The Official Trans Tumblr

CISCENTRIC: the concept was established only in relation to the cis world. Something can be Ciscentric without being transphobic.

CISSEXIST: the concept is sexist in regards to trans people in relation to Cis people. Something can be transphobic and cissexist, or just cissexist.

CISNORMATIVE: a norm which applies only to the cis population, but is often pushed at trans people. Most cisnormative concepts are applied in a transphobic way, but are not transphobic themselves, merely Ciscentric.

TRANSCENTRIC: a concept which centers trans lives as normative.

TRANSPHOBIC: a concept which involves aversion, anxiety, and/or animus, singly or in any combination, to teams people or Transness.

CISNESS (Cis): Cisness is the state of awareness or condition in society of someone who does conform in a majority of aspects to the way their society or culture sees them as behaving and living in relation to their culture’s social construction of physiological sex, usually due to an absence of variance between their physical sex and one or both of their social sex identity and/or internal sex identity. It exists at the same level as awareness of self, and it is, itself, an awareness, but because it is not at variance, is often unnoticed and unremarked.

TRANSNESS (Trans): Transness is the state of awareness or condition in society of someone who does not conform in a majority of aspects to the way their society or culture sees them as behaving and living in relation to their culture’s social construction of physiological sex, usually due to a variance between their physical sex and one or both of their social sex identity and/or internal sex identity. It exists at the same level as awareness of self, and it is, itself, an awareness.

WPATH: The World Professional Association for Transgender Health. The WPATH is an international, multidisciplinary, professional association whose mission is to promote evidence-based care, education, research, advocacy, public policy, and respect for transgender health. The vision of WPATH is to bring together diverse professionals dedicated to developing best practices and supportive policies worldwide that promote health, research, education, respect, dignity, and equality for transsexual, transgender, and gender nonconforming people in all cultural settings.

The Standards of Care (SoC): The international Standards of treatment for Trans people. The minimums level of treatment considered ethical, moral, and standard.

Gender Dysphoria:  refers to discomfort or distress (disgust at their own genitalia, social isolation from their peers, anxiety, loneliness, and depression) that is caused by a discrepancy between a person’s gender identity and that person’s sex assigned at birth (and the associated gender role and/or primary and secondary sex characteristics).

GENDER: Gender refers to the socially constructed roles, behavior, and expressions that a particular society considers appropriate for men and women. Gender is always social - that is, it only comes into play in relation to other people. Things, objects, parts, language all are involved in gendering things. When one says “that is male” one is gendering it.

GENDER ROLES: What we call Femininity and Masculinity. They deal in how we expect persons of a particular sex to behave or act within our culture. The three billion ways to be a man, and the three billion ways to be a woman, and all the stuff related to sexism lies here. Social sex roles are a set of social and behavioral norms that are structurally designated as appropriate for either a man or a woman in a social or interpersonal relationship based on their social sex.

GENDER EXPRESSIONS: how people present themselves to the wider world, not always in line with their Social Sex role. It has to do with primarily “superficial” stuff — dress and body decoration — that affect things like attraction and courtship. Expressions are the tools by which we convey to others, who cannot see our physical anatomy, that we fit into this particular box for a given physical sex.

GENDER BEHAVIORS: all the little things that social sex influences that are outside the realm of the usual and the commonplace – the indirect effects, so to speak. Inheritance is part of this, kinship is part of this, lineage is part of this, even names are part of this. These behaviors are basic elements, often focused around interpersonal relationships and the interplay between Social Sex Roles and Social Sex Expressions. Male privilege is an excellent example of a Social Sex Behavior.

Selections from the WPATH Standards of Care:

Official Title:

Standards of Care for the Health of Transsexual, Transgender, and Gender Nonconforming People

On Gender nonconformity not being the same as gender dysphoria:

Gender Nonconformity Is Not the Same as Gender Dysphoria Gender nonconformity refers to the extent to which a person’s gender identity, role, or expression differs from the cultural norms prescribed for people of a particular sex (Institute of Medicine, 2011). Gender dysphoria refers to discomfort or distress that is caused by a discrepancy between a person’s gender identity and that person’s sex assigned at birth (and the associated gender role and/or primary and secondary sex characteristics) (Fisk, 1974; Knudson, De Cuypere, & Bockting, 2010b). Only some gender nonconforming people experience gender dysphoria at some point in their lives.

On Surgery & Hormones being required to be trans

Indeed, hormone therapy and surgery have been found to be medically necessary to alleviate gender dysphoria in many people (American Medical Association, 2008; Anton, 2009; The World Professional Association for Transgender Health, 2008).

While many individuals need both hormone therapy and surgery to alleviate their gender dysphoria, others need only one of these treatment options and some need neither (Bockting and Goldberg, 2006; Bockting, 2008; Lev, 2004).

Often with the help of psychotherapy, some individuals integrate their trans- or cross-gender feelings into the gender role they were assigned at birth and do not feel the need to feminize or masculinize their body. For others, changes in gender role and expression are sufficient to alleviate gender dysphoria. Some patients may need hormones, a possible change in gender role, but not surgery; others may need a change in gender role along with surgery, but not hormones.

On nonbinary individuals

Some individuals describe themselves not as gender nonconforming but as unambiguously cross-sexed (i.e., as a member of the other sex; Bockting, 2008).

Other individuals affirm their unique gender identity and no longer consider themselves either male or female (Bornstein, 1994; Kimberly, 1997; Stone, 1991; Warren, 1993). Instead, they may describe their gender identity in specific terms such as transgender, bigender, or genderqueer, affirming their unique experience that may transcend a male/female binary understanding of gender (Bockting, 2008; Ekins and King, 2006; Nestle, Wilchins, and Howell, 2002).

They may not experience their process of identity affirmation as a “transition,” because they never fully embraced the gender role they were assigned at birth or because they actualize their gender identity, role, and expression in a way that does not involve a change from one gender role to another.

For example, some youth identifying as genderqueer have always experienced their gender identity and role as such (genderqueer).

On Dysphoria being required to be Trans

Only some gender nonconforming people experience gender dysphoria at some point in their lives.

What helps one person alleviate gender dysphoria might be very different from what helps another person. This process may or may not involve a change in gender expression or body modifications.

Gender identities and expressions are diverse, and hormones and surgery are just two of many options available to assist people with achieving comfort with self and identity.

On Regrets after surgery

Although Harry Benjamin already acknowledged a spectrum of gender nonconformity (Benjamin, 1966), the initial clinical approach largely focused on identifying who was an appropriate candidate for sex reassignment to facilitate a physical change from male to female or female to male as completely as possible (e.g., Green & Fleming, 1990; Hastings,1974).

This approach was extensively evaluated and proved to be highly effective.

Satisfaction rates across studies ranged from 87% of MtF patients to 97% of FtM patients (Green and Fleming, 1990), and regrets were extremely rare (1-1.5% of MtF patients and less than 1% of FtM patients; Pfafflin,1993).

On Transgender Children

When it comes to the persistence of cross gender behaviors from childhood, newer studies, also including girls, showed a 12 - 27% persistence rate of gender dysphoria into adulthood (Drummond, Bradley, Peterson-Badali, & Zucker, 2008; Wallien & Cohen-Kettenis, 2008).

In contrast, the persistence of gender dysphoria into adulthood appears to be much higher for adolescents. In a follow-up study of 70 adolescents who were diagnosed with gender dysphoria and given puberty suppressing hormones, all continued with the actual sex reassignment, beginning with feminizing/masculinizing hormone therapy (deVries, Steensma, Doreleijers, & Cohen-Kettenis, 2010).

Another difference between gender dysphoric children and adolescents is in the sex ratios for each age group. In clinically referred, gender dysphoric children under age 12, the male/female ratio ranges from 6:1 to 3:1 (Zucker, 2004). In clinically referred, gender dysphoric adolescents older than age 12, the male/female ratio is close to 1:1 (Cohen-Kettenis & Pfäfflin, 2003).

Treatment aimed at trying to change a person’s gender identity and expression to become more congruent with sex assigned at birth has been attempted in the past without success (Gelder & Marks, 1969; Greenson, 1964), particularly in the long term (Cohen-Kettenis & Kuiper, 1984; Pauly,1965). Such treatment is no longer considered ethical.

On Diagnoses

Some people experience gender dysphoria at such a level that the distress meets criteria for a formal diagnosis that might be classified as a mental disorder. Such a diagnosis is not a license for stigmatization or for the deprivation of civil and human rights. Existing classification systems such as the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) (American Psychiatric Association, 2000) and the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) (World Health Organization, 2007) define hundreds of mental disorders that vary in onset, duration, pathogenesis, functional disability, and treatability. All of these systems attempt to classify clusters of symptoms and conditions, not the individuals themselves. A disorder is a description of something with which a person might struggle, not a description of the person or the person’s identity. Thus, transsexual, transgender, and gender nonconforming individuals are not inherently disordered. Rather, the distress of gender dysphoria, when present, is the concern that might be diagnosable and for which various treatment options are available. The existence of a diagnosis for such dysphoria often facilitates access to health care and can guide further research into effective treatments.

Research is leading to new diagnostic nomenclatures, and terms are changing in both the DSM (Cohen-Kettenis & Pfäfflin, 2010; Knudson, De Cuypere, & Bockting, 2010b; Meyer-Bahlburg, 2010; Zucker, 2010) and the ICD. For this reason, familiar terms are employed in the SOC and definitions are provided for terms that may be emerging. Health professionals should refer to the most current diagnostic criteria and appropriate codes to apply in their practice areas.

On additional studies relating to broader prevalence needed:

(i) Previously unrecognized gender dysphoria is occasionally diagnosed when patients are seen with anxiety, depression, conduct disorder, substance abuse, dissociative identity disorders, borderline personality disorder, sexual disorders, and disorders of sex development (Cole, O’Boyle, Emory, & Meyer III, 1997).

(ii) Some crossdressers, drag queens/ kings or female/male impersonators, and gay and lesbian individuals may be experiencing gender dysphoria (Bullough & Bullough, 1993).

(iii) The intensity of some people’s gender dysphoria fluctuates below and above a clinical threshold (Docter, 1988).

(iv) Gender nonconformity among FtM individuals tends to be relatively invisible in many cultures, particularly to Western health professionals and researchers who have conducted most of the studies on which the current estimates of prevalence and incidence are based (Winter, 2009).

On Options for Psychological and Medical Treatment of Gender Dysphoria

For individuals seeking care for gender dysphoria, a variety of therapeutic options can be considered. The number and type of interventions applied and the order in which these take place may differ from person to person (e.g., Bockting, Knudson, & Goldberg, 2006; Bolin, 1994; Rachlin, 1999; Rachlin, Green, & Lombardi, 2008; Rachlin, Hansbury, & Pardo, 2010). Treatments options include the following:

Changes in gender expression and role (which may involve living part time or full time in another gender role, consistent with one’s gender identity);

Hormone therapy to feminize or masculinize the body;

Surgery to change primary and/or secondary sex characteristics (e.g., breasts/chest, external and/or internal genitalia, facial features, body contouring);

Psychotherapy (individual, couple, family, or group) for purposes such as exploring gender identity, role, and expression; addressing the negative impact of gender dysphoria and stigma on mental health; alleviating internalized transphobia; enhancing social and peer support; improving body image; or promoting resilience.

On withholding treatment for adolescents

Refusing timely medical interventions for adolescents might prolong gender dysphoria and contribute to an appearance that could provoke abuse and stigmatization. As the level of gender-related abuse is strongly associated with the degree of psychiatric distress during adolescence (Nuttbrock et al., 2010), withholding puberty suppression and subsequent feminizing or masculinizing hormone therapy is not a neutral option for adolescents.

On informed consent

Feminizing/masculinizing hormone therapy may lead to irreversible physical changes. Thus, hormone therapy should be provided only to those who are legally able to provide informed consent. This includes people who have been declared by a court to be emancipated minors, incarcerated people, and cognitively impaired people who are considered competent to participate in their medical decisions (see also Bockting et al., 2006). Providers should document in the medical record that comprehensive information has been provided and understood about all relevant aspects of the hormone therapy, including both possible benefits and risks and the impact on reproductive capacity.

On the broad needs for health

WPATH recognizes that health is dependent upon not only good clinical care but also social and political climates that provide and ensure social tolerance, equality, and the full rights of citizenship. Health is promoted through public policies and legal reforms that promote tolerance and equity for gender and sexual diversity and that eliminate prejudice, discrimination, and stigma. WPATH is committed to advocacy for these changes in public policies and legal reforms.

On Trans People In Other Cultures

In applying these standards to other cultural contexts, health professionals must be sensitive to these differences and adapt the SOC according to local realities. For example, in a number of cultures, gender nonconforming people are found in such numbers and living in such ways as to make them highly socially visible (Peletz, 2006).

In settings such as these, it is common for people to initiate a change in their gender expression and physical characteristics while in their teens, or even earlier. Many grow up and live in a social, cultural, and even linguistic context quite unlike that of Western cultures. Yet almost all experience prejudice (Peletz, 2006; Winter, 2009).

In many cultures, social stigma towards gender nonconformity is widespread and gender roles are highly prescriptive (Winter et al., 2009). Gender nonconforming people in these settings are forced to be hidden, and therefore may lack opportunities for adequate health care (Winter, 2009).

The Standards of Care, Version 7 represents a significant departure from previous versions. Changes in this version are based upon significant cultural shifts, advances in clinical knowledge, and appreciation of the many health care issues that can arise for transsexual, transgender, and gender nonconforming people beyond hormone therapy and surgery (Coleman, 2009a, b, c, d).

Public Policies of the WPATH

On Identity Documents and Surgery Requirements

No person should have to undergo surgery or accept sterilization as a condition of identity recognition. If a sex marker is required on an identity document, that marker could recognize the person’s lived gender, regardless of reproductive capacity. The WPATH Board of Directors urges governments and other authoritative bodies to move to eliminate requirements for identity recognition that require surgical procedures.

On being trans being a Medical Condition (Mental Illness, Etc.)

The expression of gender characteristics, including identities, that are not stereotypically associated with one’s assigned sex at birth is a common and culturally-diverse human phenomenon which should not be judged as inherently pathological or negative. The psychopathologlisation of gender characteristics and identities reinforces or can prompt stigma, making prejudice and discrimination more likely, rendering transgender and transsexual people more vulnerable to social and legal marginalisation and exclusion, and increasing risks to mental and physical well-being. WPATH urges governmental and medical professional organizations to review their policies and practices to eliminate stigma toward gender-variant people

Pathological

involving, caused by, or of the nature of a physical or mental disease.

caused by or involving disease; morbid.

caused by or evidencing a mentally disturbed condition

dealing with diseases

1680s, “pertaining to disease,” formed in English from pathology.

Synonyms: morbid, diseased, sick, ill, unhealthy, aberrant, medical, medical condition

The very document that lays out the treatment for Trans people, and the very organization that is responsible for setting the standards and operating on the research and scientific evidence, state, in veryclear terms, that being Trans is not a medical condition, and in addition to that, they state that calling it a medical condition has been proven to be harmful to the health and well being of Trans people.

This is why professionals involved in the care and well being of Trans people who are culturally competent and knowledgeable, do not engage with it on those terms.

Trans people are gender noncomforming.  The standards of care applies to them, so long as they are trans people, and that includes all treatments.

Transness — being trans — does not come from dysphoria. It comes from the conflict between social sex, internal sex, and physical sex. That conflict is not dysphoria. Dysphoria is separate from that. That is the standard that the science shows.

Dysphoria does not make someone a trans person. Being a trans person is what makes someone have dysphoria.

Not because they are trans. But because the world they live in is not designed for, considerate of, or permissible for, trans people.

Transphobia is aversion, anxiety, or animus, singly or in any combination, regarding trans people, transness, or trans related issues.

Aversion is things like being disgusted, in opposition to, identifying something as repugnant, and exhibiting strong feelings about this. Aversion is the desire to avoid, the act of arguing to avoid or reduce encounters. It includes being unwilling to listen or accept factual,statements made by trans people. It also includes not wanting trans people in the restroom. It also includes saying things like you need dysphoria to be trans.

Anxiety is distress, worry, concern, and overt anxiousness about something or someone that is strongly expressed in physical, literal, or metaphorical terms. Anxiety is worry, concern, or anticipatory ideation relating to trans people or Transness. It includes prejudice against trans people, such as worrying about what they do in the restroom. It also includes things like saying that transness is a medical condition.

Animus is a strong and intense dislike. It involves devaluing the lives of people, erasing their dignity, opposing their civil and human rights, denying them the ability to mark themselves,and outright harm to them. Animus is intense dislike, easily distinguished by overly concerned and reactionary language and violence, in any form. It includes agitating in the interest of preventing trans people from being In the restroom by law or policy.It also includes things like telling other trans people they aren’t trans enough.

So any of those thing, either individually or in combination, is what makes up transphobia.

Examples of Transphobic Statements

People who mutilate themselves like transgendered (Animus)

Transness is a mental illness. (Animus)

Transness is a medical condition (Anxiety)

I do not feel safe having male socialized trans women in my space. (Aversion, Anxiety)

Cis assigns a gender to someone. (Anxiety)

Trans women are biologically male. (Animus)

Trans women are men (Animus)

Trans men are traitors (Animus)

Dysphoria is needed to be trans (Aversion)

trans politics enforces gender and gender roles by reducing womanhood to a stereotype made up by males. (Animus, Anxiety)

If we include gender identity protections in this bill, it will be harder to pass (Aversion, Anxiety)

The second you become pregnant you are a woman.(Animus, Aversion)

There are many other examples, readily found in pretty much any attack on trans people and their lives or in any post that deals in trans issues coming from someone who proclaims themselves “trans critical” or “gender critical”.

Some Facts Often ignored by TERFS, Trans Critical People, and related anti-LGBT people:

Biology does not determine what a person’s social sex is.

Gender is a complex system of inter-related parts that vary according to culture and social influence and is not a fixed system.

Gender Dysphoria is not a mental illness.

It is a core violation of human rights to deny trans people necessary medical care, regardless of their age. Agitating against that medical treatment is engaging in a willfully, intentional act of violence and trying to deny human rights to other people.

According to the SPLC and the ADL, the actions and speech of Cathy Brennan constitute hate speech. According to the World Health Organization, that classifies them as acts of violence.

On Trans Women’s Girlhood

Some folks think that Trans women do not experience girlhood, and argue that trans women do not grow up with the mythical idea of “sex-based oppression” (which doesn’t exist, as the oppression is gender based, since sex in social situations *is* gender).

These people often like to try and distance themselves from the more violent, dishonest, extremist elements in Radical feminism — generally referred to as TERFs — by disavowing some of the key aspects that informed the ideas of these terfs, even when making that “sex based oppression” argument, that is, itself, part of those dishonest, transphobic, extremist viewpoints.

They like to describe the ways in which physiology is used to oppress women, often ignoring the fact that physiology is presumed (social sex) in social systems and that the norm they are arguing is part of the very system they claim to be opposing.

Among those things they argue are the following:

That trans women do not grow up being shamed and feeling grossed out and insecure about their periods. This ignores the fact that trans women grow up being shamed and feeling grossed out and insecure because they don’t get periods, and that is used against them both internally and externally in order to further the idea of their being “wrong”.

That trans women are taught that masturbation is a healthy thing, when, in fact, trans women are taught that masturbation is shameful, that if they they masturbate they are perverts and horrible, and that the discussion of trans women masturbating is a really sick and disgusting thing.

That trans women are not subject to the cultural and social stigmas of having body hair being taught to them, when, in fact, they recieve these messages and in a state of pretty hard core crisis as their bodies do the very things they thought they wouldn’t do, often forcing many trans women to begin the ritualistic habit of shaving off all their body hair and creating a sense of horror about body hair that endures throughout their lives, ultimately leading to the most expensive process in transition.

That trans women did not face gender based bullying of the same sort as cis women, where they are treated very cruelly  for things boys would not be, which ignores that trans women are bullied and told that being themselves is a bad thing, while still recieving all the messages that they have to act and look a certain way as girls, and then being punished when they try to do those things by everyone around them, which is, itself, gender based bullying (and gender based oppression).

That trans women are not subjected to constant threats and deeds of sexual violence and harassment, when, in fact, transphobic and ciscentri ideas are based on such, and it starts at essentially the same age, and is constantly given in the form of mixed messages that amount to consistent abuse and neglect.

That trans women do not have the Whore/Madonna complex drilled into them despite this being one of the most common attacks used against trans women, especially by other women, and the way that often these abused and neglected children who grow up trying their damndest to fit in turn to that when they first transition, and sadly are sucked into it seeking the validation and affirmation they have been denied their whole lives because that was the message that they received loud and clear as children.

Keep in mind, all of these things apply to young trans girls — who are often told they are not allowed to be girls, that they are not girls, which is a direct and perpetuating form of violence against them recognized as such by all leading medical organizations in the US. Trans women — including young trans women — are seen as objects of desire and told they need to be objects of desire, which they usually strive for in a manner of overcompensating because of the messages they are told they are being fake that are internalized in the same way cis women internalize them.

So the harm from female socialization is still felt and the fact remains that trans women are female socialized, but they are punished for that socialization, even long after it has supposedly ended, and that socialization itself is combined with the violence, neglect and abuse done to them through additional axes of oppression to force them into some dark places that they are then blamed for being forced into.

All of this is done to girls because they are girls. It is done to women because they are women.

The act of saying that it happens to them because they have vaginas is part of the very system of oppression that also oppresses trans women: the patriarchy, which is what made that call and reinforces that idea.

When trans people say they have always felt like x or y, what they are trying to express in colloquial and layman’s terms is the concept of gender identity, now more commonly referred to as either social sex identity and physical sex identity, which is two concepts, each distinct.

Roughly translated, the whole thing means that a Trans person is aware that they are a woman, man, both, or neither, at the same core level as they are aware of themselves as a person that is distinct from other people.

Some people would prefer to argue that what this is suggesting is that there is a “brain sex”. That is not what this is describing. It is describing a sense of self-awareness — which, while decidedly part of the brain’s physiology, is more authentically part of the existential notion that one exists, and therefore is not part of that argument, nor even related directly to biological systems.

What that means, as well, is that this description has nothing whatsoever to do with biology, and, therefore arguments about biology aren’t valid when contradicting it. It would be akin to saying that the United States army shouldn’t exist because of broccoli.

This all comes together in the core aspect here: like sexual orientation, this is part of what creates the sense of self in people, and it therefore is part of how they know that they exist as an individual human being, and is a part of that.

So the same question of how you know can be answered in as many different ways as there are people, and it is the still same way that those asking the question know what their social sex identity is.

This effectively makes it the trans version of the question “how do you know you are gay?”, with the same accurate answer “I just do, because I know I exist.”

The answer may not satisfy those seeking some sort of concrete answer, but it is inevitable that they themselves, will discount any answer because for them the same question remains unanswered in a way they would accept from a trans person, usually due to cis privilege.

In the end, it does not matter if biology claims trans women are males.

Biology is not concerned with the violence done to people.

Biology is not a shield to do violence to people, and indeed, the admittedly flawed models of colloquial biology often cited against trans women have also been used to justify and make excuses for violence against minority populations in oppressive systems.

And they are not scientific and they are outright lies.

Violence is still violence. It is still immoral, still unethical, and defending it is immoral and unethical.

Psychology, sociology, anthropology, physiology, medicine — these sciences have all proven that calling a trans woman a man is violence.

Violence is not limited to broken bones and bruised flesh and physical damage visible to the seeing.

It is also words. Ask those fleeing persecution, read history, talk to survivors of child abuse and domestic violence and prison violence.

Words are just as physically damaging - and according to many measures more so, since the brain treats those words no differently than it treats the body blows. The science is there to demonstrate this, and it is well known.

Calling trans women men is violence. It has physical, measurable consequences, and it endures and we know that this applies even when it is strangers.

The science establishes it.

This is fact. Not opinion.

Calling a trans woman a man is an act of violence, an assault, and those who do so are being violent, are being immoral, are being unethical, are cruel and callous and pathetic.

Silence in the face of violence is complicity, especially when that violence is social. Defense of calling a trans woman a man is defending violence.

Liking it, re blogging it without calling it out, these are forms of complicity.

Name it what it is. Don’t dress it up, don’t reduce it, it is violence. It is unethical. It is immoral.

Shame those who do it, teach them it is wrong.

Because not doing so means you are complicit, means you are supporting, means you are not trying to stop violence against gay, lesbian, bisexual, and even straight people.

It means you are not trying to stop violence against people of color, against immigrants, against the disabled, against the poor.

It means you are standing by watching as someone does violence to another person.

What is: Transphobia

Transphobia is the aversion to, anxiety regarding, or animus, in any combination or singly, towards trans people or transness.

Aversion is things like being disgusted, in opposition to, identifying something as repugnant, and exhibiting strong feelings about this. Aversion is the desire to avoid, the act of arguing to avoid or reduce encounters. It includes being unwilling to listen or accept factual,statements made by trans people. It also includes not wanting trans people in the restroom.

Anxietyis distress, worry, concern, and overt anxiousness about something or someone that is strongly expressed in physical, literal, or metaphorical terms. Anxiety is worry, concern, or anticipatory ideation relating to trans people or Transness. It includes prejudice against trans people, such as worrying about what they do in the restroom.

Animusis a strong and intense dislike. It involves devaluing the lives of people, erasing their dignity, opposing their civil and human rights, denying them the ability to mark themselves,and outright harm to them. Animus is intense dislike, easily distinguished by overly concerned and reactionary language and violence, in any form. It includes agitating in the interest of preventing trans people from being In the restroom by law or policy.

So any of those things, either individually or in combination, is what makes up transphobia.

Examples of Transphobic Statements

People who mutilate themselves like transgendered (Animus)

Transness is a mental illness. (Animus)

Transness is a medical condition (Anxiety)

I do not feel safe having male socialised trans women in my space. (Aversion, Anxiety)

Cis assigns a gender to someone. (Anxiety)

Transwomen are biologically male. (Animus)

Trans women are men (Animus)

Trans men are traitors (Animus)

trans politics enforces gender and gender roles by reducing womanhood to a stereotype made up by males. (Animus, Anxiety)

If we include gender identity protections in this bill, it will be harder to pass (Aversion, Anxiety)

The second you become pregnant you are a woman.(Animus, Aversion)

There are many other examples, readily found in pretty much any attack or pretend “Criticism” on trans lives or in any post that deals in trans issues coming from someone who proclaims themselves “trans critical”.

Here, in a new, expanded edition of six easy lessons, is How To Spot A Transphobe.

So here are 60 Ways to spot a Transphobe.

Lesson one:

1: If they think that cis has something to do with liking your body

2: If they think that cis has something to do with the clothes you wear or makeup

3: if they think that being trans has something to do with liking your body.

4: if they think that beings trans has something to do with the clothes you wear or make up

5: If they think that cis is a slur

6: If they think that gender is not composed of three to five distinct elements

7: If they think that being trans is a mental illness

8: If they think that being cis is a bad thing.

9: If they think that cis privilege has anything to do with someones’s sex or gender

10: If they think that biology says that trans women are male.

Lesson Two:

11: If they think that the points above are limited just to trans women, since we are talking about trans folk. Note that these are exemplars based on actual ideas held by people who hate trans people, and so the assertions are equally valid for all trans folk along the spectrum.

12: If they make an argument against trans women that features the idea of “male socialization”, yet never note the way this argument relies on racism because they don’t understand how it does so.

13: If they think calling a trans woman a man or male is not violence. Bonus: they are not only ignorant, they are also violent.

14: If they ever say ” it’s not like i ever go out of my way to message anyone ever and trigger them intentionally”, and pretend like their stuff doesn’t show up in tags or is reblogged or is said in public on tumblr since tumblr is a platform designed intentionally to make things visible to other people.

15: If they think that “gender abolition” is not a dog whistle for genocide of trans people.

16: If they think that bodily autonomy is great for women, but bad for for trans women by arguing that trans women have no place in the pro-choice movement.

17: If they are against sex work and never speak about how trans women of color are driven into it by the same forces that drive cis women of color into it and at the same ages.

18: If they think that trans women cannot be lesbians or that trans men cannot be gay men.

19: If they think that despite holding any of the items in this list they are an ally of the trans community.

20: If they argue that trans women represent a danger to cis women.

Lesson Three:

21: If they disagree with the term Cis.

22: If they think that Transness is a mental illness named gender dysphoria

23: If they argue that gender is a social construct but argue that sex is not a social construct.

24: If they argue against unisex restrooms because of risks associated with trans women.

25: If they argue for female only space instead of cis only space (these are two different things)

26: If they say they don’t hate trans people but use arguments that rely on seeing trans women as men, not only are they ignorant, they are also violent and hypocritical.

27: If they think that the treatment for trans children isn’t based on decades of research and study by experts in pediatric care.

28: if they think that Transness has always been a mental illness when it wasn’t introduced until after homosexuality was removed.

29: If they they think that trans women are just homophobic gay men.

30: If they say that trans women are not women because womanhood is not a feeling or identity

Lesson Four:

31: If they don’t agree with Trans Theory and think trans theory is the stuff from lesson one.

32: If they say things like cis privilege has something to do with a person’s “mode of presentation”

33: If they say things like “How can I, as someone who doesn’t subscribe to gender politics and does not have a gender identity, be “cis”?” Right before describing themselves as cis people.

34: If they say terf is a slur

35: If they argue for separate but equal like trans woman/ cis woman restrooms

36: If They say that a trans woman Ina relationship with another woman is “straight”

37: If they get upset at the idea of a women’s space including trans women

38: If they think that trans men in a women’s space is ok

39: If they think that when people say they are being essentialist, they leap to the conclusion it is about biological essentialism and never think about what the person says routinely.

40: If they make a habit of being violent, dishonest, prejudiced, bigoted, aversive, anxious, incompetent, ignorant, immoral, and unethical when it comes to trans people.

Lesson Five:

41: if they post any quote from Sheila Jeffreys, Julie Bindel, or Janice Raymond on their blogs without pointing out how they are all deeply transphobic

42: if they think that it is reasonable for trans people to engage in dialog with people who are violent towards them but refuse to acknowledge that violence.

43: If they think “cotton ceiling” is about forcing lesbians to have sex.

44: If they reference “Gender Identity Watch” or “OWL”.

45: If they talk about “redefining woman” the same way folks talk about “redefining marriage”. .

46: If they talk about gender as if it is not the way that society deals with physiological sex.

47: If they use phrases like “womyn born womyn”, “women born female”, or a half dozen other variations of the same thing.

48: If they think that Laverne Cox is a misogynist or that Janet Mock thinks positively of molestation of children.

49: If they argue that male socialization only affects males.

50: If they think that saying die cis scum is a threat.

Lesson Six

51: describes themselves as Trans critical

52: Say that Transness is a medical condition

53: Say that Dysphoria is required to be trans

54: Saying that disliking trans people is a legitimate response to their behavior of expanding and strengthening misogyny through their glorification of gender.

55: saying that trans people need to be nicer to trans critical people and other transphobic people

56: Argue that Gender Critical is different from trans critical

57: Claim misogyny cannot be engaged in against trans women

58: “Trans Theory” is responsible for perpetuating patriarchal gender systems

59:Sex is not a social construct (when used in reference to any of the above, it is an intellectually dishonest attempt to devalue the lives of trans people)

60: “I hate trans people”

Bonus Round:

61. They describe themselves as “Trans critical” or “gender critical” or say that they are arguing from that position.

62. They argue in favor of gender abolition, yet remain unaware of the basis of that argument or how it is colonizing and racist.

Be Aware:

Transphobes will frequently engage in racist, ableist, biphobic, and homophobic arguments. This is because they are misanthropes who lack common human decency as a direct result of the poinon and harm they are inflicting on themselves via their hate.

Note:

Any single one of those things is proof that the person involved has no idea what they are talking about and is actively engaged in worrying about the risks of, feeling disgusted or sickened by trans people or things around transness, fears being around trans people, or harbors an intense dislike of trans people.

All of which are forms of transphobia, an irrational mindset that affects their ability to accurately and honestly deal with the larger world around them. People who are transphobic are literally not in their right minds.

Transphobia comes from one or more of three distinct mindsets: Aversion, Anxiety, and Animus.

Aversion is things like being disgusted, in opposition to, identifying something as repugnant, and exhibiting strong feelings about this. Examples: getting agitated by the idea of a trans woman in the locker room, or worried about how someone’s pronouns might be “embarassing” to others.

Anxiety is distress, worry, concern, and overt anxiousness about something or someone that is strongly expressed in physical, literal, or metaphorical terms. Example: not wanting a trans woman in the locker room, or arguing that being trans is a medical condition.

Animus is a strong and intense dislike. It involves devaluing the lives of people, erasing their dignity, opposing their civil and human rights, denying them the ability to mark themselves,and outright harm to them. Example: trying to stop a law passed using the argument that a trans woman might be in a locker room, or that trans women as a class are a danger to women, or trying to decide for others if they are trans or not.

So any of those thing, either individually or in combination, is what makes up transphobia.

People saying the 60+ things noted above are ignorant of that, and ignorant as well of their own transphobia, and so think that what they are saying has some sort of value critically. Since none of them are true, there is no critical value in the statements, since they are essentially making shit up as they go.

It is important to recognize that the above examples are actual hate speech, and is recognized as such by both the ADL and the SPLC.

****WARNING*****

Transphobes are dangerous.

They are violent, they are dishonest, and they are both immoral and unethical.

Confronting Transphobes often leads to gang attacks on Tumblr, and so it is not recommended that you confront a transphobe directly, unless you have the stomach and time for it.

They will actively seek to destroy your character and reputation; they will accuse you of all manner of things including murder, being a war criminal, being a class A hacker, having 500 blogs, being other people, a stalker, a rape apologist, a 60 year old linebacker, and that you make them feel like drinking bleach, just to touch on the surface of some of the more recent things that have been said about people.

So you must be strong when responding.

Transphobes are known for their ignorance, incompetence, dishonesty, deceit, violence, abuse, bigotry, prejudice, opposition to human and civil rights, immorality and lack of ethics, but sometimes spotting the things that make those points true can be tricky since, like most anti-lgbt folks, they try to seem liberal and put a lot of effort into that while actually being socially conservative and desiring a fascist ideal.

This long post should give you the tools to spot transphobes and other people who are all, without exception, dishonest, deceitful, abusive, violent, anti-lgbt, prejudiced, bigoted, immoral, unethical, ignorant, incompetent, and opposed to human and civil rights for all people.

The concept of Trans Critical, in and of itself, is based in Aversion derived from Anxiety and supported by Animus, so it is a fairly easy to spot examples.

Common Tactics used

One of the most common tactics employed by transphobic people is to look for a statement that triggers a non sequitur argument, is an argument in which its conclusion does not follow from its premises. In a non sequitur, the conclusion could be either true or false, but the argument is fallacious because there is a disconnection between the premise and the conclusion. An example of this is the statement:

"I dislike penises" is not a sexual orientation.

The statement is wholly true, in and of itself, Sexual orientations are not “likes penis, doesn’t like penis, can like penis, and doesn’t care about penis” because that doesn’t work.

However, often the response to such a statement will be “you support forcing lesbians to like dick”, which has nothing to do with the statement itself, but has much to do with the character of the messenger (ad hominem), and brings unrelated concepts to the premise (which is the factual and true statement).

This is commonly called derailing, and is a particular form of dishonest and deceitful tactic that employs a wide variety of dishonest and deceitful actions. In the example above, the dishonest derai is joined by the dishonesty of the ad hominem, and is also a strawman argument (asserting something that isn’t contained in the original premise or first statement), thus combining three distinct acts of dishonesty into a single sentence than in and of itself is not true (and so a lie).

Derailing, at any time, is an automatic “loss”, because the act of derailing is an act of arguing in bad faith.

Bad faith (Latin: mala fides) is double mindedness or double heartedness in duplicity, fraud, or deception.

It may involve intentional deceit of others, or self-deception.

The expression “bad faith” is associated with “double heartedness”, which is also translated as “double mindedness”.

A bad faith belief may be formed through self-deception, being double minded, or “of two minds”, which is associated with faith, belief, attitude, and loyalty. In the 1913 Webster’s Dictionary, bad faith was equated with being double hearted, “of two hearts”, or “a sustained form of deception which consists in entertaining or pretending to entertain one set of feelings, and acting as if influenced by another”.

The concept is similar to perfidy, or being “without faith”, in which deception is achieved when one side in a conflict promises to act in good faith (e.g. by raising a flag of surrender) with the intention of breaking that promise once the enemy has exposed himself.

After Jean-Paul Sartre’s analysis of the concepts of self deception and bad faith, bad faith has been examined in specialized fields as it pertains to self deception as two semi-independently acting minds within one mind, with one deceiving the other.

Some examples of bad faith include: a company representative who negotiates with union workers while having no intent of compromising; a prosecutor who argues a legal position that he knows to be false; an insurer who uses language and reasoning which are deliberately misleading in order to deny a claim.

Reasoned discussion is not possible with someone who is acting in bad faith, and ends immediately.

This flow chart outlines that process:

Bad faith is where one or more of the first three steps in the flow chart are not true.

In the previous example about derailing, the act of derailing, itself, is an act of not being willing to follow basic principles of reason, as honesty is a fundamental aspect of those principles, and so the person making that derail is indicating, at the very start, that they are not interested in a conversation, and are, instead, interested in attacking and engaging in a violent and abusive manner.

Responding to Anxiety, Aversion, & Animus

The best response to Anxiety, Aversion, & Animus is to provide examples of how the statements are any of those three things.

Cognitive Biases are often deeply embedded in Transphobic statements, particularly when Animus is involved, as Animus alters the fundamental ability of the individual to perceive things clearly.

Focalism - the tendency to rely too heavily, or “anchor,” on one trait or piece of information when making decisions – is widespread, relying primarily on the basis of their perceived natural order. “biology arguments” such as “but biologically they are male, so” tend to ignore wider considerations like compassion, human dignity, and human and civil rights.

The Backfire effect – when people react to disconfirming evidence by strengthening their beliefs — is also frequently encountered, and indeed, is evidence itself of the strength in the Animus.

The Belief bias – an effect where someone’s evaluation of the logical strength of an argument is biased by the believability of the conclusion — is often noted among those who frequently profess or describe belief as a fundamental aspect of their opposition. This is not religious belief, though it can be, this is the sort of belief one is referencing when you say “I believe”.

Confirmation bias – the tendency to search for, interpret and remember information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions — is rather obvious after only a few exchanges, and is particularly widespread among “TERF” types and those professing to be Trans Critical.

Most importantly, all of these arguments are marked by Conservatism – the tendency to insufficiently revise one’s belief when presented with new evidence.

This is very important, as the individuals often do not realize that they are engaging in that conservative belief. To support their views, biased as they are, they will often rely on a handful of fallacies.

These fallacies are, in and of themselves, acts of dishonesty and deception, and are based in irrational thinking (which is to be expected when one is dealing with aversion, anxiety, or animus, since persons embracing such are fundamentally irrational).

The five most common versions of these, in my experience, are the following:

Strawman - This is where someone misrepresents someone’s argument or statement to make it easier to attack. By exaggerating, misrepresenting, or just completely fabricating someone’s argument or statement, it’s much easier to present your own position as being reasonable, but this kind of dishonesty serves to undermine honest rational debate. Example: After Will said that we should put more money into health and education, Warren responded by saying that he was surprised that Will hates our country so much that he wants to leave it defenceless by cutting military spending.

Incredulity: This happens where one found something difficult to understand, or are unaware of how it works, or made out like it’s probably not true. An excellent example of this is the notion that sex is a social construction — despite it being known to be such for decades and an accepted part of scientific discourse, they will refuse to acknowledge it, treating biology as inviolate, even though it is one of the sciences most affected by cultural shifts (see racism). Complex subjects like biological evolution through natural selection require some amount of understanding before one is able to make an informed judgement about the subject at hand; this fallacy is usually used in place of that understanding.Example: Kirk drew a picture of a fish and a human and with effusive disdain asked Richard if he really thought we were stupid enough to believe that a fish somehow turned into a human through just, like, random things happening over time.

Appeal to Nature, where it is argued that because something is ‘natural’ (biology, as an example) it is therefore valid, justified, inevitable, good or ideal. Many ‘natural’ things are also considered ‘good’, and this can bias our thinking; but naturalness itself doesn’t make something good or bad. For instance murder could be seen as very natural, but that doesn’t mean it’s good or justifiable. Example: The medicine man rolled into town on his bandwagon offering various natural remedies, such as very special plain water. He said that it was only natural that people should be wary of ‘artificial’ medicines such as antibiotics.

Purity Fallacies are where they make an appeal to purity as a way to dismiss relevant criticisms or flaws of an argument or statement. In this form of faulty reasoning one’s belief is rendered unfalsifiable because no matter how compelling the evidence is, one simply shifts the goalposts so that it wouldn’t apply to a supposedly ‘true’ example. This kind of post-rationalization is a way of avoiding valid criticisms of one’s argument. Example: Angus declares that Scotsmen do not put sugar on their porridge, to which Lachlan points out that he is a Scotsman and puts sugar on his porridge. Furious, like a true Scot, Angus yells that no true Scotsman sugars his porridge.

Loaded Question or Statement. Here they ask a question or make a statement that has a presumption built into it so that it can’t be answered without appearing to be uncaring, uninterested, supportive of a taboo, or similar act. Loaded question fallacies are particularly effective at derailing rational debates because of their inflammatory nature – the recipient of the loaded question often feels as if they are compelled to defend themselves and may appear flustered or on the back foot. Example: Grace and Helen were both romantically interested in Brad. One day, with Brad sitting within earshot, Grace asked in an inquisitive tone whether Helen was having any problems with a drug habit. A frequent example as well is “well, what about the poor children in (insert your country of choice) who are starving — if you care so much about this, why don’t care about them?”

There are many other logical fallacies that are frequently used. You can study them at this link , and learn them at your own time.

Above all, remain calm, and understand that their goal is to hurt you. To hurt your feelings, to hurt your confidence, to hurt your reputation and self esteem, and all of it is for the sole purpose of making you shut up and go away.

They are bullies. And that is what they seek.

CISCENTRIC: the concept was established only in relation to the cis world. Something can be Ciscentric without being transphobic.

CISSEXIST: the concept is sexist in regards to trans people in relation to Cis people. Something can be transphobic and cissexist, or just cissexist.

CISNORMATIVE: a norm which applies only to the cis population, but is often pushed at trans people. Most cisnormative concepts are applied in a transphobic way, but are not transphobic themselves, merely Ciscentric.

TRANSCENTRIC: a concept which centers trans lives as normative.

TRANSPHOBIC: a concept which involves aversion, anxiety, and/or animus, singly or in any combination, to teams people or Transness.

CISNESS (Cis): Cisness is the state of awareness or condition in society of someone who does conform in a majority of aspects to the way their society or culture sees them as behaving and living in relation to their culture’s social construction of physiological sex, usually due to an absence of variance between their physical sex and one or both of their social sex identity and/or internal sex identity. It exists at the same level as awareness of self, and it is, itself, an awareness, but because it is not at variance, is often unnoticed and unremarked.

TRANSNESS (Trans): Transness is the state of awareness or condition in society of someone who does not conform in a majority of aspects to the way their society or culture sees them as behaving and living in relation to their culture’s social construction of physiological sex, usually due to a variance between their physical sex and one or both of their social sex identity and/or internal sex identity. It exists at the same level as awareness of self, and it is, itself, an awareness.

WPATH: The World Professional Association for Transgender Health. The WPATH is an international, multidisciplinary, professional association whose mission is to promote evidence-based care, education, research, advocacy, public policy, and respect for transgender health. The vision of WPATH is to bring together diverse professionals dedicated to developing best practices and supportive policies worldwide that promote health, research, education, respect, dignity, and equality for transsexual, transgender, and gender nonconforming people in all cultural settings.

The Standards of Care (SoC): The international Standards of treatment for Trans people. The minimums level of treatment considered ethical, moral, and standard.

Gender Dysphoria:  refers to discomfort or distress (disgust at their own genitalia, social isolation from their peers, anxiety, loneliness, and depression) that is caused by a discrepancy between a person’s gender identity and that person’s sex assigned at birth (and the associated gender role and/or primary and secondary sex characteristics).

GENDER: Gender refers to the socially constructed roles, behavior, and expressions that a particular society considers appropriate for men and women. Gender is always social - that is, it only comes into play in relation to other people. Things, objects, parts, language all are involved in gendering things. When one says “that is male” one is gendering it.

GENDER ROLES: What we call Femininity and Masculinity. They deal in how we expect persons of a particular sex to behave or act within our culture. The three billion ways to be a man, and the three billion ways to be a woman, and all the stuff related to sexism lies here. Social sex roles are a set of social and behavioral norms that are structurally designated as appropriate for either a man or a woman in a social or interpersonal relationship based on their social sex.

GENDER EXPRESSIONS: how people present themselves to the wider world, not always in line with their Social Sex role. It has to do with primarily “superficial” stuff — dress and body decoration — that affect things like attraction and courtship. Expressions are the tools by which we convey to others, who cannot see our physical anatomy, that we fit into this particular box for a given physical sex.

GENDER BEHAVIORS: all the little things that social sex influences that are outside the realm of the usual and the commonplace – the indirect effects, so to speak. Inheritance is part of this, kinship is part of this, lineage is part of this, even names are part of this. These behaviors are basic elements, often focused around interpersonal relationships and the interplay between Social Sex Roles and Social Sex Expressions. Male privilege is an excellent example of a Social Sex Behavior.

Selections from the WPATH Standards of Care:

Official Title:

Standards of Care for the Health of Transsexual, Transgender, and Gender Nonconforming People

On Gender nonconformity not being the same as gender dysphoria:

Gender Nonconformity Is Not the Same as Gender Dysphoria Gender nonconformity refers to the extent to which a person’s gender identity, role, or expression differs from the cultural norms prescribed for people of a particular sex (Institute of Medicine, 2011). Gender dysphoria refers to discomfort or distress that is caused by a discrepancy between a person’s gender identity and that person’s sex assigned at birth (and the associated gender role and/or primary and secondary sex characteristics) (Fisk, 1974; Knudson, De Cuypere, & Bockting, 2010b). Only some gender nonconforming people experience gender dysphoria at some point in their lives.

On Surgery & Hormones being required to be trans

Indeed, hormone therapy and surgery have been found to be medically necessary to alleviate gender dysphoria in many people (American Medical Association, 2008; Anton, 2009; The World Professional Association for Transgender Health, 2008).

While many individuals need both hormone therapy and surgery to alleviate their gender dysphoria, others need only one of these treatment options and some need neither (Bockting and Goldberg, 2006; Bockting, 2008; Lev, 2004).

Often with the help of psychotherapy, some individuals integrate their trans- or cross-gender feelings into the gender role they were assigned at birth and do not feel the need to feminize or masculinize their body. For others, changes in gender role and expression are sufficient to alleviate gender dysphoria. Some patients may need hormones, a possible change in gender role, but not surgery; others may need a change in gender role along with surgery, but not hormones.

On nonbinary individuals

Some individuals describe themselves not as gender nonconforming but as unambiguously cross-sexed (i.e., as a member of the other sex; Bockting, 2008).

Other individuals affirm their unique gender identity and no longer consider themselves either male or female (Bornstein, 1994; Kimberly, 1997; Stone, 1991; Warren, 1993). Instead, they may describe their gender identity in specific terms such as transgender, bigender, or genderqueer, affirming their unique experience that may transcend a male/female binary understanding of gender (Bockting, 2008; Ekins and King, 2006; Nestle, Wilchins, and Howell, 2002).

They may not experience their process of identity affirmation as a “transition,” because they never fully embraced the gender role they were assigned at birth or because they actualize their gender identity, role, and expression in a way that does not involve a change from one gender role to another.

For example, some youth identifying as genderqueer have always experienced their gender identity and role as such (genderqueer).

On Dysphoria being required to be Trans

Only some gender nonconforming people experience gender dysphoria at some point in their lives.

What helps one person alleviate gender dysphoria might be very different from what helps another person. This process may or may not involve a change in gender expression or body modifications.

Gender identities and expressions are diverse, and hormones and surgery are just two of many options available to assist people with achieving comfort with self and identity.

On Regrets after surgery

Although Harry Benjamin already acknowledged a spectrum of gender nonconformity (Benjamin, 1966), the initial clinical approach largely focused on identifying who was an appropriate candidate for sex reassignment to facilitate a physical change from male to female or female to male as completely as possible (e.g., Green & Fleming, 1990; Hastings,1974).

This approach was extensively evaluated and proved to be highly effective.

Satisfaction rates across studies ranged from 87% of MtF patients to 97% of FtM patients (Green and Fleming, 1990), and regrets were extremely rare (1-1.5% of MtF patients and less than 1% of FtM patients; Pfafflin,1993).

On Transgender Children

When it comes to the persistence of cross gender behaviors from childhood, newer studies, also including girls, showed a 12 - 27% persistence rate of gender dysphoria into adulthood (Drummond, Bradley, Peterson-Badali, & Zucker, 2008; Wallien & Cohen-Kettenis, 2008).

In contrast, the persistence of gender dysphoria into adulthood appears to be much higher for adolescents. In a follow-up study of 70 adolescents who were diagnosed with gender dysphoria and given puberty suppressing hormones, all continued with the actual sex reassignment, beginning with feminizing/masculinizing hormone therapy (deVries, Steensma, Doreleijers, & Cohen-Kettenis, 2010).

Another difference between gender dysphoric children and adolescents is in the sex ratios for each age group. In clinically referred, gender dysphoric children under age 12, the male/female ratio ranges from 6:1 to 3:1 (Zucker, 2004). In clinically referred, gender dysphoric adolescents older than age 12, the male/female ratio is close to 1:1 (Cohen-Kettenis & Pfäfflin, 2003).

Treatment aimed at trying to change a person’s gender identity and expression to become more congruent with sex assigned at birth has been attempted in the past without success (Gelder & Marks, 1969; Greenson, 1964), particularly in the long term (Cohen-Kettenis & Kuiper, 1984; Pauly,1965). Such treatment is no longer considered ethical.

On Diagnoses

Some people experience gender dysphoria at such a level that the distress meets criteria for a formal diagnosis that might be classified as a mental disorder. Such a diagnosis is not a license for stigmatization or for the deprivation of civil and human rights. Existing classification systems such as the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) (American Psychiatric Association, 2000) and the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) (World Health Organization, 2007) define hundreds of mental disorders that vary in onset, duration, pathogenesis, functional disability, and treatability. All of these systems attempt to classify clusters of symptoms and conditions, not the individuals themselves. A disorder is a description of something with which a person might struggle, not a description of the person or the person’s identity. Thus, transsexual, transgender, and gender nonconforming individuals are not inherently disordered. Rather, the distress of gender dysphoria, when present, is the concern that might be diagnosable and for which various treatment options are available. The existence of a diagnosis for such dysphoria often facilitates access to health care and can guide further research into effective treatments.

Research is leading to new diagnostic nomenclatures, and terms are changing in both the DSM (Cohen-Kettenis & Pfäfflin, 2010; Knudson, De Cuypere, & Bockting, 2010b; Meyer-Bahlburg, 2010; Zucker, 2010) and the ICD. For this reason, familiar terms are employed in the SOC and definitions are provided for terms that may be emerging. Health professionals should refer to the most current diagnostic criteria and appropriate codes to apply in their practice areas.

On additional studies relating to broader prevalence needed:

(i) Previously unrecognized gender dysphoria is occasionally diagnosed when patients are seen with anxiety, depression, conduct disorder, substance abuse, dissociative identity disorders, borderline personality disorder, sexual disorders, and disorders of sex development (Cole, O’Boyle, Emory, & Meyer III, 1997).

(ii) Some crossdressers, drag queens/ kings or female/male impersonators, and gay and lesbian individuals may be experiencing gender dysphoria (Bullough & Bullough, 1993).

(iii) The intensity of some people’s gender dysphoria fluctuates below and above a clinical threshold (Docter, 1988).

(iv) Gender nonconformity among FtM individuals tends to be relatively invisible in many cultures, particularly to Western health professionals and researchers who have conducted most of the studies on which the current estimates of prevalence and incidence are based (Winter, 2009).

On Options for Psychological and Medical Treatment of Gender Dysphoria

For individuals seeking care for gender dysphoria, a variety of therapeutic options can be considered. The number and type of interventions applied and the order in which these take place may differ from person to person (e.g., Bockting, Knudson, & Goldberg, 2006; Bolin, 1994; Rachlin, 1999; Rachlin, Green, & Lombardi, 2008; Rachlin, Hansbury, & Pardo, 2010). Treatments options include the following:

Changes in gender expression and role (which may involve living part time or full time in another gender role, consistent with one’s gender identity);

Hormone therapy to feminize or masculinize the body;

Surgery to change primary and/or secondary sex characteristics (e.g., breasts/chest, external and/or internal genitalia, facial features, body contouring);

Psychotherapy (individual, couple, family, or group) for purposes such as exploring gender identity, role, and expression; addressing the negative impact of gender dysphoria and stigma on mental health; alleviating internalized transphobia; enhancing social and peer support; improving body image; or promoting resilience.

On withholding treatment for adolescents

Refusing timely medical interventions for adolescents might prolong gender dysphoria and contribute to an appearance that could provoke abuse and stigmatization. As the level of gender-related abuse is strongly associated with the degree of psychiatric distress during adolescence (Nuttbrock et al., 2010), withholding puberty suppression and subsequent feminizing or masculinizing hormone therapy is not a neutral option for adolescents.

On informed consent

Feminizing/masculinizing hormone therapy may lead to irreversible physical changes. Thus, hormone therapy should be provided only to those who are legally able to provide informed consent. This includes people who have been declared by a court to be emancipated minors, incarcerated people, and cognitively impaired people who are considered competent to participate in their medical decisions (see also Bockting et al., 2006). Providers should document in the medical record that comprehensive information has been provided and understood about all relevant aspects of the hormone therapy, including both possible benefits and risks and the impact on reproductive capacity.

On the broad needs for health

WPATH recognizes that health is dependent upon not only good clinical care but also social and political climates that provide and ensure social tolerance, equality, and the full rights of citizenship. Health is promoted through public policies and legal reforms that promote tolerance and equity for gender and sexual diversity and that eliminate prejudice, discrimination, and stigma. WPATH is committed to advocacy for these changes in public policies and legal reforms.

On Trans People In Other Cultures

In applying these standards to other cultural contexts, health professionals must be sensitive to these differences and adapt the SOC according to local realities. For example, in a number of cultures, gender nonconforming people are found in such numbers and living in such ways as to make them highly socially visible (Peletz, 2006).

In settings such as these, it is common for people to initiate a change in their gender expression and physical characteristics while in their teens, or even earlier. Many grow up and live in a social, cultural, and even linguistic context quite unlike that of Western cultures. Yet almost all experience prejudice (Peletz, 2006; Winter, 2009).

In many cultures, social stigma towards gender nonconformity is widespread and gender roles are highly prescriptive (Winter et al., 2009). Gender nonconforming people in these settings are forced to be hidden, and therefore may lack opportunities for adequate health care (Winter, 2009).

The Standards of Care, Version 7 represents a significant departure from previous versions. Changes in this version are based upon significant cultural shifts, advances in clinical knowledge, and appreciation of the many health care issues that can arise for transsexual, transgender, and gender nonconforming people beyond hormone therapy and surgery (Coleman, 2009a, b, c, d).

Public Policies of the WPATH

On Identity Documents and Surgery Requirements

No person should have to undergo surgery or accept sterilization as a condition of identity recognition. If a sex marker is required on an identity document, that marker could recognize the person’s lived gender, regardless of reproductive capacity. The WPATH Board of Directors urges governments and other authoritative bodies to move to eliminate requirements for identity recognition that require surgical procedures.

On being trans being a Medical Condition (Mental Illness, Etc.)

The expression of gender characteristics, including identities, that are not stereotypically associated with one’s assigned sex at birth is a common and culturally-diverse human phenomenon which should not be judged as inherently pathological or negative. The psychopathologlisation of gender characteristics and identities reinforces or can prompt stigma, making prejudice and discrimination more likely, rendering transgender and transsexual people more vulnerable to social and legal marginalisation and exclusion, and increasing risks to mental and physical well-being. WPATH urges governmental and medical professional organizations to review their policies and practices to eliminate stigma toward gender-variant people

Pathological

involving, caused by, or of the nature of a physical or mental disease.

caused by or involving disease; morbid.

caused by or evidencing a mentally disturbed condition

dealing with diseases

1680s, “pertaining to disease,” formed in English from pathology.

Synonyms: morbid, diseased, sick, ill, unhealthy, aberrant, medical, medical condition

The very document that lays out the treatment for Trans people, and the very organization that is responsible for setting the standards and operating on the research and scientific evidence, state, in veryclear terms, that being Trans is not a medical condition, and in addition to that, they state that calling it a medical condition has been proven to be harmful to the health and well being of Trans people.

This is why professionals involved in the care and well being of Trans people who are culturally competent and knowledgeable, do not engage with it on those terms.

Trans people are gender noncomforming.  The standards of care applies to them, so long as they are trans people, and that includes all treatments.

Transness — being trans — does not come from dysphoria. It comes from the conflict between social sex, internal sex, and physical sex. That conflict is not dysphoria. Dysphoria is separate from that. That is the standard that the science shows.

Dysphoria does not make someone a trans person. Being a trans person is what makes someone have dysphoria.

Not because they are trans. But because the world they live in is not designed for, considerate of, or permissible for, trans people.

Transphobia is aversion, anxiety, or animus, singly or in any combination, regarding trans people, transness, or trans related issues.

Aversion is things like being disgusted, in opposition to, identifying something as repugnant, and exhibiting strong feelings about this. Aversion is the desire to avoid, the act of arguing to avoid or reduce encounters. It includes being unwilling to listen or accept factual,statements made by trans people. It also includes not wanting trans people in the restroom. It also includes saying things like you need dysphoria to be trans.

Anxiety is distress, worry, concern, and overt anxiousness about something or someone that is strongly expressed in physical, literal, or metaphorical terms. Anxiety is worry, concern, or anticipatory ideation relating to trans people or Transness. It includes prejudice against trans people, such as worrying about what they do in the restroom. It also includes things like saying that transness is a medical condition.

Animus is a strong and intense dislike. It involves devaluing the lives of people, erasing their dignity, opposing their civil and human rights, denying them the ability to mark themselves,and outright harm to them. Animus is intense dislike, easily distinguished by overly concerned and reactionary language and violence, in any form. It includes agitating in the interest of preventing trans people from being In the restroom by law or policy.It also includes things like telling other trans people they aren’t trans enough.

So any of those thing, either individually or in combination, is what makes up transphobia.

Examples of Transphobic Statements

People who mutilate themselves like transgendered (Animus)

Transness is a mental illness. (Animus)

Transness is a medical condition (Anxiety)

I do not feel safe having male socialized trans women in my space. (Aversion, Anxiety)

Cis assigns a gender to someone. (Anxiety)

Trans women are biologically male. (Animus)

Trans women are men (Animus)

Trans men are traitors (Animus)

Dysphoria is needed to be trans (Aversion)

trans politics enforces gender and gender roles by reducing womanhood to a stereotype made up by males. (Animus, Anxiety)

If we include gender identity protections in this bill, it will be harder to pass (Aversion, Anxiety)

The second you become pregnant you are a woman.(Animus, Aversion)

There are many other examples, readily found in pretty much any attack on trans people and their lives or in any post that deals in trans issues coming from someone who proclaims themselves “trans critical” or “gender critical”.

Some Facts Often ignored by TERFS, Trans Critical People, and related anti-LGBT people:

Biology does not determine what a person’s social sex is.

Gender is a complex system of inter-related parts that vary according to culture and social influence and is not a fixed system.

Gender Dysphoria is not a mental illness.

It is a core violation of human rights to deny trans people necessary medical care, regardless of their age. Agitating against that medical treatment is engaging in a willfully, intentional act of violence and trying to deny human rights to other people.

According to the SPLC and the ADL, the actions and speech of Cathy Brennan constitute hate speech. According to the World Health Organization, that classifies them as acts of violence.

On Trans Women’s Girlhood

Some folks think that Trans women do not experience girlhood, and argue that trans women do not grow up with the mythical idea of “sex-based oppression” (which doesn’t exist, as the oppression is gender based, since sex in social situations *is* gender).

These people often like to try and distance themselves from the more violent, dishonest, extremist elements in Radical feminism — generally referred to as TERFs — by disavowing some of the key aspects that informed the ideas of these terfs, even when making that “sex based oppression” argument, that is, itself, part of those dishonest, transphobic, extremist viewpoints.

They like to describe the ways in which physiology is used to oppress women, often ignoring the fact that physiology is presumed (social sex) in social systems and that the norm they are arguing is part of the very system they claim to be opposing.

Among those things they argue are the following:

That trans women do not grow up being shamed and feeling grossed out and insecure about their periods. This ignores the fact that trans women grow up being shamed and feeling grossed out and insecure because they don’t get periods, and that is used against them both internally and externally in order to further the idea of their being “wrong”.

That trans women are taught that masturbation is a healthy thing, when, in fact, trans women are taught that masturbation is shameful, that if they they masturbate they are perverts and horrible, and that the discussion of trans women masturbating is a really sick and disgusting thing.

That trans women are not subject to the cultural and social stigmas of having body hair being taught to them, when, in fact, they recieve these messages and in a state of pretty hard core crisis as their bodies do the very things they thought they wouldn’t do, often forcing many trans women to begin the ritualistic habit of shaving off all their body hair and creating a sense of horror about body hair that endures throughout their lives, ultimately leading to the most expensive process in transition.

That trans women did not face gender based bullying of the same sort as cis women, where they are treated very cruelly  for things boys would not be, which ignores that trans women are bullied and told that being themselves is a bad thing, while still recieving all the messages that they have to act and look a certain way as girls, and then being punished when they try to do those things by everyone around them, which is, itself, gender based bullying (and gender based oppression).

That trans women are not subjected to constant threats and deeds of sexual violence and harassment, when, in fact, transphobic and ciscentri ideas are based on such, and it starts at essentially the same age, and is constantly given in the form of mixed messages that amount to consistent abuse and neglect.

That trans women do not have the Whore/Madonna complex drilled into them despite this being one of the most common attacks used against trans women, especially by other women, and the way that often these abused and neglected children who grow up trying their damndest to fit in turn to that when they first transition, and sadly are sucked into it seeking the validation and affirmation they have been denied their whole lives because that was the message that they received loud and clear as children.

Keep in mind, all of these things apply to young trans girls — who are often told they are not allowed to be girls, that they are not girls, which is a direct and perpetuating form of violence against them recognized as such by all leading medical organizations in the US. Trans women — including young trans women — are seen as objects of desire and told they need to be objects of desire, which they usually strive for in a manner of overcompensating because of the messages they are told they are being fake that are internalized in the same way cis women internalize them.

So the harm from female socialization is still felt and the fact remains that trans women are female socialized, but they are punished for that socialization, even long after it has supposedly ended, and that socialization itself is combined with the violence, neglect and abuse done to them through additional axes of oppression to force them into some dark places that they are then blamed for being forced into.

All of this is done to girls because they are girls. It is done to women because they are women.

The act of saying that it happens to them because they have vaginas is part of the very system of oppression that also oppresses trans women: the patriarchy, which is what made that call and reinforces that idea.

When trans people say they have always felt like x or y, what they are trying to express in colloquial and layman’s terms is the concept of gender identity, now more commonly referred to as either social sex identity and physical sex identity, which is two concepts, each distinct.

Roughly translated, the whole thing means that a Trans person is aware that they are a woman, man, both, or neither, at the same core level as they are aware of themselves as a person that is distinct from other people.

Some people would prefer to argue that what this is suggesting is that there is a “brain sex”. That is not what this is describing. It is describing a sense of self-awareness — which, while decidedly part of the brain’s physiology, is more authentically part of the existential notion that one exists, and therefore is not part of that argument, nor even related directly to biological systems.

What that means, as well, is that this description has nothing whatsoever to do with biology, and, therefore arguments about biology aren’t valid when contradicting it. It would be akin to saying that the United States army shouldn’t exist because of broccoli.

This all comes together in the core aspect here: like sexual orientation, this is part of what creates the sense of self in people, and it therefore is part of how they know that they exist as an individual human being, and is a part of that.

So the same question of how you know can be answered in as many different ways as there are people, and it is the still same way that those asking the question know what their social sex identity is.

This effectively makes it the trans version of the question “how do you know you are gay?”, with the same accurate answer “I just do, because I know I exist.”

The answer may not satisfy those seeking some sort of concrete answer, but it is inevitable that they themselves, will discount any answer because for them the same question remains unanswered in a way they would accept from a trans person, usually due to cis privilege.

In the end, it does not matter if biology claims trans women are males.

Biology is not concerned with the violence done to people.

Biology is not a shield to do violence to people, and indeed, the admittedly flawed models of colloquial biology often cited against trans women have also been used to justify and make excuses for violence against minority populations in oppressive systems.

And they are not scientific and they are outright lies.

Violence is still violence. It is still immoral, still unethical, and defending it is immoral and unethical.

Psychology, sociology, anthropology, physiology, medicine — these sciences have all proven that calling a trans woman a man is violence.

Violence is not limited to broken bones and bruised flesh and physical damage visible to the seeing.

It is also words. Ask those fleeing persecution, read history, talk to survivors of child abuse and domestic violence and prison violence.

Words are just as physically damaging - and according to many measures more so, since the brain treats those words no differently than it treats the body blows. The science is there to demonstrate this, and it is well known.

Calling trans women men is violence. It has physical, measurable consequences, and it endures and we know that this applies even when it is strangers.

The science establishes it.

This is fact. Not opinion.

Calling a trans woman a man is an act of violence, an assault, and those who do so are being violent, are being immoral, are being unethical, are cruel and callous and pathetic.

Silence in the face of violence is complicity, especially when that violence is social. Defense of calling a trans woman a man is defending violence.

Liking it, re blogging it without calling it out, these are forms of complicity.

Name it what it is. Don’t dress it up, don’t reduce it, it is violence. It is unethical. It is immoral.

Shame those who do it, teach them it is wrong.

Because not doing so means you are complicit, means you are supporting, means you are not trying to stop violence against gay, lesbian, bisexual, and even straight people.

It means you are not trying to stop violence against people of color, against immigrants, against the disabled, against the poor.

It means you are standing by watching as someone does violence to another person.

Transphobia

Privilege

Stigma

Violence against trans people

Identity

Identity politics

Gender Identity

Genderism/Genderist

Socialization

The problems with Gender abolition

Sexual Identity

Key facts about trans people

What feels like a woman means

microaggressions

Gender Roles

Gender Roles in relation to TERF ideology

Agency

Social constructs

So a few people have been wondering why it is that I go after the idea of gender abolition.

There are many reasons, but the chief one is that it is used as a tool by people who do not actually care about it to attack, defame, and justify violence against trans people while seeming “decent” despite their hate speech.

Which will strike some folks as pretty sad, given that it is also many other really nasty things.

Nevertheless, Let’s look at these claims regarding gender abolition and why it is so wrong.

They are not trying to Abolish Gender

They aren’t. They admit it, as well, but they do not realize they are admitting it.

When confronted, what they mean when they say gender abolition is the abolition of Gender Roles (and sometimes Gender Behaviors and Gender Expressions). You have to wheedle this out of them, because they will describe these three distinct parts of gender as if they are all one thing.

They are not the same thing, nor are they one thing.  They are parts of gender, so what they really want to get rid of are parts of gender.

They do not want to get rid of the language issues. They do not want to get rid of the way we gender objects by declaring them male or female (the action of saying that something is “male” or “female” is an act of applying a gendered concept, and therefore using gender).

Now, the argument they will often use in defense of their statements is that they are arguing it from a feminist perspective. In this perspective, it explicitly excludes biological aspects — so referencing any sort of social construction relating to biology (such as saying that then only sex would be left) is in direct contravention to this idea, since the social constructions themselves are part of the social conventions and structures that are part of Gender.

I have already pointed out on several occasions that they do not understand what a social construct is, and that they do not understand what Gender is,so I won’t go into more depth on that at this time — unless I get a wild hair and decide to make another combo post.

But their not realizing that Gender is composed of multiple, distinct parts is part of the flaw int heir thinking, and is a holdover from a very ciscentric and limited way of thought that is influenced by their hostility towards trans people.

If you are going to Abolish Gender, you need to abolish all of it, otherwise, you are not going to achieve your goal, since all of these parts — language, “biology”, expressions, behaviors, etc —are all interdependent.

They treat it as an academic exercise without consequence

Inevitably, they use the phrasing and idea in order to gain credibility among their in-group, without consideration for what it really is.  When they do consider it, they apply it as a kind of mental exercise that is purely academic, without regards to the harm it would cause — their focus is on the outcome, and not the way they would achieve it.

The outcome they invariably arrive at is that the world would be a better place, so that the exercise really looks like this:

Say we will abolish gender.

?

The world is better!

If you don’t believe me, ask them how they plan to achieve that stuff in the middle.

For them, this is little more than an academic exercise, not something they honestly expect to ever achieve, so it becomes strictly a rhetorical tool by which they further the oppression and harm of trans people.

Occasionally one of them will say that they would hope that people would see the benefit and change for the better peacefully — which is mighty naive and incredibly juvenile of them to think, akin to the way they often criticize pageant contestants and the “world peace” answer.

How would you convince them?

Are you going to use the culture you live in which has only the most superficial connections to their cultural ways of seeing gender?

How are you going to deal with cultures where gender is defined by what you do, instead of your anatomy?

and so forth.

In the end, this brings us to the next problem:

The idea is based on Western concepts of Gender

The arguments around the value and benefit of getting rid of gender all surround a couple of different aspects.  The most overtly hostile to trans people one is the one they use to make it seem like they are being supportive: without gender, you wouldn’t have to transition!

It sounds best if you say it in a breathy, child like voice.

But the more serious aspects of it are that it is based on western concepts of gender and the way that gender in western society is structured around genitals and secondary sex characteristics.

This classification of people is not a universal one for gender.  THere are some that classify someone’s gender entirely on what they do (the interests and activities they enjoy), and some do it using a blended form of both the physical and the activity.

By which I mean that they choices you are allowed later in your life through the socialization of you as a person into that culture are going to be based on what you enjoy, on your gentials (as they are in the US) or on a combination of both.

Western gender roles proceed from the designation, whereas other systems designate sex according to the gender roles.  It is the reverse, much like how most Americans find the Japanese system of house numbering to be incredibly confusing.

And all of which ignores that gender is a suppositional concept — it is based on the implication of genitalia, and signified in multiple ways that are entirely based on the cultural norms of that society.

Which means…

To achieve their goal, they must destroy other cultures

Getting back to that question mark, they seem to think that somehow this one thing will overcome all the other social aspects of differing culturals and varying identities, and magically change the world for the better.  Yet if you say to them they are engaging in magical thinking (literally) then they get defensive and deny it, and so you have to take them at face value if you are acting in good faith and that means they are willing to engage in the western notion of manifest destiny and righteous propriety and actively colonize and override and in the end force entire other groups of people who have very different ideas of gender and propriety and destroy those cultures.

If family is the building block of a society, then gender is the building block of family.  That is how deep it lies within a given culture — at the root, as they note and claim, and what that means is that in attacking it, the ripples throughout that culture and society will, ultimately, destroy it. 

It will no longer be the culture and society that it was.  There are real world parallels for this activity, most notably in the treatment of the indigenous populations of many different nations.  I live just off a main street named Indian School Road, and the connotations to me as a Lakota, and to the people here who are Navajo, Hopi, Apache, and more and who were stripped out of their homes in order to teach them a new way of thinking has had incredibly consequences on their cultures.

This is why the idea is racist, colonialist, imperialist, and white supremacist. It is especially anti-Black, anti-Asian and Pacific Islander, and Anti-Indigenous.

and that leads us to the next point, which, thankfully, is…

They cannot achieve their goal

The biggest issue is that gender is a social construct, and there has, in all of human history, never been an abolishment of a social construct. That is not to say that it isn’t possible, but it is meant to indicate that doing so is so unlikely and improbably as to be outside the range of thinking.

Social constructs can be diluted, changed, warped, altered, reduced in import, raised in import, and assorted other thing, but ending them, abolishing them, has never happened, nor is it likely to happen given the nature of human social systems and the depth within cultural systems at which gender systems exist.

CISCENTRIC: the concept was established only in relation to the cis world. Something can be Ciscentric without being transphobic.

CISSEXIST: the concept is sexist in regards to trans people in relation to Cis people. Something can be transphobic and cissexist, or just cissexist.

CISNORMATIVE: a norm which applies only to the cis population, but is often pushed at trans people. Most cisnormative concepts are applied in a transphobic way, but are not transphobic themselves, merely Ciscentric.

TRANSCENTRIC: a concept which centers trans lives as normative.

TRANSPHOBIC: a concept which involves aversion, anxiety, and/or animus, singly or in any combination, to teams people or Transness. 

CISNESS (Cis): Cisness is the state of awareness or condition in society of someone who does conform in a majority of aspects to the way their society or culture sees them as behaving and living in relation to their culture’s social construction of physiological sex, usually due to an absence of variance between their physical sex and one or both of their social sex identity and/or internal sex identity. It exists at the same level as awareness of self, and it is, itself, an awareness, but because it is not at variance, is often unnoticed and unremarked.

TRANSNESS (Trans): Transness is the state of awareness or condition in society of someone who does not conform in a majority of aspects to the way their society or culture sees them as behaving and living in relation to their culture’s social construction of physiological sex, usually due to a variance between their physical sex and one or both of their social sex identity and/or internal sex identity. It exists at the same level as awareness of self, and it is, itself, an awareness.

WPATH: The World Professional Association for Transgender Health. The WPATH is an international, multidisciplinary, professional association whose mission is to promote evidence-based care, education, research, advocacy, public policy, and respect for transgender health. The vision of WPATH is to bring together diverse professionals dedicated to developing best practices and supportive policies worldwide that promote health, research, education, respect, dignity, and equality for transsexual, transgender, and gender nonconforming people in all cultural settings.

The Standards of Care (SoC): The international Standards of treatment for Trans people. The minimums level of treatment considered ethical, moral, and standard.

Gender Dysphoria:  refers to discomfort or distress (disgust at their own genitalia, social isolation from their peers, anxiety, loneliness, and depression) that is caused by a discrepancy between a person’s gender identity and that person’s sex assigned at birth (and the associated gender role and/or primary and secondary sex characteristics).

GENDER: Gender refers to the socially constructed roles, behavior, and expressions that a particular society considers appropriate for men and women. Gender is always social - that is, it only comes into play in relation to other people. Things, objects, parts, language all are involved in gendering things. When one says “that is male” one is gendering it.

GENDER ROLES: What we call Femininity and Masculinity. They deal in how we expect persons of a particular sex to behave or act within our culture. The three billion ways to be a man, and the three billion ways to be a woman, and all the stuff related to sexism lies here. Social sex roles are a set of social and behavioral norms that are structurally designated as appropriate for either a man or a woman in a social or interpersonal relationship based on their social sex.

GENDER EXPRESSIONS: how people present themselves to the wider world, not always in line with their Social Sex role. It has to do with primarily “superficial” stuff — dress and body decoration — that affect things like attraction and courtship. Expressions are the tools by which we convey to others, who cannot see our physical anatomy, that we fit into this particular box for a given physical sex.

GENDER BEHAVIORS: all the little things that social sex influences that are outside the realm of the usual and the commonplace – the indirect effects, so to speak. Inheritance is part of this, kinship is part of this, lineage is part of this, even names are part of this. These behaviors are basic elements, often focused around interpersonal relationships and the interplay between Social Sex Roles and Social Sex Expressions. Male privilege is an excellent example of a Social Sex Behavior.

Selections from the WPATH Standards of Care:

Official Title:

Standards of Care for the Health of Transsexual, Transgender, and Gender Nonconforming People

On Gender nonconformity not being the same as gender dysphoria:

Gender Nonconformity Is Not the Same as Gender Dysphoria  Gender nonconformity refers to the extent to which a person’s gender identity, role, or expression differs from the cultural norms prescribed for people of a particular sex (Institute of Medicine, 2011). Gender dysphoria refers to discomfort or distress that is caused by a discrepancy between a person’s gender identity and that person’s sex assigned at birth (and the associated gender role and/or primary and secondary sex characteristics) (Fisk, 1974; Knudson, De Cuypere, & Bockting, 2010b). Only some gender nonconforming people experience gender dysphoria at some point in their lives.

On Surgery & Hormones being required to be trans

Indeed, hormone therapy and surgery have been found to be medically necessary to alleviate gender dysphoria in many people (American Medical Association, 2008; Anton, 2009; The World Professional Association for Transgender Health, 2008).

While many individuals need both hormone therapy and surgery to alleviate their gender dysphoria, others need only one of these treatment options and some need neither (Bockting and Goldberg, 2006; Bockting, 2008; Lev, 2004).

Often with the help of psychotherapy, some individuals integrate their trans- or cross-gender feelings into the gender role they were assigned at birth and do not feel the need to feminize or masculinize their body. For others, changes in gender role and expression are sufficient to alleviate gender dysphoria. Some patients may need hormones, a possible change in gender role, but not surgery; others may need a change in gender role along with surgery, but not hormones.

On nonbinary individuals

Some individuals describe themselves not as gender nonconforming but as unambiguously cross-sexed (i.e., as a member of the other sex; Bockting, 2008).

Other individuals affirm their unique gender identity and no longer consider themselves either male or female (Bornstein, 1994; Kimberly, 1997; Stone, 1991; Warren, 1993). Instead, they may describe their gender identity in specific terms such as transgender, bigender, or genderqueer, affirming their unique experience that may transcend a male/female binary understanding of gender (Bockting, 2008; Ekins and King, 2006; Nestle, Wilchins, and Howell, 2002).

They may not experience their process of identity affirmation as a “transition,” because they never fully embraced the gender role they were assigned at birth or because they actualize their gender identity, role, and expression in a way that does not involve a change from one gender role to another.

For example, some youth identifying as genderqueer have always experienced their gender identity and role as such (genderqueer). 

On Dysphoria being required to be Trans 

Only some gender nonconforming people experience gender dysphoria at some point in their lives.

What helps one person alleviate gender dysphoria might be very different from what helps another person. This process may or may not involve a change in gender expression or body modifications.

Gender identities and expressions are diverse, and hormones and surgery are just two of many options available to assist people with achieving comfort with self and identity.

On Regrets after surgery

Although Harry Benjamin already acknowledged a spectrum of gender nonconformity (Benjamin, 1966), the initial clinical approach largely focused on identifying who was an appropriate candidate for sex reassignment to facilitate a physical change from male to female or female to male as completely as possible (e.g., Green & Fleming, 1990; Hastings,1974).

This approach was extensively evaluated and proved to be highly effective.

Satisfaction rates across studies ranged from 87% of MtF patients to 97% of FtM patients (Green and Fleming, 1990), and regrets were extremely rare (1-1.5% of MtF patients and less than 1% of FtM patients; Pfafflin,1993).

On Transgender Children

When it comes to the persistence of cross gender behaviors from childhood, newer studies, also including girls, showed a 12 - 27% persistence rate of gender dysphoria into adulthood (Drummond, Bradley, Peterson-Badali, & Zucker, 2008; Wallien & Cohen-Kettenis, 2008).

In contrast, the persistence of gender dysphoria into adulthood appears to be much higher for adolescents. In a follow-up study of 70 adolescents who were diagnosed with gender dysphoria and given puberty suppressing hormones, all continued with the actual sex reassignment, beginning with feminizing/masculinizing hormone therapy (deVries, Steensma, Doreleijers, & Cohen-Kettenis, 2010).

Another difference between gender dysphoric children and adolescents is in the sex ratios for each age group. In clinically referred, gender dysphoric children under age 12, the male/female ratio ranges from 6:1 to 3:1 (Zucker, 2004). In clinically referred, gender dysphoric adolescents older than age 12, the male/female ratio is close to 1:1 (Cohen-Kettenis & Pfäfflin, 2003).

Treatment aimed at trying to change a person’s gender identity and expression to become more congruent with sex assigned at birth has been attempted in the past without success (Gelder & Marks, 1969; Greenson, 1964), particularly in the long term (Cohen-Kettenis & Kuiper, 1984; Pauly,1965). Such treatment is no longer considered ethical.

On Diagnoses

Some people experience gender dysphoria at such a level that the distress meets criteria for a formal diagnosis that might be classified as a mental disorder. Such a diagnosis is not a license for stigmatization or for the deprivation of civil and human rights. Existing classification systems such as the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) (American Psychiatric Association, 2000) and the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) (World Health Organization, 2007) define hundreds of mental disorders that vary in onset, duration, pathogenesis, functional disability, and treatability. All of these systems attempt to classify clusters of symptoms and conditions, not the individuals themselves. A disorder is a description of something with which a person might struggle, not a description of the person or the person’s identity.  Thus, transsexual, transgender, and gender nonconforming individuals are not inherently disordered. Rather, the distress of gender dysphoria, when present, is the concern that might be diagnosable and for which various treatment options are available. The existence of a diagnosis for such dysphoria often facilitates access to health care and can guide further research into effective treatments.

Research is leading to new diagnostic nomenclatures, and terms are changing in both the DSM (Cohen-Kettenis & Pfäfflin, 2010; Knudson, De Cuypere, & Bockting, 2010b; Meyer-Bahlburg, 2010; Zucker, 2010) and the ICD. For this reason, familiar terms are employed in the SOC and definitions are provided for terms that may be emerging. Health professionals should refer to the most current diagnostic criteria and appropriate codes to apply in their practice areas.

On additional studies relating to broader prevalence needed:

(i) Previously unrecognized gender dysphoria is occasionally diagnosed when patients are seen with anxiety, depression, conduct disorder, substance abuse, dissociative identity disorders, borderline personality disorder, sexual disorders, and disorders of sex development (Cole, O’Boyle, Emory, & Meyer III, 1997).

(ii) Some crossdressers, drag queens/ kings or female/male impersonators, and gay and lesbian individuals may be experiencing gender dysphoria (Bullough & Bullough, 1993).

(iii) The intensity of some people’s gender dysphoria fluctuates below and above a clinical threshold (Docter, 1988).

(iv) Gender nonconformity among FtM individuals tends to be relatively invisible in many cultures, particularly to Western health professionals and researchers who have conducted most of the studies on which the current estimates of prevalence and incidence are based (Winter, 2009).

On Options for Psychological and Medical Treatment of Gender Dysphoria

For individuals seeking care for gender dysphoria, a variety of therapeutic options can be considered. The number and type of interventions applied and the order in which these take place may differ from person to person (e.g., Bockting, Knudson, & Goldberg, 2006; Bolin, 1994; Rachlin, 1999; Rachlin, Green, & Lombardi, 2008; Rachlin, Hansbury, & Pardo, 2010). Treatments options include the following:

Changes in gender expression and role (which may involve living part time or full time in another gender role, consistent with one’s gender identity);

Hormone therapy to feminize or masculinize the body;

Surgery to change primary and/or secondary sex characteristics (e.g., breasts/chest, external and/or internal genitalia, facial features, body contouring);

Psychotherapy (individual, couple, family, or group) for purposes such as exploring gender identity, role, and expression; addressing the negative impact of gender dysphoria and stigma on mental health; alleviating internalized transphobia; enhancing social and peer support; improving body image; or promoting resilience.

On withholding treatment for adolescents

Refusing timely medical interventions for adolescents might prolong gender dysphoria and contribute to an appearance that could provoke abuse and stigmatization. As the level of gender-related abuse is strongly associated with the degree of psychiatric distress during adolescence (Nuttbrock et al., 2010), withholding puberty suppression and subsequent feminizing or masculinizing hormone therapy is not a neutral option for adolescents. 

On informed consent

Feminizing/masculinizing hormone therapy may lead to irreversible physical changes. Thus, hormone therapy should be provided only to those who are legally able to provide informed consent. This includes people who have been declared by a court to be emancipated minors, incarcerated people, and cognitively impaired people who are considered competent to participate in their medical decisions (see also Bockting et al., 2006). Providers should document in the medical record that comprehensive information has been provided and understood about all relevant aspects of the hormone therapy, including both possible benefits and risks and the impact on reproductive capacity.

On the broad needs for health

WPATH recognizes that health is dependent upon not only good clinical care but also social and political climates that provide and ensure social tolerance, equality, and the full rights of citizenship. Health is promoted through public policies and legal reforms that promote tolerance and equity for gender and sexual diversity and that eliminate prejudice, discrimination, and stigma. WPATH is committed to advocacy for these changes in public policies and legal reforms.

On Trans People In Other Cultures

In applying these standards to other cultural contexts, health professionals must be sensitive to these differences and adapt the SOC according to local realities. For example, in a number of cultures, gender nonconforming people are found in such numbers and living in such ways as to make them highly socially visible (Peletz, 2006).

In settings such as these, it is common for people to initiate a change in their gender expression and physical characteristics while in their teens, or even earlier. Many grow up and live in a social, cultural, and even linguistic context quite unlike that of Western cultures. Yet almost all experience prejudice (Peletz, 2006; Winter, 2009).

In many cultures, social stigma towards gender nonconformity is widespread and gender roles are highly prescriptive (Winter et al., 2009). Gender nonconforming people in these settings are forced to be hidden, and therefore may lack opportunities for adequate health care (Winter, 2009).

The Standards of Care, Version 7 represents a significant departure from previous versions. Changes in this version are based upon significant cultural shifts, advances in clinical knowledge, and appreciation of the many health care issues that can arise for transsexual, transgender, and gender nonconforming people beyond hormone therapy and surgery (Coleman, 2009a, b, c, d).

Public Policies of the WPATH

On Identity Documents and Surgery Requirements

No person should have to undergo surgery or accept sterilization as a condition of identity recognition. If a sex marker is required on an identity document, that marker could recognize the person’s lived gender, regardless of reproductive capacity. The WPATH Board of Directors urges governments and other authoritative bodies to move to eliminate requirements for identity recognition that require surgical procedures.

On being trans being a Medical Condition (Mental Illness, Etc.)

The expression of gender characteristics, including identities, that are not stereotypically associated with one’s assigned sex at birth is a common and culturally-diverse human phenomenon which should not be judged as inherently pathological or negative. The psychopathologlisation of gender characteristics and identities reinforces or can prompt stigma, making prejudice and discrimination more likely, rendering transgender and transsexual people more vulnerable to social and legal marginalisation and exclusion, and increasing risks to mental and physical well-being. WPATH urges governmental and medical professional organizations to review their policies and practices to eliminate stigma toward gender-variant people

Pathological

involving, caused by, or of the nature of a physical or mental disease.

caused by or involving disease; morbid.

caused by or evidencing a mentally disturbed condition

dealing with diseases

1680s, “pertaining to disease,” formed in English from pathology. 

Synonyms: morbid, diseased, sick, ill, unhealthy, aberrant, medical, medical condition

The very document that lays out the treatment for Trans people, and the very organization that is responsible for setting the standards and operating on the research and scientific evidence, state, in veryclear terms, that being Trans is not a medical condition, and in addition to that, they state that calling it a medical condition has been proven to be harmful to the health and well being of Trans people.

This is why professionals involved in the care and well being of Trans people who are culturally competent and knowledgeable, do not engage with it on those terms.

Trans people are gender noncomforming.  The standards of care applies to them, so long as they are trans people, and that includes all treatments.

Transness — being trans — does not come from dysphoria. It comes from the conflict between social sex, internal sex, and physical sex. That conflict is not dysphoria. Dysphoria is separate from that. That is the standard that the science shows.

Dysphoria does not make someone a trans person. Being a trans person is what makes someone have dysphoria. 

Not because they are trans. But because the world they live in is not designed for, considerate of, or permissible for, trans people.

Transphobia is aversion, anxiety, or animus, singly or in any combination, regarding trans people, transness, or trans related issues.

Aversion is things like being disgusted, in opposition to, identifying something as repugnant, and exhibiting strong feelings about this. Aversion is the desire to avoid, the act of arguing to avoid or reduce encounters. It includes being unwilling to listen or accept factual,statements made by trans people. It also includes not wanting trans people in the restroom. It also includes saying things like you need dysphoria to be trans.

Anxiety is distress, worry, concern, and overt anxiousness about something or someone that is strongly expressed in physical, literal, or metaphorical terms. Anxiety is worry, concern, or anticipatory ideation relating to trans people or Transness. It includes prejudice against trans people, such as worrying about what they do in the restroom. It also includes things like saying that transness is a medical condition.

Animus is a strong and intense dislike. It involves devaluing the lives of people, erasing their dignity, opposing their civil and human rights, denying them the ability to mark themselves,and outright harm to them. Animus is intense dislike, easily distinguished by overly concerned and reactionary language and violence, in any form. It includes agitating in the interest of preventing trans people from being In the restroom by law or policy.It also includes things like telling other trans people they aren’t trans enough.

So any of those thing, either individually or in combination, is what makes up transphobia.

Examples of Transphobic Statements

People who mutilate themselves like transgendered (Animus)

Transness is a mental illness. (Animus)

Transness is a medical condition (Anxiety)

I do not feel safe having male socialized trans women in my space. (Aversion, Anxiety)

Cis assigns a gender to someone. (Anxiety)

Trans women are biologically male. (Animus)

Trans women are men (Animus)

Trans men are traitors (Animus)

Dysphoria is needed to be trans (Aversion)

trans politics enforces gender and gender roles by reducing womanhood to a stereotype made up by males. (Animus, Anxiety)

If we include gender identity protections in this bill, it will be harder to pass (Aversion, Anxiety)

The second you become pregnant you are a woman.(Animus, Aversion)

There are many other examples, readily found in pretty much any attack on trans people and their lives or in any post that deals in trans issues coming from someone who proclaims themselves “trans critical” or “gender critical”. 

Some Facts Often ignored by TERFS, Trans Critical People, and related anti-LGBT people:

Biology does not determine what a person’s social sex is.

Gender is a complex system of inter-related parts that vary according to culture and social influence and is not a fixed system.

Gender Dysphoria is not a mental illness.

It is a core violation of human rights to deny trans people necessary medical care, regardless of their age. Agitating against that medical treatment is engaging in a willfully, intentional act of violence and trying to deny human rights to other people.

According to the SPLC and the ADL, the actions and speech of Cathy Brennan constitute hate speech. According to the World Health Organization, that classifies them as acts of violence.

On Trans Women’s Girlhood

Some folks think that Trans women do not experience girlhood, and argue that trans women do not grow up with the mythical idea of “sex-based oppression” (which doesn’t exist, as the oppression is gender based, since sex in social situations *is* gender).

These people often like to try and distance themselves from the more violent, dishonest, extremist elements in Radical feminism — generally referred to as TERFs — by disavowing some of the key aspects that informed the ideas of these terfs, even when making that “sex based oppression” argument, that is, itself, part of those dishonest, transphobic, extremist viewpoints.

They like to describe the ways in which physiology is used to oppress women, often ignoring the fact that physiology is presumed (social sex) in social systems and that the norm they are arguing is part of the very system they claim to be opposing.

Among those things they argue are the following:

That trans women do not grow up being shamed and feeling grossed out and insecure about their periods. This ignores the fact that trans women grow up being shamed and feeling grossed out and insecure because they don’t get periods, and that is used against them both internally and externally in order to further the idea of their being “wrong”.

That trans women are taught that masturbation is a healthy thing, when, in fact, trans women are taught that masturbation is shameful, that if they they masturbate they are perverts and horrible, and that the discussion of trans women masturbating is a really sick and disgusting thing.

That trans women are not subject to the cultural and social stigmas of having body hair being taught to them, when, in fact, they recieve these messages and in a state of pretty hard core crisis as their bodies do the very things they thought they wouldn’t do, often forcing many trans women to begin the ritualistic habit of shaving off all their body hair and creating a sense of horror about body hair that endures throughout their lives, ultimately leading to the most expensive process in transition.

That trans women did not face gender based bullying of the same sort as cis women, where they are treated very cruelly  for things boys would not be, which ignores that trans women are bullied and told that being themselves is a bad thing, while still recieving all the messages that they have to act and look a certain way as girls, and then being punished when they try to do those things by everyone around them, which is, itself, gender based bullying (and gender based oppression).

That trans women are not subjected to constant threats and deeds of sexual violence and harassment, when, in fact, transphobic and ciscentri ideas are based on such, and it starts at essentially the same age, and is constantly given in the form of mixed messages that amount to consistent abuse and neglect.

That trans women do not have the Whore/Madonna complex drilled into them despite this being one of the most common attacks used against trans women, especially by other women, and the way that often these abused and neglected children who grow up trying their damndest to fit in turn to that when they first transition, and sadly are sucked into it seeking the validation and affirmation they have been denied their whole lives because that was the message that they received loud and clear as children.

Keep in mind, all of these things apply to young trans girls — who are often told they are not allowed to be girls, that they are not girls, which is a direct and perpetuating form of violence against them recognized as such by all leading medical organizations in the US.  Trans women — including young trans women — are seen as objects of desire and told they need to be objects of desire, which they usually strive for in a manner of overcompensating because of the messages they are told they are being fake that are internalized in the same way cis women internalize them.

So the harm from female socialization is still felt and the fact remains that trans women are female socialized, but they are punished for that socialization, even long after it has supposedly ended, and that socialization itself is combined with the violence, neglect and abuse done to them through additional axes of oppression to force them into some dark places that they are then blamed for being forced into.

All of this is done to girls because they are girls. It is done to women because they are women.

The act of saying that it happens to them because they have vaginas is part of the very system of oppression that also oppresses trans women: the patriarchy, which is what made that call and reinforces that idea.

When trans people say they have always felt like x or y, what they are trying to express in colloquial and layman’s terms is the concept of gender identity, now more commonly referred to as either social sex identity and physical sex identity, which is two concepts, each distinct.

Roughly translated, the whole thing means that a Trans person is aware that they are a woman, man, both, or neither, at the same core level as they are aware of themselves as a person that is distinct from other people.

Some people would prefer to argue that what this is suggesting is that there is a “brain sex”. That is not what this is describing. It is describing a sense of self-awareness — which, while decidedly part of the brain’s physiology, is more authentically part of the existential notion that one exists, and therefore is not part of that argument, nor even related directly to biological systems.

What that means, as well, is that this description has nothing whatsoever to do with biology, and, therefore arguments about biology aren’t valid when contradicting it. It would be akin to saying that the United States army shouldn’t exist because of broccoli.

This all comes together in the core aspect here: like sexual orientation, this is part of what creates the sense of self in people, and it therefore is part of how they know that they exist as an individual human being, and is a part of that.

So the same question of how you know can be answered in as many different ways as there are people, and it is the still same way that those asking the question know what their social sex identity is.

This effectively makes it the trans version of the question “how do you know you are gay?”, with the same accurate answer “I just do, because I know I exist.”

The answer may not satisfy those seeking some sort of concrete answer, but it is inevitable that they themselves, will discount any answer because for them the same question remains unanswered in a way they would accept from a trans person, usually due to cis privilege.

In the end, it does not matter if biology claims trans women are males.

Biology is not concerned with the violence done to people.

Biology is not a shield to do violence to people, and indeed, the admittedly flawed models of colloquial biology often cited against trans women have also been used to justify and make excuses for violence against minority populations in oppressive systems.

And they are not scientific and they are outright lies.

Violence is still violence. It is still immoral, still unethical, and defending it is immoral and unethical.

Psychology, sociology, anthropology, physiology, medicine — these sciences have all proven that calling a trans woman a man is violence.

Violence is not limited to broken bones and bruised flesh and physical damage visible to the seeing.

It is also words. Ask those fleeing persecution, read history, talk to survivors of child abuse and domestic violence and prison violence.

Words are just as physically damaging - and according to many measures more so, since the brain treats those words no differently than it treats the body blows. The science is there to demonstrate this, and it is well known.

Calling trans women men is violence. It has physical, measurable consequences, and it endures and we know that this applies even when it is strangers.

The science establishes it.

This is fact. Not opinion.

Calling a trans woman a man is an act of violence, an assault, and those who do so are being violent, are being immoral, are being unethical, are cruel and callous and pathetic.

Silence in the face of violence is complicity, especially when that violence is social. Defense of calling a trans woman a man is defending violence.

Liking it, re blogging it without calling it out, these are forms of complicity.

Name it what it is. Don’t dress it up, don’t reduce it, it is violence. It is unethical. It is immoral.

Shame those who do it, teach them it is wrong.

Because not doing so means you are complicit, means you are supporting, means you are not trying to stop violence against gay, lesbian, bisexual, and even straight people.

It means you are not trying to stop violence against people of color, against immigrants, against the disabled, against the poor.

It means you are standing by watching as someone does violence to another person.

Gender identity is one’s personal sense of being a man or a woman, consisting primarily of the acceptance of membership into a category of people: man, woman, other, or none.

Every Person has a Gender Identity.

Gender Identity is comprised of two parts: Social Sex Identity and Physical Sex Identity. Gender identity is a key component of an individual’s formation of personal identity, self identity and Self awareness. It exists as afundamental part of awareness of self, and it is, itself, an awareness, without which, there is no self identity.

Gender identity is usually formed by age three and is extremely difficult to change after that, finishing the process between the ages of four and six. A three year old can identify themselves as a boy or a girl, though they do not yet fully understand the implications of gender.

Stein MT, Zucker KJ, Dixon SD. December, 1997. “Gender Identity”, The Nurse Practitioner. Vo. 22, No. 12

D’orsay, A. E. “The Liberation of Transness”, December, 2014

Newmann, Barbara. Development Through Life: A Psychosocial Approach. Cengage Learning

Martin, C.; Ruble, D. (2004). “Children’s Search for Gender Cues Cognitive Perspectives on Gender Development”. Current Directions in Psychological Science

In Human Rights

The Yogyakarta Principles, which is a document on application of international human rights law, provides definition on gender identity.

In the preamble, “gender identity” is understood to refer to each person’s deeply felt internal and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond with the sex assigned at birth, including the person’s sense of the body (which may involve, if freely chosen, modification of bodily appearance or function by medical, surgical or other means) and other experience of gender, including dress, speech and mannerism.

Further, in Principle 3, that “each person’s self-defined gender identity is integral to their personality and is one of the most basic aspects of self-determination, dignity and freedom. No one shall be forced to undergo medical procedures, including sex reassignment surgery, sterilization or hormonal therapy, as a recognition of their gender identity.”

In Principle 18, that “Notwithstanding any classifications to the contrary, a person’s gender identity are not, in and of themselves, medical conditions are not to be treated, cured or suppressed.”

Relating to this Principles, “Jurisprudential Annotations to the Yogyakarta Principles” states that “Gender identity differing from that assigned at birth, or socially rejected gender expression, have been treated as a form of mental illness. The pathologization of difference has led to gender-transgressive children and adolescents being confined in psychiatric institutions, and subjected to aversion techniques -including electroshock therapy - as a “cure”“.

Basis:

The biochemical theory of gender identity suggests that we acquire our gender identities through genetic and hormonal factors rather than through socialisation. In addition to the hormonal influences on gender identity, genes also play a significant role.

Diamond, Milton (2002). “Sex and Gender are Different: Sexual Identity and Gender Identity are Different”. Clinical Child Psychology & Psychiatry

Blackless, Melanie; Besser, M., Carr, S., Cohen-Kettenis, P.T., Connolly, P., De Sutter, P., Diamond, M., Di Ceglie, D. (Ch & Adol.), Higashi, Y., Jones, L., Kruijver. F.P.M., Martin, J., Playdon, Z-J., Ralph, D., Reed, T., Reid, R., Reiner, W.G., Swaab, D., Terry, T., Wilson, P., Wylie. K. (2003). “Atypical Gender Development – A Review”. International Journal of Transgenderism 

Blackless, Melanie; Anthony Charuvastra; Amanda Derryck; Anne Fausto-Sterling; Karl Lauzanne; Ellen Lee (February 2000). “How sexually dimorphic are we? Review and synthesis”. American Journal of Human Biology

Birke, Lynda. The Gender and Science Reader. 

In 2002, the World Health Organization complied a landmark study of worldwide violence. This was the The World report on violence and health.

Representing a consensus of experts and scientists, peer reviewed multiple times over, and acting as the new foundation of broader support and understanding of the forces involved in tracking harmful, violent behavior, the report made it clear that there is a far more universal form of violence which is just as deadly as the aforementioned brutality.

At this point, the WHO, a part of the medical and legal aspect of the United Nations, representing the vast majority of the nations, and principle informing body to the other well known aspect of the UN relating to Human and Civil Rights, is not broadly or widely disagreed with by professionals, although often lay people, uninformed or misinformed by such trite and false aphorism such as the “sticks and stones” childhood rhyme, remain unaware of the violence they are engaged in.

That childhood rhyme, as well, is a statement of defiance, an utterance of the bullied to the bully, the oppressed to the oppressor, the victim to the abuser, a statement that they will no longer be hurt by those words because they can no longer be hurt by them — the scars are grown thick and calloused.

Two kinds of violence in particular are discussed at length, especially as they affect the lives of people in minority populations. These are psychological and deprivation/neglect.

Psychological violence includes and consists of the exclusion – or ostracism – of persons, and the application of stigma and societal efforts to deny them human dignity. So violence is also a core aspect and a major part of denying people their human and civil rights. This includes the violence of microaggressions (Sue, Derald Wing; Capodilupo, Christina M.; Torino, Gina C.; Bucceri, Jennifer M.; Holder, Aisha M. B.; Nadal, Kevin L.; Esquilin, Marta. Racial Microaggressions in Everyday Life: Implications for Clinical Practice. American Psychologist, v62 n4 p271-286 May-Jun 2007), developed out of the work of Dr. Chester Pierce, and further added to later by Mary Rowe. Microaggressions are a core concept in Critical Race Theory, and were brought into the mainstream of Feminist efforts and are often noted by Radical Feminist scholars such as Dr. Watkins, better known as bell hooks, in their critical race theory lensed approaches to feminism, which is directly oppositional to the sort of Radical Feminism, seen a colonialist, imperialist, white supremacist, and classist, and even admittedly so, given the background and privileges of the author and her advisor, who both drew heavily on their Catholic background and understanding in their work.

Deprivation/neglect consists of various forms of interpersonal, institutional, and consistent patterned violence that does not fundamentally include and consider the existence of trans people. This is called Ciscentrism, which is the normative pattern and the primary Axis of Oppression that trans people face, just like White Supremacy (racism), Patriarchy, Ableism, and so forth dominate other axes of oppression and are related form that work in tandem to oppress groups of people at a societal level. The effects of Deprivation and neglect all stem from the denial of basic human dignity, in this case, the most fundamental of which is recognizing that trans women are women, trans men are men, and as women and men, they are also female and male, since in English (and most other languages) those concepts are linked inextricably and creating separation is actively engaging in hostile action towards trans people. Trans people, as a rule, suffer multiple times higher than statistically normative rates of issues, and the only group that matches them, within the margin of error, are the adult survivors of child abuse and neglect.

What are some of the effects of this lifelong deprivation and neglect?

Poor physical health. Several studies have shown a relationship between various forms of household dysfunction (including childhood abuse) and poor health (Flaherty et al., 2006; Felitti, 2002). Adults who experienced abuse or neglect during childhood are more likely to suffer from physical ailments such as allergies, arthritis, asthma, bronchitis, high blood pressure, and ulcers (Springer, Sheridan, Kuo, & Carnes, 2007).

Poor mental and emotional health. In one long-term study, as many as 80 percent of young adults who had been abused met the diagnostic criteria for at least one psychiatric disorder at age 21. These young adults exhibited many problems, including depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and suicide attempts (Silverman, Reinherz, & Giaconia, 1996). Other psychological and emotional conditions associated with abuse and neglect include panic disorder, dissociative disorders, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, depression, anger, posttraumatic stress disorder, and reactive attachment disorder (Teicher, 2000; De Bellis & Thomas, 2003; Springer, Sheridan, Kuo, & Carnes, 2007).

Social difficulties. Children who experience rejection or neglect are more likely to develop antisocial traits as they grow up. Parental neglect is also associated with borderline personality disorders and violent behavior (Schore, 2003).

Juvenile delinquency and adult criminality. According to a National Institute of Justice study, abused and neglected children were 11 times more likely to be arrested for criminal behavior as a juvenile, 2.7 times more likely to be arrested for violent and criminal behavior as an adult, and 3.1 times more likely to be arrested for one of many forms of violent crime (juvenile or adult) (English, Widom, & Brandford, 2004). THis one is particularly disturbing given that of late several TERFs on tumblr have taken to passing around a study and using it as proof that trans women are “male socialized”, which is an ostracizing argument, violent in and of itself, but in doing so, they are arguing that the victims of their historic, 40 year old pattern of abuse, noted by the publication of Dr, Raymond’s book which popularized their arguments, is a directly contributing cause of that violence through the ongoing and persistent abuse and neglect of trans people as children, which a significant number of them oppose the treatment of. That is victim blaming, and is ultimately contributing to the bullying an rape crises that are going on in the US at present.

Alcohol and other drug abuse. Research consistently reflects an increased likelihood that abused and neglected children will smoke cigarettes, abuse alcohol, or take illicit drugs during their lifetime (Dube et al., 2001). According to a report from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, as many as two-thirds of people in drug treatment programs reported being abused as children (Swan, 1998).

These are further divided into Interpersonal and Community forms of violence, which then means that violence can be noted in 20 distinct forms by which it can happen.

They developed, out of that, a definition of violence that is as follows:

“the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation.”

The Bolded portions are what this post is going to focus on here.

The typology established distinguishes four modes in which violence may be inflicted:

physical;

sexual

psychological attack

deprivation.

It further divides the general definition of violence into sub-types according to the victim-perpetrator relationship.

Self-directed violence refers to violence in which the perpetrator and the victim are the same individual and is subdivided into self-abuse and suicide. This demonstrates that suicide and self-abuse are directly caused by external forces which drive an individual to this sort of violence.

Interpersonal violence refers to violence between individuals, and is subdivided into family and intimate partner violence and community violence.

The former category includes child maltreatment; intimate partner violence; and elder abuse, while the latter is broken down into acquaintance and stranger violence and includes youth violence; assault by strangers; violence related to property crimes; and violence in workplaces and other institutions.

Assault is predominantly physical in terms of the way most people think of it, but it is also, as the image above demonstrates, non-physical, as is common especially among bullies and those who engage in domestic violence, which sets the stage and creates the opportunity for more physical violence by excusing that physical violence and establishing a pattern of blamelessness for the perpetrator and blame and fault for the victim.

Collective violence refers to violence committed by larger groups of individuals and can be subdivided into social, political and economic violence.

When speaking about the ideology itself of a certain kind of radical feminism, this is kind of violence that the ideology, notably structured by the book written by Janice Raymond under the watchful tutelage of Mary Daly that popularized and more widely disseminated the popular opinions and stereotypes of trans people (conflating them with performance artists) that to this day are used by anyone who opposes the human dignity, and therefore the human and civil rights of trans persons, as tools of violent oppression and direct violence, relying on established institutional violence in a system that is centered around and focused on the lives of Cis people, in order to further these ends.

See where it says power?

The systems that operate in this world are created without consideration, thought, inclusion, attention, or concern to the needs and lives of trans people.

When you see Someone attacking trans people, they are usually using that institutional power.

When someone says trans women are men or male, that trans men are female or women, that non binary people don’t exist or that the pronoun choices of someone are stupid, all of that…

All of that is the use of institutional power.

Those things are done with intent when folks are attacking trans people.

So we have the intentional use of power.

This is actual, as well, and it is against both an individual and a group.

And the effect of that is perpetuating the ongoing psychological and social harm.

It is violence to call a trans woman male or a man, to use the wrong pronouns,not make arguments based on the idea that they are not women, and so forth.

It is violence.

There is no but, no well, maybe, no if. This isn’t an abstract talking point or some hypothetical mental exercise.

It is violence.

This isn’t a thing one can disagree about honestly, for that matter.

Do not ask a trans woman to be nice to someone being violent towards them.

Doing that tells everyone you value people less than your beliefs.

One of the more pervasive forms of this harm is exclusion — more formally described as Ostracism. Kipling D. Williams is one of the foremost researchers in this area of study, which has been ongoing for many years. Using thoroughly vetted methods, he has noted some startling factors that arise directly out of ostracism itself — with or without verbal derogation or physical assault (that means insults and related microaggressions).

Note that: without any sort of physical violence or even the use of slurs, there is violence done by the act of ostracism.

When one is ostracized, physically, the body receives such stimuli in the same way it receives a physical blow. That is, in controlled or uncontrolled situations, the act of ostracism, but itself, is felt by the body int he same way that a physical attack is felt.

The body reacts to them the same, with the physical blow simply involving more effort on the part of the body to heal, while with the nonphysical attack, the healing takes much, much longer.

“Being excluded is painful because it threatens fundamental human needs, such as belonging and self-esteem,” Williams said. “Again and again research has found that strong, harmful reactions are possible even when ostracized by a stranger or for a short amount of time.”

In his work, Dr. Williams has identified three stages of dealing with ostracism. The first stage is simply being ostracised. For trans people, the signals of ostracism come in many forms. Most of them have to do with aversion or anxiety about trans people or transness in general — that is to say, transphobia.

The messages that trans people are told are often about there being something wrong with them are part of Stigma. They also receive messages about how what they are doing is wrong, or about how they are behaving is wrong, and when those messages are combined with the ones they have received all their lives and internalized – taken into themselves – these message serve to reinforce and often mirror the idea that something is wrong with them.

When trans people reach out initially, those first tentative steps they take only with people they trust in ways that they find almost impossible to do with other people, they ask some variant of the question “what is wrong with me” or they state, bluntly, “there is something wrong and I need to fix it” and they are referring to themselves.

This is the power of stigma – an unseen mark that connotes the lack of value and unworthiness of a person.

Social stigma is the extreme disapproval of or discontent with a person or group because of being different in some way, that are perceived, and separate them, from other members of a society. Stigma is then applied to a person, by the greater society, who differs from their cultural norms.

Stigmatized people see others in three distinct ways:

the stigmatized are those who bear the stigma;

the normals are those who do not bear the stigma; and

the wise are those among the normals who are accepted by the stigmatized as “wise” to their condition

The wise come in two forms:

Active wise, who speak out to effect change in the stigma; and

Passive wise, who remain socially silent.

Stigmatization involves dehumanization, demonization, threat, policing, aversion, shaming, and sometimes the depersonalization of others into stereotypes. Stigmatizing others can work as self-esteem enhancement, control enhancement, and anxiety buffering, through comparing oneself to less fortunate others, and so increase one’s own subjective sense of well-being and one’s self-esteem.

Policing other women can only ever serve the oppression of women. Policing is an act of oppression, an effort in service to ideology over humanity, a moment of support for the patriarchy.

Consider that for a moment.  People actually benefit from the act of stigmatizing others, emotionally.  It isn’t rational – but people, by and large, are not rational beings.

This is part of why it is noted that Trans women, specifically, are eroticized, being exotic in their perceived natures, and so objectified, as women, but are also treated as the objects of ire more broadly. They are objects of desire as Women, and objects of Ire as Trans people, a particular combination that exists only for trans people, and does apply to a lesser extent to Trans men and non-binary/GNC trans people as well.

Stigma can enter into a person when they live with it for a great deal of time.  It becomes a part of the way they think about themselves, about things related to themselves, and become s a part of their goals.

Passing is an example of internalized stigma – it serves within the community to act as a manner by which the stigma experienced by trans people can be avoided through “fitting in” – that is, meeting the expectations and following the rules of the broader culture and oppressive structures.

Being an Ally is often expected to involve being an Active Wise, and when an Active Wise fails to fully understand the nature of the stigmas, or errs in including stigma in their own actions, they are often the targets of ire, which serves to unintentionally convert them into passive wise, when such anger should be seen as a loss of trust and a call and appeal to do better and improve.

The second stage of dealing with ostracism is Coping.

Coping usually means the person being ostracized tries harder be included. The way they do that may vary. For example, some of those who are ostracized may be more likely to engage in behaviors that increase their future inclusion by mimicking, complying, obeying orders, cooperating or expressing attraction. Others may seek to connect with persons who are similarly ostracized, creating an Affinity Group (or in-group), and possibly even advocate for changes to the social norms. In yet other cases — and in particular if there is something that gives them a sense that they are being ostracized by a larger group, or they gain the sense that it isn’t possible to gain inclusion, or they come to feel or be told that they have little control over their lives (such as by being told that their knowledge of themselves is invalid or untrue, as frequently happens with Trans people when they are told they are not women), they may turn to provocative behavior and even aggression, such as when this happens between two groups that are oppressed under two different axes of oppression — especially when there are aspects of situational membership shared.

“They will go to great lengths to enhance their sense of belonging and self-esteem,” is how Williams describes it. However, ”At some point, they stop worrying about being liked, and they just want to be noticed.”

This can lead — especially among competing out-groups — to internal warfare and the creation of ideologies and statements of outright hostility. This is the collective and interpersonal violence noted previously.

The example most readily found of this is the way that TERF’s engage with Trans people. At this point, after 40 years of open hostility between the two out-groups, they are constantly engaged in a series of escalating aggression and provocative behavior. This is most notable in the way that Terfs call trans women men and then say Kill all men, and the way that trans women say die cis scum. While both are acts of violence done by each side against the other, it should be noted that the trans response to the consistent, 40 year pattern of outright hostility that was sparked and established by the publication of Dr. Raymond’s hate speech laden book, “The Transsexual Empire, the Making of the She-Male”, which is also the point at which the slur she-male entered the public lexicon, as documented by its etymology in the popular usage, thus meaning that Radical feminists also contributed to the fetishization that Dr. Raymond was, herself, claiming to be in opposition to, by providing a readily recognizable term for the Porn industry that she still opposes to this day.

All of which comes to a head in the incredibly hostile statement “kill yourself” which is a direct act of violence with an often deadly outcome.

When ostracization continues for a long time — decades, in this case — the third stage, called Resignation, is reached. At this point, many simply give up.

“This is when people who have been ostracized are less helpful and more aggressive to others in general,” says KD WIlliams. “It also increases anger and sadness, and long-term ostracism can result in alienation, depression, helplessness and feelings of unworthiness.”

Trans people, as a general rule, are in the third stage for the most part. This is particularly true for those who transition as adults, but still applies in many situations to those who transition as children. The long term effects of ostracism are incredibly damaging to people, as a whole, and all major pediatric organizations look at it as a form of child abuse and neglect — for good reason.

The issues that face the adult survivors of child abuse and neglect are massive and potent ongoing social issues that are merely exacerbated by the constant interpersonal and community attacks that trans people experience from TERFs.

As I’ve noted previously in discussing how to identify transphobia and the argument of ostracism that is the male socialization argument, these attacks are harsh, critical, dehumanizing, overt acts of violence that are based in the presence within a Dominant Class and are founded on the principles of Ciscentrism, which is opposed by Transcentrism. I discuss some of the specifics about how this oppression is engaged in various posts such as here, here, and here.

Williams says “Endure ostracism too long and they’re depleted. You don’t have it in you to cope, so you give up. You become depressed, helpless, and despairing.” Even memories of long-ago rejection can bring up those feelings.

His work, widely cited and broadly available, lays out the foundation for the manner in which trans people are actively and intentionally harmed through acts of violence that include microaggressions, psychologically damaging verbal attacks, and active efforts at exclusion and using existing stigma and shame against trans people in both externalized and internalized varieties, preying on low self esteem and insecurities of trans people (in particular, those going through the crisis point of transition, which is an incredibly fragile time and is, itself, an act of overt and fundamental hostility to another person during a time of incredibly personal and psychological vulnerability), and acting as if in concert with larger forces (such as those on the religious right and those within patriarchy) to create a powerful and potent mix of violence that has the appearance of being socially sanctioned in an environment where such behavior is not only tolerated, but often encouraged (social media).

This is the violence against trans people that is often talked about — it need not be a clue by four to the skull to have the same effect, and indeed, when combined with the life history of such experiences, it makes it an outright act of cruelty, inhumane in its force, and absolutely an act of violence.

In the end, it does not matter if biology claims trans women are males.

Biology is not concerned with the violence done to people.

Biology is not a shield to do violence to people, and indeed, the admittedly flawed models of colloquial biology often cited against trans women have also been used to justify and make excuses for violence against minority populations in oppressive systems.

Violence is still violence. It is still immoral, still unethical, and defending it is immoral and unethical.

Psychology, sociology, anthropology, physiology, medicine — these sciences have all proven that calling a trans woman a man is violence.

Violence is not limited to broken bones and bruised flesh and physical damage visible to the seeing.

It is also words. Ask those fleeing persecution, read history, talk to survivors of child abuse and domestic violence and prison violence.

Words are just as physically damaging - and according to many measures more so, since the brain treats those words no differently than it treats the body blows. The science is there to demonstrate this, and it is well known.

Calling trans women men is violence. It has physical, measurable consequences, and it endures and we know that this applies even when it is strangers.

The science establishes it.

This is fact. Not opinion.

Calling a trans woman a man is an act of violence, an assault, and those who do so are being violent, are being immoral, are being unethical, are cruel and callous and pathetic.

Silence in the face of violence is complicity, especially when that violence is social. Defense of calling a trans woman a man is defending violence.

Liking it, re blogging it without calling it out, these are forms of complicity.

Name it what it is. Don’t dress it up, don’t reduce it, it is violence. It is unethical. It is immoral.

Shame those who do it, teach them it is wrong.

Because not doing so means you are complicit, means you are supporting, means you are not trying to stop violence against gay, lesbian, bisexual, and even straight people.

It means you are not trying to stop violence against people of color, against immigrants, against the disabled, against the poor.

It means you are standing by watching as someone does violence to another person.

And that is immoral, unethical, and shameful.

No person should have to undergo surgery or accept sterilization as a condition of identity recognition. If a sex marker is required on an identity document, that marker could recognize the person’s lived gender, regardless of reproductive capacity. The WPATH Board of Directors urges governments and other authoritative bodies to move to eliminate requirements for identity recognition that require surgical procedures.

The expression of gender characteristics, including identities, that are not stereotypically associated with one’s assigned sex at birth is a common and culturally-diverse human phenomenon which should not be judged as inherently pathological or negative. The psychopathologlisation of gender characteristics and identities reinforces or can prompt stigma, making prejudice and discrimination more likely, rendering transgender and transsexual people more vulnerable to social and legal marginalisation and exclusion, and increasing risks to mental and physical well-being. WPATH urges governmental and medical professional organizations to review their policies and practices to eliminate stigma toward gender-variant people

Pathological

involving, caused by, or of the nature of a physical or mental disease.

caused by or involving disease; morbid.

caused by or evidencing a mentally disturbed condition

dealing with diseases

1680s, “pertaining to disease,” formed in English from pathology.