A condition
This seems strange. It’s an entry on the NHS website, under the subhead Conditions, for Gender Dysphoria. Most of the conditions under that subhead are quite medical – you know, sciencey. The GD one isn’t so much.
Gender dysphoria is a condition where a person experiences discomfort or distress because there’s a mismatch between their biological sex and gender identity. It’s sometimes known as gender incongruence.
Biological sex is assigned at birth, depending on the appearance of the genitals. Gender identity is the gender that a person “identifies” with or feels themselves to be.
That, for instance. Notice the scare quotes on “identifies” – yes quite, so why use it? Identifying with something isn’t a medical term. What it means to identify with a gender is hotly contested and not a settled scientific or technical description.
This mismatch between sex and gender identity can lead to distressing and uncomfortable feelings that are called gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria is a recognised medical condition, for which treatment is sometimes appropriate. It’s not a mental illness.
Recognised by whom? Medical condition in what sense? How can it be confirmed or falsified? How is it not a mental illness? How is “identifying as” anything but mental?
It’s just…weird, seeing all this politicized, contentious, dubious stuff on a governmental information site.
The first signs of gender dysphoria can appear at a very young age. For example, a child may refuse to wear typical boys’ or girls’ clothes, or dislike taking part in typical boys’ or girls’ games and activities.
Well there you go then. Little Sally likes to climb trees and hates dresses, therefore she has a medical condition called Gender Dysphoria. They’re from the government and they’re here to help.
What exactly is a boys game vs a girls game (or activity)?
Oh, gee, that’s a very technical medical question, but I’ll see if I can make a good guess. Football for boys and make pretend-cookies for girls?
I am appalled to see that wording ‘[b]iological sex is assigned at birth, depending on the appearance of the genitals on a NHS website. For starters, the sex of a baby is not assigned but rather identified, and further it is now more commonly identified well before birth through scanning techniques, at least where such technologies are available. The UK, home of the NHS, is indisputably one of those places.
This could just as easily be put under a definition of “feminism”, which is not recognized as a medical condition, because it is not a medical condition but a social one.
Little Sally who won’t wear skirts because skirts are not comfortable, because they keep her from being able to climb trees and crawl under the porch may not be a “boy”. She may be a rad fem.
Ophelia, that’s what I was afraid the ‘medical’ answer might be. I can’t honestly think of a game I would gender, especially for pre-pubertal children. Post pubertal I can think of games or activities that might be ‘typically’ gender identified, but that says everything about societies expectations and absolutely nothing about the individual. Unless we’re now saying that their is a better evidential basis for defining sex based on preferred colours and activities than genetics, secondary sexual characteristics or whatever.
Iknklast, quite. She may be trans or a rad fem or just a young girl who likes wearing shorts. I know one of those latter. She likes shorts so short that it has been suggested a couple of times that ‘society’ might be relieved if her shorts were just a touch longer. She apparently regards wearing clothes as a blight on her existence and just wants to wear the minimum necessary. Before anyone asks, I’ve sat silently in the background when her parents answered a long list of questions about gay/bi/trans/straight and permutations thereof. She seems to be of the view that other people can be what they like, but she’s a girl and currently has no interest in sex, but one day some bloke might get lucky. When she’s 40 or so and has nothing better to do. Amazing what happens when parents, grandparents and family friends make the slightest effort to treat kids as people, rather than a bundle of expectations.
That wording was also present in PZ’s post trashing OB, except slightly worse: A developmental biologist, saying that people are assigned a gender at birth. I took issue with that wording somewhere around comment 170, and the ensuing 60+ comments have been lamentably silly. The histrionics and deliberate misinterpretations have been eye-opening.
freethoughtblogs [dot] com/pharyngula/2019/01/05/deep-disappointment/
Holms, I felt like commenting on one of PZ’s posts about his spiders, when he was talking about “Vera” as a she because she had laid eggs…how do you know Vera is a she? Just because she lays eggs? But maybe she identifies as a male spider, and just happens to be an egg-laying male spider that you have misgendered, therefore doing her real violence.
I imagine his answer on that one would have been biologically correct, but I would have ended up blocked forever. Which would be fine with me, since I have deleted Pharyngula from my bookmarks since the day of the OB post. There was so little he wrote anymore that I found interesting anyway, I am not missing the site.
Holms @6 –
oh my god what a dumpster fire. the idiocy and malevolence of these people boggles the mind.
iknklast, it sounds as though little Sally may have gender expectation disphoria.
I always wondered why the parents of a new born would need all this merchandise announcing the child’s sex – it seemed unlikely they wouldn’t know. If children are born without genitals and only develop them when someone shows up up with a “It’s a girl / boy!” balloon, it all makes sense.
#7 Iknklast
Oh it’s easy to explain. You see, sexing a spider is a matter of observing its external sex characteristics, whereas babies something something assigned gender roles at birth.
Holms, I was thinking along similar lines recently regarding Myers. As a biologist he knows that we define animals as male or female largely by their external sex characteristics, especially so in mammals. He also knows that humans are just another mammal, evolved from a common ancestor of all mammals. As an avowed atheist he rejects special pleading for humans as a unique creation, seperate from and above the animal kingdom, and rejects mind/body dualism.
Yet he is happy to classify all animals as either distinctly male or female – except for one, and that lone species has a brain which, possibly uniquely among animals, allows it to contemplate its own existence. It is also a brain which is prone to all kinds of misfirings, some seriously debilitating, others not so but which allow the individual to believe all sorts of nonsense which runs against the available evidence. Religion itself, though largely taught rather than being an inate part of the human experience, can justfiably be seen as one of those misfirings; looking at one’s naked body, seeing a specific set of sex-specific characteristics and thinking ‘no, I am not of this sex, I am of the other’ is quite simply another example of the brain rejecting what is some pretty definitive physical evidence.
By accepting the transgender argument that not only gender but sex itself is on a spectrum (the latter presumably because of the rare instances of embryonic/foetal mis-development producing a baby with ambiguous sex characteristcs, a factor that should exclude such people from the debate) Myers is accepting that the mind is indeed a seperate entity from the physical body, because it is the mind that is telling the individual to reject the physical reality. Why he does not apply Occam’s Razor to the problem is beyond me, because it should occur to anybody – biology professor or not – who is prepared to look for the simplest explanation that fits the facts that the gender spectrum can be better explained as a conflict between societal gender expectations and an individual’s personal likes and dislikes.
It would be interesting to see studies on the occurence of transgender feelings (as distinct from body dismorphia) in societies with differing gendered expectations. I would predict that where expectations are not so rigidly applied and enforced, the occurence of people believing themselves to be of the opposite sex will be drastically lower than in societies such as our own, where gendered roles are still laden with narrow expectations. As things stand, whether he sees it or not, Myers is accepting the transgender dogma as blindly as the religious accept theirs, and has become something of an apologist for their beliefs.
I grew up on a farm in the middle of nowhere. Guess what, my brother, sisters and I all wore shorts and climbed trees and got into more trouble than we could handle on an hourly basis. There wasn’t really anything else to do. So we can safely add ‘being brought up in the middle of nowhere’ as an additional sanctioned reason for girls to do and wear ‘boys’ stuff, alongside feminism and gender dysphoria.
(One of my sisters is a feminist, the other very very very is not).
The comment thread over there is only getting worse, and I am meeting snide dismissiveness with snide dismissiveness, so it is not likely to improve any time soon.
By the way Lady Mondegreen, HJ Hornbeck remembers you fondly, by which I mean scornfully. I told him you would probably take his low regard for you as a compliment.
@Holms,
I’ve considered wading into the comments once or twice but it’s futile. The “ooh I just hate TERFS *soooo much*” comments make it perfectly clear that nobody there is interested in conversation.
David Futrelle’s otherwise excellent site tends to attract similar comments, which are if anything even more sanctimonious. I’ve been dogpiled once or twice for supposed transgressions that really weren’t worth the bother (for example, I used the word “cocksucking” as a hypothetical pejorative which apparently might possibly hurt the feelings of people who suck cocks) while regulars blithely and repeatedly commit the same sins. It’s a shame, there are plenty of smart people there.
I made the mistake of looking at Pharyngula and there’s a post about how Graham Linehan is “obsessive about denying trans people rights”. There are no specifics, presumably because as far as I’m aware he isn’t interested in denying anyone any rights at all. He’s “a flaming asshat”, though, apparently.
Seriously, PZ? I doubt it was about you. As it happens, I met Linehan at that same event in that same bar. He seemed quite reserved to me, being a writer rather than a performer or someone accustomed to public speaking. Pretty much everyone else in the crowd knew each other either personally, in passing or by reputation. He wasn’t really part of the atheist/skeptic movement and it isn’t surprising that he didn’t have as much to say as a group of people who were super into that.
Also, some people, you know, listen. You could give that a try too, PZ.
And for fuck’s sake, it was not “a talk [you] gave in Dublin”, it was a whole conference with lots and lots and lots of other speakers. Jesus.
Oh ugh. Guy was there, guy was quiet, guy must not have liked MY talk by ME. How very Trumpian.
AoS @12 – I sort of expect part of what it is with PZ is his ongoing need to be one of the “in” crowd, to be accepted by the kids as that cool professor who agrees with them and is not part of the stodgy establishment. You know, like the teachers who hung around the malt shop and the arcade (or whatever equivalents there were in other cultures) when we were kids.
The thing is, we never thought they were particularly cool. We often thought they were pathetic, trying to be one of the kids when they clearly were not.
PZ has become a mansplainer, and has begun accepting a circular argument (a woman is anyone who feels like a woman) as brilliant exposition, and has enmired himself so deep in dogma he is the trans-movement equivalent of a creationist. And he can’t even see it, because he is so determined to be “on the right side of history”.
I think it’s hilarious that a few years ago he was saying you should always listen to the women about issues that involve sexism(my question: Which women? Anne Coulter is a woman. Phyllis Schlafly is – or was – a woman. Sarah Huckabee Sanders is a woman. Should we listen to all of them? How then do we know what is sexism and what isn’t, since many women disagree). Now he is saying listen to the trans (though many of the people he is listening to are not, in fact, trans), which is in effect saying “don’t listen to the women”, and has the same problems that his earlier dogmatic assertion had – which trans? Tiggerthewing? Or Rachel McKinnon? Both? Perhaps he could helpfully put up a list of those that qualify as women and/or trans, so people would know who to listen to…or perhaps he could just realize that things aren’t all that simple.
I think that’s probably true.
We shouldn’t forget that PZ was one of the highest profile people that was blamed and/or credited for The Great Schizm around the idea that atheism should try to do better than what it opposes. I applaud him for his role in that, although there were countless others before, during and after who are largely forgotten. He also did good by taking high-profile skeptics and atheists to task for their predatory behaviour and for writing shitty self-serving books.
Credit where it’s due but I have little doubt that you’re right. I’ve met PZ a few times and I liked him a lot. Actually, he didn’t usually say much in crowds (maybe he didn’t like my talk). But these days he’s banging an altogether different drum. He’s lost sight of what thoughtful, respectful but no-shit-taking skepticism/atheism is about.
He’ll write a dozen really long posts about why Sam Harris is wrong about everything (correctly) with quotes but then dismiss people like Ophelia and Linehan without ever addressing their arguments or even quoting them. Why this really, really apparent marked difference between people he disagrees with on other issues of moral import and this one thing that ought to be considered in exactly the same light?
I think you’re right Ikn. He’s going for “I’m considerably more woke than yow”, which is another pop culture reference that nobody will understand ;)
I tried to leave a comment on that post of his, but for some reason it’s not displaying. Anyway, this is what I had to say:
Well that’s the point, AoS: what’s the hurry?
Acting quickly seems to be about making it easier for trans people to pass. But there is an enormous amount of writing about why it’s not important for trans people to pass and important that people don’t insist on it. So why the hurry?
Everything about it is cherry picking, as we can plainly see. Nobody is able to make up their minds. So… let’s not encourage children to do drastic things. I mean, christ, I’m nearly 50 and I still want to be a transformer.I know that’s an obnoxious thing to say, but I don’t know why. I can list a dozen or so reasons why it’s offensive but most of them are contradictory. Transformer dysphoria isn’t defined on the NHS site but gender dysphoria is. What’s so special about gender?
Almost everyone is pretending they don’t know the answer.
latsot, I still have feelings of wishing I were a dolphin; they are very strong at times, like this week when I was watching a documentary about dolphins. Do I have species dysphoria? Sorry, that isn’t listed either.
latsot, ‘ “I’m considerably more woke than yow’; Harry Enfield?
I see no harm in wanting to be a transformer (you are talking about the ‘robots in disguise’, right? I’m not sure that wanting to be the power pack for a Hornby ‘OO’ set has the same attraction!), it sounds pretty cool (do people still say that?) to me. As it happens, and for reasons unknown, my brain has a habit of suddenly springing new lyrics to old tunes on me, and just a few days ago I was treated to a new theme song to the tune of the Transformers cartoon series (or possibly the TV advert). The title had changed to ‘Transwomen’ but I’ll leave the following line to your imagination.
iknklast, now I’m even happier that I always buy dolphin friendly tuna. I’d hate to lose a friend over a sandwich.
#12, #19
Agreed. His confused statements on what human sex is stand in stark contrast to his statements on non-human sex, and so make clear that an exception is being carved out for human sex alone. And he is throwing out this plain biological reality to accommodate a movement that is quite simply illogical on the subject – placing heavy emphasis on belief rather than on science – in total defiance of his otherwise excellent scepticism on every other subject.
And the only reason I can see for this rejection of his own good sense is a desire to avoid being the ‘old guard’ on even a single issue.
Also, the only context in which I have heard of Graham Linehan arose in that thread, when I was told I am some sort of acolyte of his. Perhaps I should take that as a recommendation to check him out; the fact that they scoff at Mondegreen shows me that the targets of their ire can be highly reasonable people.
Holms, I would thoroughly recommend checking out Linehan’s work. He is an excellent comedy writer and actor, and has always come over as a very intelligent, witty and charming person whenever I’ve seen him guest on chat/panel shows.
Whenever I run into somebody online who claims to be an atheist, I ask them about transgenderism. If they start chanting trans dogma, I know they are not truly an atheist, that they simply worship this new religion of gender identity. PZ and his little crew all are about dumping on other religions but point out that men are not women and PZ’s kids have a tantrum and start with the drama, lying and dogma spouting. What they NEVER do is actually prove HOW an adult human male (“trans woman”) is the same in material reality as an adult human female (woman).
@AoS: I agree. He seems mostly rational, thoughtful, compassionate and angry on Twitter, too. I admire all of those qualities.
@swnow:
I’m not sure it’s right to equate ideology – even dogmatic ideology – with religion. PZ is very definitely an atheist and I don’t think his eye-rolling failure of critical thinking on this issue changes that.
If we atheists have learned anything over the last decade or so (and that’s a fairly big ‘if’) it’s that we don’t have any sort of monopoly on reason and we’re all subject to bias. I know avowed atheists and skeptics who hold profoundly unsupportable views on all sorts of things, we’re none of us immune.
I think PZ is wrong on this issue and has been increasingly obnoxious about it of late. But I’m not convinced that your atheism test is a good one.
Ha! Thanks, Holms. Always nice to be remembered by the folks. :)