RE: Atheism "rights & wrongs"?
October 28, 2015 at 1:37 pm
(This post was last modified: October 28, 2015 at 1:38 pm by I_am_not_mafia.)
(October 28, 2015 at 12:55 pm)RationalAtheist Wrote: one last part on this if i may, LGB I understand, T I don't understand as much (and i'm not sure the proper PC term), I know I've heard about in the wild LGB animals, but if i understand correctly T means you identify as a different gender than the one you were born with. Is it possible LGB are born that way but T is not? (i think i'm asking about nature vs. nurture?) & that T got lumped in with LGB, I don't understand fully how that works and how/if hermaphrodites are associated with this and that's why this occurs? These are questions that are probably off limits normally but you guys make this feel like a safe place to ask questions like that so there it is. (oh also are there examples of T in the animal kingdom that you guys know of?)
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered
There is no choice in either of them. It all comes down to how the brain is wired up. But there is a difference between being transgendered and homosexual or bisexual. The former is concerned with gender identity whereas the others are sexualities. Being transgendered means that you identify as a gender that does not match that of your body, the others are who you are sexually attracted to. This corresponds to different parts of the brain. There are physical differences between typically male and typically female brains and there is now plenty of evidence that transgendered people do actually have brains that physically match with the gender that they identity as.
It can be very difficult to appreciate this if you are not transgendered yourself because your body matches up your own gender identity so it's never an issue. People treat you as you rather than as something that you are not. Even for transgendered people it can take a long while to figure out what is wrong with them. So any attempts to explain it will be rough at best.
But take prejudice for example. It's harmful to the recipient because they are treated as something that they are not and whatever they do, whoever they try to be, they are still treated by everyone else according to a stereotype. So for example a black man in America might be seen as a thug or a woman might be seen as weak and less competent regardless of who they really are. A male to female transgendered person would be treated as male and wouldn't be allowed to be themselves. But unlike prejudice it actually goes much deeper than this, because the transgendered person themselves hate those aspects of their own body. So in that regard it's actually similar to Body integrity identity disorder. Think how horrified your wife would be if she suddenly started growing a bushy beard. Or if you started growing very large breasts. You would both try to rectify the problem physically.
People who are transgendered have the highest suicide rate of all.
http://www.vocativ.com/culture/lgbt/tran...r-suicide/
Quote:According to surveys, 4.6 percent of the overall U.S. population has self-reported a suicide attempt, with that number climbing to between 10 and 20 percent for lesbian, gay or bisexual respondents. By comparison, 41 percent of trans or gender non-conforming people surveyed have attempted suicide.
It's difficult to measure whether animals have a different gender identity because they can't speak to us and their brains are not as developed as those of humans. But we do know that they can be gender non-confirming in a multitude of ways including their genitalia and sexual attraction. Transgenderism is just another naturally occurring way that a person can be born as non gender conforming.
