Guest post: Subjective experience is just that
Originally a comment by Screechy Monkey on Feeling≠being.
Practically speaking, in most situations, I wouldn’t say anything, for the same reasons I generally don’t get into discussions about very personal matters.
But if this were one of those conversations that is an exception for some reason: no, I wouldn’t say “you’re wrong.” But I would ask — with genuine curiosity — “how do you know? What does being a woman FEEL like to you?”
Because frankly, I wouldn’t know how to answer the question “what does it feel like to be a man?” [Insert jokes about my inadequacies here. You can’t ask for a better setup.] I could tell you a bit about how it feels to be treated as a man in society, or to interact with others on that basis. I suppose I could come up with an answer about what it feels like to have male genitalia. But those are different questions, as I would think trans people would be quick to point out. I don’t have some internal sense that tells me I’m male, or have a “male brain,” or anything like that, and I can’t even imagine what that would mean. As with pretty much everyone, I conform to some of our culture’s gender stereotypes and not to others.
I think I can wrap my head around gender-related body dysphoria, meaning that I can grasp the notion of having some feeling that your body should be different than it is. But again, we’re told that being trans doesn’t necessarily entail that. So I’m back to being flummoxed.
It’s like that claim that humans have a “sensus divinitatis” that gives (most) people a knowledge of god. I mean, I assume that people who claim to have a sense of god, in their brain or their heart or whatever, to be speaking truthfully of their subjective experience. And I’ve never had any interest in trying to talk someone out of a religious belief that is essentially “well, I feel it/Him/Her in my heart.” But I do insist on my right to object to a claim that a sensus divinitatis is an actual objective thing, and that therefore God exists because your subjective experiences tell you so. (To say nothing of the rather offensive related implication that atheists are either lying or brain-damaged.)
I wonder if the dysphoria/dysmorphia that some trans people suffer from is related in any way to phantom limb syndrome or the condition in which some people no longer recognize one of their limbs as their own? The people in the latter group sometimes make up elaborate stories about how the limb in question belongs to an alien or is some s0ort of robotic replacement. As far as I know, their mistaken beliefs are not “affirmed” or ” validated” by those treating them. Why are trans delusions (which are, as far as I know, equally unreal regarding the “born in the wrong body” explanation) so readily accepted and catered to?
YNNB, I suspect it has a lot to do with the fact that a lot of people believe in the male brain/female brain dichotomy. I hear that one all the time, as if somehow there is some mysterious difference in the brains of two members of the same species. Even though more women do not have the female brain than do, this continues to be an accepted thing for almost everyone I know. When I tell them the facts about the brains, they just go “Huh, isn’t that interesting?” and the next time I run into them, they are still on that track – oh, male brain female brain sooooo different.
not Bruce, there is an extremely rare condition whereby the sufferers genuinely have ‘rogue’ limbs which act independantly of the person, but the cause is, if memory serves, something to do with incomplete circuitry in the brain. There are two examples I recall hearing of. The first was a man whose left arm would punch him or try to strangle him, and the second, also a rogue arm, would (like Trump to Obama) try to undo everything the other arm did. He would button up his shirt with one hand while the other would follow, undoing the buttons; he’d switch a kettle on and immediately switch it off again; turn taps on and off, etc.. The suffers were unaware that the arms was going to act or what they would do when they did act, and were constantly surprised by their actions.
The cure was drastic, involving cutting circuits in the brain to disable the rogue limbs.
Of course, being extremely rare is no reason for the TRAs to appropriate it for their own ends.
You mean, like intersex? Of course, it is not as rare as what you are describing, but it is much more rare than the TRAs claim.
iknklast, if they could find one instance of leprosy causing a man’s dick to fall off they’d be using leprosy as proof that men can be women.
The vast majority of people—-men—claiming a trans identity and “gender dysphoria” have no such subjective sense of distress. They don’t “feel that they are really the opposite sex.” They don’t loll around in bed all day depressed and thinking about cutting off their genitalia.
They claim that they have these experiences. Why? Because we, normal people, are trained to react to those claims with sympathy and legitimation. They are wearing the skin of severely disturbed people (such as those with Body Integrity Identity Disorder, and severe cases of anorexia or genuine pathological sex/gender distress) to get sympathy they are not entitled to. They also know that if they claim this, that people like us will be distracted from examining whether we believe them. Instead, we’ll spend our time writing and talking about the non-existent “dysphoria” they have. We’ll treat it like a legitimate thing we need to be concerned about.
With no intention of tut-tutting Ophelia or Screechy (honest!), this is why they do it. So they can make us talk about it when it’s really not what’s happening.
I’m afraid I don’t believe 95 out of 100 “trans” people who claim to have this distressing “dysphoria”. There’s no evidence this is true. None of us have seen this evidence, and few of us have even though to ask for it.
It’s garden variety manipulation and narcissism.
This is how I feel about people with self-diagnosed allergies, intolerances, and increasingly self-diagnosed disorders such as OCD and Asperger’s syndrome.
AoS, I could add tons to that list – West Nile was a big self-diagnosis about a decade ago. Autism could be added to Asperger’s, and people seem willing to diagnose everyone else with autism spectrum, as well. But OCD is the one that irks me most, probably because as a true OCD sufferer, I know what it means to be OCD.
As for gender dysphoria, a lot of people seem to think wanting to do things that are societally assigned to the other sex is the same as gender dysphoria. And I am seeing a lot of individuals suffering from ordinary (clinical, not really ordinary, but I’m searching for a term here) depression and anxiety who believe it is gender dysphoria, because the symptoms they find online for gender dysphoria seem to be lifted almost wholesale from the DSM for depression, anxiety, and various personality disorders – as well as perfectly healthy behaviors that simply refuse to conform to society’s attempts to force us into gender segregated boxes with men getting almost all the fun stuff and women getting a lot of hard work that is neither respected nor rewarded.
I think that way about such people, too, AOS. I can’t see how it’s not bleeding obvious in trans above all else.
By the by, one of the few self-diagnoses that I suspect is usually true is Borderline Personality Disorder. Few people would affirmatively and publicly claim that label by conscious choice unless they were, well, a Borderline. I’m not trying to be arch or funny or cruel, I’m saying this with a completely straight face.
Well, I know. The more the cult spreads, the more it must be true that the vast majority don’t have “gender dysphoria” or any other clinical condition. My post and this one of Screechy’s were both about the much more general claim of “feeling like” a woman. I don’t think that claim rests on or implies gender dysphoria. It’s kind of a layperson’s version of that, a colloquial version, that’s much easier to defend and impose. A diagnosis is one thing and a fee-fee is another.
iknklast, the self-diagnosed OCD one irks me, too. Not because I’m a sufferer (I’m not) but because those people are either unable to differentiate between a habit and an obsessive compulsion, or are deliberately claiming to have an often-debilitating disorder for…what? Attention? Sympathy? A label? Fun, even?
AoS, I was once in a class where a fellow student was describing a habit of her daughter, who was six and was determined that she not go out of the house unless her socks matched. Another woman in the class told her that her daughter was absolutely, beyond a shadow of a doubt, no need to even consider otherwise, OCD. This was something that had clearly not occurred to the mother, but she sucked it in with a breathe, and believed it implicitly. The student telling her that her daughter was OCD was no more eligible to diagnose someone without seeing them (or even with seeing them, for that matter) than she was to do brain surgery. But she said it with such confidence and conviction that she got the other woman believing it. I had actually worked with people who had the disorder when I was a disability examiner (as well as having it myself), and I would never have dreamed of making such a diagnosis. And, seriously, wanting your socks to match before you leave the house? Fashion sense, NOT OCD!
The current push to turn every kid who plays with the “wrong” toys or has their hair the “wrong” length or doesn’t want to wear barrettes reminds me of that incident.
I was thinking about exactly that while walking my dog just a half-hour ago. There are far too many people who, if told anything in an authoritative enough tone, or by somebody they trust, won’t even pause to question it. On top of that, the internet is now seen as the supreme authority on everything – if it’s on a web page, any web page, it’s true. So now people diagnose each other, people diagnose themselves and then convince others of their diagnoses (backed up if neccessary by handy, if completely false corroboration on the internet), and everybody gets a special label. Whether it’s matching socks, feeling grouchy, or feeling like a woman, there’s a diagnosis for it that’ll make you feel more special than being told it’s just dull, old-fashioned normal.
And nobody gets to question them because reasons.
Oooh, if I feel grouchy, I get to be special? Because I feel grouchy most of the time these days.