The limitations of your argument are quite dependent on your knowledge base.
To start with, you or I, as individuals, knowing a few people who agree with us is not evidentiary of support for positions.
Indeed, it's projective and appropriative to speak on behalf of others by saying what they are or are not solely on the basis of those yu know when there are obviously others who claim the same thing in direct oppositon.
Were your thesis to be formed on the basis of such and submitted, it would fail within your first couple paragraphs alone, and npt because of any philosophical disagreement, but on that singular basis of it being an unfounded speculation.
In short, the very thing you are accusing this "TG" complement of doing is the same thing you are doing, in assserting so -- especially without a basis in any sort of widely accepted factual understanding.
The definiton of transsexual, as a medical condition, is what drives the understanding of the general public's conception of transsexuals. A conception that is substantially identical to the general public's understanding of transgender as well -- tht is, in the mind of the public, a transgender peson *is* a transsexual, and vice versa -- which was the point of using those definitions in my essays.
To speak more specifically about who is and who isn't, you do have to go to the mdeical definitions, and there you find that the idea of a transsexual is not so rigidly fixed that your argument holds up, as a matter of current fact.
So, again, you are using a personal and unfounded opinion as a qualitative measure, which is not only unscientific, but extremely risky in terms of social argument, since it would, ultimately, end up turning on you.
The definitions of transsexuals for the last 55 years at least have expressly and explicitly included non-ops -- making your assertion more a political statement than an actuality. This was also something I showed in my golden calves essays. The first one, in fact, lol.
Which is fine by me -- you are welcome to create your own personal identity group and call it whatever you wish -- even transsexual. However, if you are going to use transsexual, then you really can't exactly sit there and complain when its pointed out that your discriminatory use of such is actually predicated on what, in the most basic of realities, is a lie.
Because you are then trying to assert your personal illusion over the understanding of the rest of the world.
No, I don't actually think that you intend to belittle anyone. I think you are going to great lengths to have a reasonable conversation.
In sociology, that "human desire for neatness" you note is called social reductionism. Fewest categories to cover the most common structures. It is not neat and clean, and is not inherently meant to be so, linguisitically (This is why "man" still has the sense of neutrality behind it).
In the overwhelming majority of cultural forms, that reduction has led to a conflation of GI and SO and resulted in the creation of a third gender structure in the society, even in situations where the particulars of the language may be dichotomous or binary.
This includes in western cultures -- its the superimposition of the religious basis and structure that created the strongly perceived binary itself, and our current understanding of that binary was pretty fixed in the 1500's or so.
Interstingly enough, this "unified theory of gender issues" you are speaking of is something that is unique to the populations of people who an be grouped under descriptive concept of trans. That is, the only people to speak of a "unified theory" deal are trans folks -- by which I mean transsexuals, transgender, cross dressers and the whole host of other ones.
The rest of the world is divided into two camps: the general population, and academia. Academia is behind the concept of gender and gender structures itself -- and has been for a very, very, very long time (I've tracked at least 70 years, thus far), and the people who did so were nice and simple cisfolk. And they postulated, as early as 1952 in peer reviewed publications, that it was a continuum, or, more accurately, an inverse wavewith male on one end and female on the other. And this was separate from the work done on SO.
So, again, the suggestion that this is a new thing is unfounded. What *is* new is that now we know that gender identity and sex identity are inherent within an individal, are two separate things. This is a signifacant change as it was thought until '99 or so (only 10 years ago) that both these things were learned with any certainty (and what a certainty it was).
So, in fact, they *are* a muddy mess. And always have been.
Except among the general public, for whom the basis of primary and secondary sex characteristics was "good enough for government work".
The backlash you are talking about is not due to the complicated nature of that fact -- if such were the case, then it would have been that way in the 1960's.
And this is because as far as the science shows, they are, indeed, not separate issues.
There are separate needs for the varying effects of that, but the underlying commnalites are greater. In short, all suffer from some form of dysphoria, with transsexuals suffering it to the greatest degrees. This is also reflected in the treatments for the diagnosis. However, it was not always that way. Due to prejudice and sexism, for a long while the only one's to get treatment were white people (because it was decided that ethnic folks couldn't have it and thusly this was a "white" disease) who conformed to social sex roles as described under pre-1970's terms. This held until the mid 80's.
Nor does the right see us as the cutting edge of destroying family values -- its only been the last 18 months that we've seriously een on their radar, and they still have issues attacking us (indeed their most effective methods for dealing with us are to actually talk about something else).
And I can say that with absolute certainty because I taught them a lot of the tactics to use in that fight in the 97 to 04 years.
For them, as long as one passes, they don't give a damn, just don't come within a thousand feet of them.
Gay peeps on the other hand, are a whole different story.
In short, *they* know there is a difference.
You get read more now because of media exposure. Stories and information put out about us. In the last 5 years there were as many stories published about trans issues as in the entire 40 year prior to that.
The fastest growing segement of the porn industry is transsexual porn -- and its *only* market is straight males.
In short, the last 5 years have meant a 3000 percent increase in exposure to us. That, more than anything, is what scares you.
Oh, and the idnetification issues are all directly related to the security measures taken following 9/11. All of which happened *before* the increase in exposure.
Diamond is the leading researcher -- not the only one. Indeed, he's pretty much past his heyday in terms of papers, much as Blanchard is today. He's just the most influential because he's always held that it was inherent (inborn).
Literally thousands of others have done the research. THe top minds in the field are probably about 350 total across 9 different sciences.
And all of them feel that the *best* treatment is to stop you from ever needing to change. That is, change your mind, not your body.
Just so you know that.
The current treatment protocols are the best they can come up with for the capabilities of the day.
Lastly, the only people who seem to feel the way you do are a relatively few transsexuals, like myself, predominantly white or white identifiedm from a middle class backgrond, typically with ties to the more conservative parts of the country in their childhoods.
Otherwise transsexuals know when they are transsexuals. The rest are still trying to figure out what they are and how their voices sound. They all know, quite well, they they are not transsexuals, and are extremely vocal about not liking to be called transsexuals.
Re: Two points
The limitations of your argument are quite dependent on your knowledge base.
To start with, you or I, as individuals, knowing a few people who agree with us is not evidentiary of support for positions.
Indeed, it's projective and appropriative to speak on behalf of others by saying what they are or are not solely on the basis of those yu know when there are obviously others who claim the same thing in direct oppositon.
Were your thesis to be formed on the basis of such and submitted, it would fail within your first couple paragraphs alone, and npt because of any philosophical disagreement, but on that singular basis of it being an unfounded speculation.
In short, the very thing you are accusing this "TG" complement of doing is the same thing you are doing, in assserting so -- especially without a basis in any sort of widely accepted factual understanding.
The definiton of transsexual, as a medical condition, is what drives the understanding of the general public's conception of transsexuals. A conception that is substantially identical to the general public's understanding of transgender as well -- tht is, in the mind of the public, a transgender peson *is* a transsexual, and vice versa -- which was the point of using those definitions in my essays.
To speak more specifically about who is and who isn't, you do have to go to the mdeical definitions, and there you find that the idea of a transsexual is not so rigidly fixed that your argument holds up, as a matter of current fact.
So, again, you are using a personal and unfounded opinion as a qualitative measure, which is not only unscientific, but extremely risky in terms of social argument, since it would, ultimately, end up turning on you.
The definitions of transsexuals for the last 55 years at least have expressly and explicitly included non-ops -- making your assertion more a political statement than an actuality. This was also something I showed in my golden calves essays. The first one, in fact, lol.
Which is fine by me -- you are welcome to create your own personal identity group and call it whatever you wish -- even transsexual. However, if you are going to use transsexual, then you really can't exactly sit there and complain when its pointed out that your discriminatory use of such is actually predicated on what, in the most basic of realities, is a lie.
Because you are then trying to assert your personal illusion over the understanding of the rest of the world.
No, I don't actually think that you intend to belittle anyone. I think you are going to great lengths to have a reasonable conversation.
In sociology, that "human desire for neatness" you note is called social reductionism. Fewest categories to cover the most common structures. It is not neat and clean, and is not inherently meant to be so, linguisitically (This is why "man" still has the sense of neutrality behind it).
In the overwhelming majority of cultural forms, that reduction has led to a conflation of GI and SO and resulted in the creation of a third gender structure in the society, even in situations where the particulars of the language may be dichotomous or binary.
This includes in western cultures -- its the superimposition of the religious basis and structure that created the strongly perceived binary itself, and our current understanding of that binary was pretty fixed in the 1500's or so.
Interstingly enough, this "unified theory of gender issues" you are speaking of is something that is unique to the populations of people who an be grouped under descriptive concept of trans. That is, the only people to speak of a "unified theory" deal are trans folks -- by which I mean transsexuals, transgender, cross dressers and the whole host of other ones.
The rest of the world is divided into two camps: the general population, and academia. Academia is behind the concept of gender and gender structures itself -- and has been for a very, very, very long time (I've tracked at least 70 years, thus far), and the people who did so were nice and simple cisfolk. And they postulated, as early as 1952 in peer reviewed publications, that it was a continuum, or, more accurately, an inverse wavewith male on one end and female on the other. And this was separate from the work done on SO.
So, again, the suggestion that this is a new thing is unfounded. What *is* new is that now we know that gender identity and sex identity are inherent within an individal, are two separate things. This is a signifacant change as it was thought until '99 or so (only 10 years ago) that both these things were learned with any certainty (and what a certainty it was).
So, in fact, they *are* a muddy mess. And always have been.
Except among the general public, for whom the basis of primary and secondary sex characteristics was "good enough for government work".
The backlash you are talking about is not due to the complicated nature of that fact -- if such were the case, then it would have been that way in the 1960's.
And this is because as far as the science shows, they are, indeed, not separate issues.
There are separate needs for the varying effects of that, but the underlying commnalites are greater. In short, all suffer from some form of dysphoria, with transsexuals suffering it to the greatest degrees. This is also reflected in the treatments for the diagnosis. However, it was not always that way. Due to prejudice and sexism, for a long while the only one's to get treatment were white people (because it was decided that ethnic folks couldn't have it and thusly this was a "white" disease) who conformed to social sex roles as described under pre-1970's terms. This held until the mid 80's.
Nor does the right see us as the cutting edge of destroying family values -- its only been the last 18 months that we've seriously een on their radar, and they still have issues attacking us (indeed their most effective methods for dealing with us are to actually talk about something else).
And I can say that with absolute certainty because I taught them a lot of the tactics to use in that fight in the 97 to 04 years.
For them, as long as one passes, they don't give a damn, just don't come within a thousand feet of them.
Gay peeps on the other hand, are a whole different story.
In short, *they* know there is a difference.
You get read more now because of media exposure. Stories and information put out about us. In the last 5 years there were as many stories published about trans issues as in the entire 40 year prior to that.
The fastest growing segement of the porn industry is transsexual porn -- and its *only* market is straight males.
In short, the last 5 years have meant a 3000 percent increase in exposure to us. That, more than anything, is what scares you.
Oh, and the idnetification issues are all directly related to the security measures taken following 9/11. All of which happened *before* the increase in exposure.
Diamond is the leading researcher -- not the only one. Indeed, he's pretty much past his heyday in terms of papers, much as Blanchard is today. He's just the most influential because he's always held that it was inherent (inborn).
Literally thousands of others have done the research. THe top minds in the field are probably about 350 total across 9 different sciences.
And all of them feel that the *best* treatment is to stop you from ever needing to change. That is, change your mind, not your body.
Just so you know that.
The current treatment protocols are the best they can come up with for the capabilities of the day.
Lastly, the only people who seem to feel the way you do are a relatively few transsexuals, like myself, predominantly white or white identifiedm from a middle class backgrond, typically with ties to the more conservative parts of the country in their childhoods.
Otherwise transsexuals know when they are transsexuals. The rest are still trying to figure out what they are and how their voices sound. They all know, quite well, they they are not transsexuals, and are extremely vocal about not liking to be called transsexuals.