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

[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/10...e-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/tran...ression_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:Te...s_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/josep...lor-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-h...rican-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.

[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.

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/10...e-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 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 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?

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?



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.