Gay\transgender -- not by genetics, not by upbringing, not by choice

I'm having trouble understanding something. Where does it say it has to be any of the particular factors you mentioned? Why can't it be a combination of those factors?Human sexuality, like all other human traits, are influenced by a combination of genetic factors, environmental factors, hormonal factors, and zeus knows what else.Now, if we were to talk about what rights should these people have because of their sexuality, I say choice or not has absolutely nothing to do with this issue. It shouldn't even be part of the debate, that whether a person can choose to be gay or not. So what if tomorrow I choose to be gay and the next day I choose to be straight?

Aren't you a lesbian woman?

Yes. I'm one of those that suffers from CLWOBEOTW syndrome.But seriously, on the issue of gender reassignment surgeries, I've always had mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, who am I to tell people what people can/can't do with their body? But on the other, it seems counter-productive and counter-intuitive to have a lasseiz fair attitude about this.Can people be "treated?" Remember that homosexuality was labeled by psychologists as a mental disorder not too long ago. In fact, Britain, through its infinite civilized wisdom, castrated one of their greatest war heroes because he was gay and drove him to suicide. Yeah, I'm talking about the father of modern computers and the breaker of enigma. So, who are we to say that people who feel the need to go through surgery for gender reassignment are diseased?My mind is actually hurting from thinking about this issue. I'm out.

Ok, I'll let the cat out of the bag.Out of the 6 transgendered people I know personally, only 1 is of sound minded enough for me to trust him/her with my life. Everyone else is mentally unstable/questionable.The one transgendered person who is sound minded enough, let's call her M. M is a very smart individual. I knew M when she was a he. Very intelligent, athletic, etc. Also a very handsome guy. For a while, the ladies were flocking to him. Then when people (including myself, thought he was gay after he kept turning away the ladies. So, the gay boys started hitting on him. Well, it eventually became clear that he had his eyes on me. Go figure...Anyway, he started wearing womens clothing. Then he started letting his hair grow out. He did expressed to me several times that he... I mean she never wanted to have surgery. It kills your sex drive.All this time as I was watching M change right before my eyes in slow motion, I can vouch that he/she has always been sound minded. Not a hint of mental instability.The reason I spent several paragraphs on M is because M was the person who convinced me that transgenderism doesn't always come with cuckoo in the head. Before M, I knew half a dozen other transgendered people, and they were all not quite right up there.So, again, I honestly don't know what to think about this issue. And my head is hurting from thinking about it too much.

Oh, you misunderstand me. I didn't say her sound mindedness was from not wanting to have surgery. Even if she decides on having surgery tomorrow, I would still trust her enough with my life.M really is an amazing individual. Empathetic, reasonable, logical, intelligent, humorous, pleasant, thick-skinned, etc. Of course she spent 6 years in Afghanistan as a male soldier.The point is I have not observed at all any hint that M could be anything other than completely stable and completely trust-worthy individual.But again, M is in the minority of the transgender people I know well and not so well. some appear drunk all the time. Some get ridiculously emotional for no apparent reason. Some are too sensitive at how others see them. Some have very questionable beliefs. Some just go over the top with the feminine thing.M and I talk all the time. We share a lot of the same interests. We've both been through hell, so we understand each other pretty well without having to explain things too much. What I like most about M is that she doesn't feel the need to overcompensate with the feminine thing. She dresses like any regular woman out there. Regular tasteful makeup. She's feminine, but not too much. Think natural.Here's the part that convinces me she's completely sound minded. She's not shy being naked around me. Most transgendered people I know are very shy about that. M's got a male body, and she knows it. It doesn't prevent her from living as a woman. It doesn't really make her sad or anything having male anatomy.The point is it is possible to be transgendered and be completely comfortable with whatever body you are born with. And it's also possible to be transgendered and sane.But like I said, most transgendered people I know I would never trust with my life. They always seem off up there.Edit.Here's another observation.I don't know too many women who don't take care of themselves. By that, I mean daily bath/shower, clean shaven, clean clothing, well maintained hair, etc. Men, not so much.I'm a particularly picky guy. Shower and clean shave every morning. Clean clothes. Body odor suppressor, etc.Out of all the transgender people I know well and just know, M is the only one that acts like a normal woman. Shower/bath everyday. Clean shaven all the time. Takes care of hair, clothes, etc.I don't mean to sound judgeamental, but all the other transgendered people don't take care of themselves. Half of them walk around with half a beard. Their hair's a mess. A few I can smell from a few feet away. All they've done is have breast implant and then they think they're women. They don't shower and shave everyday. Their clothes are old and dirty. They appear drunk all the time (not that they're really drunk, just act like they're drunk).If you're going to start living as a woman, at least take care of yourself. I'm 100% married man and even I take care of myself way better than those "women".Edited by Taz, : No reason given.

What about keeping themselves clean and take care of their outlook? Again, I don't mean to sound judgamental, but most transgendered people I know don't shower and shave everyday. Their hair's a mess. It seems to me like they just have breast implant, put some face paint on, and started acting fruity.M has no desire to go through surgery. And she's more naturally womanly than all these other transgendered people combined. Heck, I would argue that she's more naturally feminine than my wife.Edited by Taz, : No reason given.

Well, me too. But we have to approach this in a more objective sense than the anything goes policy that you are suggesting.I know, I know, the liberal commie approach to life is total tolerance of anything, everything. I just simply disagree with this attitude.I am friend with many gay and transgendered people. I accept them for who they are with reservations. What do I mean by that? Allow me to give you an example that's a little over the top to make my point more obvious.I recently became acquainted with a guy through a mutual friend. After our first meet, I picked up right away that this guy is a pathological liar. Later on, I talked to the mutal friend (a psychologist) and he said yeah he knew I was going to pick up on that. We're both very good with picking up people's inner traits.We are in the process of gently pushing this guy in the right directly by encouraging him to find a self-identity of his own and not just make up shit.The point is do I have to accept this guy for who he is, which is a pathological liar that's been left untreated all this time? He's a full grown adult for christsake and nobody has pushed him in the right direction yet? Anyway, I say no, I don't have to accept fully what he is now. Will I demonize him? Nope. But obviously there's something off about this situation.I fully recognize that transgenderism is a real phenomenon. And I've spent a great length of time talking about M, whom I fully accept as a woman born in a man's body. But that doesn't mean that I have to accept every case of self-proclaimed transgenderism. When I see something off, I point it out.We shouldn't have to live in fear of offending people. Let's live in the real world for once, shall we? Sometimes, helping people requires that we make ourselves appear like the bad guy. Mothering them does nothing to help except make them feel better right now at this moment.That said, I'm telling you, some transgender people have deeper issues than gender identity disorder. We need to approach this very carefully, not mother them.

I know. I used to be a cop, remember? There were times when I could have sworn I had caught a DUI. And then they blew a zero in the breathalizer.My point is among "normal" people, the proportion of people-having-mental-issues to the people with less issues is fairly small. But when we are talking about transgendered people, the proportion is a lot higher. From my personal experience, it's way above 1, which is pretty bad.

Just because one extreme is bad doesn't mean the other extreme is good.If you don't feed your kids, they will starve, therefore we should force feed them 24/7. Stuff food down their throats if we have to.If you don't let your kids drink water, they will be thirsty. Therefore, let's throw them in water and give them all the water they need.Obviously, my examples above are ridiculous. And so is what you're implicating. Just because the christians hate lgbt people doesn't mean giving surgery to anyone who says they're transgendered is a good thing.I'm sick and tired of seeing people using one extreme to support another. We live in the real world. And the real world exists somewhere in between the extremes.

Then why bring in that example of beating/breaking bones of kids?I'm fully aware of the long series of prereqs for gender reassignment procedure.What I've been saying is that from my personal experience with people who have undergone surgery is that they're not all there up there. No, I'm not a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist. That's why I've befriended these people and have interacted with them on many many occasions. After knowing them for years, I still think they're not all there up there. Did they fall through the cracks or do they need to look again at the prereqs? Then don't bring in that example of beating and breaking bones.Look, I understand what transgender people go through, or at least I really really try to. They're not just outcasts to the "normal" society, they're outcasts to the mainstream lgbt culture, which is mostly gay men and women anyway. And I used to fully support gender reassignment surgery to "fix" some of their problems (after extensive evaluations by professionals, of course). But after years of interacting and knowing these people on a personal level, I've begun to question whether they were even fully aware of what they wanted.Edit.On a personal level, I know half a dozen transgendered people. Beyond the personal level, I know more than that. M (the person I described several posts ago) seems to be the only fully sane person out of the lot. This is why I question giving gender reassignment procedure to so many is a good idea. Because as far as I know it's permanent.Edited by Taz, : No reason given.

Well, nobody is really saying we stop them from doing what they want.But I really have to focus in on the reded words.My wife and I have been somewhat at odds with this gay couple we'd known for years. Here's what happened. We attended a wedding and last year. And to save money, we offered S (a married lesbian woman) to stay in our hotel room. Of course I was the only one out of the three that could sleep on the floor without dying, I slept on the floor while the wife and S slept on the bed. The following day on our way home the wife told me S (while drunk) tried to make out with her. I didn't really care. Well, S had to tell K (her partner) what happened and K blamed it on my wife. Lots of womanly drama. Stuff that I'll never understand.Anyway, last month they decided to call a truce and all 4 of us were going to meet at this place for lunch. A couple days before, my wife told me that her feelings told her to call off our friendship, get up, and walk right out. I adviced my wife to at least hear them out. At the lunch, the lesbian couple apologized and wanted us to start over. My wife, listening to this voice in her head, said exactly what she told me she was going to say and got up and left.Bored yet? The point is excuse me for not trusting people's feelings too much. I've known people who felt they had to kill themselves. I've known people who felt they needed to do some pretty darn stupid things. Just because a guy feels he's emperor of the world doesn't mean we have to make him emperor of the world. The real question is can you verbalize the reasons why you believe that? Or is it just a feeling that you have?

Isn't this a lot of people's life story? My parents tried to push me to become a doctor. That didn't work out so well.Anyway, I did a quick google search and found the following article.Sex changes are not effective, say researchers | Health | The GuardianI have some free time so I'll be doing some more searches for something more recent.But the point is this. The article reflects what I have experienced personally.The wife and I work closely with the lgbt community. And I used to support gender reassignment surgery after meeting all the prereqs and such.But after having known personally and interacted with some/many transgendered people who have gone through surgery as well as people who have decided not to undergo the surgery, I'd begun to question whether surgery was a valid solution for many of these cases. We can be all politically correct all we want all day long, but in the end I've noticed that they're not any happier after they've transitioned. Many are just not all there up there.No, I'm not trying to demonize anyone. I speak the truth according to how I see it.Edit.My current project is on working with this guy I know who have attempted suicide several times. He recently just came out of another clinic. Obviously, whatever he's been paying big money for ain't working. So, I'm going to see if I can get through to him and change his attitude in life.From time to time, he has this overwhelming feeling to kill himself. Since I respect him as a person, should I just let him kill himself?I guess the point I've been trying to make with way way way too many words is the line between a mental disorder (i.e. overwhelming urge to kill oneself) and just an irregular state of being (i.e. gay, lesbian, etc.) is not so well defined. It is in fact very blurry. We need to take an objective view on these things.Do I believe gender identity disorder is actually a disorder or just a state of being? I believe that it depends on the person. For some, it really could improve their lives greatly. For others, we need to look at other aspects in their lives.Edited by Taz, : No reason given.

And yet studies continue to show that going through surgery didn't make a difference in many of the transgendered people's mental health. I don't. What I have been saying is that from my personal experience gender reassignment surgery didn't do anything to help eliviate the suffering for a lot of transgender people. And studies agree with my observation.At no point did I ever say that what I say is the be all end all of anything. I've even been very careful of what I say to make sure that it is clear I could be wrong on my observations. I've even said I'm not qualified to make the call.If you're going to make a come back, at least be accurate.What I've said is this. I've only found a few transgendered people that I personally would call completely sane. And I've only found one transgendered person (M) who I trust enough to put my life in her hand. That's all from my personal observation. And from my personal observation, I've known people since before they changed and over time I've observed that gender reassignment surgery didn't make them feel better.Studies agree with my personal observation.How many transgendered people do you know? How many do you know since before they changed? Don't tell me you're arguing just to be politically correct.Edited by Taz, : No reason given.

Is this for real?

Well, in this particular example, yes. But if I begin to act like a frenchman tomorrow, would that make me french? If I begin to bark like a dog and crawl on all 4, would that make me a dog?