US Government rules on Gender Identity

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Re: US Government rules on Gender Identity

Postby MacCruiskeen » Fri Jun 02, 2017 1:20 am

This is a brilliant and quite beautiful essay by a psychotherapist who is leaving her job after ten years. Many links in the original.

Exiles in their own flesh: A psychotherapist speaks

Posted on August 22, 2015

https://4thwavenow.com/2015/08/22/exile ... st-speaks/

This is a guest post submitted by Lane Anderson (a pseudonym), a practicing psychotherapist who has worked extensively with “trans teens” and their families. She shares with us her clinical insights into her clients, adolescent psychology, and the impact of the transgender phenomenon on our society as a whole.

If there are other mental health providers reading this post, please consider guest posting or responding in the comments section below the article. See this earlier post featuring Dr. David Schwartz for another critical perspective from a psychotherapist.

I am extremely grateful to Lane and Dr. Schwartz for speaking up. Time is of the essence, since the American Psychological Association recently released new guidelines which will make it even more difficult for clinicians to step forward.


_______________________________________

I am a licensed psychotherapist. I’m writing this post on my last day at a teen health clinic, where I’ve seen patients and their families for nearly a decade.

In the past year especially, it’s become increasingly clear to me that I cannot uphold the primary value of my profession, to do no harm, without also seriously jeopardizing my standing in the professional community. It’s a terrible and unfortunate conflict of interest. I’ve lost much sleep over the fact that, for a significant portion of my clients and their parents, I am unable to provide what they profess to come to me seeking: sound clinical judgment. Increasingly, providing such judgment puts me at risk of violating the emergent trans narrative which–seemingly overnight and without any explanation or push-back of which I am aware–has usurped the traditional mental health narrative.

When I am suddenly and without warning discouraged from exploring the underlying causes and conditions of certain of my patients’ distress (as I was trained to do), and instead forced to put my professional stamp of approval upon a prefab, one-size-fits-all narrative intended to explain the complexity of my patient’s troubles, I feel confused. It’s as if I am being held hostage. No longer encouraged or permitted to question, consider or discuss the full spectrum of my patient’s mental health concerns, it has occurred to me that I am being used, my meager professional authority commandeered to legitimize a new narrative I may or may not wish to corroborate.

It’s been perilous to simply admit to not fully understanding it all–let alone disagree with the trans narrative. There was no training or teaching. I was just suddenly told that some of my patients thought they were trapped in the wrong body and that was that.

After much soul searching, I felt I had no choice but to remove myself from this crippling work setting. Being told to exercise my clinical judgment with some clients, while ignoring it with others, made me feel like a fraud.

Throughout my career, I have come to my work with these thoughts in mind: that life is complex, that people are complex. But in one way or another, most people tend to balk at that kind of ambiguity. I try to assist people in flexing a little, try to help them find ways to manage life’s gray areas, and the occasional distress that comes from simply being conscious. But at the end of the day, I couldn’t deny it was a little weird for me to go on believing I could effectively teach others to be less rigid, more free people facing their lives head on, when I myself, their humble guide, was being exploited, tongue-tied by a new party line.
There are so many complex forces, from many different realms, coming into play with this trans wave. Most people are completely unaware of these intersecting interests.

Unfortunately the culture war has done a number on the concept of critical thinking. I have considered myself liberal my entire adult life, and I still am. But for a long time I couldn’t find anyone questioning this trans explosion who wasn’t on the far right. It made me feel like only conservatives were allowed to think, to consider this issue, but ultimately their thoughts were rendered meaningless due to their branding by the culture war. It’s essential that left-leaning people model critical thinking for the masses in this regard.

It’s important to link people like us together, who have been silenced, so we can resume contact with our critical thinking skills and reduce our growing sense of self doubt. Divide and conquer is best accomplished through silencing, through calling into question those who speak out. There is so much of this attached to the trans movement. Even just wondering about a profound concept such as transgender is labeled transphobic. What I think has happened is that people are now phobic about their own gut responses to life. We are being systematically separated from our own intuition. This is fatal for a civilization, I think. Not that our intuition always tells the truth with a capital T, but it is a critical piece of who we are. Without it, we remain profoundly directionless, and more susceptible to coercion of all types.

What frightens me most about the trans movement is that the establishment has gotten involved and is leading it. I think that’s really weird. Clearly they are benefiting from it financially. So sad. It disturbs me to see how giddy my former medical director is to be part of this growing craze. We used to treat kids with mental health problems, but now it’s all about validating their emergent and shifting identities. As professionals, if we don’t loudly prioritize their identities as being the most important thing about them (and identities do shift constantly in kids and teens), we risk coming across as unsupportive and even immoral. Identity development has always been a teen task, but in the past it wasn’t necessarily supposed to become a lifestyle, or colonize the entirety of your existence.

Our world is in a profound state of flux. We can’t begin to comprehend what the Internet has done to how we see ourselves. People are looking for ways to belong, ways to understand who they are in place and in time. They are looking to reduce the anxiety that comes when too much change happens all at once. I try and look at trans folks as people who are seeking to answer the new questions that have emerged in this early 21st century. I have been trying to find a way to understand their urges to detach from their bodies, to undo that feeling of exile they experience in their own flesh. We all want to get back to ourselves; it is our duty to reconnect with those weighty parts that inevitably sink to the depths of us, the parts too heavy to remain on the surface of our lives.

From what I can see, the age-old human task to reclaim that which has gone missing appears to be manifesting with great prominence in the trans community. The problem is this: we all look for shortcuts to finding the lost treasure. It’s human nature to resist the long and serpentine journey to our own sense of personal truth. In our fear, in our self doubt, we calculate the risk and often decide it is preferable to be shown what another person–a “helping professional” or an activist–bills as a sure thing, a direct path to what we sense we lack. We all, on some level, hold a childlike fantasy that someone else has figured it out and can provide us a direct map to ourselves. And that’s what the trans narrative does. It promises to guide the follower to their essential, authentic self. But this, unfortunately, doesn’t happen, because the essential self, whatever that is, is not created from another’s road map, but can only be comprised of the trails we forge ourselves.

What saddens me the most is the way children are being trained to think their parents do not love them if mom and dad don’t jump aboard the trans train. To me, this is a brutal aspect of a near-dictatorship being foisted on everyone. The kids are too young to see that there are no other people who will have their backs, throughout life with lasting devotion, in the unique way their families will. They think these new friends they’ve made online understand them perfectly. And in believing this unquestioningly, they find themselves lulled by the frictionless experience delivered most powerfully by group think.

Of course, I’m describing the pull of all cults; that deep human desire to be known through and through and through.The cult experience seeks to end the frustration that naturally comes when we mature and begin to see ourselves as separate beings. In our separateness, we must do the hard work of truly learning to know another. Group think reduces the fear that comes when we are unsure if we will be located by another, when we remain unable to locate ourselves.

Cults and closed narratives neutralize and tame what we see as the unknown. I think somebody needs to put a refresher out there on the cult mindset and group think. People seem to have forgotten that we are all very easily influenced by each other. Carl Elliot wrote about this in relation to body dysmorphic disorder (people wanting to amputate their own limbs because they disidentify with them) in the Atlantic, “A new way to be mad.”

One common trait I’ve noticed in nearly all the trans kids I’ve met has been their profound sense of being different, and too alone. They often have had little success with making friends, or what I would call contact with “the other.” Because of their psychic isolation, they are prime targets for group think narratives. But in addition to looking for a way to belong, they are also craving protection and the stamp of legitimacy, perhaps because they feel a profound lack of it.

Now that the government and medical communities are involved in the creation of who trans folks are, this class of individuals have finally found their safe havens. Now, rather than being merely invisible and awkward, they have been transformed into veritable leaders of a revolution. Now, rather than cower in the shadows, they have commandeered the narratives of others into a similar dark and brooding place where they once were. The tables, as they lived and viewed them, have now turned.

It’s got to be dizzying for these formerly “ugly ducklings” to find themselves at the center of a flock of swans. To become a part of the movement, to finally be seen and found as whole, alive, and most importantly, wanted, all they have to do is renounce the very bodies in which they feel they have been imprisoned. In doing so, the promised payoff is very big, for they have finally found a way to render mute all those who once discounted and disbelieved them. Through silencing others who threaten them, they have unearthed a means of silencing their own self hate. Rather than being afraid of themselves, they make others fear what they have become.

Psychologically these interpersonal tactics would once upon a time have been categorized as immature, “primitive” defenses erected by an undifferentiated self that cannot see the self or others as whole creatures. But as I witness it in my own practice, this is the basic thinking underlying the psychology of the trans narrative. In her recent blog post, “My Disservice to My Transgender Patients,” Dr. Kathy Mandigo talks about feeling threatened by some of her MTF patients. Many of the trans kids I’ve worked with will joke about how they and their friends are dictators, “masters of the universe!” I find that clinically significant. This is something toddlers do when they are first discovering they are separate from their rulers (parents). Rather than fear the parent, they seek to control the parent, exert their will on the parent and co-opt the parent’s power as their own. In doing this they hide from view their terror at facing their own powerlessness. Ideally, the child will gradually outgrow this urge to control, will gradually relinquish the dictatorial need to create safety through controlling the external realm. When that happens, we say it is a sign of maturity. As our own sense of agency grows, we are better able to forfeit the habit of controlling others. We also begin to feel guilt at the idea of controlling others, as we begin to see them as separate from us, 3D human beings instead of mere props on our psychic stage.

Unfortunately some people have a hard time making this shift. They get stuck or addicted to manipulating their external environment, and will continue to create inner safety through the constant and relentless work of controlling others.

Last week in a team meeting, our medical director said he was meeting with a girl who identifies as FTM to discuss top surgery and testosterone treatment. Apparently, according to the director, the girl’s mom is slowing down the process of transition. Bad mom, right? The director added that the girl’s mom told her that 9 out of 9 of her daughter’s friends also identify as FTM.

At this point I couldn’t hold my tongue any longer. I said, “Can we not be honest and see that we are dealing with a trend?” Of course, everyone else at the table was mute. Considering I’m leaving my post, I felt bold enough to say that I found it infuriating we couldn’t discuss this topic clinically. More silent colleagues (except their eyes were wide as if they wanted me to keep talking and taking the risk for them). I said that what we were doing as a medical community was potentially very harmful, and made mention of some of the videos I’d watched featuring transmen who decided to go off testosterone. The medical director prides himself in providing special services for those patients he deems unjustly marginalized by society. But he can’t see how the medical community has become complicit in the oppression he earnestly seeks to remedy.

A large part of the problem comes with the revolution in health care. More and more, we are giving people the power to define their own treatments. This is good in many ways, but the trans movement is using this moment, and is actively recruiting young, psychologically undefined and frightened people to push their agenda through the medical community. It’s clearly not that difficult to do. These kids are just pawns. That’s how it looks to me anyway. The trans community needs more converts so that the narrative becomes more cohesive. I’m guessing the push for this comes from a need to further cohere so they will have more members to fully cement a fragile, constructed reality.

We–people who don’t identify as trans–are the external realm that must be controlled to bring the trans community the inner peace they now lack. But they don’t get that they will never find calm or strength this way. You cannot find yourself through coercing others. You cannot extinguish your fears by turning from them. The trans community must face their own fears, face themselves and their own demons. They can’t wipe out their fear that they are not really transitioning by censoring the thoughts and expressions of others. If they believe they are trans, they shouldn’t need to spend so much effort foisting that belief on others.

The fact that they do dictate to others is to me diagnostic of their very condition. They are uncertain about who and what they are. No sin in that. That’s human. The transgression comes in refusing to accept this uncertainty, and in sacrificing the lives and consciences of others to nullify your own self doubt.

https://4thwavenow.com/2015/08/22/exile ... st-speaks/


The comments are also well worth reading, including her own very interesting and civilized exchange with someone who is "transitioning". Here's one of her longer replies, almost a small essay in itself:

1234lane on August 22, 2015 at 7:48 pm said:

It is not for me to know what a “wise course” looks like for any one person. My practice evolves around the approach that a person engages with their deeper self and comes to rely most heavily upon the authority gathered there This is not a speedy process, it takes time. It is a privilege to go through this process. Many many people are never given a chance to explore who they are outside of how they can benefit powerful others, which leads to emptiness and chronic searching. It leads to obsessions and compulsions to manage the emptiness.

This development of the self would be a process whereby a client is assisted in the difficult task of creating a kind of consolidated sense of who they are. Personally, I think these core parts of us should function, or ideally function best when they are functionally somewhat autonomous, yet healthfully interdependent with others. I guess what I’m saying is, if a person doesn’t really yet know who they are independently, if they have a sort of “empty center looking to be filled from without”, I would work with them until they were able to find some weight within their own psychic core before they engaged in any sort of drastic changes. Signs that this consolidation is happening would be the individual not requiring others to excessively validate who they are. Ideally the individual should not be excessively too dependent upon the thoughts and opinions of others to maintain their sense of self.

As I have worked exclusively with teens, I cannot speak to the adult experience of gender transition. Teens by their nature are seeking identity. They don’t tend to have strong core selves just yet, and those with mental health issues are often extremely deficient in having fulfilled this developmental task. Neuroscience now shows us that chronic Instability of affect and mood inhibits the development of the self, or the capacity to observe the self. Unstable folks are neurologically incapable of observing others outside of how these others can fulfill their immediate needs (think narcissism, which is basically a sign a person is too dependent upon external others to construct the self. In being overly dependent in this way, the empty person uses others to create an image of themselves, they use others to literally ” feel” who they are. Obviously, this is all unconscious. Most people with a lack of a cohesive self are not aware they are using others in this way, but they will feel the effects of this habit and often not understand why they continue to have poor interpersonal and disrupted relationships with others).

So, for me, to get back to your question, I would work to look at whether or not a person has accomplished basic psychological developmental tasks before I would encourage their transitioning. However, this is all a bit of a [moot] point, for my exploring such with people who come to me saying they seek to transition will now classify me as transphobic and out of compliance if I explain what I’ve here explained to you. The fact is, not one of the kids I met with who wanted to transition was manifesting psychological health. They were very hurt individuals and had attributed their very real pain to the theory that their bodies and gender brains were misaligned. The vast majority of them had severe deficits interpersonally, experienced profound social anxiety, suicidality, to name just a few of the issues I saw emerging. These were souls fearing psychic extinction, living with the terror of being too different, too alone. They nearly all found their new identities, along with a whole new slew of friends, in others who experienced similar or equal psychic terror. How could I take seriously their sudden belief that they were trapped in the wrong body? How could I not see that they had stumbled upon a very viable and critical path to locating themselves amongst similar others.

Of course, I could not say this to any of them as they would claim, as they had been schooled online, that I too didn’t understand and was transphobic. I am not transphobic. I really don’t care if a person finds life more meaningful, livable as transgender. All I’m saying is, the reasons, I witnessed that appeared to lead the kids who saw me to choose this path did conflict with how I conceptualized a hearty sort of mental health.

I also think the kids were using an oppositional narrative to serve to consolidate their emerging identities. You know, people do this all the time, its Us vs. Them. Cold wars come in all shapes and sizes, and I saw the kids using this narrative to find a premature and unearned sense of closeness with others who claimed a similar path. But you see this sort of thing playing out everywhere in our culture now. Everyone is against everyone, everyone is so sure they know the truth, we are a divided society because we have been lured by the easy and disposable intimacy that comes with joining a group.

I’ve always been a loner, not because I don’t love people, I do absolutely love people, sort of too much, and because of this love I have been unable to find my exclusive allegiance in banding with one group over another. It has come at a very high cost. My own self doubt comes when I think that perhaps most people are not designed for what I have experienced, perhaps most people are happier and more at peace in narratives that while closed, and limiting in some way, allow them to find others in place and time.

With this thought in mind, I find I need a kind of faith, not in a god or anything like that, but in the human spirit to find the other without words. I just read an incredible letter written by the poet Rilke. It blew my mind and made me think of myself and my own solitude and how even if I don’t buy into a prevailing narrative enough to feel the delicious puddingness (I just made that up, it means swimming in and amongst others in a viscous and sweet substance that keeps you all afloat together), I have my faith that there exists a greater reverberation between souls of all kinds, and I cannot sacrifice the immediate life in the pudding for that greater knowing.

http://carrothers.com/rilke1.htm

I hope this long response sort of answers your question a little. If not here’s a link to the Rilke letter.

Best,
Lane
"Ich kann gar nicht so viel fressen, wie ich kotzen möchte." - Max Liebermann,, Berlin, 1933

"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts." - Richard Feynman, NYC, 1966

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Re: US Government rules on Gender Identity

Postby Sounder » Fri Jun 02, 2017 6:49 am

Why would the govt. even care to make rules in regard to gender identity? Why, to govern mentality of course. This stuff reminds me of the gaslighting thread started by Heaven Swan.

After much soul searching, I felt I had no choice but to remove myself from this crippling work setting. Being told to exercise my clinical judgment with some clients, while ignoring it with others, made me feel like a fraud.

Throughout my career, I have come to my work with these thoughts in mind: that life is complex, that people are complex. But in one way or another, most people tend to balk at that kind of ambiguity. I try to assist people in flexing a little, try to help them find ways to manage life’s gray areas, and the occasional distress that comes from simply being conscious. But at the end of the day, I couldn’t deny it was a little weird for me to go on believing I could effectively teach others to be less rigid, more free people facing their lives head on, when I myself, their humble guide, was being exploited, tongue-tied by a new party line.

There are so many complex forces, from many different realms, coming into play with this trans wave. Most people are completely unaware of these intersecting interests.

Unfortunately the culture war has done a number on the concept of critical thinking. I have considered myself liberal my entire adult life, and I still am. But for a long time I couldn’t find anyone questioning this trans explosion who wasn’t on the far right. It made me feel like only conservatives were allowed to think, to consider this issue, but ultimately their thoughts were rendered meaningless due to their branding by the culture war. It’s essential that left-leaning people model critical thinking for the masses in this regard.

It’s important to link people like us together, who have been silenced, so we can resume contact with our critical thinking skills and reduce our growing sense of self doubt. Divide and conquer is best accomplished through silencing, through calling into question those who speak out. There is so much of this attached to the trans movement. Even just wondering about a profound concept such as transgender is labeled transphobic. What I think has happened is that people are now phobic about their own gut responses to life. We are being systematically separated from our own intuition. This is fatal for a civilization, I think. Not that our intuition always tells the truth with a capital T, but it is a critical piece of who we are. Without it, we remain profoundly directionless, and more susceptible to coercion of all types.

What frightens me most about the trans movement is that the establishment has gotten involved and is leading it. I think that’s really weird.
All these things will continue as long as coercion remains a central element of our mentality.
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Re: US Government rules on Gender Identity

Postby Heaven Swan » Fri Jun 30, 2017 7:42 am

"Donna" Perry found guilty of murdering three women. He bragged to his cellmate that he had murdered dozens, targeting prostitutes with children, supposedly because they had had children when he couldn't, and then were wasting their lives by behaving like "pond scum."

He began his career as a serial killer as a male but (told his cellmate) his life was spinning out of control and he knew he'd be caught, that's when he changed gender and got a reset by (quote) "neutering himself, since few would suspect an older woman of being a killer".

BTW his cellmate was a woman who was forced to share a cell with him.

Thanks a lot to Obama and leftists. Your knee-jerk support of transgender and your refusal to look deeper into the issue, and seek out the news of attacks on women that weren't being covered in mainstream or left-leaning media helped make it the law that men like him are being housed in women's prisons and homeless shelters.



GUILTY !!!!!!!!!
June 29, 2017

https://gendertrender.wordpress.com/

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From Jonathan Glover of the Spokesman-Review:

“More than 27 years after their bodies were first discovered, a Spokane jury found Donna Perry, 65, guilty on three counts of murdering Yolanda A. Sapp, Nickie I. Lowe and Kathleen A. Brisbois.

Perry, who has sat quietly throughout the two-and-a-half-week-long trial with headphones in, scribbling on a piece of legal notepad, stared forward silently as Superior Court Judge Michael Price read the verdict aloud. She spoke briefly with her attorneys before being handcuffed and taken from the courtroom.

Family of the three slain women released tears of joy and hugged one another as they walked into the court house hallway.

Prosecuting attorney Sharon Hedlund praised the hard work of her staff and police officers involved in the decades-long investigation.

“We know it was a tough case, and we are obviously pleased with the verdict,” she said. “We hope this gives the (victim’s) families some closure.”

“Sentencing is set for 9:30 a.m. on July 24. Since Perry was also found guilty of the aggravating circumstance that the three murders were part of a common scheme or plan, she faces up to life in prison on each charge.”

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2017/j ... der-trial/
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Re: US Government rules on Gender Identity

Postby brekin » Fri Jun 30, 2017 12:59 pm

MacCruiskeen wrote:This is a brilliant and quite beautiful essay by a psychotherapist who is leaving her job after ten years. Many links in the original.
Exiles in their own flesh: A psychotherapist speaks
Posted on August 22, 2015
https://4thwavenow.com/2015/08/22/exile ... st-speaks/
[i]This is a guest post submitted by Lane Anderson (a pseudonym), a practicing psychotherapist who has worked extensively with “trans teens” and their families. She shares with us her clinical insights into her clients, adolescent psychology, and the impact of the transgender phenomenon on our society as a whole.
....


Yes, whole thing worth the read. Many salient points, but this is especially wraps it all in a bow:

Now that the government and medical communities are involved in the creation of who trans folks are, this class of individuals have finally found their safe havens. Now, rather than being merely invisible and awkward, they have been transformed into veritable leaders of a revolution. Now, rather than cower in the shadows, they have commandeered the narratives of others into a similar dark and brooding place where they once were. The tables, as they lived and viewed them, have now turned.


You can see much of what is happening, (and I believe perhaps transgenderism may be a logical, rational choice for some but nowhere near the amount seeing today in the young) as the personal inner psychological issues of the unself-regulating frustrated few being forced on the rest of society to solve. Which isn't possible. So they aggressively seek to make society conform to their psychological issues. It seems those uncomfortable/confused/frustrated with their sexuality, gender and race (of whatever stripe) are seeking not acceptance- but dominance over others to compensate for their frustrations. When others don't care or aren't submissive they take it as a affront to their world view and seek to demonize them and hold them responsible for their inner turmoil and unhappiness. It would make sense then for these walking wounded, the more atypical and nonconforming, hence the most frustrated and irrationally demanding, would be look to as their leaders. As Eric Hoffer has said:

The frustrated follow a leader less because of their faith that he is leading them to a promised land than because of their immediate feeling that he is leading them away from their unwanted selves. Surrender to a leader is not a means to an end but a fulfillment. Whither they are led is of secondary importance.


Those supposedly the most marginalized are believed to have the most credibility and acumen to what is fair and just. The Evergreen College protests are good case in point. One of the seeds of the disturbance grew from a supposed "disabled black trans student(s) being harassed by the police on campus" one of who has become one of the most prominent and visible leaders, whose issues and dissatisfaction created demands which even the most radical college would be unable to deliver. The following three videos give some background on the phenomenon, the last a good summary of the overall timeline. Each of course carries its own ideological perspective as well.



If I knew all mysteries and all knowledge, and have not charity, I am nothing. St. Paul
I hang onto my prejudices, they are the testicles of my mind. Eric Hoffer
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Re: US Government rules on Gender Identity

Postby Heaven Swan » Sun Jul 02, 2017 8:13 am

Very interesting. Thanks for posting about the Evergreen College situation Brekin.
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Re: US Government rules on Gender Identity

Postby Heaven Swan » Sun Jul 02, 2017 8:21 am




Chris Hedges at his finest!

powerful CH quote from the video--
"discrimination is not the same thing as oppression"
"When IT reigns, I’m poor.” Mario
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Re: US Government rules on Gender Identity

Postby brekin » Thu Jul 06, 2017 2:41 pm

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Nat Geo Just Developed A Groundbreaking Educational Resource About Gender
Everyone needs to see this.
By James Michael Nichols
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/nat ... 284f2710c4

National Geographic is debuting a powerful and evocative new film tonight that offers a comprehensive exploration of gender that its producers hope will act as a resource for furthering public compassion and understanding.
The “Gender Revolution” is a two-hour documentary released in conjunction with the magazine’s January issue of the same name that made history by featuring a 9-year-old transgender girl on its cover. Produced by Katie Couric, National Geographic and World of Wonder, the film is a nuanced, complex and tender look at the way gender shapes our lives and experiences and the ongoing cultural conversation surrounding the spectrum of gender identity.

“It’s hard to avoid hearing about some aspect of gender these days,” Couric said in a press release sent to The Huffington Post. “Every time you check your phone, turn on the TV or scan Twitter, there’s another story that’s challenging our preconceived notions of what gender is, how it’s determined and the impact these new definitions are having on society,” Couric added. “I set out on a journey to try to educate myself about a topic that young people are living with so effortlessly — and get to know the real people behind the headlines. Because the first step to inclusiveness and tolerance is understanding.”
Throughout the course of the film, Couric meets a number of different activists, entertainers and everyday people whose lives are shaped by our culture’s understanding of gender in a multitude of ways.

“Gender Revolution” opens with a discussion about intersex identity ― a set of experiences that inherently destabilize the gender binary ― and moves into a discussion dialogue about the lives of gender-variant children.
One of these children is a transgender girl named Ellie, whose parents, JR and Vanessa Ford, also appear in the film.
“Through our story and other people who participated in this documentary, I hope viewers come away with stories that they may be able to relate to because we believe if you are able to connect yourself to someone going through a situation, viewers may find a new sense of compassion, understanding, inquiry into learning more about gender,” the pair told The Huffington Post. “We hope this sparks people’s interest into thinking outside of their world and taking a glimpse into something that may challenge how they have perceived the LGBTQ community. “
National Geographic

For Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, Executive Producers and founders of World of Wonder production company, the film builds on a rich history of projects they’ve overseen that focus on gender exploration.
“It’s been ten years since we produced ‘Transgeneration’ with Jeremy
Simmons, and since then we are proud to have created a world of
documentaries and series exploring gender,” the pair told The Huffington Post. “Over the years we have seen the mainstream open its mind and heart to gender. Katie Couric’s curiosity and National Geographic’s commitment is an important step in continuing down that path, and more important now than ever.”

They also emphasized that the film highlights the commonalities all humans share despite their differences. “We also believe that there is no such thing as normal,” they said. “Each and every one of us is unique and vulnerable, and deserving of recognition and respect. The people featured in ‘Gender Revolution’ are fighting for that for all of us. We are so thrilled to
have had this opportunity because we believe it is a world of wonder
thanks to the infinite variety and diversity of everyone in it.”
If I knew all mysteries and all knowledge, and have not charity, I am nothing. St. Paul
I hang onto my prejudices, they are the testicles of my mind. Eric Hoffer
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Re: US Government rules on Gender Identity

Postby MacCruiskeen » Sun Jul 09, 2017 9:06 pm

"non-prostate owner", "vagina owner"...

(Note that the clitoris now appears to be unmentionable, presumably because acknowledging its existence might imaginably offend "oppress" some people.)

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Thread: https://twitter.com/glosswitch/status/8 ... 2115225600

Teen Vogue's bizarre anal sex article shows women are still being defined in relation to men

The supposedly progressive piece, intended for teenage girls, refers to women as 'non-prostate owners', ignores the organ for female pleasure and fails to mention any potential dangers

J.J. Barnes | @judieannrose | 15 hours ago|

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/tee ... 31671.html
"Ich kann gar nicht so viel fressen, wie ich kotzen möchte." - Max Liebermann,, Berlin, 1933

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Re: US Government rules on Gender Identity

Postby km artlu » Mon Jul 10, 2017 6:59 pm

>> Mac

Thank you for that. Two of the many gems within:

...the culture war has done a number on the concept of critical thinking.

We are being systematically separated from our own intuition.
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Re: US Government rules on Gender Identity

Postby Heaven Swan » Mon Jul 10, 2017 7:32 pm

Good point Kim Artu

More insanity--a non-man concert in Sweden has been announced.
This is one woman's response.


I am not a “Non-Man:” A Declaration


Date: July 10, 2017Author: giuliaalexis
https://anthrofeminist.blog/2017/07/10/ ... claration/

Image



Sweden is holding a concert for women only in response to a spate of sexual assaults at other concert venues. Or, as Emma Knyckare stated, an all “non-men” concert.

I am not a “non-man.”

I am not part of an abstract group called “non-men.”

I am a woman. A female.

The concert should be female-ony because rape is mostly a crime committed by MEN against WOMEN. This includes transwomen who sexually assaulted women when still men, transwomen who sexually assault women after transitioning, and transwomen who threaten violence, including sexual violence, against women who disagree with trans ideology. Not because they are trans, but because THEY ARE MEN, and you cannot escape socialization by “identifying” as a woman.

Male violence against BIOLOGICAL WOMEN is based upon centuries of men believing they have a right to female bodies for sexual and reproductive purposes.

BIOLOGICAL female bodies.

That is the essence of patriarchy, and why men rape women. That is why men were committing rapes at concert festivals in Sweden.

Not rapes against “non-men”, but against women. Female bodies.

We did not create feminism to be called “non-men.”

“Non-men” is dangerously close to the outdated view of the medical establishment that women were simply incomplete men, thus not deserving of their own medical studies and care.

Thus not deserving of their own name, property, or body.

Men do not get to have their own category of identity while women are lumped in with others as “non-men” so as not to hurt someone’s feelings – someone with whom they may only have artificial similarities.

Like the traditional Western medical establishment, “non-men” effectively disappears women.

How are we going to fight VIOLENCE against WOMEN without the category of women?

I AM NOT A NON-MAN. THAT LITERALLY MEANS NOTHING.

I can define women according to biology without diminishing my status to reproductive purposes only.

I have a uterus. A cervix. A clitoris. A vagina. Ovaries and a fallopian tube.

Thus, I AM A WOMAN.

And this should be a WOMEN’S ONLY concert.
"When IT reigns, I’m poor.” Mario
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Re: US Government rules on Gender Identity

Postby Belligerent Savant » Mon Jul 10, 2017 8:19 pm

.

Why women only?

Why exclude the vast majority of men that would like to participate in solidarity with women in this initiative?

Why continue to propagate division? There is no unity, no power in disparate factions, despite any perceived interim gains.
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Re: US Government rules on Gender Identity

Postby Philos » Tue Jul 11, 2017 1:09 am

Interesting point of view.

Let's take a look at some numbers:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_parent

"In the United States, 83% of single parents are mothers. Among this percentage of single mothers: 45% of single mothers are currently divorced or separated, 1.7% are widowed, 34% of single mothers never have been married."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prevalenc ... rcumcision

"In 2005, about 56 percent of male newborns were circumcised prior to release from the hospital according to statistics from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Data from a national survey conducted from 1999 to 2002 found that the overall prevalence of male circumcision in the United States was 79%."

Almost seems like objectifying bodies isnt just a male thing?
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Re: US Government rules on Gender Identity

Postby Heaven Swan » Tue Jul 11, 2017 9:03 am

Belligerent Savant » Mon Jul 10, 2017 8:19 pm wrote:.

Why women only?

Why exclude the vast majority of men that would like to participate in solidarity with women in this initiative?

Why continue to propagate division? There is no unity, no power in disparate factions, despite any perceived interim gains.



Here's why--

Sweden is planning to host its first ‘man-free’ music festival next year.

The idea comes after dozens of claims of rape and sexual assault were reported this summer at Bråvalla, one of the country’s biggest rock festivals.

Read the whole article here:
http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/lon ... 84751.html
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Re: US Government rules on Gender Identity

Postby brekin » Wed Jul 12, 2017 3:03 pm

You just can't make this stuff up.

Yet Another School Decides ‘The Vagina Monologues’ Is Offensive to Women Without Vaginas
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/4 ... ut-vaginas

How can it be "antiquated" when people still do have vaginas?

American University has become the latest school to do away with its annual performance of “The Vagina Monologues” on the grounds that it’s not inclusive to women without vaginas. According to an e-mail obtained by Campus Reform, the the AU Women’s Initiative decided to do away with its annual performance of the play on the grounds that it represents an “antiquated way of viewing gender.” “The VM represents a binary representation of gender, implying that in order to be a woman you must have a vagina, which is an antiquated way of viewing gender,” Kendall Baron, a member of the AU Women’s Initiative, stated in the email. “People are more than their sexual organs and have varied and personal relationships with their bodies.” Instead of “The Vagina Monologues,” Baron explained, the group is planning to host a performance of the “Breaking Ground Monologues,” an alternative that is just about body parts in general: “We’re asking that all monologues be written about some subject in relation to your body, in whatever way that means to you,” she continues. “Be it how you feel about your body in relation to food, or your gender identity, sexuality, or trauma.” Now, “Breaking Ground Monologues” is presented as a sort of adapted-for-the-times version of VM, but anyone who knows what words mean can see that that really can’t be the case. I mean, “how you feel about your body in relation to food”? I don’t mean to blow anyone’s mind here, but the experience of having a vagina and the experience of eating food are two totally different things. Taking away the vagina-specificness of “The Vagina Monologues” isn’t making the show more progressive; it’s making a different show. Just what the hell is so wrong with wanting to talk about having a vagina? As ridiculous as all of this is, the kids at AU aren’t the first to decide that the “Vagina” part of “The Vagina Monologues” makes it too transphobic to perform. Whitman College has also replaced its performances of the VM with “Breaking Ground Monologues,” and Mount Holyoke College has canceled its performances entirely — both in the name of not offending the women without vaginas. And the more popular this idiotic line of thinking becomes, the more I feel like I just have to ask: Just what the hell is so wrong with wanting to talk about having a vagina?

As the author of “The Vagina Monologues” Eve Ensler, told Time last year: “‘The Vagina Monologues’ never intended to be a play about what it means to be a woman. It is and always has been a play about what it means to have a vagina. In the play, I never defined a woman as a person with a vagina.” It’s true: No matter how you identify, having a vagina is, in fact, different from not having a vagina. Crazy, I know. Having a vagina is, in itself, a particular experience, and if you’re going to say that a show about a particular experience is offensive because it excludes other experiences, then please realize that you’re arguing for the cancelation of literally every creative work ever. Not a single work of art in existence could be described as relating to every individual, and to demand that one should is nothing short of insane. More P.C. Culture The Atlantic Publishes All You Need to Know about the Left Evergreen State Asks Profs to Take Protesters’ Feelings into Account When Grading Them John McEnroe Is Right About Serena Williams No doubt, being a person who identifies as a woman but does not have a vagina must be a difficult experience, and the people who are going through that deserve acceptance and respect. But by definition, “The Vagina Monologues” is about vaginas. Vaginas are very clearly the subject of the show, so if you don’t have a vagina, then why the hell would you be complaining that you’re not included? Complaining because a show centered around a specific experience doesn’t also include your experience makes about as much sense as walking into a gynecologist’s office and demanding a prostate exam. Would the world benefit from having more diverse works of art out there? Of course. But regardless, saying that a play about vaginas is “antiquated” and no longer has a place in our society because it’s about vaginas is just completely, factually wrong. After all, believe it or not, there are plenty of people out there who still have them. — Katherine Timpf is a reporter for National Review Online.


Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/4 ... ut-vaginas
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Re: US Government rules on Gender Identity

Postby Philos » Wed Jul 12, 2017 8:13 pm

“People are more than their sexual organs and have varied and personal relationships with their bodies.”

If that is the case then there shouldn't be any issue with the Vagina Monologues, right?

If the complaint is that non vagina wielding women feel excluded, well, technically everyone who doesnt have a vagina is excluded. Still doesnt stop the majority of people seeing the show. And if the differential for being a woman is no longer having a vagina, then there should be zero issues with this show.
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