Guilty feet have got no rhythm

“DISCRIMINATION,” cry the hoards of contrary tumblr users, eager to express their violent disagreement with this harmless pun. everyone who’s ever been to a gay bar, pride event, or lgbtq organization frowns in confusion; it’s not like they prohibit straight people from entering. anyone can go to these places, they are just lgbtq-centric.

Here is the link. Here’s a quote defining transgender:

“Transgender is a non-medical term that has been used increasingly since the 1990s as an umbrella term describing individuals whose gender identity (inner sense of gender) or gender expression (outward performance of gender) differs from the sex or gender to which they were assigned at birth. Some people who use this term do not consider themselves as matching a binary gender category. In addition, new terms such as genderqueer, bigendered, and agendered are increasingly in use.”

Here’s the followup:

“Not all transgender people suffer from gender dysphoria and that distinction is important to keep in mind. Gender dysphoria and/or coming out as transgender can occur at any age.”

Here’s more about gender dysphoria.

Also, in early 2017 in Denmark it is no longer possible to “diagnose” someone with being transgender. Of course this doesn’t include dysphoria, just the act of being trans.

Gender Dysphoria is in the DSM-V, but being transgender is not. More on the changing of the terminology for the purpose of removing stigma.

Oh, and the American Psychological Association had something interesting to say, too: 

“Is being transgender a mental disorder?

A psychological state is considered a mental disorder only if it causes significant distress or disability. Many transgender people do not experience their gender as distressing or disabling, which implies that identifying as transgender does not constitute a mental disorder.”

Conclusion: if the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric association, the DSM-V, and Denmark’s laws all agree that being trans isn’t a mental disorder, I’d be happy to sit on that fence.

Here’s a Harvard study about the neurological divergence between genders.

Key quotes:

“Those persons who identify as transgender (the “T” in many queer community acronyms) are those who identify with a gender that differs from their assigned sex… Though the typical assigned sexes are “male” and “female,” often designated at birth, being transgender does not limit gender identity to these two categories, as many who identify as transgender do not feel they are exclusively masculine or feminine.”

The essay conclusion:

“Science tells us that gender is certainly not binary; it may not even be a linear spectrum. Like many other facets of identity, it can operate on a broad range of levels and operate outside of many definitions. And it also appears that gender may not be as static as we assume. At the forefront of this, transgender identity is complex – it’s unlikely we’ll ever be able to attribute it to one neat, contained set of causes, and there is still much to be learned. But we know now that several of those causes are biological. These individuals are not suffering a mental illness, or capriciously “choosing” a different identity. The transgender identity is multi-dimensional – but it deserves no less recognition or respect than any other facet of humankind.“

Summary: gender isn’t binary and being transgender isn’t a mental illness.

The World Health Organization no longer considers being transgender a mental illness.

“Removing the mental health label from transgender identity would be a powerful signifier of acceptance, advocates and mental health professionals say.“

oh, and to shut the REGs up:

“Many, but not all, advocates favor the idea of keeping transgender in the codebook in some form because the designations are widely used for billing and insurance coverage of medical services and for conducting research on diseases and treatments.“

IE: proof that you can declassify being transgender as a mental illness but rather recategorize it to reduce the spread of stigma while also allowing trans people to have care

Some truscum/reg type tried to tell me that “trans people are obviously mentally ill because of the high suicide rate!”

YES, the high suicide rates stems from oppression, NOT because trans people are mentally fucked up inherently, because the suicide rate for INUIT TEENAGERS in Canada is THE WORST IN THE ENTIRE WORLD! It’s one of the leading causes of death among Aboriginal peoples in Canada.

Article quotes: 

“But the biggest driver behind the staggeringly higher death rate among Inuit children and teens is suicide. The report, from Statistics Canada’s health analysis division, found that the suicide rate among children and teens in the Inuit homelands was 30 times that of youth in the rest of Canada during the five-year period from 2004 to 2008.”

and

“Suicide affects the youth in Indigenous communities more than any other demographic. Suicide occurs roughly 5 to 6 times more often among Indigenous youth than non-Indigenous youth in Canada.“

Here’s an interesting article about trans suicide rate (and also how race plays into it) and gives us percentages.

My point is that trans people aren’t inherently fucked up and don’t suffer from mental illnesses because they’re trans, they suffer from mental illnesses because they are an at-risk group like any other minority.

If a man likes to dress in women’s clothes but does not want to be a woman and otherwise lives typically as a male, does he have a psychiatric disorder? No. Such a desire is called transvestitism and it is not a psychiatric disorder. 

Unless it was one of the other sources? I’m not super keen on the phrase “transvestitism” since it’s a bit dated, but it acknowledges that it’s a separate thing from being transgender.

Also the American Psychological Association link makes a point to say: 

While transgender is generally a good term to use, not everyone whose appearance or behavior is gender-nonconforming will identify as a transgender person. 

The way that it’d defined here explains the difference between gender nonconforming peoples and transgender, but some of the people use “transgender” as an umbrella term for any/all gender nonconforming identities, which isn’t exactly here-nor-there at best, inaccurate at worst.

As many of you know, binary genders are a western construct. Here is a SUPER COOL INTERACTIVE EXPLORATION TOOL provided by the PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) that tells us about nonbinary cultures around the world! It’s an interactive map where you can click on pins and it’ll tell you information about the genders of the culture! It’s not super in depth, but it’s a great survey!

Website quote:

“On nearly every continent, and for all of recorded history, thriving cultures have recognized, revered, and integrated more than two genders. Terms such as “transgender” and “gay” are strictly new constructs that assume three things: that there are only two sexes (male/female), as many as two sexualities (gay/straight), and only two genders (man/woman).

Yet hundreds of distinct societies around the globe have their own long-established traditions for third, fourth, fifth, or more genders. The subject of Two Spirits, Fred Martinez, for example, was not a boy who wanted to be a girl, but both a boy and a girl — an identity his Navajo culture recognized and revered as nádleehí. Meanwhile, Hina of Kumu Hina is part of a a native Hawaiian culture that has traditionally revered and respected mahu, those who embody both male and female spirit.

Most Western societies have no direct correlation for this tradition, nor for the many other communities without strict either/or conceptions of sex, sexuality, and gender. Worldwide, the sheer variety of gender expression is almost limitless. Take a tour and learn how other cultures see gender diversity.“

So basically, it’s not that “other cultures have nonbinary genders”, but more like “other cultures don’t have a gender binary to begin with! Gender is a construct and is constantly evolving.

A real anthropologist will never shit on you for making up a name for your gender. It doesn’t matter if “it’s silly”, you’re subverting the western tradition of the binary and that’s super rad!

Here’s the wikipedia page for genders around the world! Now, I don’t have to tell you that wikipedia can be edited by anyone really easily (how do I know? Me and three classmates made a page about a local artist. It took us 3 hours), so not all of the information is going to be accurate, but think of it as another good starting point before hitting the books!

And of course, Teen Vogue has been totally on it lately so here’s an article about genders around the world!

Here are some key quotes:

“But the reality is that transgender people have been striving for their rights in America before the 1960s, when a black trans woman named Marsha P. Johnson is credited by many for throwing the first brick during the Stonewall Inn riots, ushering in the start of a movement. Just years earlier, transgender people protested police crackdowns on their very existence in San Francisco at the Compton’s Cafeteria riots. Other moments of defiance exist, of course, but remain untold.

Half a century of struggle for trans rights in the U.S. is only one thread of a larger global tapestry. Employing a variety of genders beyond man and woman across the world, people who don’t identify with the gender they were assigned at birth have been working for centuries to guarantee their liberties since ancient times. The recent explosion of visibility might make the fight for trans rights seem like a recent development in the United States, but it’s a fight that’s been happening here for decades and around the world for centuries. Understanding that history will only help to inform the ongoing struggle for the liberation of gender-variant people everywhere.”

And yes, those links in the first paragraph are clickable!

Summary of Vogue: trans people are NOT a contemporary phenomenon, but a historical one. They exist in cultures across the world and in our own culture dating back centuries and millennia.

I highly recommend taking a peek at the article, since there are TONS of links in there that you can take a look more trans history. JUST AS A WARNING: they are mostly articles written by blogs/newspapers/etc and therefore have singular author bias and I haven’t gotten my way through many of them yet to tell you which ones are good and which ones are bad, but it’s a great place to start digging for trans history! If you find anything really cool, please feel free to add it!

- the first source acknowledged cross-dressers as people who were transgender. Not sure why that is, my theory is that it’s because they defined “trans” as a bit closer to “gender nonconforming”. Keep that in mind as you read.

- to be clear, I don’t think you can “””choose to be trans”””. I don’t think anybody thinks that.

- if sources like vogue and HuffPost “don’t seem reputable”, it’s because they’re intended to be a jumping off point for further reading. They just summed everything up nicely and have links.

- I firmly believe that being transgender has as much to do with just straight out identity as it has to do with science. Making people comfortable, building a safe and strong community, fighting for our rights, all of it. I feel like my identity as a trans person is far more important in my life than just dysphoria/euphoria.

- not much is known about gender euphoria now. Not a ton of research has been done on it, I could only find personal accounts. It might be a totally different thing, it might be similar to dysphoria, but either way they’re two sides of the same coin and I have yet to encounter a trans person who has neither.

- I don’t think the truscum argument is really worth anyone’s time. I decided to do research on it… and I only came up with blogs and one thing called the “SJWiki”. Apparently, nobody outside of tumblr (and twitter?) cares about whether or not you need dysphoria to be trans. So that’s good news. You’re not going to walk into an irl queer space and be confronted about your identity.

- enby people can choose to ID as trans or not. Whatever makes you comfy!

- the truscum/tucute argument is a waste of everyone’s time in my opinion. We should be focussing our efforts on the cis bigots who want us dead and the cis who don’t care. I know that both sides of the argument do attack and fight people, but I have received dysphoria-triggering messages from truscum and honestly enough is enough. Gatekeeping is pointless and a waste of time.

- I love all of my trans and enby followers, I’ll hopefully post more trans resources soon. I’m not gonna be strictly “anti truscum”, since I don’t really count myself as a tucute, but I’m gonna be presenting what I think is best for the trans community and what I think will reach out to and help the most people.

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