My theory about transgender issues in this generation

southernbubby

Wed, Dec 13 2017, 8:49 am

shyshira wrote:

In another thread you posted an article from the president of the American College of Pediatricians which has 500 members who would not support ‘permanently transitioning in childhood’.

Where is the article calling those doctors fringe bigots?

In the US anyway - ‘the conservative right (religious or not) are a significant segment of the population.

The ACP is viewed as a hate group for their views on gays and transgenders. One of these articles is from the ACP's website and one is somewhat parve and the other calls it a hate group.

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com.....ians/

https://www.acpeds.org/decryin.....-hate

https://www.hrc.org/blog/hate-.....-kids

Personally I don't consider them bigots, any more than I would consider a doctor a bigot if he treated heart disease with a vegan diet, yoga, exercise, etc rather than surgery. I feel that any doctor who wants to practice conservative medicine; IOW, not giving life altering surgery or medicine, is providing a valid choice.

etky

Wed, Dec 13 2017, 9:50 am

Very interesting theory. Thanks for sharing.
About Adam Harishon- I always understood the creation of Chava, I.e humanity being thereafter divided into two opposing genders, as an improvement to Adam's sterile, solitary existance -bi-gendered as per the midrash, or not.
So why then would a return to that state be seen as an ideal and/or as a precursor to Mashiach?

studying_torah

Wed, Dec 13 2017, 10:05 am

Just want to correct op, it's not Sacha but Simon baron Cohen doing the research.

imasoftov

Wed, Dec 13 2017, 10:37 am

studying_torah wrote:

Just want to correct op, it's not Sacha but Simon baron Cohen doing the research.

shyshira

Wed, Dec 13 2017, 10:53 am

southernbubby wrote:

No reference to bigots, or that ‘mainstream’ doctors support permanently transitioning in childhood.

Here is a well regarded protocol

https://s3.amazonaws.com/amo_h.....9.pdf

Note that ‘provide life alternating surgery’ is not the only option.

Members of ACP would be regarded as hateful not because they don’t accept a treatment protocol (which itself offers multiple paths) rather because of failure to acknowledge the existence of transgender youth kids suffering from something other than a temporary dillusion.

amother

Fuchsia

Wed, Dec 13 2017, 10:56 am

studying_torah wrote:

Just want to correct op, it's not Sacha but Simon baron Cohen doing the research.

And thank you imasoftov for explaining my error.

Yes -,Simon Baron Cohen is who.I meant!

amother

Fuchsia

Wed, Dec 13 2017, 11:15 am

etky wrote:

This is great! Because I never knew this! It's a terrific way to knock the theory out of the water.

So you know how we always talk about "going back to a state of gan Eden" as being a positive thing, so that's where the idea came from in my mind.

So I can't look into this properly now, but Bereiahit 1:27 is the creation of Adam as "male and female" , and 1:28 the very next posuk, they are benched with Peru vu. And in the "second version of the creation" story in Perek Bet, Adam is placed in gan Eden at 2:8, and again at 2:15. But Chava is split off with the posukim starting at 2:18.

BUT of course there is no mukdam or muchar in the Torah - the Torah is not written in order.

Thank you for this -,I'm going to have to look into this further.

Does anyone have a source for what Etky wrote?

Fox

Wed, Dec 13 2017, 1:35 pm

Interesting idea, OP.

It reminded me of Camille Paglia's observations. She is an atheist raised in the Roman Catholic Church, so obviously her perspective will be quite a bit different from ours, but she has frequently written and spoken about androgyny as a sign of cultural collapse. That certainly fits to some degree with your theory.

At 4:18, she discusses this phenomenon:

DrMom

Wed, Dec 13 2017, 1:52 pm

Ooh, Fox, I was just going t post that video. I think she has interesting insights.

amother

Rose

Wed, Dec 13 2017, 2:14 pm

amother wrote:

My theory is that these are first world issues. When you have nothing else to worry about, you create new problems. No one in North Korea or Somalia is worrying about how they really feel and what they really want and maybe they aren't who they really think they are.

Maybe because they would be killed if they admitted to it.

southernbubby

Wed, Dec 13 2017, 2:37 pm

amother wrote:

Maybe because they would be killed if they admitted to it.

Ok, but if that is their only option, then are they committing suicide because they live in a society that will not allow anyone to change their gender?

Fox

Wed, Dec 13 2017, 3:22 pm

amother wrote:

Maybe because they would be killed if they admitted to it.

This isn't always so straightforward, either. Iran is one of the world's leaders in gender affirmation treatment and surgery.

However, the reason for that is that anyone -- though mostly men, in practice -- discovered to be gay is given the option of being "diagnosed" with gender dysphoria or being put to death.

Maybe the ayatollahs are just attempting to trigger a scenario that has apparently become quite common in the West: a man who previously identified as gay is diagnosed with gender dysphoria and transitions. Now a woman, he identifies as a lesbian and seeks out relationships with women.

I know. I know. Gender dysphoria isn't about whom you're s-xually attracted to. But, c'mon. It is kind of funny to think about all these gay men going through hormone therapy and sometimes surgery . . . only to end up sleeping with women.

livinginflatbus

Wed, Dec 13 2017, 3:37 pm

It’s mental illness simple as that only it’s become so accepted that people don’t perceive it as that .

etky

Wed, Dec 13 2017, 3:50 pm

Fox wrote:

It reminded me of Camille Paglia's observations. She is an atheist raised in the Roman Catholic Church, so obviously her perspective will be quite a bit different from ours, but she has frequently written and spoken about androgyny as a sign of cultural collapse. That certainly fits to some degree with your theory.

....and this video reminded me of something I read a few months ago.

In July, R' Jonathan Sacks delivered an address at the Chautauqua Institution called 'Cultural Climate Change'. His main thrust was the role of secularization in the decline of modern western society. He doesn't reference transgenderism in particular but it certainly can be seen as a manifestation of the individualism that he mentions:

"But the secular West is in real trouble. It’s re-enacting a scenario played out many times in the course of history, in Athens and Rome in antiquity, and Renaissance Italy. The same thing happens each time. A culture or civilisation at the very height of its affluence and its creativity finds that people are becoming more individualistic. They become more hedonist. They become more sceptical of religious beliefs, and that causes a loss of social cohesion, social energy and social ideals. No one said it better than a great American historian, Will Durant. As a young man he wanted to be a priest but actually became an atheist. So listen to what this atheist says — and it’s unbelievably powerful. After his huge study of the story of civilisation, he says:

What happens at a certain point in history is that the intellectual classes abandon the ancient theology and, after some hesitation, the moral code allied with it. Literature and philosophy become anti-clerical. The movement of liberation rises to an exuberant worship of reason and falls to a paralysing disillusionment with every dogma and every idea. Conduct deprived of its religious support deteriorates into epicurean chaos and life itself shorn of consoling faith becomes a burden alike to conscious poverty and to weary wealth. In the end, a society and its religion tend to fall together like body and soul in a harmonious death. Meanwhile, among the oppressed, another myth arises and gives new form to human hope, new courage to human effort and, after centuries of chaos, builds another civilisation.

It is a very sober warning for our times, though it was written 60 years ago."

If anyone wants to read the text of his (long) address, here is the link:
http://standpointmag.co.uk/node/6938/full

There's also a more concise version that appears on R' Sack's personal web page.

Who knows though. Maybe OP is right about this phenomenon heralding Mashiach.
Maybe it's part of the topsy turvy state of morality and of the world -that chazal define as חוצפא ישגא -that is supposed to precede his arrival.

Fox

Wed, Dec 13 2017, 4:43 pm

etky wrote:

Who knows though. Maybe OP is right about this phenomenon heralding Mashiach. Maybe it's part of the topsy turvy state of morality and of the world -that chazal define as חוצפא ישגא -that is supposed to precede his arrival.

Thanks for posting! It's amazing to me how knowledge can come together and how talmidei chochomim as well as non-Jews with no Torah knowledge can be pulling on the same threads.

DrMom

Wed, Dec 13 2017, 4:46 pm

Fox wrote:

Maybe the ayatollahs are just attempting to trigger a scenario that has apparently become quite common in the West: a man who previously identified as gay is diagnosed with gender dysphoria and transitions. Now a woman, he identifies as a lesbian and seeks out relationships with women.

I know. I know. Gender dysphoria isn't about whom you're s-xually attracted to. But, c'mon. It is kind of funny to think about all these gay men going through hormone therapy and sometimes surgery . . . only to end up sleeping with women.

This is a common occurrence? Gay men get surgery to turn into gay women? How does getting surgery on your body make you suddenly attracted to women?

I am confused...

Shuly

Wed, Dec 13 2017, 5:34 pm

Yes, I know someone like this and it doesn't make any sense to me.

She says she feels like a man, so she had surgery and dresses like a man, but she says she is a gay man so she is attracted to men!

Doesn't that make her a woman?

FranticFrummie

Wed, Dec 13 2017, 5:44 pm

Shuly wrote:

Feeling that you are meant to be a certain gender, has NO bearing on who you are attracted to. That would fall under "orientation", which is quite different.

southernbubby

Wed, Dec 13 2017, 5:45 pm

DrMom wrote:

This is a common occurrence? Gay men get surgery to turn into gay women? How does getting surgery on your body make you suddenly attracted to women?

I am confused...

The Iranians use that surgery as a punishment for being gay.

southernbubby

Wed, Dec 13 2017, 5:48 pm

Shuly wrote:

Sounds like she is a bit confused but transgenders can be gay or straight and if someone wants to act out against society, the more confusing it is; the better. This is, of course, if her 'male' feelings are genuine and not indicative of other issues. I am not saying that all transgenders are acting out against society but it is a possibility, just like anything is a possibility.