[Veronica]

Thanks for the heads up Caroline. It’s long-term preferably

Veronica

[Veronica]

Hi all,

Not only has there been a noticeable increase, it is part of a coordinated right-wing assault on sexual liberation. This quote from an article in the NYT by the mother of a transgender girl: “Unfortunately, what many other parents are receiving right now is not encouragement to find wisdom and understanding. What they are getting instead is a bogus new diagnosis — Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria. The inventors of this spurious term claim that R.O.G.D. is not a real trans identity but the product of social pressure. Abigail Shrier, writing in The Wall Street Journal, describes it as “social contagion.” She says that young people — many of them college-aged, and most of them born female-bodied — are embarking upon transition, with its surgeries and hormones and other accompanying challenges, in the same way a person might take up the ukulele.
Even the headline on that essay is an insult: “When Your Daughter Defies Biology.” An abundance of scientific research makes clear that gender variance is a fundamental truth of human biology, not some wacky dance craze. Transgender people have not come up with the entirety of our existence solely to hurt Tucker Carlson’s feelings. We do not embark upon transition because it’s groovy. We are here because our hearts demand it.
R.O.G.D. is not a clinical term. It’s a political one, designed to undermine the validity of these young people’s transitions.”
Given the reach of social media and the dependence of the Australian Right on its US colleagues it won’t be long before “R.O.G.D.” rears its ugly head here. The full article is attached.
Veronica

[Veronica]

I can’t actually add anything to what you have already posted Adrian. The post says it all, and it’s not a pretty picture with polarisation rearing its ugly head, yet again. If one reads the posts of some trans people on social media, it’s easy to see why some feminists would conclude that, yes, patriarchal views are being expressed through transgender personas (per-sona: literally ‘through the mouth’). On the other hand, when I hear feminists say these things, I wince, because I have some appreciation of the pain they cause in trans people who have never used their identity to make odious comparisons with cis women

Veronica

[Veronica]

Apologies for misquote. The riposte is to the statement “not once have any come to pass”

Veronica

[Veronica]

Hi All, just a quick riposte on the claim that “none has happened”. Gender identity has been withdrawn as a criterion for decisions about whether felons will be incarcerated in male or female prisons, and this is being reinforced by several of the agencies involved. If you’re a transgender male in a male prison life is likely to be “nasty, brutish and short”. In addition the original story regarding official identity was sourced from official Dept. of Health and Human Services documents; to be specific “Sex means a person’s status as male or female based on immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth, The sex listed on a person’s birth certificate, as originally issued, shall constitute definitive proof of a person’s sex unless rebutted by reliable genetic evidence.”
Veronica

[Veronica]

Well put Jane. The essence of the authoritarian mentality is division/segmentation. There have to be in-groups and out-groups. The alleged behaviour of the out-groups (transgender people, Mexicans, refugees, Democrats etc) is then used to justify the imposition of further and further constraints on everybody’s freedom. It is the interests of the groups you have identified to push ‘them’ and ‘us’ further and further apart.
Veronica

[Veronica]

Yep; this is really scary, and shows just how far Trump will go to cater to the prejudices of his evangelical “base’ (more appropriate as an adjective than a noun). It’s part of a comprehensive strategy that rejects scientific evidence (in fact the term “evidence based”is banned) and promotes an authoritarian ideology that promotes emotion over reason, myth over history, an idealised past over a feasible future (beautiful clean coal) and rhetoric over argument (Build the Wall, Lock her up, Make America Great Again). Once evidence and truth are consigned to the trash bin, only the great leader can save us – sound familiar?
Veronica

[Veronica]

Hi Emma, moving to Tasmania is a really smart idea, the lack of open tg life notwithstanding. My son has just moved there with his family and they are loving it; less hassle, booming economy, you can now get a good cup of coffee and a feed (very important to us Melbourne people) and further South (I think the the effects of climate change are going to be far worse than the popular imagination has accepted).
Good on you gurl
V x x

[Veronica]

Thanks Claire – fascinating, and what a brave bunch

V x

[Veronica]

Emma Thorne and “blush” in the same sentence; now there’s a first :ohmy:

Veronica x x

[Veronica]

Thanks for the heads up, unfortunately the disease of intolerance is spreading to the more traditionally tolerant parts of Indonesia with recent moves to outlaw both gay sex and any form of sex between people who are not married. Be interesting to see what effect this has in Bali, where both Indonesians and non Indonesians flock to indulge in both these “evil” activities

Veronica xox

[Veronica]

Thanks for reminding me of both movies Bridgette. The crying game is also one of my favourites, and my favourite scene is the ending, as ‘Stand by your Man’ blares out ironically. As for “I want what I want”, I must recommend the book – it is far superior, far more honest about the internal life of transgender people, and was the first book I ever read about transgender issues.

Regards

Veronica

[Veronica]

“Paris is Burning” tied in my first place with “Stonewall” (the original, not the recent, refurbished cop-out). Both are homages to the brave souls who’s sacrifices created the spaces we inhabit. Among recent movies I can recommend Boy Meets Girl (you will smile and, at last, we get to see a naked m-f transgender protagonist half way through transition – no punches pulled), Gun Hill Road (you will cry), Tangerine, and Man in High Heels (a really surprising Korean movie about a transgender cop). None of these movies are ‘fun’, but their reality is undeniable.

Veronica xo

[Veronica]

Um – possibly a Freudian slip? :blush:

[Veronica]

Hi all, and thanks for starting yet another meaty topic Emma. I’ve had a close friend in another State lose his marriage and his business in disturbingly similar circumstances. Several contributors have already made the point that the complexity of people’s motives for dressing make it very difficult to establish why, for example, he adopted a “crash or crash through” strategy before he had even left the house dressed. Another observation I’d make is that we have to be very careful not to keep our trans desires and behaviours in a silo. We all come to the gender ball with a whole range of other issues, beliefs, attitudes, hang-ups etc. We are not just transgender, we are the full human catastrophe, like anyone else (and that’s a key reason why we demand equality). The reasons why some of us set ourselves up to fail may well have nothing to do with the content of the issue that flips the self-destruct switch (in this case gender dysphoria), but could well be the result of a whole range of chronic vulnerabilities. Best to all

Veronica