involved; however you probably are alluding to cultural expectations. She was not pressured to act in any certain way. To be fair, we might have at that time, if it had come up, but it didn't. We bought boy's clothes and boy's toys. She never ran over to the dresses or dolls and asked for them, as a few others have. (Jazz, for instance.)

I mentioned her playing with her sisters, with her dolls on occasion. She did far more masculine playing, on her own. She was never pressured toward either one although we provided more opportunity for masculine play, like little kids soccer. She, as a boy, expressed hetero-normative interest in dating girls, talked about it, and followed through.

Honestly, I'm again getting that projecting vibe. Am I missing something?

Re: "And she is STILL fighting because you still aren't getting it. :("

That's rather judgemental. And again, sounds like something in your own experience that you are putting in our situation.

Re: "I recognise all of this very, very well. *sigh*"

OK, that's almost a confession to projecting. Am I wrong?

Re: "You ought to think of her as one person and that the person you used to treat her as was something she never was and never wanted to be." and You just used to treat her in a way that badly hurt her, and you are letting your old bad habits continue to harm her. :("

I'll repeat, "I had no reason to ask her at seventeen if she was a girl, but if I had, I'm fairly certain he would have been offended." I'm sure you're aware that a teen has a fairly fragile self image, and I would not presume to undercut my male offspring's masculinity for no reason. To do so would be the kind of insensitive you are accusing me of. Sorry, that does not wash in the slightest.

Re: ""You ought to think of her as one person ..." and "And for your information: SHE WAS ALWAYS THERE."

Here's the thing, you are speaking (writing) as if you are reading her mind, yet we who are close to her believe she does not want us to acknowledge her past. How do you happen to know what she wants?

She has consistently become upset when we talk about her past. So we don't. I feel a loss, because I love that person. I can ask my kids if they feel the same way, if you're curious, I'm pretty sure they do. The sib they grew up with, who's older than most of them, who lead games for them, who took time to play with them, is now an off limits topic. I see you as insensitive for judging our loss.

You say pressured; if she was pressured, it was by her culture. TV, books, peers, available activities; I grieve when a lesbian can't bring her girlfriend to the prom, as happened in Mississippi a few years ago. I'm glad that a few organizations like the Girl Scouts are providing an outlet for LGBTQ young people (although, to be fair, I'm not in touch with how effective they are.) Her family, including myself, have been supportive, for the most part. (I mentioned her one brother; mom was also not on board, at least initially; I have no idea what her outlook is now. She's mostly not in the picture.)

Re: "Your internalised homophobia and transmisogyny bother me a great deal."

I take some offense at your accusations, I don't think you know me well enough to say that, although I'll grant that you may have insights into things I'm not aware of.

Re: "I would ask you to please, please, please look into what being trans or queer really means."

I have done a considerable amount of research. I can't claim to have jumped through the hoops you desire, I'm not aware of where those hoops are.

Re: "Not for my sake -- you don't have to engage with me and I am just a stranger on a forum, but for your sister's sake. You are hurting her." ... "I am sure you don't want to hurt her, and you badly need to work on learning how not to. And I can't help you, for I am too distant, I don't have the resources to, and you have no reason to trust me. :("

Given that she takes offense easily, I can't say you are entirely wrong. But every person involved has done their own homework, discusses this intelligently, tries to set guidelines, and still manages to offend her. However, none of us claim to be able to read minds. If you have sensitive topics, like you don't want your childhood discussed, freaking SAY SO. (Not you; her) If mention of person X is going to set you off, just say, "Please don't talk about X." She is generally articulate, in fact, that was a defining trait early on, and this is not an occasion to develop being tongue tied. We aren't going to adequately guess what you want. (Her, not you)

It isn't just about LGBTQ issues, my one daughter has observed this in a lot of her friends; they expect people to read their minds, and get offended when they don't. I experienced this with my ex, she even said at one point, "If you don't know what I'm thinking, you don't love me." Sorry, babe, I don't know where you got that notion, but that superpower does not exist in this universe. (Or rather, it does, it's called "communication".)

FWIW, I don't particularly mistrust you. You seem sincere. As I said, though, I do get a vibe that this has more to do with your experiences than ours.

Re: "Your intentions do not matter. Results do."

I get what you are saying, and partially agree. Results matter a lot, good intentions do not make up for lack of results. But I'd prefer both, and good results with bad intentions can be misleading.

Honestly, it feels like she is refusing to carry her end of the plank, expecting the rest of her family to keep it level from the other end.

Or, in some sense, possibly wants relationships to fail? Looking for excuses to withdraw? Punishing herself? I don't know.

 

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4 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

The Moderator: NO, he is NOT.

Rape in any way or form has nothing to do with sex. It is purely about power. Also, pedophilia has nothing to do with homosexuality. It is being fixated on children. Children cannot consent and suffer grave harm from what is done to them. If a man brutally beats another man, is it then a 'homosexual' beating?

Homosexuality is what occurs between two sexually mature consenting adults of the same gender. Any claim otherwise is a talking point used by homophobes in an attempt to connect LGBTQI* individuals with sexual predators. They gleefully point out that this is an 'especially heinous' kind of rape because it was 'queer' in nature. It is the underlying 'logic' behind bathroom laws as well. There is no such thing as either 'heterosexual' or 'homosexual' rape; rape is rape and what makes pedophilia particularly brutal is the power differential between adult and child -- and it is exactly that differential that turns the pedophile on.

I've never heard it put that way, and that makes sense. I see your point.

 

I am disappointed in you, Darth Fluffy, and I really thought you knew better than to repeat homophobic talking points in these forums. Please do not do so again; if you do, I shall be forced to take steps as moderator -- and I do not want to do that.

Sorry. I am who I am, try to be honest, but I make no claim to perfection.

In my estimation, you took offense too fast. By continuing to engage, explaining your point of view, you got your point across. I assume that was a goal, I would have been for me. Taking offense can easily cut that process off. I don't think you want that.

On the other hand I get that being a moderator can be stressful if it's too close to home. Sorry, I did not mean to step on your toes.

 

 

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3 hours ago, ijuin said:

Making abstinence a job requirement would tend to attract people who are uninterested in taking a wife in the first place . . . and yet somehow lifelong virgins are supposed to be the most qualified people to tell everyone else how to conduct their sex lives and how to raise their children.

Seems that way, no?

An interesting counterpoint, George Carlin was raised Catholic, Is well known for his atheism, and was no friend of the Catholic church. In one of his interviews, he talked about a Catholic school he went to when he was little, run by Carmelite nuns. He said he loved those nuns.

To be entirely fair, I have never been Roman Catholic. Much of my extended family is, and I'm a little familiar with what they do. The evangelical groups I've associated with in the past talk a better talk, for my money, but the track record isn't better, just different.

Also, speaking of track record, I will never again go to a church of any sort for marital advice. I think I'd prefer an atheist counselor for objectivity.

 

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1 minute ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Daughter actually. If she was always a girl, there were no indications whatsoever. Well that's not exactly true, no major indications, no outward questioning, not assignment surgery; she did play well with her sisters on occasion, played dolls with them, but mostly did boy stuff. I had no reason to ask her at seventeen if she was a girl, but if I had, I'm fairly certain he would have been offended.

First of all, allow me to respond to your position that I may be projecting. I will not reject it outright or even at all as it has merit and deserves discussion; I will merely present counterarguments.

I am not speaking of my own experiences alone. I myself have learned many of the things I speak of from the trans community. In fact, I did not even acknowledge these experiences in myself until I had struggled with them for a long time. My journey to discovering my identity has taken me many, many years. I do not even know if it is complete yet; I just know far more about myself than I used to.

If you had asked her at seventeen, she might well have denied it indignantly -- out of mortal terror of what would happen if the male identity slapdashed and grafted on her was stripped away. You do realise what happens to many, many trans people who come out? You do realise that the general conception of society of us is still that we are unnatural, perverts, sexually deviant? I had thoroughly internalised those beliefs by the time I reached puberty. If someone had asked me if I were really a girl then, I would almost certainly have rejected it -- not out of belief, but out of fear.

I still wish someone actually had. It might have made me confront myself much, much sooner rather than going halfway and then stopping -- over and over again.

7 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

I'm well aware that it is possible to cause offense without intending to. I'm also aware that it is possible to take offense beyond all reason. I wonder if you are projecting from a situation you are experiencing.

Let me be honest here.

It comes from experience. From a LONG experience of offending people, and not understanding why. And of all too often thinking of them that they were taking offense beyond all reason and that they were just being thin skinned. I am not a saint. I am not even a teacher. I can be a complete and utter shithead, and I often am. If you ask @CritterKeeper, for example, she can tell about how I once used the word 'retard' in the French sense of 'delay/delayed', and I got all snooty and up in arms over her insistence that I could be misunderstood and that I was being insulting even unintentionally. I mean,  people could just know French. Not my problem if they were ignorant and thin-skinned... right? :(

13 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Her decision to transition was a sudden thing, outwardly. She came to talk about what she was planning; it was evident for her discussion that she had done her homework. She must have put at least months if not a couple of years into the research. I reassured her that she would be loved whatever she decided.

Good. I am glad. I also understand you have difficulties understanding what she is going through, and that is normal. I am experiencing the same from my own loved ones. As to me being unreasonable... well. Part of it comes from sheer frustration of having such a hard time communicating how I feel. Another part of it comes from miscommunications. If I can't communicate why I am angry and unhappy, of course I come across as unreasonable. :|

17 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Not sure what you mean by assigned. She was born a baby boy, no surgery was involved; however you probably are alluding to cultural expectations. She was not pressured to act in any certain way. To be fair, we might have at that time, if it had come up, but it didn't. We bought boy's clothes and boy's toys. She never ran over to the dresses or dolls and asked for them, as a few others have. (Jazz, for instance.)

This is a very complex subject to discuss. I shall attempt to simplify; please be aware that while I am informed on the matter, I am not an expert and I am building on what the trans community has taught me and experts in psychology, psychiatry and general medicine have worked out as a consensus. I urge you to not rely on me alone. But be careful which sources you trust. A great deal of disinformation and transphobic propaganda masquerading as reputable sources cloud the debate.

But in brief: when we are born, we are assigned a gender, usually but not always based on our external genitalia. (The exceptions would be those children who are born with mixed or otherwise unusual sex characteristics.) I was assigned male at birth, or AMAB. Other children get assigned female, obviously. And society takes it all from there.

The problem with that is that not all children fit their obvious assignment. I am not only speaking of outright trans people here. There are those that are genderfluid, agender, only weakly gendered, those who see themselves as fitting both genders... and none of us fit within the existing gender binary. And yet when we experience dissonance as we grow up, we are in no uncertain terms informed that even admitting to feeling this way would get us marked as deviant, perverted, mentally ill, dangerous to our surroundings. (In Denmark, being transgender was classified as a mental illness until 2013.) Is it any wonder that so many of us retreat into denial rather than confronting society and telling it that it is wrong?

And yes, I wore the boy's clothes and accepted the boy's toys. I didn't have a choice, after all, except to insisting on behaving in a manner that everybody knew was deviant. I was afraid to. This didn't stop me from being called a 'girly boy', mocked and scorned by the other children, never really fitting in and finally collapsing when the stress became too much for me. I am very happy for your daughter that she discovered her true identity so much faster than I did, and thankful to you for what you have done for her so far. I am merely saying that you can do so much more.

28 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Re: "That is because she was NEVER a boy."

She has said this. I don't dispute it.

Good. Please remember it. It would be best if you could internalise that, too, for it would make your life with her much happier and it would make her happier, too.

29 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Here's the thing, you are speaking (writing) as if you are reading her mind, yet we who are close to her believe she does not want us to acknowledge her past. How do you happen to know what she wants?

Mostly from all the other trans people I know who have all experienced similar events or worse. <sigh> My friend Sandra Bond consistently got misgendered by her parents and suffered as a result. She attempted suicide at least once. These are experiences common to trans people. They are not mine alone. Of course that means that I am projecting ALL of our experiences on her... but since she herself has studied us and proclaimed herself one of us, I feel that I have at least some justification in doing so.

32 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

You say pressured; if she was pressured, it was by her culture.

Of COURSE she was! I was not accusing you and I apologise if I came across like that. We are all a product of our culture and we live, breathe, eat and drink it on a daily basis. That is the entire basis for why so many trans people have so many problems because our culture has little or no room at all for us in its conception.

33 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Re: "Your internalised homophobia and transmisogyny bother me a great deal."

I take some offense at your accusations, I don't think you know me well enough to say that, although I'll grant that you may have insights into things I'm not aware of.

It was not accusations. It was statement of fact. You cannot help your internalised homophobia and transphobia. They have been spoonfed to you since childhood. So were mine. I had equally wrongful ideas when I grew up and they nearly destroyed me. For that matter, I also happened to have heaping amounts of internalised misogyny, racism, religious intolerance, nationalism and not least ableism.

It may help to think of it this way: 'internalised prejudices' are the ones we do not think about because we were taught never to question them. Just like a mere eight hundred years ago we would have been taught that the Earth was flat and the centre of the Universe, and we wouldn't have questioned that, either. Until we got really good reason to do so, of course, and even then it is by no means certain that we would have been able to reject the ideas that formed the foundation of our childhood.

39 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

I have done a considerable amount of research. I can't claim to have jumped through the hoops you desire, I'm not aware of where those hoops are.

And that is another problem. These sites do exist but they are bewildering and confusing and they are not conveniently organised. I fully respect your troubles because I have similar issues myself; you merely have the additional handicap of not having the personal experience that guides you to, "Yes, this rings true."

I suggest you ask your daughter to help you, if you haven't already. Or, if you wish, I can tell you what my own father and I have experienced once we have worked on it a bit more. I admit that is taking a liberty, but I hope it won't offend you. I apologise if it does.

41 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Given that she takes offense easily, I can't say you are entirely wrong. But every person involved has done their own homework, discusses this intelligently, tries to set guidelines, and still manages to offend her. However, none of us claim to be able to read minds. If you have sensitive topics, like you don't want your childhood discussed, freaking SAY SO. (Not you; her) If mention of person X is going to set you off, just say, "Please don't talk about X." She is generally articulate, in fact, that was a defining trait early on, and this is not an occasion to develop being tongue tied. We aren't going to adequately guess what you want. (Her, not you)

Absolutely. I agree with the above from your point of view -- I have seen it from the other side and I do not in any way impute malice or ill will to you. But by the same token, remember that she is very likely equally frustrated because what seems so obvious to her is so hard for her to explain to you.

I am not going to say this with any kind of certainty for in this case I am projecting, but it sounds to me as if she is far more angry at the situation than she is at you. I have no idea if that helps any, though. :(

44 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

FWIW, I don't particularly mistrust you. You seem sincere. As I said, though, I do get a vibe that this has more to do with your experiences than ours.

Quite true. Just remember, trans experiences are as valid to us as cis experiences are to you. The big problem is that there is an immense disparity in the social power of cis and trans people, which means that when you hurt us even unintentionally, the differential in power amplifies that hurt. You cannot help that, of course. It is just another facet of the situation. :(

46 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

I get what you are saying, and partially agree. Results matter a lot, good intentions do not make up for lack of results. But I'd prefer both, and good results with bad intentions can be misleading.

Me, too. But at the end of the day results are what matters. <sigh>

47 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Honestly, it feels like she is refusing to carry her end of the plank, expecting the rest of her family to keep it level from the other end.

I understand that feeling from having felt it myself. It's just that in my experience when I have it, I have been wrong in a lot of cases. And when someone's life and happiness is at stake, it is not a good time to be wrong.

48 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Or, in some sense, possibly wants relationships to fail? Looking for excuses to withdraw? Punishing herself? I don't know.

All of these are possible. I have gone through all of them myself. I have come within an inch of destroying myself from doing exactly these things and only the support and trust of very good friends saved me from it. The number of trans suicides seems to hint at not all trans people being as fortunate as me.

I am sorry.

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38 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

In my estimation, you took offense too fast. By continuing to engage, explaining your point of view, you got your point across. I assume that was a goal, I would have been for me. Taking offense can easily cut that process off. I don't think you want that.

You are right, of course. Unfortunately I am not really good moderator material. I am ill-tempered, angry, contentious and arrogant. That all too often makes me lose control and act in an undesirable manner. Unhappily, Thom Khatt simply didn't have any obviously better choices when he decided that enough was enough and that the EGS forums needed a moderator, so he had to make do with me. :/

 

41 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

On the other hand I get that being a moderator can be stressful if it's too close to home. Sorry, I did not mean to step on your toes.

Your apology is gratefully accepted. Thank you.

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43 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

First of all, allow me to respond to your position that I may be projecting. I will not reject it outright or even at all as it has merit and deserves discussion; I will merely present counterarguments.

I am not speaking of my own experiences alone. I myself have learned many of the things I speak of from the trans community. In fact, I did not even acknowledge these experiences in myself until I had struggled with them for a long time. My journey to discovering my identity has taken me many, many years. I do not even know if it is complete yet; I just know far more about myself than I used to.

If you had asked her at seventeen, she might well have denied it indignantly -- out of mortal terror of what would happen if the male identity slapdashed and grafted on her was stripped away. You do realise what happens to many, many trans people who come out? You do realise that the general conception of society of us is still that we are unnatural, perverts, sexually deviant? I had thoroughly internalised those beliefs by the time I reached puberty. If someone had asked me if I were really a girl then, I would almost certainly have rejected it -- not out of belief, but out of fear.

I still wish someone actually had. It might have made me confront myself much, much sooner rather than going halfway and then stopping -- over and over again.

Let me be honest here.

It comes from experience. From a LONG experience of offending people, and not understanding why. And of all too often thinking of them that they were taking offense beyond all reason and that they were just being thin skinned. I am not a saint. I am not even a teacher. I can be a complete and utter shithead, and I often am. If you ask @CritterKeeper, for example, she can tell about how I once used the word 'retard' in the French sense of 'delay/delayed', and I got all snooty and up in arms over her insistence that I could be misunderstood and that I was being insulting even unintentionally. I mean,  people could just know French. Not my problem if they were ignorant and thin-skinned... right? :(

Good. I am glad. I also understand you have difficulties understanding what she is going through, and that is normal. I am experiencing the same from my own loved ones. As to me being unreasonable... well. Part of it comes from sheer frustration of having such a hard time communicating how I feel. Another part of it comes from miscommunications. If I can't communicate why I am angry and unhappy, of course I come across as unreasonable. :|

This is a very complex subject to discuss. I shall attempt to simplify; please be aware that while I am informed on the matter, I am not an expert and I am building on what the trans community has taught me and experts in psychology, psychiatry and general medicine have worked out as a consensus. I urge you to not rely on me alone. But be careful which sources you trust. A great deal of disinformation and transphobic propaganda masquerading as reputable sources cloud the debate.

But in brief: when we are born, we are assigned a gender, usually but not always based on our external genitalia. (The exceptions would be those children who are born with mixed or otherwise unusual sex characteristics.) I was assigned male at birth, or AMAB. Other children get assigned female, obviously. And society takes it all from there.

The problem with that is that not all children fit their obvious assignment. I am not only speaking of outright trans people here. There are those that are genderfluid, agender, only weakly gendered, those who see themselves as fitting both genders... and none of us fit within the existing gender binary. And yet when we experience dissonance as we grow up, we are in no uncertain terms informed that even admitting to feeling this way would get us marked as deviant, perverted, mentally ill, dangerous to our surroundings. (In Denmark, being transgender was classified as a mental illness until 2013.) Is it any wonder that so many of us retreat into denial rather than confronting society and telling it that it is wrong?

And yes, I wore the boy's clothes and accepted the boy's toys. I didn't have a choice, after all, except to insisting on behaving in a manner that everybody knew was deviant. I was afraid to. This didn't stop me from being called a 'girly boy', mocked and scorned by the other children, never really fitting in and finally collapsing when the stress became too much for me. I am very happy for your daughter that she discovered her true identity so much faster than I did, and thankful to you for what you have done for her so far. I am merely saying that you can do so much more.

Good. Please remember it. It would be best if you could internalise that, too, for it would make your life with her much happier and it would make her happier, too.

Mostly from all the other trans people I know who have all experienced similar events or worse. <sigh> My friend Sandra Bond consistently got misgendered by her parents and suffered as a result. She attempted suicide at least once. These are experiences common to trans people. They are not mine alone. Of course that means that I am projecting ALL of our experiences on her... but since she herself has studied us and proclaimed herself one of us, I feel that I have at least some justification in doing so.

Of COURSE she was! I was not accusing you and I apologise if I came across like that. We are all a product of our culture and we live, breathe, eat and drink it on a daily basis. That is the entire basis for why so many trans people have so many problems because our culture has little or no room at all for us in its conception.

It was not accusations. It was statement of fact. You cannot help your internalised homophobia and transphobia. They have been spoonfed to you since childhood. So were mine. I had equally wrongful ideas when I grew up and they nearly destroyed me. For that matter, I also happened to have heaping amounts of internalised misogyny, racism, religious intolerance, nationalism and not least ableism.

It may help to think of it this way: 'internalised prejudices' are the ones we do not think about because we were taught never to question them. Just like a mere eight hundred years ago we would have been taught that the Earth was flat and the centre of the Universe, and we wouldn't have questioned that, either. Until we got really good reason to do so, of course, and even then it is by no means certain that we would have been able to reject the ideas that formed the foundation of our childhood.

And that is another problem. These sites do exist but they are bewildering and confusing and they are not conveniently organised. I fully respect your troubles because I have similar issues myself; you merely have the additional handicap of not having the personal experience that guides you to, "Yes, this rings true."

I suggest you ask your daughter to help you, if you haven't already. Or, if you wish, I can tell you what my own father and I have experienced once we have worked on it a bit more. I admit that is taking a liberty, but I hope it won't offend you. I apologise if it does.

Absolutely. I agree with the above from your point of view -- I have seen it from the other side and I do not in any way impute malice or ill will to you. But by the same token, remember that she is very likely equally frustrated because what seems so obvious to her is so hard for her to explain to you.

I am not going to say this with any kind of certainty for in this case I am projecting, but it sounds to me as if she is far more angry at the situation than she is at you. I have no idea if that helps any, though. :(

Quite true. Just remember, trans experiences are as valid to us as cis experiences are to you. The big problem is that there is an immense disparity in the social power of cis and trans people, which means that when you hurt us even unintentionally, the differential in power amplifies that hurt. You cannot help that, of course. It is just another facet of the situation. :(

Me, too. But at the end of the day results are what matters. <sigh>

I understand that feeling from having felt it myself. It's just that in my experience when I have it, I have been wrong in a lot of cases. And when someone's life and happiness is at stake, it is not a good time to be wrong.

All of these are possible. I have gone through all of them myself. I have come within an inch of destroying myself from doing exactly these things and only the support and trust of very good friends saved me from it. The number of trans suicides seems to hint at not all trans people being as fortunate as me.

I am sorry.

I really appreciate your comments and insights.

Re: "out of mortal terror of what would happen" and "not out of belief, but out of fear"

That rings true; also internalized expectations of who she was and how she was to behave.

Not all that many years prior I would have been intolerant. Coincidentally, this happened at a time where my eyes had been opened. We assisted a young gay girl get through her last year of high school by providing shelter for a year. She was a delightful housemate, and for me made me rethink my outlook on LGBTQ people. Also the former customer I mentioned, who was a very competent system admin in a regional office, polite, friendly, well liked, a mentor to her younger peers, and in a committed lesbian relationship.

Re: "assigned a gender"

I wonder about the impact of chimerism. There was a horror story in Texas about a woman who lost custody of her own kids, because they "couldn't be hers", except the were. It took a long time before someone figured out they had (at least) two distinct genomes, and you'd get a different answer depending on where you took the sample. But it is unknown how widespread it is. Now, if it is far more common than is thought, a good portion may be male & female.

Re: "The number of trans suicides seems to hint at not all trans people being as fortunate as me."

Yeah, that indeed scares the $#!# out of me as a parent. Also for our other friend who is just a bit younger and similarly transitioned.

Re: "there is an immense disparity in the social power of cis and trans people" ... "the differential in power amplifies that hurt"

That makes sense. I'll watch for that.

 

Edited by Darth Fluffy
typo

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6 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

Just like a mere eight hundred years ago we would have been taught that the Earth was flat and the centre of the Universe, and we wouldn't have questioned that, either.

Really? Because in Ancient Greek they already knew the Earth is NOT flat.

Of course, there are other things which barely anyone questioned at that time. Like slavery or the divine right of kings to rule. Or, to stay in astronomy, that the Earth is center of universe and Sun revolves around it.

5 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Re: "assigned a gender"

I wonder about the impact of chimerism. There was a horror story in Texas about a woman who lost custody of her own kids, because they "couldn't be hers", except the were. It took a long time before someone figured out they had (at least) two distinct genomes, and you'd get a different answer depending on where you took the sample. But it is unknown how widespread it is. Now, if it is far more common than is thought, a good portion may be male & female.

Actually, the KIDS being chimeras wouldn't change anything, all their genotypes will be related to mother ... the issue was that the MOTHER was chimera and her "other" genotype was mother of those children.

If chimeras would be significantly more common, it would be discovered sooner, especially given the related higher autoimmune diseases. Of course, with number of known cases being less than hundred, even thousand would be "significantly more common" ... but I don't think it could be common enough to explain transsexuals.

11 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

There is no such thing as either 'heterosexual' or 'homosexual' rape; rape is rape and what makes pedophilia particularly brutal is the power differential between adult and child -- and it is exactly that differential that turns the pedophile on.

Weird ... I always though that the rapist do have some preferences in their target selection. Pedophiles might not, however, considering that the differences between genders is smaller in case of kids.

 

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Quote

Weird ... I always though that the rapist do have some preferences in their target selection.

People they can exert power over - particularly including but not limited to power through physical violence. Frequently, people they can exert power over who resemble other people they wish they could exert power over.

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2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Weird ... I always though that the rapist do have some preferences in their target selection.

I invite you to go get beaten up by someone of the same gender as your own. Afterwards you can see if the beating seemed particularly homosexual to you.

2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Really? Because in Ancient Greek they already knew the Earth is NOT flat.

Sure they did. How good was Ancient Greek education in your average town in medieval Europe circa 1220?

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3 hours ago, The Old Hack said:
6 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Weird ... I always though that the rapist do have some preferences in their target selection.

I invite you to go get beaten up by someone of the same gender as your own. Afterwards you can see if the beating seemed particularly homosexual to you.

I didn't said it would seem homosexual to the TARGET. After all, MY preferences wouldn't be taken into account in such scenario.

In alternative rape scenario, when someone would drug me before rape, I wouldn't be even conscious.

3 hours ago, The Old Hack said:
6 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Really? Because in Ancient Greek they already knew the Earth is NOT flat.

Sure they did. How good was Ancient Greek education in your average town in medieval Europe circa 1220?

Did the average town in medieval Europe CARE about shape of Earth? Still, see wikipedia:

Hermannus Contractus (1013–1054) was among the earliest Christian scholars to estimate the circumference of Earth with Eratosthenes' method. St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), the most widely taught theologian of the Middle Ages, believed in a spherical Earth; and he even took for granted his readers also knew the Earth is round.[121] Lectures in the medieval universities commonly advanced evidence in favor of the idea that the Earth was a sphere.[122]

Also here:

During the Early Middle Ages, virtually all scholars maintained the spherical viewpoint, which had been first expressed by the Ancient Greeks. From at least the 14th century, belief in a flat Earth among educated Europeans was almost nonexistent, despite fanciful depictions in art, such as the exterior of Hieronymus Bosch's famous triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights, in which a disc-shaped Earth is shown floating inside a transparent sphere. [4][3]

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5 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Actually, the KIDS being chimeras wouldn't change anything, all their genotypes will be related to mother ... the issue was that the MOTHER was chimera and her "other" genotype was mother of those children.

If chimeras would be significantly more common, it would be discovered sooner, especially given the related higher autoimmune diseases. Of course, with number of known cases being less than hundred, even thousand would be "significantly more common" ... but I don't think it could be common enough to explain transsexuals.

I has been a while since I read the article, so I may be muddling the facts; your scenario works, but you're missing the point if the kids were the chimeras. If they are, the cells clump, they do not checkerboard. Think of it this way, two eggs merge into one fetus, each then is a part of the fetus that follows normal development. If you always swabbed samples from the mouth, you'd see one individual.

Chimeras were unknown to exist not that long ago, hence the woman's problem. Fortunately for her, a person with specialist knowledge read her case. But the implication is that it is essentially uninvestigated. If you aren't looking for something, don't even know it exists, it's easy to miss. It seems like it's hard to spot even when you are looking for it, you have to do multiple genome tests on each individual.

Number of case know is not a good indication without more detail. Number of cases out of how many? How were they tested?

I don't think chimerism explains transsexuals. I think it may be a factor in some cases. To put it another way, if 0.1 % of the population, 7,000,000+ people, have other than binary sexual organs at birth, how many more have differentiations we cannot see?

 

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11 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

I has been a while since I read the article, so I may be muddling the facts

The case is mentioned directly on wikipedia.

12 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Think of it this way, two eggs merge into one fetus

... and both eggs are from same mother. At least same organism, if not same genetically.

12 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Chimeras were unknown to exist not that long ago

DNA testing itself is not that old.

13 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Number of case know is not a good indication without more detail. Number of cases out of how many? How were they tested?

As I mentioned, there is quite likely that the chimerism will have immune system implications, which would raise the chance for testing.

14 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

I don't think chimerism explains transsexuals. I think it may be a factor in some cases. To put it another way, if 0.1 % of the population, 7,000,000+ people, have other than binary sexual organs at birth, how many more have differentiations we cannot see?

In some cases, maybe. However it's quite likely the most common mechanism is different. Note that wikipedia DOES divide intersex people by cause and chimeras are not mentioned ; one would assume that they WOULD test for it considering the other stuff they need to test for ... including mosaicism, which IS mentioned but not as happening often.

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18 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Number of case know is not a good indication without more detail. Number of cases out of how many? How were they tested?

Number of cases can be very interesting sometimes. I recently read of a woman who can smell Parkinson's disease. Medical researchers didn't believe her, but she made a good enough argument that they decided to test her. 22 identical T-shirts worn overnight, 11 by people with Parkinson's and 11 by otherwise-similar people without. She correctly identified the shirts of all 12 people with Parkinson's - including the one who hadn't been diagnosed yet. (So now, based on working with her, they're developing a potentially highly accurate, early, and non-invasive test for it. They can't cure the condition, but in most cases they can slow the progression somewhat, and the sooner they start doing so the better.)

And actually, even if the one person hadn't been diagnosed with Parkinson's shortly after that test, with the false-negative rate as low as it apparently was, a one-in-twelve false-positive rate isn't bad. (False-negative is when the test should say "yes" but says "no"; false-positive, naturally, is the other way around. You don't want a test with a high false-negative rate; a high false-positive rate is tolerable if the test is cheap&easy - say, getting a sweat sample and dropping an indicator chemical on it - and used as pre-screening for a more accurate, but more expensive and/or uncomfortable, test.)

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2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

I didn't said it would seem homosexual to the TARGET. After all, MY preferences wouldn't be taken into account in such scenario.

That is precisely why no sexuality is involved. You did not consent and never got a chance to. This was a brutal act of violence and had nothing to do with sex.

Claiming otherwise is to say that homosexuality includes a propensity for brutal violence -- which is of course the whole point of that homophobic talking point.

2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

In alternative rape scenario, when someone would drug me before rape, I wouldn't be even conscious.

And that would still be an act of violence. Tell me, when you want to have sex with someone, does that include a desire to brutalise them? (I really hope it doesn't.)

1 hour ago, Darth Fluffy said:

I don't think chimerism explains transsexuals. I think it may be a factor in some cases. To put it another way, if 0.1 % of the population, 7,000,000+ people, have other than binary sexual organs at birth, how many more have differentiations we cannot see?

<raises hand> I'm one.

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12 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

You are right, of course. Unfortunately I am not really good moderator material. I am ill-tempered, angry, contentious and arrogant. That all too often makes me lose control and act in an undesirable manner. Unhappily, Thom Khatt simply didn't have any obviously better choices when he decided that enough was enough and that the EGS forums needed a moderator, so he had to make do with me. :/

From what I remember of those days, you were just the sort of moderator we needed back then. Someone less aggressive might have let too much slide (I'm pretty sure I would have).

As a moderator you might be a less ideal match for the current more sedate forums, but I still think you're a good moderator. You may pull out the moderator red a little fast at times, but  you always give people warnings before taking any more drastic action (in fact, I don't think I've even seen you do anything more drastic than lock a thread since I returned).

...This has gotten me thinking of the work you do for this forum, and have done for years, and while it's on my mind I'd like to say "thank you" for that work.

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3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

The case is mentioned directly on wikipedia.

... and both eggs are from same mother. At least same organism, if not same genetically.

DNA testing itself is not that old.

As I mentioned, there is quite likely that the chimerism will have immune system implications, which would raise the chance for testing.

In some cases, maybe. However it's quite likely the most common mechanism is different. Note that wikipedia DOES divide intersex people by cause and chimeras are not mentioned ; one would assume that they WOULD test for it considering the other stuff they need to test for ... including mosaicism, which IS mentioned but not as happening often.

The wiki article on chimerism "also mentions (this is just one of many different phenomena that may result in intersexuality)", which is in the vein of what I was referring to.

Here is the clumping, " As the organism develops, it can come to possess organs that have different sets of chromosomes. For example, the chimera may have a liver composed of cells with one set of chromosomes and have a kidney composed of cells with a second set of chromosomes. "

... and the assessment of rarity in humans, " This has occurred in humans, and at one time was thought to be extremely rare, though more recent evidence suggests that it is not the case. " (reference links given in the article) Also " Most chimeras will go through life without realizing they are chimeras."

You were right, in the case I mentioned, the chimera was the mother, also in a second similar case. But the autoimmune issue is not typical of chimerism in general, quoting, "Chimeras typically have immunologic tolerance to both cell lines." You seem to be referring to microchimerism which appears to be caused by autoimmune deficiency. It is also a chimerism, but on a smaller scale, an artifact of a normal fetus not being able to kill off incompatible cells.

 

 

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5 hours ago, The Old Hack said:
8 hours ago, hkmaly said:

I didn't said it would seem homosexual to the TARGET. After all, MY preferences wouldn't be taken into account in such scenario.

That is precisely why no sexuality is involved. You did not consent and never got a chance to. This was a brutal act of violence and had nothing to do with sex.

Claiming otherwise is to say that homosexuality includes a propensity for brutal violence -- which is of course the whole point of that homophobic talking point.

So, we ignore perspective of the attacker completely? Right, they doesn't deserve their perspective being taken into account. Maybe we should also use "it" as pronoun for them ....

5 hours ago, The Old Hack said:
8 hours ago, hkmaly said:

In alternative rape scenario, when someone would drug me before rape, I wouldn't be even conscious.

And that would still be an act of violence. Tell me, when you want to have sex with someone, does that include a desire to brutalise them? (I really hope it doesn't.)

No, and I may be bad at guessing how such attacker feels, but, like, I though there would be good number of rapists who just want sex and only use violence to overcome the issue of not getting consent? (Which is why the drugging scenario makes more sense to me. If I wanted to ensure someone is not resisting, I would consider the brutal kind of violence to be last resort.)

5 hours ago, The Old Hack said:
6 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

I don't think chimerism explains transsexuals. I think it may be a factor in some cases. To put it another way, if 0.1 % of the population, 7,000,000+ people, have other than binary sexual organs at birth, how many more have differentiations we cannot see?

<raises hand> I'm one.

Chimera transsexual or what?

5 hours ago, ChronosCat said:
18 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

You are right, of course. Unfortunately I am not really good moderator material. I am ill-tempered, angry, contentious and arrogant. That all too often makes me lose control and act in an undesirable manner. Unhappily, Thom Khatt simply didn't have any obviously better choices when he decided that enough was enough and that the EGS forums needed a moderator, so he had to make do with me. :/

From what I remember of those days, you were just the sort of moderator we needed back then. Someone less aggressive might have let too much slide (I'm pretty sure I would have).

As a moderator you might be a less ideal match for the current more sedate forums, but I still think you're a good moderator. You may pull out the moderator red a little fast at times, but  you always give people warnings before taking any more drastic action (in fact, I don't think I've even seen you do anything more drastic than lock a thread since I returned).

...This has gotten me thinking of the work you do for this forum, and have done for years, and while it's on my mind I'd like to say "thank you" for that work.

I got the feeling that you (The Old Hack) can be good moderator but it's taking you enormous amount of effort to keep clean head etc ... which is just more reason for "thank you".

2 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

The wiki article on chimerism "also mentions (this is just one of many different phenomena that may result in intersexuality)", which is in the vein of what I was referring to.

Which suggests that the percentage of chimeras with intersexuality (from group of all chimeras) is bigger than intersexuals who are chimeras (from group of all intersexuals).

(Sure, hard to say if that's accurate observation ; but it's what would this kind of mention suggest.)

2 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Here is the clumping, " As the organism develops, it can come to possess organs that have different sets of chromosomes. For example, the chimera may have a liver composed of cells with one set of chromosomes and have a kidney composed of cells with a second set of chromosomes. "

... and the assessment of rarity in humans, " This has occurred in humans, and at one time was thought to be extremely rare, though more recent evidence suggests that it is not the case. " (reference links given in the article) Also " Most chimeras will go through life without realizing they are chimeras."

Of course, hard to say if this "not as extremely rare as expected" meant going from 0.0001% to 0.001% or from 0.01% to 1%.

Obviously, noone KNOWS the real numbers, that's the point, but those statements are very vague.

2 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

You were right, in the case I mentioned, the chimera was the mother, also in a second similar case. But the autoimmune issue is not typical of chimerism in general, quoting, "Chimeras typically have immunologic tolerance to both cell lines." You seem to be referring to microchimerism which appears to be caused by autoimmune deficiency. It is also a chimerism, but on a smaller scale, an artifact of a normal fetus not being able to kill off incompatible cells.

I was actually referring to "People who retain higher numbers of cells genetically identical to their mother's have been observed to have higher rates of some autoimmune diseases" but you're right that it's about microchimerism and the causality seem to be reversed.

 

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16 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

So, we ignore perspective of the attacker completely? Right, they doesn't deserve their perspective being taken into account. Maybe we should also use "it" as pronoun for them ....

That is actually fine by me. Someone who forces themself sexually on another person is forfeiting any claim on being a civilised human being. They are acting like a rabid animal, and to be perfectly honest, did I catch someone like that assaulting anyone I care for -- in fact, anyone at all -- I should feel tempted to put them down like one.

Admittedly we have laws and I do have pretensions towards being a civilised human being, so I would do my best not to. You will forgive me if I have mixed feelings about whether I ought to succeed or not.

Unless, of course, you yourself would like to defend the perspective of the rapist. But if so, I warn you against doing so here, for rape apologia is most assuredly a grave violation of the FAQ and would result in me having to put my moderator hat on, which I would not like to do.

21 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

No, and I may be bad at guessing how such attacker feels, but, like, I though there would be good number of rapists who just want sex and only use violence to overcome the issue of not getting consent?

You clearly know very little about rapists. I feel you should be grateful for that.

I repeat: rape has nothing to do with sex. To the rapist, the violence is a feature, not a bug. Rape is about power and all about power, and the rapist gains their enjoyment from robbing the victim of theirs. Anyone who wants sex as opposed to a power trip might feel frustration at being denied it but a typical civilised human being would get past that through masturbation. It is the predator that seeks its satisfaction through robbing prey of its power.

24 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

(Which is why the drugging scenario makes more sense to me. If I wanted to ensure someone is not resisting, I would consider the brutal kind of violence to be last resort.)

I warn you against the danger of trying to enter the mindset of a rapist. You might succeed.

25 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Chimera transsexual or what?

You are attempting humour, I assume. You are dismally failing.

That, or you are merely being insulting.

If you wish to further discuss this, I strongly suggest you take this to private messages. You are venturing perilously close to the field of rape apologia and as mentioned I will not tolerate that on these forums.

~tOH.

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6 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Chimera transsexual or what?

I took it to mean " have differentiations we cannot see", because that is the essence of why transsexuals are transsexuals.

 

6 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Which suggests that the percentage of chimeras with intersexuality (from group of all chimeras) is bigger than intersexuals who are chimeras (from group of all intersexuals).

(Sure, hard to say if that's accurate observation ; but it's what would this kind of mention suggest.)

 

No, I think that's an entirely fair hypothesis, based on the way numbers work. In the absence of reason to think otherwise, we'd assume something like 50% of chimeras are male/female. That is a pretty good sized portion, and a basis for a further hypothesis that this leads to intersexuality in a fair portion of those cases. I think you could reasonably spitball at least around 10% in total and not be far off.

The other way around, we have little clue (my statement was openly conjecture), so assigning numbers is difficult, but without better data on chimerism in general, we have no reason to think it's high. It may be, but we really have no basis to say so, at this point.

 

6 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Of course, hard to say if this "not as extremely rare as expected" meant going from 0.0001% to 0.001% or from 0.01% to 1%.

Obviously, no one KNOWS the real numbers, that's the point, but those statements are very vague.

Lol, thank you for highlighting my point. We really don't know.

Based on numbers you threw out several posts earlier, "at least hundreds", and I'm going to guess we've looked at something like 10,000 people; so not knowing the procedure used to assess the accuracy of the result, we're still talking about a 1% baseline. That's on the high side of your speculative numbers. Why 10,000? Funding issues keep studies small; I would be surprised if they tested 100,000 subjects, I would be skeptical of the testing procedure if they claimed 1,000,000. I would not be greatly surprised if the claimed to only have looked at 1,000.

Not enough hard data for my tastes, but it's something to think about.

 

 

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6 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

You are attempting humour, I assume. You are dismally failing.

That, or you are merely being insulting.

If you wish to further discuss this, I strongly suggest you take this to private messages. You are venturing perilously close to the field of rape apologia and as mentioned I will not tolerate that on these forums.

~tOH.

I think he was honestly confused. Your statement was a bit ambiguous, I had to reread it to figure out what you meant. As you pointed out, he's not a native speaker.

FWIW, I think you're handing this well. I doubt I could do as well in your shoes.

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7 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Which suggests that the percentage of chimeras with intersexuality (from group of all chimeras) is bigger than intersexuals who are chimeras (from group of all intersexuals).

Well, it would make sense that about half of chimeras are of two sexes in different parts of their body; but not all of that half would specifically be mixed in their sexual organs.

According to this article (note: has pictures of improperly-developed genitalia) the most common cause of intersexuality in genetic females is an overactive adrenal gland, while in genetic males it's androgen insensitivity syndrome. The article also lists a number of other causes but does not mention chimerism.

Most (all?) of the causes listed in said article could occur in chimeras.

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16 hours ago, hkmaly said:
21 hours ago, The Old Hack said:
22 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

I don't think chimerism explains transsexuals. I think it may be a factor in some cases. To put it another way, if 0.1 % of the population, 7,000,000+ people, have other than binary sexual organs at birth, how many more have differentiations we cannot see?

<raises hand> I'm one.

Chimera transsexual or what?

15 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

You are attempting humour, I assume. You are dismally failing.

Little, but I seriously failed to parse what "one" you claimed to be. That little humour was just in the way how I asked for clarification.

9 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

I think he was honestly confused. Your statement was a bit ambiguous, I had to reread it to figure out what you meant. As you pointed out, he's not a native speaker.

Yeah.

9 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:
16 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Which suggests that the percentage of chimeras with intersexuality (from group of all chimeras) is bigger than intersexuals who are chimeras (from group of all intersexuals).

(Sure, hard to say if that's accurate observation ; but it's what would this kind of mention suggest.)

No, I think that's an entirely fair hypothesis, based on the way numbers work. In the absence of reason to think otherwise, we'd assume something like 50% of chimeras are male/female. That is a pretty good sized portion, and a basis for a further hypothesis that this leads to intersexuality in a fair portion of those cases. I think you could reasonably spitball at least around 10% in total and not be far off.

The other way around, we have little clue (my statement was openly conjecture), so assigning numbers is difficult, but without better data on chimerism in general, we have no reason to think it's high. It may be, but we really have no basis to say so, at this point.

Just because someone is genetically male/female chimera doesn't mean intersex, unless you mean technically. I understand that chimera might for example have one hand with different genotype ; and because hand has no influence on sex, it doesn't matter.

9 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

Well, it would make sense that about half of chimeras are of two sexes in different parts of their body; but not all of that half would specifically be mixed in their sexual organs.

Exactly.

9 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

According to this article (note: has pictures of improperly-developed genitalia) the most common cause of intersexuality in genetic females is an overactive adrenal gland, while in genetic males it's androgen insensitivity syndrome. The article also lists a number of other causes but does not mention chimerism.

Most (all?) of the causes listed in said article could occur in chimeras.

Sure they could. But are they more likely to occur in chimeras than people with single genotype? I don't think so.

9 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:
16 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Of course, hard to say if this "not as extremely rare as expected" meant going from 0.0001% to 0.001% or from 0.01% to 1%.

Obviously, no one KNOWS the real numbers, that's the point, but those statements are very vague.

Lol, thank you for highlighting my point. We really don't know.

Based on numbers you threw out several posts earlier, "at least hundreds", and I'm going to guess we've looked at something like 10,000 people; so not knowing the procedure used to assess the accuracy of the result, we're still talking about a 1% baseline. That's on the high side of your speculative numbers. Why 10,000? Funding issues keep studies small; I would be surprised if they tested 100,000 subjects, I would be skeptical of the testing procedure if they claimed 1,000,000. I would not be greatly surprised if the claimed to only have looked at 1,000.

Not enough hard data for my tastes, but it's something to think about.

It wasn't ONE study ; or at least I would expect there were already multiple studies which were searching for chimeras. Now, how many? No idea. How many people they tested together? No idea. Was the selection random enough to extend the percentage to general population? No idea.

As I said, I would expect that higher percentage of transsexual people and intersex people would be tested, but maybe that's incorrect assumption.

 

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1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

Just because someone is genetically male/female chimera doesn't mean intersex, unless you mean technically. I understand that chimera might for example have one hand with different genotype ; and because hand has no influence on sex, it doesn't matter.

Also true.

 

1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

Sure they could. But are they more likely to occur in chimeras than people with single genotype? I don't think so.

I think it would make a difference, maybe not a big one. As you and Don pointed out, it would depend on where the M/F pieces landed, but you would have all the normal (so to speak) reasons, with no reduction, plus these extra cases. Or, maybe in a few cases, a combination of two. Which might then rarely be at odds.

 

1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

It wasn't ONE study ; or at least I would expect there were already multiple studies which were searching for chimeras. Now, how many? No idea. How many people they tested together? No idea. Was the selection random enough to extend the percentage to general population? No idea.

The funding rationale for fairly low number of samples applies in the aggregate. I was thinking, as you did, that it's been studied more than once. Of course, it is more difficult to get a lot of funding for one project, but it's also difficult to get backing in the first place.

I felt like you did about the number tested, initially. But I realized that I had some handle on it. Ten is too low, obviously. One hundred, still too low, that would be nearly entirely positives, it would have been a wildly heralded breakthrough that we all are chimeras. One thousand? Probably still too low, but we're getting warmer. Ten thousand? I can believe that. That might put the budget in the low millions, again, believable. One hundred thousand? Eh, you're talking about a good sized chink of the population of a good sized metro area, unlikely. Cost is getting to be a bit out there for something that hasn't caught the public interest. (figuring x10) A million? No. If you claim this, you likely did something flaky and called it a "test". A million aggregate ten or twenty years from now, as interest builds, yeah, that I'll buy.

I'm sure you can follow that, and can come up with your own numbers if you don't like mine, so actually you do have some idea of the number. Just not a precise one. An estimate.

Estimating is actually a very important skill, but yes, don't build the bridge based on your estimate, measure, research, and do the math for the final product.

 

1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

As I said, I would expect that higher percentage of transsexual people and intersex people would be tested, but maybe that's incorrect assumption.

I would expect that was not done. You would have needed researchers that had a specific interest in tying the two, and I doubt if that was the case. Awareness of both fields, chimerism, and medical reasons for non-binary sex and/or gender is small enough that they are still looking for basics. I think it would be worthwhile to research those connections, and someone probably will fairly soon, but I think we aren't there yet. But I do not know.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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22 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:
2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Sure they could. But are they more likely to occur in chimeras than people with single genotype? I don't think so.

I think it would make a difference, maybe not a big one. As you and Don pointed out, it would depend on where the M/F pieces landed, but you would have all the normal (so to speak) reasons, with no reduction, plus these extra cases. Or, maybe in a few cases, a combination of two. Which might then rarely be at odds.

I meant specifically the "other reasons". So, yes, the total occurence of intersex will be slightly higher in chimeras because there will be at least few cases of intersex caused by chimerism on top of the much more common other reasons for it.

24 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

I felt like you did about the number tested, initially. But I realized that I had some handle on it. Ten is too low, obviously. One hundred, still too low, that would be nearly entirely positives, it would have been a wildly heralded breakthrough that we all are chimeras. One thousand? Probably still too low, but we're getting warmer. Ten thousand? I can believe that. That might put the budget in the low millions, again, believable. One hundred thousand? Eh, you're talking about a good sized chink of the population of a good sized metro area, unlikely. Cost is getting to be a bit out there for something that hasn't caught the public interest. (figuring x10) A million? No. If you claim this, you likely did something flaky and called it a "test". A million aggregate ten or twenty years from now, as interest builds, yeah, that I'll buy.

I'm convinced that significant part of known cases of chimerism was discovered OUTSIDE non-biased tests - basically, there were found not while looking for chimeras, but while looking for possible cause of other medical problem or complication.

The "legal problem" you mentioned would also be biased ; there are LOT of people tested for paternity, BUT if the test succeed OR if they are not persistent enough, the additional testing if they are chimeras may never happen.

That would change the numbers a lot: suddenly, it's not test finding hundreds of chimeras. It could be hundreds of chimeras found outside test and then test of ten thousand people only finding ten or less chimeras.

Or, well, maybe it IS something flaky called test ... the page mentions people who have blood containing two different blood types. This specific type of chimerism, no matter if rare or common between chimeras in general, would be MUCH more likely to be found.

26 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:
2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

As I said, I would expect that higher percentage of transsexual people and intersex people would be tested, but maybe that's incorrect assumption.

I would expect that was not done. You would have needed researchers that had a specific interest in tying the two, and I doubt if that was the case. Awareness of both fields, chimerism, and medical reasons for non-binary sex and/or gender is small enough that they are still looking for basics. I think it would be worthwhile to research those connections, and someone probably will fairly soon, but I think we aren't there yet. But I do not know.

Well, I don't know either. It just seem obvious enough for someone to get interested in that.

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