I had read, or heard someone say that Transgender folk have a high incidence of Autism or something on the Spectrum, but I know a woman that spent many years working with the folk and she does not see the connection.
Then I was reading on the internet and it seems to be a popular idea among PhD. Psych. folk that Transgender folk have a predominance of three serious personality disorders; Paranoid PD, avoidant PDs, and comorbid PDs. Someone else indicated that many were Borderline Personality.
Their opinion seems like so much BS to me. I was married 38 years, raised three children, and was employed. At this point I feel so unjustly treated, and angered beyond what usually happens to me. I feel like high ranking Psych folks are not very nice and should be in rooms where the doors lock from the outside to protect the public.
Gwen
Comments
Looking for sickness when it isn't there
If a person starts off with the idea that being transgender is wrong or abnormal, then they'll look for some underlying pathology.
If you toss the idea that there's something wrong with us, the rest of it falls apart.
- io
Starting to think
The more letters you have following your name, the less sense you have. I think at least part of the problem is the need to have something attributed to your name ... if you don't come up in a library search, you don't exist, apparently.
I don't think "Publish or Perish" was ever meant to be a literal threat, but apparently these sort of people do.
Common sense - NOT
Many in the academic world seem to have little or no common sense. At least that is what I encountered while working at a university doing electrical maintenance, the least little thing and they were calling for someone to come do something about it.
Had a college professor tell us about degrees...
A BS is bull shit.
An MS is more shit.
A PHD is just piled higher and deeper.
Boys will be girls... if they're lucky!
Jennifer Sue
Publish or perish
In academia’s hallowed halls the focus is on research. Regularly you must publish your research results to prove your value to the university. You also must regularly bring in monetary grants to fund said research. Your CV (curriculum vitae - a near resume document) lists all your publications. The university pays you to teach (poorly) so you need to pay your self from grant monies too. If you’re not publishing you won’t get classes to teach...so perish. Many high level profs are never seen by any of the lower level classes they are paid to teach. They assign TA’s and hire a lecturer to do that. They and their RA’s spend that time doing research and writing papers.
I suspect the prevalence of personality disorders they report comes from survey results which are biased by who is being seen clinically rather than the trans population. Also be aware that 90+% of the population can be diagnosed as abnormal in some way.
Again remember how many trans people have suffered trauma growing up. Traumatized people develop disorders easily.
BAK 0.25tspgirl
weell
Myself included, quite a few of other trans people I know are on the spectrum. Why that is? No one knows, nor does it really matter. There's nothing wrong with autism or ADHD. It's not a big deal if you have it. It's part of you, and it doesn't make you any less of a person
I know who I am, I am me, and I like me ^^
Transgender, Gamer, Little, Princess, Therian and proud :D
I have made an error.
I am sorry.
Gwen
Motivation is important
Why do people go into psychology, the serious ones I mean. I suspect it's either to understand something about themselves or someone else and frequently they work out their problems by projecting them on others.
I thought it was generally accepted that gender identity syndrome is a variation on the norm but one which can cause problems to the individual because of social and family pressures, hostility and fear, and by conservative and religious hostility. It perhaps is one of the few occasions when we can rightly say, 'I'm all right, it's all the others'.
Angharad
Policing Themselves
Remember the saying if it's printed it must be true? Started in days of printed pamphlets. Now it is the days of lies half truths and propaganda. Mostly for the self edification of one's own self it seems.
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/nick-brown-smelled-bull
And so The World Turns as good is called evil and evil is called good in a world of lies.
Barb
This life is a gift. What one does with it is up to the individual. Don't trade it for glass beads.
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
Of Course We're Paranoid
They're all out to get us!
Only Those You Can't See
It's the invisible people that can really get to you.
Psychologists who write that transgenders have psychological disorders are introducing a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Thank You All So Much
I am so appreciative for the counsel from all of you. I'm much calmer now.
Gwen
Seriously Gwen.
In the last five years or so I have learned (In the UK at least) that transgenderism is almost a zero issue especially amongst the co-called 'ordinary, workaday people'. I meet tradesmen or assorted professionals almost on a weekly basis and when they find out I'm 'trans' they seem to take it in their stride and get on with whatever it is they, we or I am doing. It really seems to be no big deal at all.
Additionally, and this seems to be stranger yet, when I was in the Merchant Navy as a deck boy way back in the sixties, the crewmen just shook their heads and usually said, -'Well he works well enough, let him be.'
As you have so rightly pointed out, it's the academics and the so-called professionals who seem to be still fussing and worrying about ,The Big 'Tee' . The other aspect seems to be young academics wanting to draw attention to themselves by making big political issues about something that's been with us human-kind evolved.
Try not to worry about it Gwen. When some people want to discuss it with me, I am so open about it, it usually frightens them, not me.
There was an old saying in a "Soviet Russia"
"There are no sane people. There are some who were not properly examined and diagnosed."
Research
Looking at least at some medical/psych articles, one theory is that women are less likely in general to be diagnosed/identified as being within the autistic spectrum regardless of their actual condition whereas MtF women are already under more psychiatric scrutiny to begin with. This holds true, according to some, for FtM males as well. It's the idea of more evaluations as opposed to more autistic persons percentage-wise solely within the transgender community.
And thankfully more professionals within the mental health community are viewing both transgender 'ism' and autistic persons as merely different rather than impaired. Closer for us, however glacier-like the advance, to being seen as WHO we are rather than what.
Love, Andrea Lena
Early Diagnosis
I would not have survived if I had not concealed my feelings as a young child. As it was it was not a certain thing.
Later, a counselor said in the presence of both my wife and I that I (1980) should be living as a woman, but together we decided that was not correct. I lasted for 20 years after that.
These days, coming out and transitioning was horribly ruinous to my family. I am happy enough however. To end this, I an not Autistic, or some other condition. PTSD is likely the cause of most of my difficulties.
Gwen
Arbitrary
While I don't fully embrace it. I do have sympathy with the notion that much of psychology is little more than wishful thinking and false bravado wrapped in magic Latin words. So many times we get arguments from authority from psychologists and psychiatrists. It is even worse if the issue comes up in court. The "expert witness" is granted way more authority than can be supported by any scientific evidence. We get no choice
So we end up with magical thinking, othering, daemonization, proof by assertion, proof from authority and there is no way to combat it. Because obviously we are the deviant ones. We are the ones that have a problem. surely all these other diagnosis and symptoms are justified. The expert is just trying to help us. Why are we so aggressive? You must have an emotional disorder.
Society and we as individuals tends to grant more authority to "experts" than the evidence warrants. We've seen it in things like phrenology, and Social Darwinism and eugenics and in the christian justification of slavery. We continue to see it in the disproportionate impact of poverty and COVID on black people, women, and minorities and we see it among ourselves any time we seem even a little bit out of the norm.
Your friend
Crash
Categorization
Before there was psychology there were just differences.
Psychology is a science and I am generally a believer in science, but psychology where it creates pigeon holes, when we all know that the human condition is a spectrum, or spectra, is just annoying.
Many of us might say we may wake up one day in another position on a spectrum.
Other commenters are right: Scientists need to publish, and always hope to find patterns and measurable indicators, but humanity is a puzzle and I suspect it always will be.
But I would have thought that the physiology of transgenderism is well known - there are physical differences in the brain more in accord with female brains than male ones.
We all have a condition, or more than one. It is that we are we.
I am not a pigeon. Don't put me in you damned hole!
Maryanne
Differences too numerous to name.
There must be hundreds of ways to introduce variation into our individual genetics. Then there is the tired old "Nature or Nurture" bone to chew on. My Stepfather was Amish, and they have some serious genetic issues, none of which should affect me except that their ways really impact the "Nurture" side of the equation.
It is not surprising that the process of settling America perhaps contributed to all sorts of Genetic drift from among us. Part of our family came from the UK around 1835 and later fought on both sides of the Civil War. Another part of us were Native Americans of the Southwest. My mother indicated that we fled the dust bowl and went to Southern California.
As is likely common, the Depression and the War years introduced lots of trauma. Humans seem to be rather resilient, however. No amount of suffering or abandonment ever seems to do us all in, does it?
Gwen
From someone who is an athlete
TALCOTT: The Transgender Athlete Debate Forces Us To Make A Choice. Both Are Unfair
https://dailycaller.com/2021/02/04/shelby-talcott-transgende...
For myself I never wanted to compete in any kind of sports. I didn't have a need nor the drive. Too busy kissing cows, horses, driving great big toys. My opinion it is unfair for MtF to compete against a gg and it will always be unfair until MtF start transition at the age of five to seven. But then that's just my opinion
Hugs Gwen
Barb
Life is a gift, don't waste it.
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
Transgendered athletes.
You are right Barb. Some of the transgendered hulks we see entering women's sports are a physical danger to women, especially in contact sports. As you say if a child transitions at a very early age and actually is built like woman with female bone-densities then yes, she should be allowed to enter female competition. But some transgendered athletes ?WELL! It's not physically fair! Girls are utterly disheartened when they find themselves competing against an athlete with the build, shape and sometimes, even musculature of a man!
When I say that, I get hated on.
About time for come common sense.
Gwen
Sport
I remember seeing something about Jazz Jennings when she was much younger, being told that she could not play in the girl's soccer team and being so heartbroken. We must be accommodating, but when it comes to seriously competitive sport who can deny that having the base frame of a man can be an unfair advantage.
Things become more complicated when we look at Caster Semenya who is a woman with hyperandrogenism which has resulted in her developing male characteristics to such an extent that she has been banned from competing in women's athletics.
The current thinking appears to be that for a women's competition to be "fair" the amount of "womanliness" is a measurable qualification.
Hmmm?
Maryanne
Not being Medical...
I think it depends on the Physiology and Genetics of the individual, and when they start on Hormones. Looking at recent photos of her, she's doing OK. Caster Semena's issues are above my pay grade She may have Genetic issues. I have been at this for 16 years, am post op, and have a BMI of 25.1. I want to lose 10 more pounds. BUT, I'll never had broad hips, though my breasts are nice.
It seems like things are getting better for T folk if we use common sense. For me, no boyfriends, and no drinking in bars at 1:00am.
Reasonable
An internet friend of mine is the primary contributor for the article linked herein:
https://www.indy100.com/sport/trans-athletes-lgbt-twitter-th...
She makes some very strong points overall about the debate for including trans-girls in girls scholastic sports, with particular attention to addressing the many misconceptions about the athletes themselves.
One of the larger things to consider, especially after reading this article, is how multiple states are introducing legislation that would seek to hinder or completely prevent any trans child from receiving adequate medical care to address their gender issues.
Love, Andrea Lena
That's Sad.
Hopefully T Folk can move to insure good care.