Is how kids are brought up seriously damaging to CD's?

[battybattybats]

I've been considering the issues of why most CDs are in the closet, often well into marriages before they are able to come out to their wives if at all.

Why is that so? Usually we answer 'because society isn't accepting of CDs'...

That sounds logical but is it really how it works? Do we at whatever point we start CDing, from 3-4 through to teens, think to ourselves: 'Yup, this is who I am, but gee i better not tell anyone as society isn't accepting'?

I think that usually we are all well aware that it's taboo before we try on our first piece of womens clothing. Certainly as we see here many of us struggle daily with the reality that we are crossdressers.

From the very beginning of our lives we have been living ina gender-coded world. Colours, styles, toys, books, tv shows, clothes... almost in every case from baby to teen we have gender coded things. Cribs and mobiles and wallpaper and posters and comics... almost every single thing is gender coded.

And that coding is segregated. It's made clear that people are not suppossed to like the things from the other gender code. When we see examples of people doing so they are usually mocked or derided. It's made clear to boys growing up that 'throw like a girl' or 'act like a girl' are serious insults, as is Sissy.

Often conformity to the boy part of the code is enforced through violence or threats of violence, often enough that has even come from parents who considered it important to 'toughen up' their boys.

We get no role models of people crossing the gender line, we get no messages of acceptability of crossing the gender line. If we see or hear of it at all it's as a negative.

Is it any wonder most crossdressers live in, or pass through, intense fear and shame and guilt? Is it any wonder that we hide the full reality of being crossdressers even from ourselves?

Some can handle it better than others... but that is true of all things.

I think that the way we grow up is quite literally abusive. Not always intentionally so but abusive nonetheless. And that it abuses not just transgender kids but everyone else too. I think it is because of this that society struggles so much to accept us, that family and friends struggle so much to accept, that wives struggle so much and that CDs themselves struggle so much.

I think that to judge ourselves, to judge one another and to deal with the issues of CDing in marriages fairly we will have to accept that we have been abused. That it effects most of us profoundly emotionally and psychologically.

And that to get societies acceptance and ensure future generations will not suffer as badly as we then we will have to raise the public awareness of crossdressing.

Not just in our imediate streets and shopping malls and neighbourhoods by being out etc, though when any ne of us is strong enough to do so it definately helps, but by getting the subject more, and importantly better, media exposure!

The next generation of teens have the advantage of the gender fluifity in some anime... but thats certainly not enough, just better. TS and CD teens still struggle with being TG.

So do you think I'm right? What are your views on the subject?

[docrobbysherry]

I have one teen just starting high school. And another who is 22.

The 22 y/o attended a progresive private high school. She had openly gay friends. That she said were treated well by everyone there, as far as she knew.

The younger one attends a public high school and has indicated that the the teachers have said that being gay is ok, on a number of occassions. Altho she makes it sound like the kids aren't as accepting as my older child's school was.

I'm talking about "gays", not TG folks. Which I have not discussed with my children other to see if they understood, had known any, or heard anything about them from others at their schools. BOTH had heard little or nothing, and seemed to feel there was something the matter with such folks! And I never even got to the part about men dressing up in ladies clothes!:doh:

I think the "pervy" aspect of dressing may prevent many from getting too deeply into discussions with their kids. It does with me, anyway. And my sense of guilt from CDing, mostly comes from that, also!:sad:
And I can't shake this feeling deep inside, that there MUST be something wrong with me to want to dress!

[Joy Carter]

I'd say you pretty much hit it on the nail head Batty. (OMG we agree ! LoL) To look at me most wouldn't belive that inside I'm a woman. I've always been this way. I talk to a lot of trans people on line. And yes they for the most part are very young. Most are young adults. Very few are of my age who have transitioned. Most in my age group have the same feelings as I have. Fear. Fear about how were are perceived by others. Fear in losing friends and most importantly our spouses.

With having the "big talk" with my spouse. She cried, and was angry. She wanted to know why I didn't tell her from the beginnings. I was seventeen when we met. And like everyone else, I didn't know. I had no information, let alone know anyone else who felt (was) this way.

If I was seventeen today, and have the information I do now, I'd be more content with myself and who I am. Would I transition ? That's a tough question, as I'm very attracted to women. Since I can't change who I am. And having finaly found out who I am. I'm more at ease with who I am. I'm more able to balance the two me's.

I'm sorry this sounds like it's all about me. But I know many of you are like me.

Thanks Batty :hugs:

[Jess_cd32]

An ex GF of mine had a brother who seemingly had some fem traits from what she told me. She said her father would mock him constantly calling him 'milktoast' and such. Like you said, trying to 'toughen him up' through verbal abuse. She told me how it really hurt this poor kids feelings, but thats ignorance in a nutshell. I'm positive he's still trying to deal with the effects of those comments directed at him.

I've endured verbal abuse my entire life from my father, now he's old and I just let it all go, its not worth holding a grudge against him. I amazingly have alot of self confidence regardless of all that was said, but some of my family members weren't so lucky, and I see the effects still from that in how they feel about themselves:sad:

I could only imagine how my life would have been if he knew I was a cd:doh:

[SherylynJade]

I think what kept me in the closet as long as it did was how I was treated by my family when I was caught (several times). It was always that I was weird, if I keep it up I'll be sent to a mental hospital, keep it up and you'll be sent to live with your mother (whom I still don't have a close relationship with) and etc. etc. etc.

[ChibiKaiju]

I"m jealous Jess, I spent so many years blocking out and ignoring my dad that it's just second nature now...even though I'm trying to get a half-decent relationshop. I'm not even sure which of us just doesn't get it.

What I'm getting from batty here is that growing up is just abusive, as our parents and grandparents had gender role smashed into their head (literally in some cases) so when we don't fit this mold they get frustrated. And I guess when you spend your whole life thinking sometihng its hard to change that habit. And as horrible as it is to say, we really just have to keep on until the old ways die out so they aren't an influence. This generation does have some advantages, being that it is more available through the media that even if an individual doesn't agree with it they atleast know its no different than what they do in their lives

[JoAnne Wheeler]

This is a great post - I truly hope that life is better for all those Crossdressers

who will be born in the future than those of us who have had to endure the

past intolerance, lack of understanding, ignorance, discrimination, and

humiliation that we have faced by Society, our families and our Spouses.


JoAnne Wheeler

[Kate Simmons]

History has proven that the majority of humanity has little concern for how it treats certain parts of itself. The machine kept going with little regard for the concerns of individuals. Recently, however, the machine has been shown to be faulty and indeed more fragile than anyone really thought. That being the case, we may be part of the efforts to rebuild it. Here is where the opportunity comes in and how we demonstrate who we are and what we are made of. The old ways no longer work and will have to give way to doing things smarter and better. How much of that will deal with who we are as people? Only we can determine that.:)

[kellycan27]

I think that the way kids are brought up definetly has a negitive effect on crossdressers, as well as race, and religion, and just about anything anyone does differently than someone else.

[Leslie Langford]

I, too, agree with what you are postulating, batty, but I believe that the gender coding goes far deeper than you are indicating, and that it is largely one-sided.

Like it or not, we still live in what is essentially a male-dominated, partiarchial world whose origins go back to perhistoric days. The role of the male in those days ended up being to forage, hunt, and provide the meat-derived protein from the animals that he killed in order to sustain his mate and his offspring, since we all stated off as carnivores. And while he did that, he also fought off the sabre-toothed tigers and other predators that were threatening his family unit by virtue of his greater physical strength and innate testosterone-fuelled aggressivness. The burden of both bearing and nurturing his offspring to propagate the species fell largely to the females as a consequence, who gravitated more towards the primitive domestic duties required of them. And so, his aggressiveness and the corresponding physical strength available to the male to assert his dominance over the female became the hallmark of both our species and most others, and somewhere along the way, this became seen as being "superior".

This mind-set has followed us throughout the ages, so being male or acting like a male became the gold standard. So to yor point, batty, for a male to act in a feminine or "girly" manner is seen to be taking a step backwards and to be avoided at all costs, whereas girls are encouraged to act more like boys and are rewarded accordingly when they do. Tomboys good. Sissy boys bad.

To this day, few fathers are thrilled if their sons excel at say, embroidery, or putting together an attractive flower arrangement, and the mothers are usually accomplices in dissuading such "girly" behaviour. However, should a daughter learn how to change the oil on a car or make the hockey team and become their star goalie - well that's a cause for celebration and "high-fives" all around.

Even for women nowadays, it is often seen as a negative to act or be considered "girly", but woe be to the man who questions her inherent femininity dispite the mixed signals she may be giving off. And above all, make sure you still hold the door, offer your seat on a bus, and don't forget to compliment her on every conceivable occasion even as all the affirmative action programs in place facilitate her rightful place in society, redress past wrongs, and leave the man floundering in her wake.

The sumliminal mesages are all around us. That segment of the fashion industry that serves women thrives on promoting styles such as "menswear", "boyshorts", and the "boyfriend jacket", and who can forget the faux male attire that defined the "Annie Hall" look that actress Diane Keaton promoted back in the 1970's. Then there was Marlene Dietrich who popularized wearing pants with that iconic "womens" tuxedo look in her glory days in the the 1930's and 1940's. More recently, we have rock singer Avril Lavigne who raided her Dad's closet and co-opted his ties to wear along with her T-shirts, camouflage pants, and combat boots in creating that instantly recognizeable "sk8er boi" look at the start of her career. And who among us whose SO's had our children didn't at one point or another see them help themselves to our shirts to wear during part of their pregnancies since they were so "comfy" (as if true maternity tops weren't?).

The fact that there is a double standard at play when it comes to gender coding and gender roles is beyond dispute, and society is still far more permissive in allowing females to push the gender envelope without negative reprecussions. It is no wonder that we male crossdressers are still so closeted in most instances, but the irony is that it wasn't always so.

Back in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, the males participated along with the women in wearing powdered wigs, make-up, high heels, and lace trimmed blouses and collars along with tights, stockings, pantaloons, and shoes with big, "femmy" buckles or slouchy "pirate" boots. And yet, the males (at least the European version) were still "manly" enough to conquer, subjugate, and colonize evey continent outside of Asia (Indian sub-contintent excepted) despite this foppish style of dress.

Where did we go so wrong that for a man to wear a skirt, dress, pantyhose, and high heels is such a big deal to so many nowadays, including our own, brainwashed, pathetic selves?

[MissConstrued]

There is still a generalised assumption that people will fit into the binary pattern


That assumption still holds true, because the majority still fit into that pattern more or less happily. I see no reason to tear down a whole society because a minority does not fit the general rule.

That's not to say that we can't add a few more categories, and integrate them into the whole. But the notion that we need to somehow destroy "gender" as a "social construct" because some of us are square pegs in round holes is absurd.

It's like politics. Most Americans seem happy defining themselves as "Republican" or "Democrat," but for those who don't fit those narrow platforms, there are other parties. In perhaps a sign of the times, third parties are growing. The misfits are uniting.

Batty -- that's my answer to your question, too.

[jruiz]

That assumption still holds true, because the majority still fit into that pattern more or less happily. I see no reason to tear down a whole society because a minority does not fit the general rule.

That's not to say that we can't add a few more categories, and integrate them into the whole. But the notion that we need to somehow destroy "gender" as a "social construct" because some of us are square pegs in round holes is absurd.

It's like politics. Most Americans seem happy defining themselves as "Republican" or "Democrat," but for those who don't fit those narrow platforms, there are other parties. In perhaps a sign of the times, third parties are growing. The misfits are uniting.

Batty -- that's my answer to your question, too.

Agree 100%

Society behaves in a certain way that is consistent with nature of things. Thank God that my father and mother played "traditional" gender roles. And my grandparents, and their parents... Otherwise, I wouldn't be here.

It's OK to wish and fight for the right of being accepted. Differences must be respected. But these are differences. We are different to most people, we can't deconstruct an entire society (with its defects and virtues), just to make happy a few.

Pretending to change the society, the way others raise their kids, and even pretending change what women like to make them like and feel attracted by CDs is just not going to happen.

I'm also sick of people talking about CD as if it were a disease, or an entity with its own will. We must hold responsible ourselves about our CD. If our wife, kids, society, etc don't accept, we must live with it. If we can't live with it, then we should stop crossdressing. If we decide to come out, we must hold the consequences. If we decide to keep it as a secret, we must hold the consequences. If we decide to quit despite how hard it is, we must hold the consequences.

Toughen kids character is something good to do, not only for boys but girls as well. It has nothing to do with gender. The world is a jungle, and they must be prepared to face happy and unhappy times. If my son or daughter is not capable of handling a disappointment for not being "tough enough", it would be my failure. I'm not implying abusing kids, but teaching them how to deal with the world.

And it seems as some of us need to toughen up, and stop complaining about how unfair the world is with CDs and start taking responsibilities for our choices.

[newcd]

when i was 15 years old my cousin hit me in the face with a 4 way the thing u use to change a flat tire and broke my tooth in half i ended up getting him arrested and he was sentenced to 3-5 for aggravated assault and drunken disorderly conduct but my mom's side of the family still hates me and he did this because he caught me in his house when we were visiting him i never had my tooth fixed i just keep it like it is to remind myself things can only get better

[jruiz]

WAIT A MINUTE....

If it weren't because of "society imposed" gender differences, would crossdressing even make sense at all?

If there were no differences, what kind of clothes would we have to wear to be crossdressers? Alien clothes?

Most of the comments I read here are based on this differences. For example:

- "My wife is less feminine than me. She is not into skirts or makeup"
- "I have a masculine and a feminine side"
- "I feel so girly with this clothes"
- "I love when they call me "madam" and hold the door for me"
- "It's nice when I dance with a nice man and treated as a lady"
- "I'm not gay or bi. It's just that when I'm dress I fantasize about being with another guy"

And so on...

We exist only because of what society has imposed to us.

We crossdress because we want to dress as women. It's not because it's more comfortable. Breaking this "society imposition" is part of the root of being a CD.

To be CDs are not only to be girly. Many girly men don't crossdress. We can be a "macho" CDs. Not all gays are effeminate.

If you like the comfort of skirts, them move to Scotland and wear a kilt... Yeah, I know it's not the same. But why? Isn't it the same comfort?

You mentioned Avril Lavigne. What about Boy George? :D

Come on, let's stop complaining about how society is. We are CDs. Not emos :brolleyes:

[MissConstrued]

Society behaves in a certain way that is consistent with nature of things. Thank God that my father and mother played "traditional" gender roles. And my grandparents, and their parents... Otherwise, I wouldn't be here.


Aye. And I too hope to pass on the same to my progeny.

I do see a certain immutability to those traditional roles. The reason is simple: the women have the uterus, and thus are responsible for childbirth. I don't see that changing anytime soon. If that could be switched between men and women, I might consider there to be a little more interchangeability to gender roles. As it is, what we have is a varied division of labor, and that's nothing new on this planet.

As we all know, the general rule is that men are physically larger and stronger, and thus more suited to hard labor -- and I could list a lot more examples. But whether our physiology evolved to meet demands, or our labor division evolved because of our physiology, the difference remains. We do well to use our nature to our advantage as a species, and never mind the few malcontents.



Toughen kids character is something good to do, not only for boys but girls as well. It has nothing to do with gender. The world is a jungle, and they must be prepared to face happy and unhappy times. If my son or daughter is not capable of handling a disappointment for not being "tough enough", it would be my failure. I'm not implying abusing kids, but teaching them how to deal with the world.

And it seems as some of us need to toughen up, and stop complaining about how unfair the world is with CDs and start taking responsibilities for our choices.


I for one am grateful for just that sort of upbringing. I could have wallowed in self-pity and misery, but growing thicker skin seemed the better idea.

[jruiz]

I do see a certain immutability to those traditional roles. The reason is simple: the women have the uterus, and thus are responsible for childbirth. I don't see that changing anytime soon. If that could be switched between men and women, I might consider there to be a little more interchangeability to gender roles. As it is, what we have is a varied division of labor, and that's nothing new on this planet.


Right. We can't try to change the world just to fit our tastes. Some things can be changed, some others are not mean to be changed.

Society constructs individuals. But the society is also constructed by individuals, and the nature of these individuals influences society. If we ever forget our natural roles, it just will be the end of the human race. (Well, maybe a bit dramatic :heehee::heehee:).

[BeckiB]

That assumption still holds true, because the majority still fit into that pattern more or less happily. I see no reason to tear down a whole society because a minority does not fit the general rule.

That's not to say that we can't add a few more categories, and integrate them into the whole. But the notion that we need to somehow destroy "gender" as a "social construct" because some of us are square pegs in round holes is absurd.

It's like politics. Most Americans seem happy defining themselves as "Republican" or "Democrat," but for those who don't fit those narrow platforms, there are other parties. In perhaps a sign of the times, third parties are growing. The misfits are uniting.

Batty -- that's my answer to your question, too.

I totally agree.

[Nicki B]

It's made clear that people are not suppossed to like the things from the other gender code. When we see examples of people doing so they are usually mocked or derided. It's made clear to boys growing up that 'throw like a girl' or 'act like a girl' are serious insults, as is Sissy.


This last list simply does not correspond to my experience of life.

I remember being quite shocked by the reaction of the women in a Washington DC office, to a US colleague who had come over to London for three weeks, then, on his return, worn the very expensive handmade gents shirt he'd bought in the UK.. The offence? It was pink. :(


Right. We can't try to change the world just to fit our tastes. Some things can be changed, some others are not mean to be changed.

That sounds like a self-fulfilling prophecy. :sad: How would you explain other cultures (e.g. Native North American) where more than two genders is or was accepted?

[Alice Torn]

Change by behavior, and example. Paul Harvey didn't change much in 57 years on radio, but set a great example. I feel i have lost a friend, or father or grandfather i never had. Changing a nation, or society can be good, or seem good, but, too much change we can believe in, too fast, can leave us looking back, and saying, "what the hell did we fall for?

[JulieK1980]

It reminds me once when I was in a McDonalds, and the kid in front of me asked for a happy meal with the "girls" toy inside, his mother went absolutely ballistic, and slapped the kid in the face. (he was, give or take about 7 years old) :Angry3:

So yes I agree wholeheartedly.

[subaru_forster]

To answer the OP, I think that this works very similar to any other "oppressed" demographic: things get better gradually with participation by themselves, and those who support them.

Look at the gays for instance: they have come a long way socially over the past few decades, but it will still be a few decades more before they enjoy anything resembling true equality to the majority.

From what I'm seeing, the ball is beginning to roll for the transgendered. At this point, there's a "Day of Rememberence" dedicated to it, and overall acceptance in the most progressive areas.

I also noticed that this new generation is (overall) leaps and bounds more openminded in this area, and the generation after will probably be even better. It may take a lot of patience (afterall, the greatest fruits of your attempts to educate the unknowing will probably be after your time) but I think it's our responsibility to make this world less abusive.

This brings me to my other point: it's fallacious to say that because societal guidelines should loosen up that they should be destroyed entirely. I hear this fallacy on both sides of the fence often enough. Most men are probably about as masculine as they're "supposed to be". There doesn't need to be a complete discolorization of culture, just let people live based on who they really are.

I think that one day, we will figure out that this "who you really are" bit comes from between the ears. Most people at least claim to believe some form of that already. There's just a lot of baggage to shed at this point. :)

[battybattybats]

Agree 100%

Society behaves in a certain way that is consistent with nature of things. Thank God that my father and mother played "traditional" gender roles. And my grandparents, and their parents... Otherwise, I wouldn't be here.

roflmao!
I reccomend you look into a little anthropology because other cultures throughout history have had other gender roles than ours and they managed to reproduce quite well!


It's OK to wish and fight for the right of being accepted. Differences must be respected. But these are differences. We are different to most people, we can't deconstruct an entire society (with its defects and virtues), just to make happy a few.

Consider it REconstructing society, as the strict gender roles have NOT been constant throughout history.


Pretending to change the society, the way others raise their kids, and even pretending change what women like to make them like and feel attracted by CDs is just not going to happen.

Pretending can happen in an instant lol. But really changing those things can hapen, real change in those areas has happened in the past and some is happening now.

Heck, the REAL world doesn't even match the one you think we shouldn't change! 1 in 3 viewers of porn are women, the main audiance of mens gay erotic literature are women! Yes, you heard that. There are more women buying and reading guy-on-guy erotic novels than there are gay men doing so! The same apparently is true of Yaoi manga!

The real world of what women really like behind closed doors is different from what they are generally willing to admit publicly.. like everyone else generally. And I'm sure most of the TG-attracted women (and I have met a few, some here on this forum and including one who lived in the same town as me untill recently) have ended up with a non-TG guy for a variety of reasons, not finding any compatable women-attracted CDs in their area likely a big part and being unable to openly admit to their attraction or be openly in a relationship with an out TG person for fear of peer condemnation!


I'm also sick of people talking about CD as if it were a disease, or an entity with its own will.

It's a trait, and possibly a biologically determined one. Certainly homosexuality and transsexuals have been shown to have brain-structure differences! When they get around to studying us I bet we do too!


We must hold responsible ourselves about our CD.

Yes and no. We are largely not responsible for being a CD, but we are for what we do about being one!


If our wife, kids, society, etc don't accept, we must live with it.

We must accept that the individuals are free to make their own choices, but they have the same obligation to us. As for society, the obligation on society is to all citizens, not just the majority but to every individual and as such it is much more obligated.

And we have a responsibility to the education of our family, friends and society! Which can and does change the views of society as can be seen with every civil-rights progress from the abolition of slavery to women in the workforce etc etc. Irrational views can and should be changed by information resulting in rational ones. We have a responsibility to provide that!


If we can't live with it, then we should stop crossdressing.

Utter nonsense! The vast majority of CDs cannot quit because the desire to be a CD is part of who they are.

If we cannot live with being the subject of bigotry then the answer is to fight against and conquer the bigotry. Just as women started doing when Mary Wolstonecroft (mother of the author of Frankenstein) wrote about the rights of women which led to education for women, the vote for women and working rights for women etc.


If we decide to come out, we must hold the consequences.

We are not wholly responsible for those consequences! If we are responsible for our wives decisions upon us coming out for example then those who fought hard to outlaw crossdressing in the past who put us in this state are responsible for them moreso!

We act as if the taboo on being a CD were there from the dawn of time, but it was not! In much of the world anti-CD views are a handful of generations old at most! The traditional roles of and tolerance of CDs was deliberatly stamped out just as it was with homosexuality. Throughout much of Asia, especially South East Asia, Australiasia, Polynesia, The Americas and more crossdressing was often sacred and valued and accepted right up until western european colonial conquering! And even in Europe it was not always anti-crossdressing. CDs and TGs were often sacred amongst for example the tribes who repeatedly defeated Rome! And at times in Rome's and Greece's past there were sacred CDs!

The anti-CD taboo was forced on society by deliberate choice, people chose to lie about us, to make us scapegoats and now we are in this situation because of them! We are responsible for fixing that but they are responsible for us being in this situation to start with!

And the short-term consequences that come from peoples ignorance and intolerance is not our fault but the fault of those who spread hatred about us in the past! But also... as the long term consequences of coming out involve educating others should we not consider that also responsible for our risk of lost friendships and lost families are those other CDs of the past who did not come out? Is our suffering the result of their passing the buck?


If we decide to keep it as a secret, we must hold the consequences.

Indeed we do. And we must look at what that will do to the next generations of CDs who will suffer if we do. We cannot think only of ourselves if we make that choice.


If we decide to quit despite how hard it is, we must hold the consequences.

Indeed... almost guaranteed failure, mental health issues, high risk of suicide and the concurrent harm that this will do to all those around us. Imagine... considering the suffering people go through when someone around them suicides or goes through depression... imagine what choosing a course of action that is almost certain to do that!

And on top of doing that direct harm to ones loved ones to supposedly spare them the suffering of coming to terms with you coming out you still have fauled the next generation of CDS too!


Toughen kids character is something good to do, not only for boys but girls as well. It has nothing to do with gender. The world is a jungle, and they must be prepared to face happy and unhappy times. If my son or daughter is not capable of handling a disappointment for not being "tough enough", it would be my failure. I'm not implying abusing kids, but teaching them how to deal with the world.

And it seems as some of us need to toughen up, and stop complaining about how unfair the world is with CDs and start taking responsibilities for our choices.

LOL. Yes, we should 'toughen up' and stop whining about how we should accept our lot and instead change our lot! If women could do it to get the vote when most people were sure they were intellectually inferior over 100 years ago, if African Americans and Australian Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander people could when most people thought they were little more than animals, if Gays and Lesbians could take riots largely started by Crossdressers and other Transgender people fighting back against police brutality and an anti-crossdressing law and build on it to get the gains so many here often express jeolousy of...

Then yes we should toughen up and admit that we can and should change the world just as many others have done before us and that we have a responsibility to do so!

Oh and as for the male caveman rot. I happen to know a fair bit about anthropology and pre-history archaeology (I have imediate family members who are in these fields! I have also worked with for a short time the Archaeology team who found the 'hobbit' homo floresiensis!) most hunter-gatherer societies had very capable women. This is because when the men went hunting (where such roles were determined by sex, they were not always split that way!) the women had to defend themselves when off gathering. They did not stay in a cave with the children with a man to guard them!

Look up: Smilodon. Dire Wolf. Cave Bear. The Giant Goanna... early humans had to contend with massive predators and the gathering, which provided for a greater proportion of the food than the hunting did required ranging over large amounts of territory where the women had to be able to fight off gigantic monsters we have difficulty imagining today. As the men may be off for a week at a time to do their hunting imagine the women with the children of the early Australians having to contend with getting water or digging for yams (women in hunter-gatherer societies do a lot of labour!) with the predators in this picture around http://davidbyrne.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/03_13_06_e_megafauna.gif

And yes because men don't have as complex and large reproductive organs they can and do grow larger with slightlyincreased strength (and lower pain threshold, worse centre of gravity, worse balance, worse long-term endurance too all of which women martial-artists can demonstrate well to foolish men).

And so there is evolutionary benefit to having some of the men feel all girly and stay with the women doing hard work digging for yams and building huts and helping protect and raise the children... which is often the traditional role of crossdressers in many traditional societies!

And those strong masculine women with their physical advantages who are very much capable of being stronger than the average male let alone the most effeminate male (are you personally as strong as elite women athletes? nope? Then some women are stronger than most men even if some men are still stronger than them so we have to deal with that reality!) well they also were valued for their strength and skill and went hunting with men in many traditional societies!

It is the modern society which goes against tradition! Crossdressing is traditional!

EDIT: As an example of a people with a documented rich crossdressing tradition as well as gay and lesbian traditions observe this article from SBS's Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander tv program Living Black on the subject http://news.sbs.com.au/livingblack/ (go to the Rainbow Dreaming segment) where an indiginous man struggling with alcohol abuse stemming from intolerance after being told by his Elders that there being Gay is not part of Aboriginal culture went on to study anthropology and to find that, in fact, there was dreaming stories of same-sex attraction and transgender!

Once again an example of how thoroughly CDing was stamped out by European colonialism where even the traditional elders of the nation are ignorant of their own TG and GLB cultural heritage! The same phenomena as seen in modern day India where conservative Hindu groups condemn public displays of affection,same sex attraction and of course crossdressing and sex-change even though the Hindu religion and history are full of such things!

In just 221 years 50,000 years of transgender culture almost entirely erased!

[txrobinm]

Oh, what a lovely discussion!

The old paradigms are being found to be somewhat lacking. For example, I'm in my late 30's. My generation, at least those of us who thought of such things, deplored the treatment of the Native Americans by the European settlers. In hindsight, there really was enough land for both societies to co-exist. Also, with the advent of green-consciousness, the closeness with the land found in native peoples is seen as an asset, while the marketplace forces once called "progress" that downplay environmental impact have shown themselves to be incapable in it's current form of long-term responsibility.

What was only recently so black-and-white is now seen to have many shades of grey. Insert your own binary system and see what happens!

[cd_britney_426]

I've always had a bit of an issue with gender roles. Now, I certainly don't have an issue with a culture promoting common things such as business attire where a man would wear a coat and tie whereas a woman would wear a respectable dress. However, cultures should reasonably allow for people to be free to "pursue their own happiness" as is a concept regularly fed to the American public but rarely a reality. The problem I have is when culture considers harmless behaviors taboos yet considers harmful activities completely acceptable. For instance, a non-passable crossdressed individual entering a store is likely to be stared at significantly whereas the ten people out front smoking cigarettes will go completely unnoticed.

These gender roles also are often promoted by transgender people themselves in the form of "passing." For instance, one time when I was seated at a table in a nightclub CDed, another MTF TG said that I am not sitting as a girl would sit. I asked why should that matter to which there was no logical response. Another common one I encounter is that I need to "work on my voice." Again, why should I? So I look like a girl but sound like a man and what honestly is the big deal? As a few have mentioned before on this board, what is the real reason behind passing? If you want to truly pass (which I and most of us prefer), then do your best at it and enjoy life. On the other hand, if you simply want to be yourself which may not include trying to pass, then you should feel free to do that as well. The point is that you should be able to do what makes you happy and not just what pleases others.

Last but not least, I disagree with the negative attitudes/viewpoints that I believe JRuiz shared here. If you truly believe that "you can't change the world...people won't ever fully accept you...you may not be able to CD as much as you want, etc." then you are correct--you won't. Instead, you will hold on to that belief, do nothing to change yourself for the better, and continue to surround yourself by your troubles and shortcomings. You may as well just open a bag of chips, a can of beer, and watch some reality TV to get your mind off of things because nothing you can do will change the world. That's one option but I believe it is certainly not the best option. There was a time where people had a vision of crossing the Atlantic to find a "new world," people who had a vision that people could construct crafts to fly, that slavery would be abolished, that women could vote, and smallpox could be cured. The people who truly believed that those things were possible created a dream, lived by that dream, and took actions towards making that dream a reality. I believe in choosing option two. If you don't like the current reality then ask yourself what reality you do want and then do something to start creating it. :) Britney

[Satrana]

Is how kids are brought up seriously damaging to CD's?

The issue is not about CDs per se but about all males. The gender conditioning stripes away so much of the humanity of young boys - all the emotionally open, sensitive, empathic, tenderness is squeezed out of them. Even worse in order to achieve this masculization, boys are conditioned to look down on and despise girls as weak and irrelevant. All things feminine is scorned as it is poison to masculinity.

This gender conditioning is nothing short of emotional lobotomy. For the most part it succeeds and males pride themselves in being rid of the weakness of women. They are unaware of how much their viewpoint of life has been skewed by their conditioning. Only TG men, and most gay men, become aware of what has taken place and have to live with the induced guilt and shame of not following the approved path to masculine adulthood. They falsely believe that since the gender conditioning has failed, that there is something wrong with them.

In truth TGs and gays, through chance or design, are the lucky males who have escaped being blinded by gender conditioning but they have to overcome the shame and guilt before they can take advantage of their good fortune.

PS. for those interested look at this other thread which conatins an article on a mother allowing her boys the chance to crossdress.
http://www.crossdressers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=102484

[Satrana]

It's OK to wish and fight for the right of being accepted. Differences must be respected. But these are differences. We are different to most people, we can't deconstruct an entire society (with its defects and virtues), just to make happy a few.


But society has already been throughly deconstructed. Feminism anyone? Compare a woman's life and role to that of 100 years ago and there is no comparison. Despite the huge changes in society, it goes on regardless. It turns out society evolves and adapts to changes just like a living organism. Instead of being afraid of change and foretelling the end of civilization, changing the gender roles and expectations of males should be seen as a welcome and progressive change that is actually overdue.

As to this idea that we CDs are different - how do you know that is true? You cannot tell presently because all of society is brain-washed into thinking the masculine male is the natural default. However the same used to be considered true of females and femininity. The truth is until a generation of males have been raised with the freedom of gender expression, we will not know how different CDs are to other males. But from the female experience it would seem prudent to speculate that if given a free choice a substantial number of males, probably the majority, would gladly mix masculine and feminine traits together for themselves.



I do see a certain immutability to those traditional roles. The reason is simple: the women have the uterus, and thus are responsible for childbirth. I don't see that changing anytime soon. Except that that immutability is not significant anymore because childbirth numbers are getting so low. If a woman has 2 children she will only spend 2% of her lifespan pregnant. So the fact that women have the uterus no longer imposes a traditional gender role on them because it barely affects how they operate in society anymore.


As we all know, the general rule is that men are physically larger and stronger, and thus more suited to hard labor And this is another immutable fact that is increasingly insignificant because very few jobs involve physical strength because we are largely a services driven economy and we have machines to handle the hard graft. So when 95% of jobs available can be done equally well by women then again this cannot be used as an excuse to maintain traditional gender roles.

[Satrana]

Why do we do it? Because our ancestors 7000 years ago found that it worked? It does not have to be like this!


Yup gender roles made perfect sense when population levels were low and death rates high. Then it was important to design a simple efficient system to run society and divide work roles to make society successful and grow quickly at the expense of individual happiness and freedom. All the old successful civilizations owe their success to their strict administrative systems.

So gender roles have been an important element in the success of human society and has helped us get to where we are now.

The crunch is we no longer need them. Our society has reached a level of complexity and knowledge that the most efficient system is not shoe-horning everyone into a strict binary system because it no longer pays dividends as people are aware that alternatives exist that promote individual happiness.

The most efficient system now is to allow people to develop into whatever they naturally are and to use their inherent skills and behavior and match them to the right roles in society. Society benefits, individuals benefit. It is a win-win situation.

Gender roles are an outmoded tool whose lifespan has expired. It is redundant in the new individualistic society that is now being built. The sooner we realize this and leave it behind, the sooner we will move into better times.

[jruiz]

roflmao!
I reccomend you look into a little anthropology because other cultures throughout history have had other gender roles than ours and they managed to reproduce quite well!


Sure. There might be examples in specific cultures. But I don't live in these cultures.


Wow, 50.000 years of crossdressing heritage has disappeared... well, I'm right now thinking about Darwin...

[Nicki B]

Wow, 50.000 years of crossdressing heritage has disappeared... well, I'm right now thinking about Darwin...

In the history of mankind, the cultural enemies of the idea that there are more than two genders possible have been the Abrahamic religions. They don't like Darwin's ideas much, either?

[battybattybats]

There is such a thing as the abuse of anthropology.

Indeed there is. Most of the claims about hunter-gatherers come from assumptions of what they must be like rather than actually from studying existing hunter-gatherer societies!

When we look at the real ones which had remained existing into recent times from Africa, South America and Australia we see that the roles of gender are varied!


The fact that our biological species evolved to cope with the hunter-gatherer lifestyle (men go hunting, women go gathering; men are forceful, women are nurturing, etc.) explains a lot of things.

It is not a fact, it is a MYTH
When the women of central Australian tribes, supposedly the 'gatherers' carry warclubs and spears, hunt for themselves and punish infractions of their laws by smashing and crippling legs or killing repeat offenders... and where the men gathered fruit and berries and nuts and dug for yams too... cause the men and women moved as seperate groups getting their own food.. which still happened as of the late 80's when a family member spent time with the hunter-gatherer tribe in question then we can say that it is not a fact it is a MYTH!

Yes some tribes did and do seperate the sexes the way usually assumed and some went the other way with women as the hunters and some had both men and women both hunting and both gathering.


It probably even explains some secondary sexual differences such as muscle distribution and broad shoulders.

Which was inherited from our pre-human ancestors.


Sure. There might be examples in specific cultures. But I don't live in these cultures.

Yes, you do! If you live in any culture on EARTH it has had at one point in it's history a tradition of same-sex attraction and of gender variance!

And they did not stop making babies! Ancient Greece, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Rome... allowing same-sex relationships didn't stop each of those empires from growing in population so much they had to conquer and colonise their neighbours because of overcrowding!

The Bible has gender non conformists, mostly translated in modern texts as Eunachs. Joseph's 'coat of many colours'? The hebrew word for that is the word for a form of dress worn by women of high standing!

In Islam especially amongst the Sufi traditions it was accepted and many islamic countries shared Indias Hidra tradition.

In pre-christian Europe amongst the nomads who fought with Rome in Germany and defeated them were Female warriors and MtF priestesses! Didn't see that in Gladiator? Pity because thats one of the times in history when it happened. Amongst the early christian church till they were slaughtered were christians who took as the central tenant of christs teaching that men and women were equal and only through the exploration of the other side of ones nature could heaven be truly understood!

Examples can be found at some point in every single part of the world!


Wow, 50.000 years of crossdressing heritage has disappeared... well, I'm right now thinking about Darwin...

Wow, are you trying to be both offensive racist and stupid all at once?

1. I have close cousins who are Aboriginal. My aunts sons children. And Elders of a different Aboriginal Nation were friends of my family as I grew up.

2. I said "In just 221 years 50,000 years of transgender culture almost entirely erased!" not destroyed, almost erased. Along with a lot of other things. In case you hadn't heard there was an attempt at GENOCIDE! The systematic destruction of the Native Traditions, Cultures, Languages and Genetics. The Stolen Generation was one of it's keystones, something for which our Prime Minister finally apologised for barely 1 year ago. And Eugenics has been shown to be a load of nonsense coming from a missunderstanding of evolutionary processes.

3. This was no fair clash of competing traits proving one as superior over the other. It was one group with a technological advantage using it to impose unrelated cultural rules over everyone they could untill those they conquered caught up enough technologically to start fighting back and ending the colonialist expansion.

However, if we look at the benefits of each... a tolerant society means less suicide, less rape, less murder, less assaults and more justice while an intolerant one has more of each but the last.

Nothing, and I'll ephasise that nothing important and valuable and good is lost by regaining tolerance and fairness and equality in society. Being decent to GLBT folk including CDs will not drop the birth rate (allowing women an education and the ability to say no does that and we've already done that!) nor destroy society nor destroy cultural gender.

Imagine for example if boys grew up with both masculine and feminine males portrayed as valid on tv? If there were crossdressing male characters? If there were transgender newsreaders and tv hosts? If boys got messages that being feminine was ok. If picking on effeminate boys was taught as being as bad and wrong as picking on girls is. They would see both cisgender and transgender as valid and possible.

That would not stop most kids from remaining cisgender unless being transgender was inherantly better! But it would allow crossdressers to be open and out before they get married, to be free of shame and guilt and fear. It would help transsexuals by vast amounts too. It would drop suicide dramatically and help vast numbers of mariages.

What harm is there in that?

[jruiz]

Batty,

I didn't mean to be racist, is just that I don't buy your BS. I'm pretty sure that, although some crossdressing or multigender cases might occur in these cultures, this is not their more outstanding characteristic, and I'm pretty sure that that's not the way they look themselves. You are just looking what you want to look to convince yourself.

I'll just forget your offenses and finish my discussion saying: I don't need over-elaborated and pseudo-scientific theories to accept myself. But if you do need them, I'm OK with it.

[txrobinm]

OK OK OK calm down everyone. Fun post first page, bashing and personal attack posts on the 2nd page (gun culture, Abrahamic religions, Batty's research).

How many "rednecks" in Texas have left CDers alone because they thought to themselves "hey, he might be carrying a gun, too"? How many followers of Abrahamic religions have realized that it is a God of love, not judgement? How many of us have learned something from Batty, either through direct info or making us think about something differently? None of these are perfect, but there can be positive sides to them for our cause. Let us not stoop to be judgemental of one another- that's why so many of us are in the closet to begin with.

PS- Batty, Joseph's coat being "of many colors" is an invention of the King James translators, according to my pastor. According to him, holder of a Ph.D. in theology from Princeton, the original is a "coat of long sleeves", meaning one not worn in the fields by laborers indicating Joseph's place of privilege, but that would have been lost on the target audience for that translation. They would understand a multi-colored coat as indicating privilege, so that's how it came to be translated.

[cd_britney_426]

Batty,

I didn't mean to be racist, is just that I don't buy your BS. I'm pretty sure that, although some crossdressing or multigender cases might occur in these cultures, this is not their more outstanding characteristic, and I'm pretty sure that that's not the way they look themselves. You are just looking what you want to look to convince yourself.

I'll just forget your offenses and finish my discussion saying: I don't need over-elaborated and pseudo-scientific theories to accept myself. But if you do need them, I'm OK with it.

Then why did you respond to Batty's thread in the first place? If you can't back up your claims, then you shouldn't make them in the first place. Additionally, your evasiveness makes it difficult to even engage in an educated discussion with you. Everyone here knows that Batty lives and resides in Australia so I would assume that Batty is a bit more credible on Australian history than people who don't live there and read about it in textbooks that are not even written by Australians. You then claim that not all cultures had differing gender roles than your own yet you won't even tell us which culture you belong to let alone which country you live in. Sure, we can all agree to disagree but if you can't back up anything you say with any evidence and choose to be incredibly evasive in your responses, then you are in no position to call others' opinions "BS." You also in the quoted material above referred to Batty's detailed explanations as "offenses." I would like to know what exactly you mean by that. Again, if you can't back up what you said and subsequently can't "take the heat" then don't stay in the kitchen. Some of us are trying to learn something here. Britney

[battybattybats]

Batty,

I didn't mean to be racist, is just that I don't buy your BS.

B.S.? NOW I'm offended.
It's one thing to say my conclusions are in error or that my sources are poor or that my reasoning is flawed but to call me a liar? Oh now you've done it!

Please don't tell me something I've studied and know about and that family members have written books about (anthropology in general) and that is the lived experience of family members is BS (I have a gender non-conforming aboriginal cousin) unless you can prove it.

This is no subjective thing but something where facts can be checked. So please prepare to eat your words and publicly apologise.

So. Point out case by case, claim by claim what exactly you think is B.S. and I'll provide evidence to prove I'm right and you can do likewise. Point by point whoever is wrong must concede each point and at the end one of us will be clearly wrong.

I'll start shall I?
Not only do i have the Fafafine of Samoa where they have a third sex catagory of MtF crossdressers but similar practices once existed and some elements remain throughout polynesia from South East Asia to Hawaii. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fa%27afafine

And here is where a crossdresser or fakaleiti is presiding over a Royal Marriage in the kingdom of Tonga! http://www.sbs.com.au/blogarticle/108276/Just-a-Girl-at-Heart/blog/Global-Village-and-Thalassa


I'm pretty sure that, although some crossdressing or multigender cases might occur in these cultures, this is not their more outstanding characteristic, and I'm pretty sure that that's not the way they look themselves.

So? Thats a pointless argument. Countries don't define themselves by being anti-gay either. When some group is inclusive or even sacred then they become just a normal part of life. Oh, did I mention the Samoans are a warrior culture? I wouldn't tell a Samoan (found as bouncers at pubs and nightclubs all over Australia) that their Fafafine relatives are anything but respectable.


You are just looking what you want to look to convince yourself.

Really? When I have evidence I can cite? Maybe you should have ralised that when I already posted a link to an article mentioning the aboriginal sistergirl heritage?

I'll be nice and give you easy-to-read stuff to start off with, most of which will have formal academic sources you can follow fom there

Here's an article you might want to read, on transgender in ancuent history. It's part 1 of 6 all of which I reccomend http://www.bilerico.com/2008/02/transgender_history_trans_expression_in.php
For example the TRanssexual Priestesses of the Scythians who fought the Romans was documented by Athropologist Hermann Baumann From wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:TeamZissou/sandbox/Scythians_in_mythology but you can get the book Transgender Warriors to follow the source further
Anthropologist Hermann Baumann recorded male-to-female transsexual priestesses among the Scythians as well, pointing to a broad range of gender expression in the culture.[27]

and it was but one of a wide number of such traditions including the Cybelline faith http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybele
Cybele's most ecstatic followers were males who ritually castrated themselves, after which they were given women's clothing and assumed "female" identities
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-Spirit
As of 1991, male and female bodied Two-Spirit people have been "documented in over 130 tribes, in every region of North America, among every type of native culture".[2]


One even met the President! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We%27wha
We'wha (1849-1896, various spellings) was a Zuni Native American lhamana, which is the Zuni term for what now may be called a male-bodied Two-spirit. She was described in the book The Zuni Man-Woman, by Will Roscoe. The anthropologist Matilda Coxe Stevenson wrote a great deal about We'wha, and even hosted her to visit Washington D.C. in 1886, where she met President Grover Cleveland and was generally mistaken for a biological woman. She was a cultural ambassador for her people, and performed the role of Kolhamana, the lhamana kachina of the Zuni. She died in 1896.



I'll just forget your offenses

My offenses? What offenses? I'm afraid you caught me in a bad mood today. Please do justify your comment what 'offenses' have I possibly made? (warning: my favourite topic is moral and ethical reasoning and, other than my first words being in full sentences, it was in this field that my pre-disability 'gifted' IQ was identified so you are really in for it if you do badly!)

So don't bother forgetting my 'offenses'. I think it's important you spell them out! After all, I'm still human, I can be wrong and make mistakes and if no-one points them out then how will I ever learn?

I certainly wont forget yours as you were deliberately offensive and I can and have proven you wrong! So then I expect you to prove your character with an appropriate recognition that you are wrong and an apology for calling something BS when you had no idea what you were talking about!


and finish my discussion saying: I don't need over-elaborated and pseudo-scientific theories to accept myself. But if you do need them, I'm OK with it.

Over elaborated? Well my disability does make it difficult being concise that's true. Science is not pseudo science however. There is a difference between them and you would do well to learn it!

And whether some need real science for self acceptance or not validates or invalidates no-one and has no bearing on the subject. I happen to like this subject and find it fascinating in it's own right.

I grew up with a close family member studying archaeology and as far as honours in linguistics particularly in referance to Australian pre-history archaeology, rock-art and the many unique forms of Aboriginal languages across its vast different cultures many of which are profoundly unique compared to the worlds other language systems (and guess who read all their thesis and assignments to proof-read them and ensure they were understandable to lay-people).

I have several anthropologists in my family as well as several in my families history. I have people of Chinese, Aboriginal and Islander heritage in my close family.

So then, if you think I'm still in error please do amuse me by suggesting somewhere where I'm wrong that I may back up my claims. And now i provide you an opportunity to provide some evidence that counters my claims! Or apologise! Or look even worse by refusing to apologise or counter my claims which would be seriously embarassing while the rest of us get back to serious conversation!



PS- Batty, Joseph's coat being "of many colors" is an invention of the King James translators, according to my pastor. According to him, holder of a Ph.D. in theology from Princeton, the original is a "coat of long sleeves", meaning one not worn in the fields by laborers indicating Joseph's place of privilege, but that would have been lost on the target audience for that translation. They would understand a multi-colored coat as indicating privilege, so that's how it came to be translated.

A quick google brings up this http://www.leewind.org/2008/05/joseph-and-amazing-technicolor-dress.html I've heard one biblical scholar now even has a whole play written on Transgender characters in the bible.

Edit: Also for those wanting to know more about North American two-spirit traditions these two links are interesting http://www.peak.sfu.ca/the-peak/99-1/issue5/spirit.html
http://www.gay-art-history.org/gay-history/gay-customs/native-american-homosexuality/two-spirit-native-american-gay.html

[jruiz]

Wow, are you trying to be both offensive racist and stupid all at once?

Sorry Batty, sure, there is no offense intended... I guess it was just "tough love" from you.

And yes, sorry again for calling BS your rigorous scientific Wikipedia research.

:brolleyes:

[jruiz]

I just wanted to express my opinion. And the point is that society should be more tolerant, including ourselves.

Respect, even from people who think or dress differently. I guess that's all we, as CDs, ask.

But I think that it should work in both ways. We should respect and tolerate the right that other people have of not enjoying or wanting to have to do with CD. The right to raise children following their own patterns and values. As long as there is respect us, they can think/fell whatever they want.

By the way, this forum is a great place to start showing respect and tolerance, although we think different.

My real sincere apologies for not being example of tolerance and respect in this thread. But I still believe in what I believe, and I still believe in gender roles as a very important value in society, and nobody should be offended by that.

J Ruiz

[kathrynjanos]

My initial reaction is: "You're really extreme!"

I think that still applies, with caveats. That is, I think that you're a bit extreme to generalize that much, and society really IS changing, especially when it comes to LGBT issues including CD. But, as far as how we were raised, I guess that really depends on your age.

Yes, being "male" is societally ingrained, but I think that also depends on your background. American society has historically been very male-centric, and in many ways, though it has changed some, any form of deviation is still seen as deviant (note the phrasing, there).

But anyway, your question specifically is "Is how kids are...?" Well, it entirely depends on the parents and even the child. Some parents are more accepting and even active on behalf of their children's interests, such as speaking with educators and helping the child seek therapy to work out the child's actual condition. Obviously, it would be nice if ALL parents were like this.

Other parents at worst completely reject the possibility that their kids can be anything but exactly what they appear physically and anything else is an illness or "defect." I refer to these people as "The Christian Right." (I kid, I kid! They're only one huge portion of this group!) An effective example for that is the movie, Saved! If you haven't seen it, see it.

The ones that can truly harm their children are those who vehemently deny and refuse to accept the possibility of differences.

[battybattybats]

Sorry Batty, sure, there is no offense intended... I guess it was just "tough love" from you.

I don't get cranky easilly, and indeed in this case your words sure earned it.


And yes, sorry again for calling BS your rigorous scientific Wikipedia research.

:brolleyes:

Har-dy-har-har. I wonder if I'm being too nice.

I used wiki cause its A, fast and B, mostly written in simple plain language the avergae person can comprehend.
Yes it can be dodgy and biased at times but I checked it to see if these articles were sourced (so you could delve further if you are so inclined/capable) and were consistent with what I know.

Citing offline academic anthropological texts you would need to look up in a university library would hardly be time-effective for you or me now would it? Especially as I'd have to call my parent and have them unpack the box of old university texts amongst the 86 boxes of books that were put in storage when the library room got overfull.

The subject is not a new one. Sources are available in the wiki articles and I'm sure you can google or yahoo on your own.

Your apology would be a good one if you hadn't thrown in the quip about wiki research (what part of the lived experience of having Aboriginal family members and growing up knowing Tribal Elders did you not comprehend?) or the rolling-eyes emoticon.

That alas rather just adds new offense to old by negating the value of your apology.

Do you have contrary evidence? From perhaps better sources than Wiki? Do you have in fact anything at all to back up any criticism of what I have said?

If not then try reading the wiki and billerico and other links (you did notice the non-wiki links right? Like the ones about Native American Traditions?) and you'll find sources listed amongst them for you to continue to learn about or if you need to check the validity of wiki, of me, of the Aboriginal Elders of the Wiradjuri people of the Nyngan area, of the SBS television program Living Black which you can watch for yourself http://news.sbs.com.au/livingblack/ go to the Rainbow Dreaming segment and the footage, again from SBS television of the crossdresser officiated wedding of the Royal Family of the Kingdom of Tonga! http://www.sbs.com.au/blogarticle/108276/Just-a-Girl-at-Heart/blog/Global-Village-and-Thalassa

You did catch the TV links didn't you? Not just the wiki ones? If not they are a good place to start.


I just wanted to express my opinion. And the point is that society should be more tolerant, including ourselves.

That sure didn't seem your point earlier, but you are right, it is a good point.



Respect, even from people who think or dress differently. I guess that's all we, as CDs, ask.

Full and total legal equality could be considered part of that respect and if so then i agree with you. It's something that in most of the world currently we don't have, something in most of the world only recently lost.


But I think that it should work in both ways.

Sure, equality is equality.


We should respect and tolerate the right that other people have of not enjoying or wanting to have to do with CD.

Almost but not quite. In their personal life sure, thats where freedom of association comes in. But they have no right to not see us in the street, have us teach their children or be their doctors or object if their children are one of us or have friends or lovers who are. To truly have equal respect we can't tell them that they too should be CDs but they can have no veto over our public existence nor refuse service to us in shops nor treat us i any manner that is pejudicial. In a society of equality you do have to live with others who are different and be in their company.

Equality is not the equidistant point between two opinions... it is the point where everyone has equal liberty and equal responsibility. Our responsibilty is to be not bigoted ourselves, not racist nor homophobic nor anti-intellectual nor sexist nor ablist nor agist nor religiously intolerant nor intolerant to atheists etc. But we actually have an obligation to oppose intolerance always not to ever respect it!


The right to raise children following their own patterns and values.

Massive no! Nuh-uh! A parent has an obligation to the child, to feed and clothe and shelter and love the child and to maximise their access to knowledge and independant thought so that the child can make their own decisions. A parent has no right to instill their own personal values into the child or insist the child live by their cultural traditions irrespective of the childs right to decide for thmselves as that is often abuse! Example: female genital mutilation like the cliterodectomy popular in Africa.

Now this may at first appear like a double-standard because where before I was calling for Aboriginal cultural rights I'm about to condemn an aboriginal cultural practise but it isn't a double-standard once you understand how rights work.

For example. Genital mutilation, like male circumcision, when performed without the childs informed consent is wrong as when the child is old enough they may object to having had the procedure done to them. But if once they are old enough to legally decide for themselves to undergo this cultural tradition they have a right to the cultural practice.

If you knew what many hunter-gatherer societies do to the bodies of young boys and girls in their initiation rights I'm sure you'd be sick to your stomach. I'm not talking about ordinary old sicatrices where a quartz stone knife is used to cut patterns deep into the skin and ashes jammed inside to make a nice thick tribe-identifying patterned scar or having ones good and bad deads tattood on ones face with a sharks tooth.. no thats the nice stuff.

The stuff you don't hear about often are things like penile subincision etc such as cutting the end 1/3rd of the penis in half so when it heals (if the victim does not die of shock or infection.. it's done with stone tools remember!) it looks like the twin-ended penises of geckos, the tribes totem animal. Thats what one central Australian tribe does to 8-10 year old boys. It is still a cultural practice (or at least was as of 1989 when my Linguist family member visited the tribe)

So no, parents do not have a right to do whatever they want to their children no matter how old the tradition. The child has rights. The right to their cultural practices when they are able to give informed consent IF they choose to but also the right to say no to such things and to be raised in such a way as they are not coerced into those choices or into particular religions etc either!

Parents have no rights over their child, only responsibilities to them!


As long as there is respect us, they can think/fell whatever they want.

Freedom of thought is absolute, freedom of action is bordered by the rights of others. A parent can be as transphobic as they want in their thoughts for example, but not in their actions to their child because that child has rights even if they are not yet old enough to be able to purposefully excercise them!

Hence why it is just to take children out of the custody of abusive parents. If a child is beaten with a stick for being effminate (as one woman in Jamica was reported doing to her son whenever she caught him crossdressing!) then it is appropriate that the parent no longer have custody of the child no matter their culture or personal views. the childs rights are paramount.


By the way, this forum is a great place to start showing respect and tolerance, although we think different.

Sure, and if you'd spoken to me in a more tolerant way I'd have been nicer back :) I'm not nasty by nature, nor do I know everything and I actually do enjoy being wrong as it leads me to more and deeper understanding.

The danger of the annonymity of the forum is you have no idea who you are talking to. There are people from all walks of life, NASA engineers through to the unemployed. I myself never even finished high school and suffer from a disability that prevents long-term formal study or work and drops my IQ by about 40 points on a bad day (when my posts get longer lol). But I was allowed to informally attend university lectures on moral and ethical reasoning and metaphysics as a toddler and many other subjects since and before i was properly diagnosed I did study art, comparative theology etc and managed to do volunteer work with the local archaeological department (Mike Morwood is a great guy, wish I could have been involved with the homo floresiensis discovery but the work I did with them was on preparing data from digs in Namibia for publication).

So you, and I, never know what anyone else here may know or what they may do.


My real sincere apologies for not being example of tolerance and respect in this thread.

Thats ok :hugs: thanks for the much more genuine apology :)


But I still believe in what I believe,

Sure, but be prepared to allow your opinions to be challenged and to regularly reevaluate them. Our instincts and feellings can be wong and when new data comes to light we must always be prepared to rethink our opinions and let new ones form if the old ones are wrong. Stubborness has no value in thought. Instead the ability to re-think is one of the greatest virtues we can cultivate.


and I still believe in gender roles as a very important value in society, and nobody should be offended by that.

Sure, we have a right to gender just as we do to culture. and a right to personal expression and exploration of that. But not to impose our cutlure or gender values on others but instead to stand up for individual freedom on these issues. Gender roles vary accross cultures and every country includes people of varying cultures so there can be no one standard anywhere. Instead each person has a right to decide for themslves what gender roles mean to them. Just like religion and culture, its a matter of personal liberty, of individual conscience.

Gender is very important to me to. My Great Great Grandmother was well-educated at a time when women were rarely educated. She wrote a great number of books and recorded many native traditions that would otherwise have been lost. My Grandmother owned and edited a newspaper, she was a member of the communist party until learning of Stalins attrocities she also Head Matron at what was one of Australias largest hospitals during WW2. My mother too is strong and independant. And going back along the maternal line we get to the Irish Pirate-Queen Grace O'Malley who wore pants and cut her hair short and fought as bravely as any man and so was for her day quite the crossdresser!

Not being defined by traditional gender roles is part of my personal family heritage. But each of those women had gender. Gender freedom is not gender meaninglessness. It just means that people are free to express themselves as they see fit. My academic and learned and fiercely independant Great Great Grandmother wore the most exquisite feminine dresses... because she liked to. She certainly would have worn pants like Grace if she wanted to! No-one could have stopped her!

The world, and gender, won't come to an end if we allow CDing kids to grow up seeing other crossdressers and knowing it's ok to be like that.

[Senban]

Leslie Langford said - "Back in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, the males participated along with the women in wearing powdered wigs, make-up, high heels, and lace trimmed blouses and collars along with tights, stockings, pantaloons, and shoes with big, "femmy" buckles or slouchy "pirate" boots. And yet, the males (at least the European version) were still "manly" enough to conquer, subjugate, and colonize evey continent outside of Asia (Indian sub-contintent excepted) despite this foppish style of dress.

Where did we go so wrong that for a man to wear a skirt, dress, pantyhose, and high heels is such a big deal to so many nowadays, including our own, brainwashed, pathetic selves?"

Hmm, it's true that men did indeed wear such things but they were male versions of such items rather than female versions. I'd also suggest that such costumes were not worn by the common people. I'd further suggest that while it's true that such things were indeed worn by men, women were wearing something different at the time. Look at the photos here (http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/eudr/hd_eudr.htm)for 18th century examples.

[JulieK1980]

Good reading in those links Batty! That will keep me amused until I must head off to work.:)

[MissConstrued]

And this is another immutable fact that is increasingly insignificant because very few jobs involve physical strength because we are largely a services driven economy and we have machines to handle the hard graft. So when 95% of jobs available can be done equally well by women then again this cannot be used as an excuse to maintain traditional gender roles.

While I very much doubt the accuracy of your 95% number, let's assume for a minute that it's correct. It is true that the USA has become a heavily services driven economy.

I would like to point out, however, that it's an unsustainable economic model. Wealth (this is different from money) only comes from the production of raw materials into finished goods. Agriculture, mining, and manufacturing are the source of wealth from which all wealth is derived.

What we have created instead is a global Ponzi scheme, based on an inflating fiat currency, machinations of markets, and trading of paper rather than real goods. The prices of real goods, like food, are also manipulated to produce the highest profits for those who do not produce it. We are now only beginning to feel the backlash that such a foolhardy rush to false security brings. We cannot sustain an economy of people who sell insurance to each other. We don't need people for that, anyway. I bought my car insurance online.

Make no mistake. Those service jobs are on the decline. Numerous engineers suggest that a $2 trillion investment will barely make a dent in repairing our aging infrastructure. There will be plenty of physical jobs to go around, and quite soon. Those millions of now-unemployed office dwellers will find themselves in work boots, covered with blisters.

I see far too much of this. People can present an argument in one light, but are utterly incapable of examining it from another viewpoint or another discipline. We have economists, sociologists, anthropologists, politicians, scientists, and on and on. Never do any of them meet to figure out where their disciplines intersect.

But worse than that is the common human failing of believing that whatever age we live in is as good as it's going to get. We always believe we live at the height of human knowledge. It's just not so. We, as a species, will be looking back a century from now to see how foolish we are now, building societies on nothing at all.

So there's point one -- just because things are one way now does not suggest they will remain so. I propose it will be quite the opposite.


Point two regards Katie B imagining we live in a gentle world of sunshine and puppies. It may be... for now. But again, will it remain so? The line between civilization and anarchy is a very fine one. All it takes is a little starvation and privation to bring out the worst in humanity. And I can tell you, anyone who's paid any attention to agriculture knows that we have far from solved all our problems. It seems the only thing that history teaches most of us is that most of us fail to learn from history.

We should teach our children to be good citizens, that's true. But we should consider ourselves failures if we don't also prepare them for the worst. I would like to believe that we're rushing headlong into an age of eternal peace where no one has to lift a finger. I think I know human nature a little too well, however.

[cd_britney_426]

I just wanted to express my opinion.../...But I think that it should work in both ways. We should respect and tolerate the right that other people have of not enjoying or wanting to have to do with CD. The right to raise children following their own patterns and values.../...By the way, this forum is a great place to start showing respect and tolerance, although we think different.


Tolerating intolerance is NOT tolerance. Again, while I respect your right to express your opinion, I believe that if you are going to give an opinion then you should be able to defend that opinion and not just cop-out when people demonstrate opposing views. Britney

[cd_britney_426]

KatieB, I slightly disagree with your views. While I do agree that in an ideal world, aggression and violence are unnecessary and "toxic" as you put it, we need to realize that reality is very different from an "ideal" world. At risk of stereotyping the U.S. since your profile says you live in France, please be careful just who you call "rednecks" and especially when referring to "gun culture." Likewise, what one sees on TV about a society is not always what that society is really like. While it is true that civilization for the most part does not behave like a jungle, it is far from ideal as well. A lot of people talk about the ideal world where everyone loves each other, there is world peace, acceptance, etc. It is a great idea on paper but the real question is what people are going to do to bring about that reality. With freedom comes responsibility. As long as there is oppression, injustice, and violence, there will be a requirement for people to resist that. Failure to resist the vices in our world will not bring the virtues we dream of but will only reinforce those vices. That is why I believe that the pacifists who believe in lying their guns down and letting themselves being attacked because they don't "believe in violence" are clearly fooling themselves. If you want virtuous conduct not only do you adopt those virtues yourself but you likewise resist those vices. That being said and in attempt to bring this back to the topic, if I see say some transphobic person beating up or killing a transsexual in a hate crime, I'm not going to say "Oh my god. Violence. No." and just helplessly stand there but instead will do everything in my power to stop that unwarranted violence up to and including shooting the attacker. Britney

[MissConstrued]

Tolerating intolerance is NOT tolerance.


Beg to differ. If you won't tolerate intolerance, then you are yourself practicing intolerance. I won't tolerate intolerance of intolerance from you. But then, I don't have to -- I'm not tolerant anyway.

Seriously, though... if you want the freedom to be what you wish, you should afford others the same courtesy. Even if you don't like them, and they don't like you.

There was a headline in The Onion ( a popular satire rag, for those unfamiliar with it) once that read "ACLU Defends Neo-Nazis' Right to Burn Down ACLU Headquarters." It's absurd of course, but there's a valuable point there. Remember Voltaire?

[battybattybats]

While I very much doubt the accuracy of your 95% number, let's assume for a minute that it's correct. It is true that the USA has become a heavily services driven economy.

Etc etc.

Modern economics is a load of nonsense I can destroy in a few paragraphs. Watch this!

Free market ecnomics is based on the assumption that biological models of natural selection will evolve the most efficient and successfull monetary system in just the way that life does.

Life is a solar economy, almost all it's energy starts at solar radiation from the approximately 8 billion year lifespan fusion reaction we call the sun. So it will continue successfully for about 4 billion more years barring excessive accident.

Our economy is based on carbon-based fuels, fissile materials and metals. So long as this is true much of these resources will last approximately 30 more years... by optimistic estimates. So free market economics is not like life in a solar economy but like bacteria on a petri dish, the more it grows the faster it uses up it's finite resources (usually gasses in a sealed petri dish) till it exhusts the resource or pollutes itself to death with it's own waste enabling a nice scrapping for a microscope slide of the dead bacteria!

Efficiency hastens extinction, innefficiency is neccessary for sustainability. An unrestrained capitalist economy is nothing but playing russian roulette and adding more bullets every round till eventually you have no chance of not dying!

Simple logic I understood in 1989 when I did my first agr-growth of bacteria!

As for women in various professions... I doubt a few percent greater muscle mass is that useful in many professions and the powered exoskeleteon is being devloped that will utterly end the last strength based issues for women so long as their is power for it and so the last minute sex-based difference will be gone.

Certainly women are capable soldiers, martial artists, fighter pilots, mathemeticians, car mechanics...


And I can tell you, anyone who's paid any attention to agriculture knows that we have far from solved all our problems. It seems the only thing that history teaches most of us is that most of us fail to learn from history.

LOL Today I had a nice chat with an Agronomist... he was driving my taxi! He just left his job at the Government CSIRO research facility for a more secure job!


We should teach our children to be good citizens, that's true. But we should consider ourselves failures if we don't also prepare them for the worst. I would like to believe that we're rushing headlong into an age of eternal peace where no one has to lift a finger. I think I know human nature a little too well, however.

I've known people saying civilisation was going to imminantly collapse since the early 80's. And while they were right about a lot of things the collapse hasn't happened yet in the west. It's always possible, especially if 'pragmatists' go into a survival-mode that costs us the main benefit of society, namely mutual cooperation for mutual benefit and guarantee of rights.

It's very possible for us to ensure the continued existence of civilisation and even dramatically increase average prosperity! But not if we keep up the unregulated market nonsense that hastens our destruction.


Beg to differ. If you won't tolerate intolerance, then you are yourself practicing intolerance.

LOL, this depends on how one defines the philosophies of tolerance and intolerance. If the basic premise is universal equality then tolerating inequality is actually being intolerant of the equal rights and value of those treated less equally. Suddenly tolerance is intolerance and intolerance is tolerance. Tolerance is not permitting any action. It is permitting any ethical use of rights even if you disagree with the ethical use of those rights.

Or rather tolerating inequality is being intolerant of equality.

So you may have to tolerate someone saying something you disagree with but you don't have to put up with them violating your rights. See the difference? So long as they only act within their rights you have no right to object and try and prevent them only to disagree and express your own disagreement and contrary opinion!

I guess this needs an example so I'll give you one in a moment...


Seriously, though... if you want the freedom to be what you wish, you should afford others the same courtesy. Even if you don't like them, and they don't like you.

Absolutely! And the key is that this causes what can be considered boundaries created by reciprocally recognised equality. If we are all equally free that is not anarchy, their right to murder me can only justly exist if they acknowledge my right to not consent to be murdered. That doesn't mean we must then engage in a battle to the death, it means they can only murder someone with uncoerced and free and sane consent, in which case it cannot be murder, merely assisted suicide!

The recognition of others equality is essential for the validity of your own freedom which creates natural structures of right and wrong based n mutual respect for each others rights.


There was a headline in The Onion ( a popular satire rag, for those unfamiliar with it) once that read "ACLU Defends Neo-Nazis' Right to Burn Down ACLU Headquarters." It's absurd of course, but there's a valuable point there. Remember Voltaire?

Actually at one point a Jewish man who'd lost family in the holocaust who was a member of the ACLU did defend neo-nazis! Their right to free speech that is, not what it was they said with that right. Which was after all the correct thing to do.

But that does not mean tolerating neo-nazi violence nor the burning of buildings as that violates the rights of others. There is a really simple line between the two.

Also we have an obligation to defend the rights of others. And if someone were to use their freedom of speech to say for example that red-haired people should not have equal rights then everyone is obligated not to prevent that persons idiotic use of their freedom of speech but to use their own to educate and/or oppose them.

And thusly to defend our own rights we need to protect the rights of bigots while also opposing the bigots views! Thats not a double-standard but being consistent to a greater understanding.

So we should allow expression of intolerance while also having to use our own freedom of expression in opposition to it's message, but not tolerate actions of intolerance that violate anyone's rights, on either side... except where it is an effort of those not properly treated as equals asserting their right to equality because as history requires that remains acceptable (whether wise or effective or not) whenever there are not other avenues of recourse.

And to ensure that this is understood as being on-topic, I think that part of what is neccessary is for people to be tought both as children and plenty later in life too what Rights really mean, as few seem to understand the concept, largely because of false propaganda about the idea from people oppossed to treating everyone with fairness and equality.

If this was understood properly people would be much better able to handle living in a peaceful diverse and rich society with more variations of gender expression, religious faith, sexuality etc.

So then is part of the answer not just to ensure children get to see positive examples of people who are transgender but more importantly than that having people understand what Human Rights are and what obligations are intrinsicly part of them?

[MissConstrued]

I condemn gun culture wherever it exists - even as I write there are reports of two mass murders by gun-toters in the USA and in Germany.

But isn't German gun control quite strict? How did this happen in enlightened Europe? :rolleyes:



I argue that we should raise our children to be brave in the face of oppression, but not themselves violent. Do you see the difference?

There is a difference, yes, but there is also a relationship. Bravery without skill is foolishness.

Plenty of children are taught martial arts, and there's instruction right along with kicking and throwing about when to use, and not to use, that skill. It's a last resort, but certainly a tool the good guys should have, no?

[jruiz]

But isn't German gun control quite strict? How did this happen in enlightened Europe? :rolleyes:



There is a difference, yes, but there is also a relationship. Bravery without skill is foolishness.

Plenty of children are taught martial arts, and there's instruction right along with kicking and throwing about when to use, and not to use, that skill. It's a last resort, but certainly a tool the good guys should have, no?

Agree. Being suitable for the army, brave, strong, etc is not opposed to crossdressing!!! Wouldn't that be stereotyping?

CDs come in all kind of flavours...

[MissConstrued]

Free market ecnomics is based on the assumption that biological models of natural selection will evolve the most efficient and successfull monetary system in just the way that life does.

Our economy is based on carbon-based fuels, fissile materials and metals.

It's very possible for us to ensure the continued existence of civilisation and even dramatically increase average prosperity! But not if we keep up the unregulated market nonsense that hastens our destruction.



Those four sentences prove you don't know a damn thing about economics other than what they brainwash everyone else with in colleges. I've heard the same crap everywhere, and I hear it because no one actually thinks.

If you think free markets are causing the world's problems, let me ask you this -- where on this planet is there a free market? As in, Adam Smith's idea of such?

Hint: there isn't one.

What I see is some very large and powerful multinational corporations working very closely with various governments for the purpose of removing their competition. Isn't that fascism?


The economy has no basis in fuels or anything else solid. It's based on credit. Paper. Vapor. There's no wealth. Just zeroes in a computer. And yes, it's destined to collapse -- it can't do anything else. Mathematical ambition long ago exceeded physical possibility.


I think your heart's in the right place, Batty. We are agreed that modern economics is unsustainable. You just don't understand what modern economics is, yet.

Could we fix it all? Yes. Will we? We don't have a very good track record there.

[MissConstrued]

I don't see how we CDs can argue in favour of female virtues on the one hand, and then express extreme macho views a moment later. Sounds like schizophrenia to me.


I'm all for female virtues... in females. It's balance for the male virtues. But (insert Asian philosophy here, yin-yang etc) balance is key. But for crying out loud, from whence comes this notion that I must be effeminate for wearing heels now and then? By the tone of some here, we should all be f***in' breast feeding.


I do find it hilarious that someone who's so much for women's empowerment is so much against women owning the weapon that makes them equal to a man in a fight.

[MissConstrued]

Sorry, didn't I make my point clear? My personal experience is that the things which made me superior to a(nother) man in a fight were restraint, intelligence and the rule of law.


Oh, no, it's quite clear, and I have nothing against restraint and intelligence. I use them myself... and use them first... and recommend them highly. I've avoided many problems that way. But in my personal experience, there have been times when that just wasn't enough. It sounds like it's never come to that for you, and that's great.

I like to have options. When peaceful options run out, as they sometimes do, then what? I don't see how denying myself the last resort defense of violence makes me somehow a superior human being. It could make me a dead one, though. It is my belief that children should understand there's more than one way to skin a cat.

And think about this -- if America's 80 million+ gun owners didn't exercise considerable restraint and intelligence, this would be a pretty scary place to live. Violence doesn't occur because weapons exist -- it's the other way round. Think about it this way: I have more ability to kill people than you do. Yet I don't. Which one of us is exercising more restraint?

I don't think we're all that different, but I do take exception to the attitude that someone better armed than you is a grunting heathen incapable of peaceful conflict resolution.

As for those powerful women? They may not pack, but they do have armed bodyguards. We have some female senators here who regularly vote for more gun control, but have guys with guns following them around. Ironic.

[Gabrielle Hermosa]

I think that the way we grow up is quite literally abusive. Not always intentionally so but abusive nonetheless. And that it abuses not just transgender kids but everyone else too. I think it is because of this that society struggles so much to accept us, that family and friends struggle so much to accept, that wives struggle so much and that CDs themselves struggle so much...

So do you think I'm right? What are your views on the subject?

Wow - how did I miss this amazing and well articulated post THREE days ago? Glad I caught it today. :)

Without reading all the posts before me, I'm certain there are a lot of agreeing minds sharing their thoughts. :)

I agree absolutely that the only way to ever gain acceptance in society is to create public awareness and more importantly, set positive examples with our own lives.

I think so much of society thinks of cd's are perverted, deviant freaks because all they ever see or hear about are the worst of the bunch. EVERY group of people has a worst of the bunch, but it is especially damaging to us.

I try, in my own little ways, to set a good example in my somewhat limited reach online. I try to open minds, share myself with the curious, and make smiles along the way. Every mind I can open, may in turn open another, and so on. If we ALL did that, awareness and acceptance may well speed up.

I'm not sure I'd be willing to march in a cd-awareness parade or anything. I think the potential for angry, pissed-off, and maybe even belligerent cd's getting time in the TV spotlight would be far more damaging than good for us. Negative press/clips from gay-pride rallies come to mind. The media seems to focus on the "freak show" aspect of things when they can.

I will open hearts and minds before my days are through. I've been saying that since allowing Gabrielle to venture online. I will make a difference, if only in a limited way at first. I'm already working toward my own personal take on creating positive cd-awareness. Call it an investment of my time, money and personal life - one that I can't wait to share with everyone. :)

[battybattybats]

Those four sentences prove you don't know a damn thing about economics other than what they brainwash everyone else with in colleges. I've heard the same crap everywhere, and I hear it because no one actually thinks.

Reeeeallly. I was 'brainwashed' in 'colleges' about 'economics' by realising in highschool biology studying bacterial growth, evolution, closed systems and bio-economics which was confirmed studying cybernetics that in any closed system progressive growth inevitably leads to extinction!

That is how an infection, viral or bacterial or matastacising cancer kills a host. Some biology and some physics (entropy for starters) teaches more about economics than any class on economics will ever dare teach!

In a day you can watch what a system that relies on perpetual growth does in a system with finite resources. You can graph it. It's like watching the global economy on fast-forward. It's simple.


If you think free markets are causing the world's problems, let me ask you this -- where on this planet is there a free market? As in, Adam Smith's idea of such?

Hint: there isn't one.

Imaterial. Free-market economics has been the prevailing paradigm of economists for many decades and has been the ideology pushing the de-regulation of economic systems around the world with good and bad consequences. Just because no-where has yet reached a fully free market does not mean the progress towards one has had no impact! The idea of an economy that requires perpetual growth is insane in a finite system. It's arguing that growing cancer is good in a person. The result is inevitable death.


What I see is some very large and powerful multinational corporations working very closely with various governments for the purpose of removing their competition. Isn't that fascism?

No, that's not fascism. It can indeed be a part of fascism but it is not in itself fascism. It is at the least corruption.


The economy has no basis in fuels or anything else solid. It's based on credit. Paper. Vapor. There's no wealth. Just zeroes in a computer. And yes, it's destined to collapse -- it can't do anything else. Mathematical ambition long ago exceeded physical possibility.

Their are two economic systems, now interdependant. The actual physical economy which exists in goods and crops and fuels etc and the futures and shares and virtual economy. The virtual one still depends on the physical one no matter that it pretends otherwise as all human society depends on the distribution of food and energy even if the cost and value of such now depends on ludicrous mathematical convolutions rather than any real value.


I think your heart's in the right place, Batty. We are agreed that modern economics is unsustainable. You just don't understand what modern economics is, yet.

I suspect I understand it better than you have interpreted from my previous post. I'm well aware of the ephemeral nature of most wealth. However the virtual wealth economy cannot escape it's interdependance on natural resources.


Could we fix it all? Yes. Will we? We don't have a very good track record there.

Cause people are often convinced not to or that it's impossible.. by people with vested interests.

However unless we keep the discussion of economics related to the subject at hand (it can be related but it also can be seperate) then we will go off topic and derail a very important discussion. Would you like to start an economics discussion in the lounge? Or reconnect it to the subject of the raising of children and the effects on transgender people?

Same with the discussion of gun control!

C'mon!

I have an extensive martial-arts background (it made me a pacifist lol!) and simplistic arguments as to the value or danger of weaponry often ignores statistics in all directions.

Indeed women can be martial artists, soldiers, bodyguards etc.

But when it comes to violence especially violence against transgender people prevention is better than having to use self defence, and I'm not discussing just being careful where you go but preventing violence in the broader community. Such as by having decent universal mental health care.

The everyone-for-themselves argument is literally asking for mentally ill people to roam the streets committing acts of violence. And not everyone can defend themselves as I well understand now being disabled. I simply cannot run fast enough or move fast enough to escape or block blows like i used to. Through absolutely no fault of my own or capacity to remedy.

Oh and a small percentage of men do express milk, mostly during puberty.

And seriously, I'm well aware that conversations can seem to veer of wildly when actually getting to the heart of the matter but I fail to see how going off onto economics or gun control really is getting to the heart of this subject.

Yes they are related. The dog-eat-dog violence against a hostile world (physical and non physical violence) is very much at the heart of competative masculine culture. That involves the way society deals with finance as well as crime. But it's merely distant examples of the subject the way it's being discussed at the moment.

So please try and relate it back to the core subject at hand! which is about the raising of children in both the imediate family and broad society and it's impact on transgender people directly and indirectly.

So then, if it is harmful as I increasingly become convinced that it is, how do we go about
A) alleviating the harm for those currently being harmed

B) heal the damage for those already damaged by it

C) change things to reduce or prevent the damage done to future generations?



I'm not sure I'd be willing to march in a cd-awareness parade or anything. I think the potential for angry, pissed-off, and maybe even belligerent cd's getting time in the TV spotlight would be far more damaging than good for us. Negative press/clips from gay-pride rallies come to mind. The media seems to focus on the "freak show" aspect of things when they can.


Even despite that 'freak show' media interest the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras which started as a violent protest against police brutality and suspected police murders of GLBT people is now one of Australias biggest tourist events bringing many millions of dollers into the economy.

It combines excessive spectacle with politics to strong effect. Perhaps if we work out it's secret we could replicate it's sucess?

[Nicki B]

I can destroy in a few paragraphs. Watch this!

A few, Batty?? :rolleyes:




But isn't German gun control quite strict?

It's pretty similar to many of the less controlled US states - but not as lax as France.. But lets not do the gun control thing again, please - there are plenty of other threads already available for that topic. :sad:

[battybattybats]

A few, Batty?? :rolleyes:


Literally few as meaning three:
Free market ecnomics is based on the assumption that biological models of natural selection will evolve the most efficient and successfull monetary system in just the way that life does.

Life is a solar economy, almost all it's energy starts at solar radiation from the approximately 8 billion year lifespan fusion reaction we call the sun. So it will continue successfully for about 4 billion more years barring excessive accident.

Our economy is based on carbon-based fuels, fissile materials and metals. So long as this is true much of these resources will last approximately 30 more years... by optimistic estimates. So free market economics is not like life in a solar economy but like bacteria on a petri dish, the more it grows the faster it uses up it's finite resources (usually gasses in a sealed petri dish) till it exhusts the resource or pollutes itself to death with it's own waste enabling a nice scrapping for a microscope slide of the dead bacteria!

That's neatly three paragraphs. Sure there was a sentence after that of emphasis but the actual destruction is 3 paragraphs. literally a few.

[MissConstrued]

Oh, this is fun! I promise I'll relate it back to the original topic.


about 'economics' by realising in highschool biology studying bacterial growth, evolution, closed systems and bio-economics which was confirmed studying cybernetics that in any closed system progressive growth inevitably leads to extinction!

Captain Obvious to the rescue! Yes, I am one of the millions who noticed this phenomenon at an early age whilst growing things in Petri dishes. It's a valid observation, and it relates to more than just economics... in short, a valuable lesson all around.

Jared Diamond gives an excellent presentation on it here. (http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jared_diamond_on_why_societies_collapse.html)



Imaterial. Free-market economics has been the prevailing paradigm of economists for many decades

Trouble is, it's all lies. Everywhere in the US, and presumably much of the Western world, the multi-national corporation, high finance, oligarchy, and monopoly have been preached to a couple generations of students under the guise of "free market." When they say "free market" they mean exactly the opposite. "Free market" was once understood to mean "no barriers to entry."

It should be obvious that "de-regulation" is in the same category of over-used misnomers. Every time our (the US) government "de-regulates" it ends up putting up more barriers to small business, to the advantage of the multi-nationals whose lobbyists own Congress. Trust me on this. I am a small business owner from a family of business owners. I am well versed on regulation and every other maddening vice of leviathan government.

What I'm trying to tell you is that free-market economics is not spreading. It almost got off the ground once, many years ago, and while it was a worthwhile experiment, it does not exist anywhere today. Globalism is the antithesis of laissez-faire. Just understand the lexicon, and apply it properly -- and all sorts of strange things about the world will make sense.




all human society depends on the distribution of food and energy even if the cost and value of such now depends on ludicrous mathematical convolutions rather than any real value.


Precisely my point. It's not real value. But I still don't think you understand the concept of wealth. Wealth, by its true definition, cannot be ephemeral. If our monetary system is ephemeral (worse than, actually) then it's not wealth -- not by any stretch of the imagination. And that's the problem we're running up into very quickly. I suggest some reading on the topic of fractional reserve banking, and derivatives.




The idea of an economy that requires perpetual growth is insane in a finite system. It's arguing that growing cancer is good in a person. The result is inevitable death.

It seems we agree on that. I'm not sure where you got the idea I didn't!

Which brings me back to my original point... in the world as we know it, the economic system is unsustainable. Being the cynic that I am, I don't hold out much hope for a painless fix. Thus, some form of collapse is inevitable. How bad that collapse is depends on a variety of factors, but I'm far from the only one who thinks it will make the Great Depression look easy by comparison. By conservative estimates, some 30 million Americans are already out of work, and the talking heads are calling it a minor recession.

And that is why I don't think the feelings of children are anywhere near as important as preparing them for rough times. I for one am grateful to have learned some hard lessons young, and I wouldn't change a thing. Maybe that's what you don't agree with, but I'm inclined to think preparedness is a good evolutionary survival strategy.

[battybattybats]

MissConstued, ammusingly I suspect we are essentially arguing on the same side, just with slightly different language and from different starting points.

Your point about the hypocracy and doublespeak of most markets resulting in increased dissproportionate advantage of multinational megacorps is utterly correct as is your point about the virtual-economy and mine that even if we did have genuinely free-market systems it would still be a threat to human survival because of it's closed-system flaw is also valid :)

I don't think we actually disagree there.




And that is why I don't think the feelings of children are anywhere near as important as preparing them for rough times. I for one am grateful to have learned some hard lessons young, and I wouldn't change a thing. Maybe that's what you don't agree with, but I'm inclined to think preparedness is a good evolutionary survival strategy.

Oh no, I don't isagree with preparedness, but having absorbed the lessons of my families depression era experiences I realise how important idealism is for human community in such a time. After all the already disadvantaged usually get the worst first. However amongst parts of the Australian bush during the depression a form of cummunity code of mutual cooperation was forged that helped many people survive who would otherwise have starved.

Thats why i consider that the feellings of children are a vital component of their preparedness! Harsh hurt traumatised emotions make for brittle and fragile people with no resiliance every bit if not more a weakness than spoiled ones. While someone with strong ideals, with healthy emotions that can survive in the face of injustice and stare right back at it and do something about it? Thats the best strength.

Teach a child that injustice must be borne and you get someone resigned to it who suffers in silence. Teach them that it won't exist and they fall apart when faced with it. But teach them that injustice exists, is wrong and that the responsibility to opposing it exists in their hands and the hands of everyone else and you have taught a child to make their life count for something.

[Angie G]

It is a pity that it's like that abuse is a to a cross dressing youngster often leads to depression. What dose it hurt for a boy to dress as a girl. With everything wrong in the world today crossdressing should be the least of peoples worries. Hell the world could end today tomorrow who knows And some way over react to a man in a dress.:hugs:
Angie

[Hali]

Sorry to bust ur bubble but CDing isnt the only thing in this world where for some unknown reasons one party will "brain wash" their kids not to accept the other party...........as kids some parents will teach their kids not to talk to their neighbors cos they are from another religion or cos they are from another tribe or they support a different foot ball team or they are fat or they are republicans or they are black or they are Hindus or they are japanese etc, etc most of this things happened a few years ago while some still happen to this day but due to the so called "globalization" things have soften abit.

I dont think there is going to be a day in this life where each and every human in this world will totally accept what he doesnt understand there has to be reservations no matter how small.

I think CDs or TGs in general should target legistlators and convince them to recognize the rights of TGs and persue them to enact laws and enforce them, that can protect their rights and some positive imaging from mass media like Hollywood that in my view will do more in reducing the damage done to us.

[battybattybats]

Sorry to bust ur bubble but CDing isnt the only thing in this world where for some unknown reasons one party will "brain wash" their kids not to accept the other party..

I never said it was the only one. The same thing exists with many other things but are they remotely to the same extent? Considering that when it comes to transgender its not just parents but pretty much every avenue of information available to children!


as kids some parents will teach their kids not to talk to their neighbors cos they are from another religion or cos they are from another tribe or they support a different foot ball team or they are fat or they are republicans or they are black or they are Hindus or they are japanese etc, etc most of this things happened a few years ago while some still happen to this day but due to the so called "globalization" things have soften abit.

True.
But whether its race or sex or sexuality or size or age or disability there are positive messages as well as biased ones in the media that children will be exposed to which will ensure they know there are multiple views on the subject. That is far less the case when it comes to transgender!


I dont think there is going to be a day in this life where each and every human in this world will totally accept what he doesnt understand there has to be reservations no matter how small.

That doesn't mean it can't be vastly better though. Nothing will be perfect but that doesnt mean it shouldn't and couldn't be better.


I think CDs or TGs in general should target legistlators and convince them to recognize the rights of TGs and persue them to enact laws and enforce them,

Some are trying. If we actually get behind the tiny few doing so then we could make massive progress almost overnight! If 1 in every 10 CDs got behind the small numbers of mostly TSs who are actually trying to do something then many legislation that teeters on a knife edge would fall our way!

Things like the bill in Texas that may rob transitioning TSs of their vote http://transpolitical.blogspot.com/2009/03/texas-senate-slumber-party-how-to-keep.html or this in North Carolina http://www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=9888 or all these ones which will give crossdressers as well as transsexuals equality http://www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=9883

Even President Obama is on our side http://www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=9879 but he will need people to support him to get things done

With estimates of crossdressers being between 1 and 10 percent of the population 1 in 10 crossdressers would be enough to create massive change in months, not years! And yet these things are hardly discussed beyond the occassional post in the media section. What is wrong with us? Why are we staying silent?


that can protect their rights and some positive imaging from mass media like Hollywood that in my view will do more in reducing the damage done to us.

Ah but the trouble is when we do get protection via legislation there are people who use lies to abuse democracy and remove our equality. From Prop 8 which was all about Transgender Marriage! (seeing as the court case that sparked the whole thing was about a Transsexual! In many places a husband transitioning means forced divorce!) through to the evil lies of the not my shower brigade who call us pedophiles and spread anti transgender hate and who set up petitions and votes to repeal our protections and even used hate-filled lying radio and tv and newspaper ads and hoaxes to stir up fear!
http://www.notmyshower.com/
http://www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=5487
http://www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=9007
http://www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4672

There are far more than enough crossdressers to cause massive change, even if we are just 1% of the population and the evidence suggests it's far closer to the 10% estimate!

Our actions are needed. Real peoples lives are on the line.
Anyone who thinks they aren't haven't watched this (WARNING: truly horrific) http://www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=9902

We can make a difference. Even those deeply in the closet can make a difference! I just put up a heap of links from just one site on issues that matter to the lives of people on this forum... yet mostly we are silent here with our heads as deep in the sand as we can get them.

Yet we can make change. We can make things better.

So why don't we start?

[linnea]

"That sounds logical but is it really how it works? Do we at whatever point we start CDing, from 3-4 through to teens, think to ourselves: 'Yup, this is who I am, but gee i better not tell anyone as society isn't accepting'?"

I did not know that crossdressing was socially taboo when I started and after I had been CDing for quite a few years, I realized that the practice would not be acceptable by society at large. And I wasn't even dressing all the way, just panties and other underwear beneath my drab--but I realized that even that would be a no-no in society.