My Arrogant Opinions on Transgender Stuff

[Arnox]

Eirise's topic suddenly got me to thinking about this, and it occured to me that I've somehow never really given an opinion on this topic, so... Here we go, I guess.

The common debates around transitioning and the transgender folk are actually rather complicated. Although gender dysphoria has obviously existed since the dawn of time, I don't think there's even been a time where it was so out in the open or so (comparatively) easy to transition. Of course, some countries generally still have a very harsh view on it, but on average, the world has definitely become much more accepting of it.

One of the first controversial topics we run into is just how old someone should be before they can get HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy) and surgery. And let's just be honest with each other here. Kids are dumb. They're going through a lot and there's a lot they may not even understand. Furthermore, they're at an age where they are most vulnerable to peer pressure. Some may feel (and they may not even realize this) that they need to transition just to get some amount of attention and acceptance. And then, once they become an adult and all that peer pressure suddenly slips away, they may find the changes they once asked for to be undesirable, and at that point, the changes may be permanent. All that said though, I certainly don't see anything wrong with them presenting and acting as they desire. It is true that in the case of MtF (Male to Female) transition, the sooner you start, the better, but the advantages of starting at, say, 14 instead of 18 are really not very significant at all, or at least, significant enough to justify making a gamble that young that could permanently mess things up for them.

With that, let's move on to our second controversy. That MtF trans peoples are stronger than ciswomen (women who were born as a woman at birth). After doing some reading about this, it seems to be that muscles depend on two major things. How much one works out, and how much testosterone they have. Former gender doesn't seem to play a part in it.

For our third controversy, it's that HRT is dangerous and untested. While long term effects are somewhat foggy, HRT is as safe as most FDA-approved medication out there. There is a heightened risk factor for some form of cardiovascular disease in MtF trans peoples taking estradiol (for estrogen) due to a more increased risk of blood clots, but the risk seems pretty manageable. Just have to start exercising more it seems. I've also heard that transdermal estradiol seems to lower the risk of cardiovascular disease.

For the fourth controversy, it's said by some transgender opponents that HRT and surgery had high rates of people regretting their decision to do so. Perhaps among people who initiated their transition below the age of 18, but beyond that, I think this is probably the biggest myth of them all. For people with actual gender dysphoria, ridiculously high levels of satisfaction are very usually reported. I have some anecdotal stories from friends about this as well who say that even though they experienced hell for their decision to transition, and before the transition, were suicidal, they never once regretted the decision, and it brought them a lot of happiness and satisfaction.

And finally, our fifth controversy. Transgender people in popular media and news. So, I've been generally pretty on the side of the trans community in this post so far, but for this controversy, I'm going to start turning the tables somewhat. But before I do that, I'll need to set up some context. Now, in 2024, it's easy to forget that the average attitudes about trans peoples used to not be nearly as kind. In popular media, they were very often used as the butt of unoriginal jokes which pretty much boiled down to, "HAHA, UGLY MAN PRETENDING TO BE GIRL." And of course, any attempt at trying to pass as the other sex without a heavy amount of secrecy and stealth was swiftly crushed. And for the longest time, that was just how things were until relatively very recently. And then, after decadess of dumbass jokes, prejudice, and rampant misinformation, and after decades of hard work to turn this narrative around, the trans community suddenly, for the first time in, perhaps ever, found that they finally had the upper hand and also were beginning to be aceepted in a big way. I'd say this really kicked off just a bit after 2010. So... What did some of the trans community decide to do with this upper hand... ? Well, uh... Let's just say they didn't exactly roll out the welcome wagon here. Look. I get it. You all have been stomped on for countless years. Of course you want some revenge. Or, hell, maybe not even that. Perhaps you're now scared of losing the ground that you've gained. And with some politicians seeming to actively work against you all, it's not entirely a skewed viewpoint. But listen to me. You can't just go barging into everything like terrorists at a tea party. You're not going to get a lot of friends that way. And the more friends you have, the more people will be inclined to accept your message and be on your side. And to get more friends, you need to start being more understanding. More calm. More patient. And I know for some of you, that's probably the absolute last thing you want to hear, but it needs to be said. You have to be better than what your fighting or else you're just going to start alienating people.

Anyway though. Questions and comments welcome as always.

 

[Vendor-Lazarus]

Quite a bad take overall I must say.

Gender Dysphoria is a mental illness, much like thinking you're Napoleon, some other species, race, or even want to have your limbs cut off. It should be treated the same, both in medical context and sociologically.

While you're on the right track with HRT, you're still playing softball. Indulging mob rule, peer pressure, narcissists, mental illness, and genital mutilation, is not something to tread lightly around.

It's not just about the muscles, of which you're quite incorrect as well, but bone density and many other, small, but significant details as well (https://elifesciences.org/articles/65031#s1).

FDA approval doesn't mean much today, sadly.. Not only in the stricter European sense, but in the US too. The long term consequences are indeed very unknown, and no amount of testing in today's scientific community will dare bring up anything going against the politically correct narrative and agenda.

Your anecdotal evidence is just that. I can list the same against;

Suicidality Among Transgender Youth: Elucidating the Role of Interpersonal Risk Factors - PubMed

Data indicate that 82% of transgender individuals have considered killing themselves and 40% have attempted suicide, with suicidality highest among transgender youth. Using minority stress theory and the interpersonal theory of suicide, this study aims to better understand suicide risk among...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

More than 40% of transgender adults in the US have attempted suicide

williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu

Sex Reassignment Doesn’t Work. Here Is the Evidence.

Sex “reassignment” doesn’t work. It’s impossible to “reassign” someone’s sex physically, and attempting to do so doesn’t produce good outcomes psychosocially.

www.heritage.org

 

[Arnox]

Quite a bad take overall I must say.

I thought that someone here would say that, but that's okay. I like making people mad. lol

Gender Dysphoria is a mental illness

Well, yeah. We could get into the spiritual side of things, but honestly, at the end of the day, it's just semantics. The issues are still the same.

much like thinking you're Napoleon, some other species, race, or even want to have your limbs cut off. It should be treated the same, both in medical context and sociologically.

One of the main differences though, in my opinion, is that with gender dysphoria, anti-psychotics don't seem to work. Further, many trans people don't actually want to transition per se due to the high amounts of issues it causes both for them and for those they know, but therapy and denial without any treatment, most of the time, seems to do more harm than good. Transitioning comes down to be the least awful option in a sea of bad options.

Also consider,

Spanish investigators—led by psychobiologist Antonio Guillamon of the National Distance Education University in Madrid and neuropsychologist Carme Junqué Plaja of the University of Barcelona—used MRI to examine the brains of 24 female-to-males and 18 male-to-females—both before and after treatment with cross-sex hormones. Their results, published in 2013, showed that even before treatment the brain structures of the trans people were more similar in some respects to the brains of their experienced gender than those of their natal gender. For example, the female-to-male subjects had relatively thin subcortical areas (these areas tend to be thinner in men than in women). Male-to-female subjects tended to have thinner cortical regions in the right hemisphere, which is characteristic of a female brain.

So there is some scientific evidence to back up these feelings of gender dysphoria. i.e. This is a hardware problem, not a software problem.

It's not just about the muscles, of which you're quite incorrect as well, but bone density and many other, small, but significant details as well (https://elifesciences.org/articles/65031#s1).

I think you're misunderstanding me here. I never claimed that males don't have a physical advantage compared to females. What I did say though is that the amount of testosterone plays a large part in defining that advantage. It's simple. Cis-males and FtM trans peoples have more of it, so they get the advantage.

FDA approval doesn't mean much today, sadly.

Do you have a concrete example of this?

Suicidality Among Transgender Youth: Elucidating the Role of Interpersonal Risk Factors - PubMed

Data indicate that 82% of transgender individuals have considered killing themselves and 40% have attempted suicide, with suicidality highest among transgender youth. Using minority stress theory and the interpersonal theory of suicide, this study aims to better understand suicide risk among...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

More than 40% of transgender adults in the US have attempted suicide

williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu

These studies are about the impact of gender dysphoria PRE-HRT, not post. And some may still feel suicidal, but keep in mind that while hormones don't solve all the problems in a transgender person's life, they help a major amount in reversing psychological distress, both inside and outside.

This was a measure of mental health improving over time,” Turban said. “People were more likely to meet those criteria if they accessed and took hormones than if they hadn’t.” The finding implies that access to hormones improved mental health rather than the other way around, he said.

Sex Reassignment Doesn’t Work. Here Is the Evidence.

Sex “reassignment” doesn’t work. It’s impossible to “reassign” someone’s sex physically, and attempting to do so doesn’t produce good outcomes psychosocially.

www.heritage.org

This study cited in this link is actually pretty interesting. But before we immediately say, "Case closed!", there are some caveats here. This is for sexual reassignment surgery, not hormones. SRS has always been more of a shaky proposition even in the transgender community. For some, they're perfectly happy without it, and for others, they cannot stand having the genitals they got at birth. Many people get it simply because they feel like that's just the natural end to transitioning instead of deciding for themselves whether that's something they actually want. Also, the study points out several issues with itself.

1. "the results should not be interpreted such as sex reassignment per se increases morbidity and mortality. Things might have been even worse without sex reassignment. As an analogy, similar studies have found increased somatic morbidity, suicide rate, and overall mortality for patients treated for bipolar disorder and schizophrenia."

2. "Other facets to consider are first that this study reflects the outcome of psychiatric and somatic treatment for transsexualism provided in Sweden during the 1970s and 1980s. Since then, treatment has evolved with improved sex reassignment surgery, refined hormonal treatment, and more attention to psychosocial care that might have improved the outcome."

And finally, FtM SRS is an even more shaky proposition because it's generally easier to make female genitals out of male genitals instead of the other way around. The result is not ideal.

 

[Vendor-Lazarus]

California Trans Study Finds Remarkable Increase in Suicides Post-Operation

Suicide rates DOUBLE after surgery for transgender females who receive male-to-female gender change surgeries.

vigilantnews.com

 

[Houseman]

Your opinions very much seem to be informed by the mainstream narrative that you would get by watching TV or reading articles from popular "reputable" sites.

 

[Arnox]

Your opinions very much seem to be informed by the mainstream narrative that you would get by watching TV or reading articles from popular "reputable" sites.

But did you want to debate any point in particular though?

 

[Houseman]

HRT is as safe as most FDA-approved medication out there ... here is a heightened risk factor for some form of cardiovascular disease

"You can take it, and it won't kill you" does not mean "safe". When people say that HRT (I also include puberty blockers here) is "dangerous" they probably don't mean in in the sense of causing disease or organ failure. They mean it in the sense that you're messing with someone's body while they're still growing, especially in the case of minors.

Some of these now-adults report never having an orgasm, even after moving from blockers to cross-sex hormones.

And then after they have been on hormones, they still suffer sexual dysfunction beyond that. They are afraid to undress in front of their partners, afraid to be touched, or looked at. Here's one study about that, but there are more.

So you have to look at "risk" and "harm" in a broader sense.

 

[Gauche]

The only time in media I've come across a trans person outside internet/news/games was this: https://www.pbs.org/video/fresh-start-7qezph/

If I remember right they more or less have a panic attack upon getting potentially recognized by someone after transitioning, call their mom that they made a point to stress wasn't the greatest relationship but did so out of desperation for parental assurance. Gets advice they already knew and carries on.

Somewhere in there they make a statement along the lines of "What was the point then?" in regards to transitioning and this soured me on them. You shouldn't expect it to be a clean reset of reality. It is unreasonable of you to expect this person to have memory loss for your sake

Ever experience children getting unreasonably upset with colors?

Video aside, I am talking about tykes here
In my eyes, Trans are unreasonably upset with reality
The internet/news has only added fuel to that stance
Granted I've never met one but if I do I'll keep in mind that they are more than likely a piece of shit person equal to any other I should meet and yet worse for it

And before you write off PBS here is a good episode:

Stories from the Stage | Sugar & Spice | Season 2 | Episode 10 | PBS

Food is central to life but it also shapes us in ways that extend beyond the gastronomic.

www.pbs.org

 

[Arnox]

"You can take it, and it won't kill you" does not mean "safe". When people say that HRT (I also include puberty blockers here) is "dangerous" they probably don't mean in in the sense of causing disease or organ failure. They mean it in the sense that you're messing with someone's body while they're still growing, especially in the case of minors.

I never advocated for HRT to people under 18. But yeah, unfortunately there's a few issues with HRT. Trans people though, by and large, would still rather have the option of them than not.

In my eyes, Trans are unreasonably upset with reality

They can be some very angry and emotional people. Many though are very nice.

 

[Houseman]

How does the church of Latter-Day Saints view transgender stuff?

 

[Arnox]

How does the church of Latter-Day Saints view transgender stuff?

The LDS church believe that gender is an eternal part of our nature, and that whatever gender we're revealed to be in our patriarchal blessing is who we are, period. Trying to transition is 99.9% of the time not approved and will lead to one not being able to exercise the priesthood in any capacity and not being able to enter the temple.

 

[Vendor-Lazarus]

How does the church of Latter-Day Saints view transgender stuff?

How does the cult of Jehova view it? And does it change if it's government approved/legal?

 

[Houseman]

How does the cult of Jehova view it? And does it change if it's government approved/legal?

Jehovah's Witnesses don't have anything explicitly written down about it, to my knowledge.