The Metamorphosis of the CR-Whatever
I have been out of the country. I was a good trip, but it lasted too long, it was definitely time to be back. Actually, after I was way past ready to come back, the day I was to return from Portugal there was fog all over the Iberian Peninsula, and my flight couldn't get out of Porto or into Madrid, so I missed a connection and had to stay a night in Madrid. Though I wanted to get home, I did take advantage of the situation by taking the Metro into el centro, and was blown away by the majesty of Madrid. There were a million people in the street -- really, I counted -- and they were beautiful and happy, families and lovers and shoppers and partyers of all sorts, enjoying the Christmas season together in the streets. The architecture there is incredible, the people are great, I had to speak Spanish all the time but that was good practice at least, my Spanish is definitely better than my Portuguese.
While I was out, I see there was a new newsletter by the Citizens for a Responsible ... hey wait a minute.
The old familiar Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum, you know, the anti-gay group that tried so hard to recall the Montgomery County school board and then, failing at that, fought to remove anything objective, fair or kind about gay people from the health curriculum, also failing at that, seems to be in the midst of a metamorphosis of sorts. Having been so successful at bringing bigotry against sexual minorities to the school district, they apparently are now going to work their magic on the community at large.
The header on this latest newsletter, from the same people, now says Citizens for a Responsible Government, instead of "Curriculum."
They have a new cause, and it doesn't have anything to do with a curriculum, so I guess this makes sense. Did you know, Montgomery County just made it illegal to discriminate against people on the basis of their gender identity? Like, you can't not-hire somebody because they are too masculine or too feminine for your tastes, or their masculinity or femininity is not what you'd expect, if they're qualified for the job. Just like you couldn't not-hire a qualified person because they were a Christian. Same law, they added a term: "gender identity."
You might not think that kind of law is necessary. You might think people should conform more, you might find it unsettling that some people want to change their sexual identity from female to male or vice versa. You might think it's dumb to have laws against discrimination at all, that a society ought to be able to work those things out on their own. I know what I think, but those are fair questions for debate.
The CR-whatever does not seem to oppose discrimination laws in general, they have never made a stink about it before, and this law has existed forever. I think they must agree that it is wrong to discriminate on the basis of race, religion, national origin, the usual list of things, at least they've never complained about it. But they specifically do think it is worth fighting for the right to discriminate against transgender people.
The group is planning a referendum. And this is great, I can hardly wait to see how this turns out.
There is an explanation in this newsletter:
Now, I work on a citizens committee for the school district with Dr. Jacobs, and I don't want to say anything personal about her. But I think she will be the perfect spokesperson for their position. At least as far as our side goes.
Here she is articulating the then-CRC's position in front of the County Council last October.
I hate to even try to comment on this. It is not clear why she thinks the bill is saying she will "support gender identity for someone who wants to change their gender identity..." You don't "support" gender identity or not-support it. It's like supporting air. And as for "ex-transgenders," I think this is something we can find the statistics for. Someone who decides to change their physical sex must pass through a lot of tests and counseling before a doctor will do the job, I don't think there are very many people who get through all of that and then, later, change their mind. And anyway, this law doesn't have anything to do with that, or even with a person's decision about how to express their gender. It's about discrimination -- maybe they'll change their mind later, it doesn't matter, you can't discriminate against them now.
It's not a bill about whether it is a good idea or a bad idea to go ahead and live the way you feel, it's a bill for the rest of us, it says that if somebody has decided to do that, to be true to their real feelings, we can't discriminate against them. We elected this Council, they represent us in the law-making process, they voted unanimously to adopt this.
And these statistics ... I'm not going to chase down the source of these numbers -- is she saying that being transgender causes people to catch HIV, to use crack and meth and heroin? Scuse me, I don't see how that works.
We carried this talk of hers before, but now that she's the leader of the CR-whatever-now group, let me mention something else she said to the Council:
(I left that last stuff in there so you could see I wasn't quoting out of context, I got her whole statement on this topic.) This is really interesting. She is talking about the MCPS citizens advisory committee that we are both on. Last year in a meeting, she referred to a transgender woman as "he," intentionally, it appeared (CRC officers often make a point of doing this, for instance in discussing the "Portia" vignette). I was sitting right next to her. Everyone was shocked at her disrespect, she was referring to someone we all know, someone who often came to observe those very meetings, but who I don't believe was in the room at that time.
It's easy to make that mistake. I've done it, it's kind of embarrassing, but the language forces you to choose a pronoun and sometimes in the heat of discussion you forget and choose wrong. I imagine this is one of the facts of life when you change your gender presentation, that people sometimes use the wrong pronoun. I'm no expert on these things, and certainly no expert on etiquette, but I'd think it would be okay if you made a mistake and just corrected yourself or apologized or something. Accidents happen. This was not an accident, and there was no apology, at the time or later.
I sent Dr. Jacobs an email, and I know of at least one other person who did, too. I know my email was not threatening, and the other person I talked to said she simply pointed out that when someone changes from being a man to a woman, you use the feminine pronoun.
I brought this up at our last citizens committee meeting. I said that Dr. Jacobs had told the County Council that she had received threatening emails, and that since just about the only people who had heard her comment had been committee members, it was a good chance that a committee member had sent the threatening email. I said I don't want committee members to send threatening emails to one another, and suggested that we find out who sent it, and take care of it within the committee, rather than having people go to the County Council to talk about our business.
Dr. Jacobs was there, sitting across the table from me. She said she would talk with me personally, or with the committee chair, but she did not want to discuss it in the citizen advisory committee meeting. She said she had talked with the chairperson when this happened, but the chairperson didn't remember the incident.
I have a theory about this "threatening email," which I will not state because I am on a committee with Dr. Jacobs and want to maintain a good working relationship with her -- so far this year the committee has voted unanimously on everything, which is nice. I will only imply my theory with scare quotes.
So, here is the leader of the new group that's going to bring discrimination against transgender people back to Montgomery County: Dr. Ruth Jacobs.
Oh, cool, I just followed a link on the newsletter. They have a web site (I am thinking that yellow font on white background might not be the best way to get your message across) with an endorsement from Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council, who is also on the citizens advisory committee. Turns out the Family Research Council supports these guys:
That's some big guns there. The Family Research Council, they have lunch at the White House, don't they?
TeachTheFacts.org formed several years ago to stop these nuts. They had their first organizing meeting on December 4th, 2004, and some of us were there, and we met later that week and started our own web site. They wanted to recall the school board, we supported the board. If there was no CR-whatever, there wouldn't have to be any TeachTheFacts.org, and we could go back to being regular people, not activists talking to newspapers and TV cameras and writing on the Internet, but it doesn't look like that will be happening anytime soon.
I think the battle in the school district is just about over. There is one more hearing to get through, as I understand it, in January sometime. Classes have been taught, everything was okay, this can turn out to be wrong but generally I think that the CR...C has just about expended its possibilities there.
So now they want to go after transgender people, not just in the school district but all over the county.
Can you think of anybody else that's going to stand up to these guys and monitor them, report on their lies and their schemes, the publicity stunts, the silly things they do? I can't either. Somebody's got to do it. Looks like it'll still be us.
While I was out, I see there was a new newsletter by the Citizens for a Responsible ... hey wait a minute.
The old familiar Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum, you know, the anti-gay group that tried so hard to recall the Montgomery County school board and then, failing at that, fought to remove anything objective, fair or kind about gay people from the health curriculum, also failing at that, seems to be in the midst of a metamorphosis of sorts. Having been so successful at bringing bigotry against sexual minorities to the school district, they apparently are now going to work their magic on the community at large.
The header on this latest newsletter, from the same people, now says Citizens for a Responsible Government, instead of "Curriculum."
They have a new cause, and it doesn't have anything to do with a curriculum, so I guess this makes sense. Did you know, Montgomery County just made it illegal to discriminate against people on the basis of their gender identity? Like, you can't not-hire somebody because they are too masculine or too feminine for your tastes, or their masculinity or femininity is not what you'd expect, if they're qualified for the job. Just like you couldn't not-hire a qualified person because they were a Christian. Same law, they added a term: "gender identity."
You might not think that kind of law is necessary. You might think people should conform more, you might find it unsettling that some people want to change their sexual identity from female to male or vice versa. You might think it's dumb to have laws against discrimination at all, that a society ought to be able to work those things out on their own. I know what I think, but those are fair questions for debate.
The CR-whatever does not seem to oppose discrimination laws in general, they have never made a stink about it before, and this law has existed forever. I think they must agree that it is wrong to discriminate on the basis of race, religion, national origin, the usual list of things, at least they've never complained about it. But they specifically do think it is worth fighting for the right to discriminate against transgender people.
The group is planning a referendum. And this is great, I can hardly wait to see how this turns out.
There is an explanation in this newsletter:
We have started a new group, Maryland Citizens for Responsible Government to run the referendum. Dr. Ruth Jacobs has offered to head this new group. MCRG has the proper legal incorporation to run the petition drive. So this will be our last update from the CRC email address on the gender identity bill.
Now, I work on a citizens committee for the school district with Dr. Jacobs, and I don't want to say anything personal about her. But I think she will be the perfect spokesperson for their position. At least as far as our side goes.
Here she is articulating the then-CRC's position in front of the County Council last October.
I believe there should be tolerance for everyone. I also think you should not tie the hands of physicians, counselors, pastors and bishops who may not, who may think this may not be the best choice for an individual.
I left out my best paragraph, I'll try to email it to you, but there's, you're standing behind this bill in one side on the psychiatric issue. You're saying I will support gender identity for someone who wants to change their gender identity. You are forgetting that there are other people who have stepped out of that, they're ex-transgenders, they're people who decided that's not the best for them. There are risks, sixty percent of the black transgenders in one study were HIV positive. Twenty-four percent had used crack cocaine, 13 percent methamphetamines, four percent heroin.
I hate to even try to comment on this. It is not clear why she thinks the bill is saying she will "support gender identity for someone who wants to change their gender identity..." You don't "support" gender identity or not-support it. It's like supporting air. And as for "ex-transgenders," I think this is something we can find the statistics for. Someone who decides to change their physical sex must pass through a lot of tests and counseling before a doctor will do the job, I don't think there are very many people who get through all of that and then, later, change their mind. And anyway, this law doesn't have anything to do with that, or even with a person's decision about how to express their gender. It's about discrimination -- maybe they'll change their mind later, it doesn't matter, you can't discriminate against them now.
It's not a bill about whether it is a good idea or a bad idea to go ahead and live the way you feel, it's a bill for the rest of us, it says that if somebody has decided to do that, to be true to their real feelings, we can't discriminate against them. We elected this Council, they represent us in the law-making process, they voted unanimously to adopt this.
And these statistics ... I'm not going to chase down the source of these numbers -- is she saying that being transgender causes people to catch HIV, to use crack and meth and heroin? Scuse me, I don't see how that works.
We carried this talk of hers before, but now that she's the leader of the CR-whatever-now group, let me mention something else she said to the Council:
As a member of the committee at the schools, I received threatening emails when I slipped and failed to use the proper pronoun. It was not my intention to offend anyone, I think however as a physician there is a certain amount of honesty. Gender identity disorder is a disorder, it is in the American Psychiatric Association as a mental illness...
(I left that last stuff in there so you could see I wasn't quoting out of context, I got her whole statement on this topic.) This is really interesting. She is talking about the MCPS citizens advisory committee that we are both on. Last year in a meeting, she referred to a transgender woman as "he," intentionally, it appeared (CRC officers often make a point of doing this, for instance in discussing the "Portia" vignette). I was sitting right next to her. Everyone was shocked at her disrespect, she was referring to someone we all know, someone who often came to observe those very meetings, but who I don't believe was in the room at that time.
It's easy to make that mistake. I've done it, it's kind of embarrassing, but the language forces you to choose a pronoun and sometimes in the heat of discussion you forget and choose wrong. I imagine this is one of the facts of life when you change your gender presentation, that people sometimes use the wrong pronoun. I'm no expert on these things, and certainly no expert on etiquette, but I'd think it would be okay if you made a mistake and just corrected yourself or apologized or something. Accidents happen. This was not an accident, and there was no apology, at the time or later.
I sent Dr. Jacobs an email, and I know of at least one other person who did, too. I know my email was not threatening, and the other person I talked to said she simply pointed out that when someone changes from being a man to a woman, you use the feminine pronoun.
I brought this up at our last citizens committee meeting. I said that Dr. Jacobs had told the County Council that she had received threatening emails, and that since just about the only people who had heard her comment had been committee members, it was a good chance that a committee member had sent the threatening email. I said I don't want committee members to send threatening emails to one another, and suggested that we find out who sent it, and take care of it within the committee, rather than having people go to the County Council to talk about our business.
Dr. Jacobs was there, sitting across the table from me. She said she would talk with me personally, or with the committee chair, but she did not want to discuss it in the citizen advisory committee meeting. She said she had talked with the chairperson when this happened, but the chairperson didn't remember the incident.
I have a theory about this "threatening email," which I will not state because I am on a committee with Dr. Jacobs and want to maintain a good working relationship with her -- so far this year the committee has voted unanimously on everything, which is nice. I will only imply my theory with scare quotes.
So, here is the leader of the new group that's going to bring discrimination against transgender people back to Montgomery County: Dr. Ruth Jacobs.
Oh, cool, I just followed a link on the newsletter. They have a web site (I am thinking that yellow font on white background might not be the best way to get your message across) with an endorsement from Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council, who is also on the citizens advisory committee. Turns out the Family Research Council supports these guys:
“We salute CRG for being willing to speak out on behalf of the people of Montgomery County and our young people who will be affected by this propaganda. We urge our friends to assist CRG in gathering signatures for this referendum.” ”
Peter Sprigg
Family Research Council
That's some big guns there. The Family Research Council, they have lunch at the White House, don't they?
TeachTheFacts.org formed several years ago to stop these nuts. They had their first organizing meeting on December 4th, 2004, and some of us were there, and we met later that week and started our own web site. They wanted to recall the school board, we supported the board. If there was no CR-whatever, there wouldn't have to be any TeachTheFacts.org, and we could go back to being regular people, not activists talking to newspapers and TV cameras and writing on the Internet, but it doesn't look like that will be happening anytime soon.
I think the battle in the school district is just about over. There is one more hearing to get through, as I understand it, in January sometime. Classes have been taught, everything was okay, this can turn out to be wrong but generally I think that the CR...C has just about expended its possibilities there.
So now they want to go after transgender people, not just in the school district but all over the county.
Can you think of anybody else that's going to stand up to these guys and monitor them, report on their lies and their schemes, the publicity stunts, the silly things they do? I can't either. Somebody's got to do it. Looks like it'll still be us.
posted by JimK at 7:46 AM
24 Comments:
Equality Maryland will be standing up to them, and Equality Montgomery should be standing up to them. I know that some key people in Equality Montgomery read this blog. What do you say, people - are you going to be there for our Ts?
Nah
Hey there, Delilah, don't you worry...
Andrea- not anon
I think Dr. Jaocbs should be required to release the threatening e:mail to the committee at least since she stated this in that meeting. I think it is just another CRC/CRG/ABCXYZ fiction.
Dr. Ruth didn't simply use the incorrect gender pronoun in a comment to the committee. She also used the incorrect pronoun in a letter to The Gazette, which was published in the print edition. After a note to the editors of The Gazette, the on-line edition of the paper corrected the pronoun. Of course it is not so simple to correct a print edition. I do not know if The Gazette printed a correction in the next edition, but I do know that no letter of correction from Dr. Ruth has ever appeared in either the print or the on-line edition of the paper.
I can accept that one can mistakenly use the wrong gender in conversation. I am subject to a fair amount of "word salad" myself and I mix up my children's names all of the time. However, I expect people to proofread their letters to editors of newspapers before sending them.
I'll say it: Dr. Jacobs is a nut!
I remember quite vividly the first time I met her. It was quite the experience...
Dr. Ruth Jacobs: "There are risks, sixty percent of the black transgenders in one study were HIV positive. Twenty-four percent had used crack cocaine, 13 percent methamphetamines, four percent heroin."
What? She completely forgot to mention the epidemic of transgender vampires who eat babies!
Now how is anyone supposed to take her seriously?
Emproph, I've heard her make these and similar comments before, in trying to convince the Board of Education not to tell our teens anything at all about gender identity. I think I have encountered these statistics elsewhere.
Several years ago there was a survey of the health needs of transgender youth living on the streets in DC. As you may guess, that is a population that is in dire need. Transgender street youth are people who have no homes, primarily because their parents disowned them when they came out. They are not usually able to stay in school, they are under- or unemployed, they have no health care coverage, none of the protections of either nuclear or extended family, no regular source of nutrition, and so forth. Some transgender street kids turn to sex work to survive; I don't remember the numbers.
It is possible that Dr. Ruth is quoting from that health needs survey, or similar survey from another city. If so, the travesty multiplies itself. Not only is it dishonest, in the same way that NARTH's use of patient surveys at STI clinics as profiles of the health of all gay men is dishonest, it also hides from her audience the fact that transgender youth are seriously, sometimes fatally, harmed by the ignorance in our culture. If she came out and said drug use and STI rates are unacceptably high among young transpeople who have been thrown out of their homes, then she might actually start a helpful dialog about how we can help these kids. You'd think that a medical doctor would think that way.
I don't know how any one can take her seriously. Her standing and reputation among her peers in the medical community cannot be enhanced by her behavior.
"I don't know how any one can take her seriously. Her standing and reputation among her peers in the medical community cannot be enhanced by her behavior."
You people might want to consider how enhanced TTF's reputation might be if they'd stick to factual arguments rather than character assasination. Dr Jacobs' reputation among her peers seemed fine when she produced a petition signed by a couple hundred of them at Shady Grove Hospital.
"Dr. Ruth didn't simply use the incorrect gender pronoun in a comment to the committee. She also used the incorrect pronoun in a letter to The Gazette, which was published in the print edition."
What is not grasped by the simple TTFer is that whether the pronoun is correct or not is a matter of opinion. Whether a person who has had sexual reassignment surgery qualifies as a new gender is a nebulous question about which definitive proof doesn't exist. Indeed, Dr Beyer cited a study recently that one's gender doesn't diverge from one's chromosomal make-up regardless of surgical procedures and artificial hormone therapy.
Whether a transgender has actually left their birth gender, then, is an open question. Under what social convention are people who hold that gender can't be changed by surgery obligated to pretend that it is- especially when researchers agree with them?
We can tolerate gender bender adventures among the offbeat crowd but don't ask us to play along.
Tish, excellent points, it would be so typical for an anti-gay like Ruth to use a study of homeless transpeople to smear all transpeople in general. Anti-gays do this sort of thing all the time, its not an honest mistake, they know they're lying and deceiving people but they're just so malicious they don't care.
Oyster time said " Dr Beyer cited a study recently that one's gender doesn't diverge from one's chromosomal make-up regardless of surgical procedures and artificial hormone therapy.".
I believe you've got that wrong, if I recall correctly what the study showed is that attempting to raise children as something they do not feel they are is doomed to failure. If a child is born male the vast majority of them will have a male gender identity and efforts to raise them as females will fail. However for those born male with a female gender identity attempts to make them live as males are similarly doomed to failue. The point of the study that Dana quoted is that you can't change someone's internal gender identity, whether it matches their genitals or not.
Decent people will refer to a person with the pronoun that is appropriate to their internal mental gender identity - anything else is merely a denial of the reality that some of us are born with the wrong genitalia.
"I believe you've got that wrong, if I recall correctly what the study showed is that attempting to raise children as something they do not feel they are is doomed to failure. If a child is born male the vast majority of them will have a male gender identity and efforts to raise them as females will fail. However for those born male with a female gender identity attempts to make them live as males are similarly doomed to failue. The point of the study that Dana quoted is that you can't change someone's internal gender identity, whether it matches their genitals or not."
Check it again, Randi. The study involved infants whose sexual organs were not fully developed. Their feelings could not be assessed. Ignoring the chromosomal make-up, the doctors gave the babies surgery. They found this to be a mistaken approach as the children invariably reverted to a gender identity that matched their chromosomes.
Oyster time, that was what I assumed you were talking about. Of course in the vast majority of cases one's gender identity matches their chromosomes - transgendered individuals are rare. However it is a fact that in some individuals our gender identity does not match our chromosones and just as one can't change the gender identity of the babies you mentioned, for that small number with a gender identity opposite of their chromosomes raising that person as their chromosonal gender won't work either.
What the study shows is that gender identity is fixed and unchangeable, you can't ask a male to female transexual to just pretend to be a male anymore than you can ask the typical XY baby to pretend to be a girl.
What the study most certainly did not show is that gender identity ALWAYS matches chromosomes - that we know is false.
"You people might want to consider how enhanced TTF's reputation might be if they'd stick to factual arguments rather than character assasination."
You mean the character assassination by Dr. Jacobs that we're complaining about?
Interesting. So you think that the complaint of character assassination is exactly the same thing as character assassination.
So basically the factual aspects of the "factual arguments" you admonish us to "stick to" are whatever the hell you want them to be.
You might consider how your reputation might be "enhanced" if you just said so next time.
"Dr Jacobs' reputation among her peers seemed fine when she produced a petition signed by a couple hundred of them at Shady Grove Hospital."
A petition? Signed by "a couple hundred of them?"
Well I have a petition sitting here in my lap signed by a couple thousand of them who say otherwise..
Oyster time said...
"Check it again, Randi. The study involved infants whose sexual organs were not fully developed. Their feelings could not be assessed. Ignoring the chromosomal make-up, the doctors gave the babies surgery. They found this to be a mistaken approach as the children invariably reverted to a gender identity that matched their chromosomes."
Oyster time, time out for a sec.
You need to understand that the certainty of one's gender, of someone who is transgendered, is the same certainty that these children had, who were reassigned at birth.
You can believe transgenderism (and SSA) is a delusion, but if you do so, you need to understand that this delusion is AS pronounced in those of us who are transgendered (and SSA), as it was in these children who were reassigned at birth.
In other words, and in either case, the "disorder" of feeling that gender / attraction, is perceived as permanent.
If you're a straight guy now, just imagine you were born and raised as a girl. You wouldn't be attracted to guys, you'd still be attracted to girls. You'd be a lesbian. You'd be a male with a female body.
I can understand the discomfort of the idea, what I don't understand is why it's being approached with little more than raw insults.
I'm sure that's all sufficiently insane enough for you to reject. So be it. But it might help to understand that this is the "insanity" to which you speak -- when you speak of transgenderism and homosexuality to those of us who are transgendered and/or homosexual.
Point being, there is no doubt, the same as these children had no doubt, and this is what you speak to.
"27 genetically male children ... Twenty-five of the children were reassigned by physicians at birth ... the majority of these children, between the ages of 5 and 16, have subsequently "reassigned" themselves back to males. All 27 showed strong male behaviors, activities and attitudes."
Just a thought. I'm not saying we're all not insane, just that perhaps it might help matters if you, being the sane one, stopped to take into consideration the full nature of our "insanity" once in awhile.
Randi, are you the same one that used to post here? You seem so less angry, so more civil. Anyway, congrats on your progress!
"Oyster time, that was what I assumed you were talking about. Of course in the vast majority of cases one's gender identity matches their chromosomes - transgendered individuals are rare. However it is a fact that in some individuals our gender identity does not match our chromosones"
That's not a fact, Randi, but a contention. It can't be proved.
"and just as one can't change the gender identity of the babies you mentioned, for that small number with a gender identity opposite of their chromosomes raising that person as their chromosonal gender won't work either."
Well, in the test this wasn't seen. They were all XY and demonstrated masculinity.
You know, I agree that there is no way to disprove what you say but since it's also unprovable, it's not something a government should be ruling on.
"What the study shows is that gender identity is fixed and unchangeable, you can't ask a male to female transexual to just pretend to be a male anymore than you can ask the typical XY baby to pretend to be a girl."
Yes, it proves this if you assume gender identity is determined by your chromosomes. If you think gender identity is psychologically determined, in rare cases, the test isn't applicable and doesn't prove that.
"What the study most certainly did not show is that gender identity ALWAYS matches chromosomes - that we know is false."
You don't know that is false and the study proved it as much as it can be proved. Truth is, you've simply redefined gender. You can prove anything you want if you allow yourself unlimited powers of redefinition over the language.
OK, so what you are saying is that the gender reassignment (or change to external genitals) failed to produce the desired result (or change in attitude because of outward appearance) in most cases.
Which also means that it worked in some. Interesting. So despite the genetics involved, the babies who would possibly have been trans already had their needed surgery. And those who did not work, ignored the social norms of appearance and matching genitals and became who they felt they were inside irrespective of the external.
So, the research supports us "TTFers" again.
As for appropriate pronouns... seems pretty clear that polite people should call each other by the names they have expressed preference for. For example, my first name isn't used. I ask people to use another of my names. It is polite to use the name I ask you too (and why my cousin annoys me when he doesn't).
I said "Oyster time, that was what I assumed you were talking about. Of course in the vast majority of cases one's gender identity matches their chromosomes - transgendered individuals are rare. However it is a fact that in some individuals our gender identity does not match our chromosones"
Oyster time replied "That's not a fact, Randi, but a contention. It can't be proved.".
The existence of thousands of transgendered individuals is proof that sometimes our gender identity does not match our chromosones.
I said "and just as one can't change the gender identity of the babies you mentioned, for that small number with a gender identity opposite of their chromosomes raising that person as their chromosonal gender won't work either."
Oyster time said "Well, in the test this wasn't seen. They were all XY and demonstrated masculinity.".
Of course they did. Transgendered individuals are one out of 200 or one out of 1000 people. Anytime you take a sample of 27 individuals its highly likely that all of them will have a gender identity that matches their chromosones - that's simple probablility at play. You need to sample thousands of individuals if you want to find those whose chromosones don't match their gender identity. The study you refer to isn't even remotely up to the task of identifying the existence of transgendered individuals notwithstanding a major fluke.
Oyster time said "You know, I agree that there is no way to disprove what you say but since it's also unprovable, it's not something a government should be ruling on.".
As previously shown it is proven that transgendered indivuduals exist and it is perfectly apropriate for government to take an interest in seeing that that minority population does as well as any other.
I said ""What the study shows is that gender identity is fixed and unchangeable, you can't ask a male to female transexual to just pretend to be a male anymore than you can ask the typical XY baby to pretend to be a girl."
Oystertime/jimi said "Yes, it proves this if you assume gender identity is determined by your chromosomes. If you think gender identity is psychologically determined, in rare cases, the test isn't applicable and doesn't prove that.".
Obviously gender identity is controled by factors beyond strictly chromosones or we wouldn't have individuals whose gender identity doesn't match their chromosones. This does not mean that gender identity is psychologically determined, it may be determined by other factors such as pre-natal hormones or some biological factors we don't yet understand.
I said "What the study most certainly did not show is that gender identity ALWAYS matches chromosomes - that we know is false."
Oystertime/jimi said "You don't know that is false and the study proved it as much as it can be proved.".
Once again, the existence of thousands of transgendered individuals proves that gender identity does not always match chromosones. A study of 27 individuals when transpeople represent .5% to .1% of the population in all probablility is not going to find any trans people. This study isn't remotely up to the task of proving that gender identity always matches chromosones - that would take a study of thousands of individuals - if you don't know that you need to go back to high school and learn some basic probability and statistics.
" For example, my first name isn't used. I ask people to use another of my names. It is polite to use the name I ask you too (and why my cousin annoys me when he doesn't)."
Some of us have a different opinion about whether "people should just be called what they want to be called". We call it mistaken identity. I have decided I want to be called Napoleon, or Ike Leggett, or whatever...
Please. Get real.
Anonymous, different story when you're trying to impersonate someone you're not. Not the same as wanting to be called by a name you prefer that doesn't intentionally confuse you with someone else. Polite people will refer to a transperson in the way they are inside. An impolite person will rub it in their face that they were born with the wrong body for their mind.
Andrea- not anon
SO is CRC gone? Have we melted them? I think it is so special that CRG wants to collect 45,000 signatures to put a vote for bigotry and discrimination on our ballots. This is like "V" the show where seemingly kind humanoid aliens came to earth but in reality they were lizards who wanted to use us for food. Most of us could always see the ugliness and evil under the CRc "masks" -but I don't think there is even one good decent CRCer(unlike V where Robert Englund played a good Lizard).
Pretty obvious that N. anon has no idea what it wants to be called- we've seen it here for months.
Annonymous said:
"Some of us have a different opinion about whether "people should just be called what they want to be called". We call it mistaken identity. I have decided I want to be called Napoleon, or Ike Leggett, or whatever...
Please. Get real."
Please, you get real. Your mother may have named you Sampson. Is it so much to ask to be called "Sam" by anyone (except possibly mom!). I never said I was asking someone to call me a name that wasn't mine. LEGALLY. Just as a Mary Elizabeth may go by "Beth" or someone named "Bin-Laden" prior to 9/11 might wish to legally change their name to "Ben" or whatever to avoid being put in lists with the more infamous personage, there is no nefarious or disengenous intent. The legal system lets people change their names all the time. Who are you to buck that too? My mother very happily refers to me by my preferred name... even though my first name is one she chose and sincerely likes to this day. But then, my mother is a polite lady (most of the time!).
I'm curious what your opine on Casious Clay or Muhamad Ali (sorry all on the spellings) might be.
All legal and used only for appropriate purposes. Heck, for clearances, no one has problems with mine and mine isn't even a "name change" issue, just one of too many for most computer systems. It's considered a "legal allias" and no one has problems with it (except you, apparently!).
i was one of the people who sent an email that dr. jacobs apparently interpreted as threatening.
i explain: as others have noted, dr. jacobs made what i suspected might be a slip of the tongue during a public meeting. because i strive to maintain cordial relations with my fellow members of the cmte, and out of a genuine desire to give dr. j. the benefit of the doubt, i sent her a brief, polite email by way of inquiry. as i recall, it was simple and straightforward--i noted that she had referred to dr. byer as he, and i asked whether this was a slip of the tongue.
there was no threat or incivility of any kind.
dr. jacobs never replied, and i do not recall her ever having spoken to me since, which is an eloquent answer, in a fashion. i find the conclusion that dr. jacobs thinks she is entitled to treat dr. byer, and the rest of us, in this fashion, as indeed she undoubtedly is under the Constitution. she can stand squarely on her 1st Amendment rights and use all manner of deliberately derisive and hurtful language and symbolism--but she cannot thereafter lay claim to victimhood before the county council or in our committee. with regard to her role on the committee, dr. jacobs' numerous acts of incivility and duplicity speak for themselves.
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