MarieDelta
Sep 24, 2007, 3:02 PM
This mornings posting on Trans blog of the plenary speech at the Southern Comfort Conference was interesting.
http://transgroupblog.blogspot.com/
This part in particular:
Those who believe that children are blank slates waiting for an approved hetero-normative gender stencil to be drawn on them are not simply in denial regarding current scientific, social and medical studies, they are guilty of leading parents, families and in many cases the legal system to misogynistic, cissexist and conservative fundamentalist conclusions that will forever negatively affect these children's lives.
Alleged gender identity experts like Kenneth Zucker, Alice Dreger, J. Michael Bailey, Warren Throckmorton and others define transgender people, especially children, in ways that only serve their personal, professional, cultural and religious agendas or, in the case of Anne Lawrence, which justify their own self-loathing connection to gender non-conformity.
To them, there is no such thing as a transgender, transsexual or androgynous child. These children, and the adults they become, are nothing more than examples of psychotherapy's failure to eradicate pre-homosexual behavior. You see, according to their uber-flawed studies, 75% of gender non-conforming children turn gay during their teen years.
To put it bluntly, we are nothing but failed cisgender homosexuals.
Now I know that some people see transgender people as odd or off - but failed homosexuals? Come on, That is just poor reasoning. I suppose they would say the same thing about bisexuals as well.
I believe this is due, in part, to the notion that there are no gay, lesbian or bisexual children. There are children that might be "expected" to be gay or lesbian based upon their gender non-conforming personalities, but they haven't as yet actually bought the toaster oven. As for transgender children, there appears to be more respect for and documentation of the existence of Bigfoot than there is for transgender identity in childhood.
Let's for a moment hypothesize on what life would be like in the Bizarro universe inhabited by the Axis of Evil; Bailey, Lawrence, Throckmorton and Zucker. We'll assume there's been a breach in the time-space continuum and the laws that rule their mystifying but simplistic corner of existence spills over into our messy little dimension.
In their dimension, 75% of you are homosexual, having grown out of or been behavior modified away from your childhood gender non-conforming identities.
But what about the other 25%? What do we do with you?
What if (not a chance in hell) those percentages are right? What if those statistics were applied to other conditions of childhood development?
Would it be alright if we ignored, silenced and marginalized socially impaired children if 25% of them turned out to be autistic?
What if 25% of all children with muscle cramps developed muscular dystrophy?
What if 25% of all children who like candy developed diabetes?
And would it be ok to withhold medical intervention to 25% of all children born with cleft lip or cleft palate until they reached the age of 18, just in case they changed their minds about wanting to fix the hole in the middle of their face.
According to research done by Professor Lynn Conway, non-conforming gender identity is as common or more common that each of those conditions. Her research indicates that 1:250 births are a child that has a non-conforming gender identity.
That part I just found fascinating 1/250, what are the chances?
Anyway I would like to discuss this, if anyone else is interested.
Peace,
Marie
http://transgroupblog.blogspot.com/
This part in particular:
Those who believe that children are blank slates waiting for an approved hetero-normative gender stencil to be drawn on them are not simply in denial regarding current scientific, social and medical studies, they are guilty of leading parents, families and in many cases the legal system to misogynistic, cissexist and conservative fundamentalist conclusions that will forever negatively affect these children's lives.
Alleged gender identity experts like Kenneth Zucker, Alice Dreger, J. Michael Bailey, Warren Throckmorton and others define transgender people, especially children, in ways that only serve their personal, professional, cultural and religious agendas or, in the case of Anne Lawrence, which justify their own self-loathing connection to gender non-conformity.
To them, there is no such thing as a transgender, transsexual or androgynous child. These children, and the adults they become, are nothing more than examples of psychotherapy's failure to eradicate pre-homosexual behavior. You see, according to their uber-flawed studies, 75% of gender non-conforming children turn gay during their teen years.
To put it bluntly, we are nothing but failed cisgender homosexuals.
Now I know that some people see transgender people as odd or off - but failed homosexuals? Come on, That is just poor reasoning. I suppose they would say the same thing about bisexuals as well.
I believe this is due, in part, to the notion that there are no gay, lesbian or bisexual children. There are children that might be "expected" to be gay or lesbian based upon their gender non-conforming personalities, but they haven't as yet actually bought the toaster oven. As for transgender children, there appears to be more respect for and documentation of the existence of Bigfoot than there is for transgender identity in childhood.
Let's for a moment hypothesize on what life would be like in the Bizarro universe inhabited by the Axis of Evil; Bailey, Lawrence, Throckmorton and Zucker. We'll assume there's been a breach in the time-space continuum and the laws that rule their mystifying but simplistic corner of existence spills over into our messy little dimension.
In their dimension, 75% of you are homosexual, having grown out of or been behavior modified away from your childhood gender non-conforming identities.
But what about the other 25%? What do we do with you?
What if (not a chance in hell) those percentages are right? What if those statistics were applied to other conditions of childhood development?
Would it be alright if we ignored, silenced and marginalized socially impaired children if 25% of them turned out to be autistic?
What if 25% of all children with muscle cramps developed muscular dystrophy?
What if 25% of all children who like candy developed diabetes?
And would it be ok to withhold medical intervention to 25% of all children born with cleft lip or cleft palate until they reached the age of 18, just in case they changed their minds about wanting to fix the hole in the middle of their face.
According to research done by Professor Lynn Conway, non-conforming gender identity is as common or more common that each of those conditions. Her research indicates that 1:250 births are a child that has a non-conforming gender identity.
That part I just found fascinating 1/250, what are the chances?
Anyway I would like to discuss this, if anyone else is interested.
Peace,
Marie