tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2472400923228993687.post6995534863832314097..comments2024-02-25T22:43:04.662-08:00Comments on Crossdreamers: On the Various Shades of TransgenderSally Molayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02015510914816971645noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2472400923228993687.post-17801774014030991312020-07-31T22:52:17.281-07:002020-07-31T22:52:17.281-07:00"And the question is this - what exactly make..."And the question is this - what exactly makes you another gender if you don’t experience sex/body dysphoria (not dysmorphia, keep in mind the difference)? How do you feel, say, in the case of a demiboy, “partially male”, without using gender roles and stereotypical expectations and gender expression to describe it?"<br /><br />We'd like to offer our own two cents, from the perspective of some one with experience of both gender dysphoria and sex/body dysphoria, which feel very distinct to us. We personally managed to get gender dysphoria sorted out very satisfactorily (social acceptance as both "feminine" and "gender-mundane" from every one around us) a few years before we got sex dysphoria sorted out mostly satisfactorily, (HRT and a bit flip operation for us, the "mostly" because our dysphoria also includes grief for not having the option to experience being a birth mother, which we've mostly processed but still has little flare-ups occasionally) so our perspective is informed by continuing to experience sex dysphoria for a few years after achieving gender euphoria. We could explore the phenomena of gender for ages, (ehhh...) but on Kantian grounds any standard we'd feel justified applying ought be not just respectful and gentle, but also practically simple enough to ask others to consider. We personally also ain't the sharpest bulb in the orchard, so we have the privilege of presumption that anything we can easily grok should meet that availability standard, even if it might be one or two inferential steps from what most of us are reliably taught. <br /><br />If we had to say what exactly we think "makes you" (or any one) a member of any gender category, it is only the matter of which category you feel most comfortable self-reporting as belonging to and being accepted as a member of. This is entirely insensitive to where any one happens to place on the spectrum from full cis-binary-dyadic privilege including no sex dysphoria, to being trans, ennby, intersex and experiencing excruciating gender and sex dysphorias. We bristle at the suggestion that you, us, or any one _ought_ have to prove the legitimacy of first-person gender notions any more than the peops at the former end of that spectrum- as if any of what we call "nonconforming" gender experiences are inherently _less than._ We see "gender nonconforming" not as a natural or inherent category, but rather a very unnatural category created by our society's gender norms being poorly calibrated to the realities of human diversity: we'll know we as a society have it right when the humans popping into existence stop being seen as "weird," and are no longer feeling othered or invalidated by the rest of us. We're admittedly envious of the privilege enjoyed by those who neither have to experience the indignity of being required to justify their gender identity ior any other gender experience, nor even having to think about gender much, but the decent impulse, we think, is to strive for that enviable condition to become something for all folk to enjoy rather than just some of us. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05307883681771718071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2472400923228993687.post-45099353021579971092019-12-08T14:17:21.936-08:002019-12-08T14:17:21.936-08:00You can successfully fake your personality when yo...You can successfully fake your personality when you are with others, but will you feel good that people like your social mask and do not know your true-self?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2472400923228993687.post-48840003809572308122014-05-23T15:10:43.167-07:002014-05-23T15:10:43.167-07:00"There is no essence of boxing, but there are..."There is no essence of boxing, but there are underlying, inborn, drives that make people box: A drive for competition, aggression, power, sex."<br /><br />I think that this can be broken down into perhaps two factors. <br /><br />1. Conditions that vary from person to person, in this case a higher level of testosterone, thus perhaps higher aggression & strength. But these things alone do not give how boxing is related to or what boxing can be, simply that being strong and aggressive means that you are more likely to affiliate with boxing. Verdict is that conditions that vary person to person, do not include how the conditions may be related, or if they figure at all in how the person thinks.t <br /><br />2. Our pals Hegel, Kierkegaard and Heidegger have showed us that selfhood is the way in which the codefined self/other is being related. In everyday sociality, I am used to thinking of myself and others as fixed & distinct entities, but in actuality at every moment I am thinking of myself as a self, it is the relating of myself to someone in this or that way and never in the same way.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2472400923228993687.post-88050063372002620262014-05-23T00:41:57.755-07:002014-05-23T00:41:57.755-07:00@Anonymous
Well, I guessed this was all leading u...@Anonymous<br /><br />Well, I guessed this was all leading up to the "essence" debate.<br /><br />You say: "So where selfhood/otherness is the activity of relating between people, you seem to be projecting the ways in which people relate from eachother, onto the conditions which the relations are abstracted."<br /><br />There is no essence of boxing, but there are underlying, inborn, drives that make people box: A drive for competition, aggression, power, sex. <br /><br />These basic drives and instincts are not socially constructed. They can be found in all animals. <br /><br />The ways they play them out in our communities, though, are cultural and is shaped by our interactions with others. So the human Self unfolds where our animal side meets language and culture.<br /><br />Gender dysphoric transgender women are not born with a full package of expected female behaviours, temperaments, interests and abilities. But they are born with a need to express themselves as women.<br /><br />Jack Molayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03629363646482611722noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2472400923228993687.post-50280553483692125502014-05-22T11:39:49.377-07:002014-05-22T11:39:49.377-07:00So where selfhood/otherness is the activity of rel...So where selfhood/otherness is the activity of relating between people, you seem to be projecting the ways in which people relate from eachother, onto the conditions which the relations are abstracted.<br /><br />Say if I am a successful boxer, if you were to project the essence of boxing onto the conditions that made me a successful boxer.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2472400923228993687.post-53866285724552496862014-05-22T01:31:15.518-07:002014-05-22T01:31:15.518-07:00A conscious identity is only possible in relations...A conscious identity is only possible in relationship to others. And the Self can only unfold in relationships to others. But not all of the Self is created in this way.<br /><br />But for me there is also inborn parts of the Self: personality traits, drives, temperaments, abilities that are there the day you are born. They are realized in the world, with others, but they are already there before you see the first smile of another person.<br /><br />Looking at it at another angle: We are also animals, and the most primitive animals unfold this kind of unique potential, each in its own unique way.<br /><br />We are not blank slates when we are born.Jack Molayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03629363646482611722noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2472400923228993687.post-53558798945867716612014-05-20T10:52:25.881-07:002014-05-20T10:52:25.881-07:00"But that is not what you are getting at, is ..."But that is not what you are getting at, is it? You are more interested in understanding the Self as an effect of the interaction with others."<br /><br />Is not Hegel, Kierkegaard and Heidegger correct in saying that selfhood is only possible and meaningful in the relating between self and others? That is to say that at any instance, identity of any mode is the way in which it is being related?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2472400923228993687.post-86091264286833352132014-05-19T23:52:15.167-07:002014-05-19T23:52:15.167-07:00I haven't really thought of the transgender co...I haven't really thought of the transgender condition in the way Kierkegaard approaches the Self. <br /><br />But I did include an existential bullet point, so I am open to the idea. Kierkegaard's sense of despair and the transgender dysphoria may be related, but they are not the same. But in both cases increased self-awareness is the recommended approach. <br /><br />But that is not what you are getting at, is it? You are more interested in understanding the Self as an effect of the interaction with others.<br /><br />I guess I am more in line with Jung here. The Self is something inborn, a potential with a drive towards some kind of fulfillment, but the interaction with the world around it shapes its expression.Jack Molayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03629363646482611722noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2472400923228993687.post-25954130158896939142014-05-19T15:20:02.949-07:002014-05-19T15:20:02.949-07:00"Freud was wrong about much, but his understa..."Freud was wrong about much, but his understanding of the "Ich", "I" or "ego" makes sense to me. When we use the word "I" we refer to the conscious parts of our Self (total psyche)."<br /><br />Was not Kierkegaard correct in saying? <br /><br />"But what is the Self? The Self is a relation that relates itself to itself; or it is, in this relation, that which relates it to itself (the Self is not the relation, but that the relation relates itself to itself)"<br /><br />And Heidegger?<br /><br />“So far as Dasein(self) is at all, it has Being-with-one-another as its kind of Being”Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2472400923228993687.post-12020654827970755572014-05-19T03:27:51.685-07:002014-05-19T03:27:51.685-07:00Freud was wrong about much, but his understanding ...Freud was wrong about much, but his understanding of the "Ich", "I" or "ego" makes sense to me. When we use the word "I" we refer to the conscious parts of our Self (total psyche).<br /><br />The transgender tragedy is that so many of us suppresses our true identity and believe that our "I" is all there is. The "I" of a many transgender is the end result of a desperate attempt to conform in order to achieve acceptance and find love.<br /><br />The most important work such a transgender person can do is to identify, understand and embrace the repressed parts of the total Self and in this way become a more complete person. Jung calls this the process of individuation.Jack Molayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03629363646482611722noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2472400923228993687.post-39433117054925272452014-05-18T11:01:20.681-07:002014-05-18T11:01:20.681-07:00"At the moment you use the word "I"..."At the moment you use the word "I" you think of yourself as a "self"."<br /><br />So you are saying that selfhood is given in the usage of "I"? So then how is "I" used?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2472400923228993687.post-66813977702027150912014-05-13T13:28:02.271-07:002014-05-13T13:28:02.271-07:00I am afraid you have to elaborate. I do not unders...I am afraid you have to elaborate. I do not understand the question.Jack Molayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03629363646482611722noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2472400923228993687.post-86190074237364044152014-05-13T10:46:53.188-07:002014-05-13T10:46:53.188-07:00So what would be the conditions for which "I&...So what would be the conditions for which "I" is meaningful?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2472400923228993687.post-31532411631573577702014-05-13T03:54:04.922-07:002014-05-13T03:54:04.922-07:00@Anonymous
At the moment you use the word "I...@Anonymous<br /><br />At the moment you use the word "I" you think of yourself as a "self". <br /><br />If you are a serious Buddhist (or post-modernist), I guess you could call that self an illusion, but the illusion is real.<br /><br />I do not think of my Self as an illusion.<br /><br />The longer I live, the more convinced I am that there truly is an underlying entity that seeks to unfold itself in the world. For me writing this blog has been about exploring the trans side of that Self. I am exploring something that already exist, even if I was not conscious of it earlier in life.Jack Molayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03629363646482611722noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2472400923228993687.post-52839493160075434362014-05-13T03:21:14.817-07:002014-05-13T03:21:14.817-07:00You said that identification is acknowledging or e...You said that identification is acknowledging or explaining something about oneself, but this is on the basis for which one already thinks of oneself as a self.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2472400923228993687.post-7090911486386277472014-05-12T23:33:35.777-07:002014-05-12T23:33:35.777-07:00"What is it to identify as something?"
..."What is it to identify as something?"<br /><br />Now, that is a very good question. In the transgender debate I have seen at least three different meanings of this.<br /><br />1. Psychological: Acknowledging that this is a side of you that is essential in your life and explains important parts of what you are. <br /><br />2. Social: A side of you that is so important to you that you feel a need to flag it and defend it against people who try to invalidate it.<br /><br />3. Existential: A fundamental part of your being. Something so important that you would have been a completely different person without it. In this case it does not matter if you present this side of you to others or not.<br /><br />Yes, the three overlap, for obvious reasons.<br /><br />For me being transgender is an existential identity. However, I do not identify as a crossdreamer. Crossdreaming just reflects a side of me being transgender.Jack Molayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03629363646482611722noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2472400923228993687.post-39830096070399521292014-05-12T11:06:20.057-07:002014-05-12T11:06:20.057-07:00What is it to identify as something?What is it to identify as something?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com