by Mary W Maxwell, LLB
Last week I attended an interesting lecture by psychotherapist Laura Jacobs and psychiatrist Laura Erickson-Schroth. The subject was transgenderism. They did not say “ism” – I am saying “transgenderism” as I’ve been trying to ponder the phenomenon of a sudden increase in the number of people in our society today who have switched to the opposite gender from the sex into which they were born.
But it would not be accurate to say that these persons have in mind to take on the thing that I am perceiving as “transgenderism.” Rather, they are simply individuals who don’t have the traditional, or statistically normal “accord” between their birth sex and their gender. Most people, such as myself, take such accord for granted. I never had to figure out which gender I was – just glance at my birth certificate and there you have it: female.
During the lecture, the most interesting thing I (selfishly) learned was that there is such a thing as “minority stress.” It seems that if you are of a racial minority, or any other kind of minority, there is always a low-lying anxiety that affects your health. It’s not nice to feel rejected, right? or to know that others are perceiving you as “wrong.” This is how I feel as a conspiracy theorist. I tiptoe around many people in my life lest I upset them with the news that I believe, for example, that the FBI bombed the Marathon. I often try to “pass” as normal.
I leaned some other terms at the meeting, too, so let’s have ’em:
A trans person has gone over to the other gender; a cis person (like me) has not. The word cis, Latin for “on this side” was coined so that the LGBT community would not have to define “normals,” like me, as normal – which would no doubt be ideologically unacceptable — or have to refer to me as a “non-trans person” which is a bit awkward.
Gender-conforming means you live in the way of life that one would expect of you, given your birth certificate. At this lecture one of the speakers, Laura Jacobs, is gender non-conforming. Or maybe she would say “gender-exploring.” Her birth certificate says male, but she transitioned to female – i.e., she became a transwoman – and now years later she feels inclined to dress as a guy once again. Her sales pitch was that everyone has the right to explore, and that life would be better all around if we did not insist on gender conformity.
A transitioning is the process of making the change from one gender to another. It may be medical (take hormones), surgical (alter the genitals or breasts), or just social. Laura Jacobs explained that when the word “treatment” is used regarding someone under age 12, it always means social only. That is, the child or parents are given some guidance in how to cope with the fact that the child does not naturally follow the pattern of behaviour expected of him/her.
Puberty blockers. This puts the child onto a holding pattern so he or she does not continue on with the changes that would result in masculinity such as hairiness and big feet, or femininity such as boobs. It is to give that person a chance to age a bit before any steps are taken that may be irrevocable.
An Intersex person is born with mixed reproductive organs, a.k.a., a hermaphrodite. There was such a girl in my high school, and boy did we ostracize her. Sorry! Sorry!
Suicide rates. One study came up with the figure that 41% of transpersons have attempted suicide, compared with 1.6% of the general population.
DSM definitions. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual is used in emergency rooms and other settings to make a quick categorization of a person’s mental illness. The first edition – DSM-1 came out in 1952, and the latest DSM-5 was published in 2013. In DSM-4 there was a diagnosis of “gender identity disorder.” This was changed in DSM-5 to “gender dysphoria.” Some trans persons want it removed from the manual altogether, as they disagree that they have a mental illness. However, the benefit is that insurance companies are more likely to pay doctors’ bills if a diagnosis has been established by the writers of the DSM.
Pronouns. Laura says it’s perfectly OK to ask a trans persons what their pronouns are. She says she was greeted by a nurse who said “HI, I’m David and I prefer the pronouns he and him.” Laura also said that calling a person by their old name – e.g., calling Caitlin Jenner “Bruce,” may be a very painful experience for that person. Indeed she said “like a poke in the eye with a stick.”
OK, that’s as far as I’ll go with definitions. If you need more, go to the book written by the two Laura’s. It’s called “You’re in the Wrong Bathroom.”
The Bathroom Situation, and Violence
Having lived in Australia for most of my adult life, I find it hilarious that Americans call the toilet room the bathroom. (Granted, in most houses the toilet and the bathtub are in the same room.) And I’ve found it very annoying lately that Aussies are starting to call the loo “the bathroom.’ (And call the vice-chancellor of a university the president of the university. Yuck.)
Well, never mind that for now, we are talking about the fact that media has made a big deal about the issue of a trans woman going into the Ladies Room. Apparently they want her to go to the men’s room — where I doubt she would be well received. The two Laura’s think the media pitch is on the safety of the “normals.” (You know they didn’t use the word normals, right?) In other words, women and children are to be protected from men, so let’s keep those “men” out of the Ladies loo.
A woman in the audience of Laura’s lecture told, very emotionally, of her daughter, Sean, being dragged out of the Ladies Room in a court house by a cop. The Mom is suing.
This lecture was an eye opener for me – and a bigotry corrector, and a sympathy evoker. But I can’t accept the statistics as to how many Trannies get beat up on the street. It does not strike me that a tranny-hater would risk arrest merely for the “sport” of bashing a person he hates. I have read that 100 trans gender people are murdered in the US each year.
Of course, it is not without precedent. At Adelaide Law School we had a gay lecturer, around 1980, who got tossed into the Torrens River by off-duty cops. It was meant as a tease but he drowned. This was considered “acceptable” at least subconsciously by the public, such that nothing was going to be done about it. “Well, macho cops hate poofta’s y’know” – until Professor Horst Lucke made a stink. Thank you, Professor Lucke.
Gumshoe Comments
Now let’s get Gumshoe-y. Where does this magazine stand politically on this subject? notwithstanding the editor being a transwoman. Last week in connection with the “Yes” vote in Australia for same-sex marriage, one of our dear commenters wrote:
“I know in America and soon to be in Australia, kindergarten kids have transvestites teaching under 5-year-olds how to be in a same sex marriage! They teach same sex/gender role play, ask to dress the opposite way, reading books designed to teach same sex relationships! Then a few years down the track we all ask ‘what’s wrong with that kid?’ What! The New World Order is all for changing our roles as human beings, numbing us down, changing genders, killing our way to think for. Ask the Rothschild’s, Bilderberg’s, Clintons, Regan’s, Illuminati, Satanists if they care!”
Now you’re talkin’. I mean now we’re into our Gumshoe stride. Is someone trying to change gender roles? Yes. Think back to Dr Richard Day’s seemingly innocuous prophecy in 1969: little girls won’t want to play with baby dolls anymore and tea sets will go, too. Girls will prefer to be on sports teams.
My first question is: If it is a good thing to move females away from dolls and into sports, who the hell has the authority to initiate that? When were we consulted? Obviously, from the context of Dr Day’s speech to medical students, it was coming from the elite, the cabal, the Rockefellers, etc.
Why Do This?
And what would be their motives? To improve the human race? There is no evidence that the betterment of the race was ever on their minds. More likely everything was meant as a control measure. I feel pretty sure the point of killing the male-female roles was to take away the secure location known as the family – the place where we go when in need, and indeed the source of our original education and strength.
Yep, kill off marriages – and what better way to do that than to stop couples forming a biologically-prepared pair-bond? Would the Rockefellers attempt to actually change biology? Yes. Dr Day, in the same speech said “We think we can move evolution. We can lower the age of puberty.”
Wait a minute. What’s wrong with puberty at the age God created it to be?
I am opposed to all of this and I agree with our commenter that it is horrific for our little kids to be taught ANYTHING about sex or marriage. Parents have enough to worry about wondering what’s on the curriculum. Do you know they don’t teach kids cursive handwriting anymore? And why teach them to add and subtract when they should be consulting a calculator? Gahd.
The Military Situation
My reaction to the transgender lecture is that we should wake up to the fact that there are now many transgender people in our nation and we ought to grow up and learn to not persecute them. Or insist that they are “other.” Indeed, we should extend the same warmth and welcoming that we NORMALS expect to get, and do get, from strangers.
(There, I said it.)
However, I don’t feel I have to follow every media-hyped whinge. There was an outcry when Trump said he would not pay for medical expenses for trans people in the military. And for this reason, he would rule out the recruitment of all such persons in the first place. That is perfectly OK with me. He said:
“After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow… Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military. Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming… victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Thank you.”
I’ll bet that the medical transition made by Bradley Manning, becoming Chelsea Manning, while in the Army was set up in preparation for Trumps’ announcement. It makes the public react “Hey I’m a taxpayer. Not only is that guy getting court martialled for espionage, I’m now supposed to pay for him to be a girl? Go on, tell me I have to buy his make-up.” That sort of thing.
My conservative stance has nothing to do with transgenderism. I am against women joining the military. It’s a bad joke. Don’t forget, many of the women who go off to battle have got babies at home who have no way of knowing that Mom has not died. All right I won’t pursue that – and other objections to gals in uniform — right now.
Just watch out for media tricks. And by the way, no soldier-applicant who shows up and needs medication for anything gets accepted into the military. You either have 20-20 vision or you don’t make it.
Let’s be reasonable.
–Mary W Maxwell is trying to grow up. She is making a bit of progress all the time, with no small thanks to the commenter at Gumshoe.
Dollars to donuts this is a cooked-up culture war, so we don’t bother to look at the REAL wars out there. (From Washington Post in 2016 – what can I say?):
“Target [giant retailer] said “We believe that everyone — every guest, and every community — deserves to be protected from discrimination, and treated equally. Consistent with this belief, Target supports the federal Equality Act, which provides protections to LGBT individuals….
… we welcome transgender team members and guests to use the restroom or fitting room facility that corresponds with their gender identity.
“Target CEO Brian Cornell has now spoken publicly about the backlash the company experienced after releasing that statement. Among that backlash is an online petition by the American Family Association.
“Thus far, that petition has received 1.2 million signatures. It argued that ‘Target’s policy is exactly how sexual predators get access to their victims.’
(‘A danger to wives and daughters’: Petition to boycott Target over transgender-inclusive bathrooms claims growing support.)”
Pardon me folks, but in the real world we’re on the verge of nuclear war.
Dollars to donuts this is a cooked-up culture war, so we don’t bother to look at the REAL wars out there.
yep, yep, and …..yep.
Off-topic, sorry:
Pres Trump has now endorsed Judge Roy Moore in Alabama. But Ivanka Trump (the Princess Royal) says: “There is a special place in hell for persons who abuse children.”
I guess she will be getting on the Podesta case soon then.
The reason for body piecing, tattoos, body surgery and transgender is all part of the Tavistock agenda, if you disorientate individuals that they feel something wrong within of without but most will feel they are not quite right will have operations such as tongue piecing, clit modifications and so on, the individual becomes disconnected from the self and becomes the victim of institutes such as the Rothschilds, who then uses the individual to manipulate for becoming a consumer or war personnel, all for making money and for the elite to stay in power.
Absolutely agree with Don
Yes Berry, you’re right. And I was able to follow Don’s line, this time. Good one, Don.
If tattoos are outlawed only outlaws will have tattoos…
Who said anything about outlawing?
The point is that voluntary body mutilation signifies personal enslavement
I relayed a trans comment recently and I apologise.
My view is that I should only say these things in private, in public the joke can become weaponized.
This goes for all ISM’s . I don’t think private individuals can have racism or other ism’s, they can be a dickhead but have free speech in my view.
The power brokers can demonize any group with these ISM’s however, to huge changes.
I was invited to go poofter bashing down Oxford(hehe) Street, Sydney. I was in private school and
this was considered fair game with no moral implications in the late 70’s. I did’nt go but also have regrets about other people I mistreated as a group bully.
Gumshoey – we are trained to do this from a young age in Australia through generations and its no accident .
Mary you are right to say children of very young age should not be indoctrinated with anything to do with sex. For a start they would not understand any of it properly. At that age they know nothing of chemistry, which is what the procreation process is all about. I was not taught chemistry until high school. (age of puberty)
As far as the programme of using the sex changing process, like drug taking, as an “in thing” , the Powers That Be have been successful in taking people’s minds off the criminal behaviour of that group of Powers That Be.
It may be that a very small percentage of humans are born with an abnormal hormone imbalance that causes homosexuality, but the number of people professing to have this problem is I believe to be a symptom of being involved in “the in thing” of the times. It’s cool, as they say. I will not misuse the word “gay”. Most so called “gays” it seems, are very unhappy people.
If this group of Powers That Be push such things as transgenderism to become normal then THEIR crimes of sex slavery, paedophilia and blood sacrifices may become more acceptable in the public mind.
Mal, you ain’t seen nuttin’ yet.
.
What would you expect a culture that esteems masking whilst failing to recognise/acknowledge individual influence & ingenuity ? What could possibly be more personally disempowering than an unholy obsession with self ?
But I’ve always questioned the segregated toilet tradition. Why is a communal wee-wee spot considered OK for men but not women ? And at what age should male children be excluded from the Ladies ? My boys always used to complain that showering facilities etc in the Gents were substandard and that the place stank. Makes you wonder.
ODE TO SADNESS
A lot of our friends and neighbors suffer more than we realize.
Today being November 22, I’ll post an unusual TV clip that played on the night
of the JFK assassination.
That event killed our generation, and 9-11 killed a later generation.
Bastards.
.
‘Bastards!.
Please do not associate bastards with:
Psyco sick sociapth killer criminal sub human primitive intellectually deficient inferrior fascist control freaks.
Christ was a bastard and so are my mates in Oz.
And their political running dogs in Australia’s parliament.
Did I omit hypocritical? Sorry.
Mary, no wonder you’re a bit confused, you are suffering under a delusion, when describing yourself as a conspiracy theorist. You are, in fact, a conspiracy realist! You have, in the vernacular, been ‘outed’, congratulations.
I take the opportunity to ascribe, by extension, this ability to we Gumshoe followers too. It happens to all of us, when we decide that we cannot believe known liars.
[Dee, please move this into my article above]:
Postscript: When I said I agree with Trump on “no transgender people in the military” (and I also say “no women in the military”), I am referring to new recruits. I would not dream of saying that a cis female or a transman or transwoman should get kicked out.
One wonders what’s in the fine print of military contracts. When I was campaigning for the Senate, I asked military wives what they were unhappy with. To my surprise I learned that the famous bonuses (such as $20,000 for enlistment, $60,000 for doing a second “tour” in Iraq, etc) are paid out over ten years. You don’t have to be an accountant to know that X number of dollars paid out slowly is not really X.
I also haven’t figured out how the Army was able to impose “stop-loss” on Reservists. That is, they were ready to leave their time of active service (in Afghanistan) and were told they could not leave. These are persons who have a civilian job to get back to or get fired.
Aha, a second judge has just halted Trump’s ban on transgender soldiers. “Hurt feelings” were mentioned. I have to agree that you can’t go around telling soldiers that they are suddenly considered unworthy. I also don’t know how there hasn’t been a lawsuit regarding the hurt feelings of American Muslims. Trump’s ban on immigration from 6 Muslim nations is sooo un-American. Really, it’s unheard of.
I say we need to get a grip.
Mankind has freewill to do anything. Claim a Darwin award or discover electricity.
If what we do is not in harmony with nature then we will harm our body and mind. Nature’s design is perfect. Every organ carefully made, positioned and interlelated to all the systems within the body. The anus is not designed to be a sexual organ and homosexuality is not in harmony with nature. Nature is about creation and sex between male and female are at its core. The greatest act of creativity is to create life. To have integrity we must be in harmony with nature.
The rulers of our society try to keep us confused, ignorant, through specialisation, and divided. As long as we look to nature for truth we can not go far astray. Human beings disrespect for nature is only exceeded by their greed, fear and ignorance.
Please note the “green” language, harm/harmony.
Did I hear anyone say that the body is not perfect. It is much more than perfect. It continually renews its self, develops an immune system, notifies us when there is a problem. You are what you eat and you become what you think. The brain is the largest sex organ in the body.
Come to think of it, is there an integrity at all remaining in the artificial world of man?
is there integrity in banking, medicine, farming, legal system, school of children, military, government…. It would become a very looooong list.
Is contaminating our drinking water with toxins in harmony with nature?
is poisoning the life in the soil ie the immune system of plants in harmony with nature?
is spraying chemicals in the air we breathe in harmony with nature?
is injecting metals in to our body with vaccination in harmony with nature?
this too can become a very looooong list.!