Monday 13 October 2008

IS and TS in 10 Minutes

I've just given a 10-minute tail-end presentation as a "guest speaker" to some 3rd year Psychology students here at the Australian National University.

The main lecture was on Gender and Mental Health issues - the biological aspects of gender and the way we think. The social construct section will be dealt with on Wednesday, but that's really out of my area of expertise. My PhD candidacy is in Computer Science rather than Psychology, after all, and I have no formal medical qualifications.

Most of the material I presented was verbal, with a power-point presentation to provide context and background, rather than duplicating what I was saying. Much of it can be found in various places in my blog, as regular readers will know. It was all recorded anyway.

I must write an online book summarising all this one day. In my copious free time, when I'm not parenting, dealing with a late puberty, doing my PhD, educating... one lifetime doesn't seem enough!

I got an ovation at the end, so my ego has been well-fed today. And maybe, just maybe, some child just growing up now will be helped by one of these fledgling psychologists. Moving the mountain one teaspoonful at a time.

60 comments:

Anonymous said...

wd

it helps to know that the majority of people support u

Nicky said...

I bet you gave them conflicting information and gave them information that is not correct.

Zoe Brain said...

The initial speaker was a neuroanatomist, so I didn't have to deal with the brain-sex causation of transsexuality. It was a given. I learnt quite a lot in support of it that I didn't know before, about cell densities and dendritic patterns outside the lymbic nucleus.

You'll be pleased to know that Kalman's got a mention - not by me - in the context of Intersex conditions.

Zoe Brain said...

wd - thanks!

Anonymous said...

Neuroanatomist... I bet he would have said if he autopsied you right now, and did it blind, he'd find a male brain Alan.

And medical qualifications? You call psychology degrees medical qualifications? Are you fuckin kidding me? Tell me... what 'medical' tools and diseases to psychologists deal in? The pathetic pseudoscience of the 'mental health movement' is nothing but an ideology.

Go fuck yourself.

The only things cunts are ever going to do to kids is terrorize them and give them false ADHD labels and shill big pharma toxins to them.

I bet you 80% of them were girls in the psychology class... women always choose the soft sciences.

That's why you chose a hard science, because you're a man.

Anonymous said...

You're not intersex asshole... you have no fucking intersex genital things going on... you were born a completely anatomically correct male...

You're just a biological determinist asshole who is convinced he has female neurology yet you don't have a shred of diagnostic biological test results or tissue samples from your fucking neurology, or scans, to fucking prove it... you're just a magical thinker... it's pathetic.

You're just hooking your wagon to real, demonstrable intersex shit in others, and using bullshit you tell yourself to poorly attempt to legitimize your environmental neuroses and paint your completely fucked up view of yourself as biological.

You're a sad clown.

Anonymous said...

"You're just a biological determinist asshole who is convinced he has female neurology yet you don't have a shred of diagnostic biological test results or tissue samples from your fucking neurology, or scans, to fucking prove it... you're just a magical thinker... it's pathetic."

This person, as vulgar (the f-word is a cuss word, is vulgar, and has no place in polite conversation) and hateful as he is, does have a point here. Why does not medicine perform tests on transsexual candidates to verify their condition?

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry, I forgot to sign.

Anonymous said...

Vulgar Anonymous,

I see that you have yet to answer my question. Are you in any way connected to the lawsuit filed against Dr. Wes in Cook County Court?

Anonymous said...

"biological determinist asshole"

Huh? I thought you were earlier saying that Zoe was wrong for not being biological determinist, for going against biology. Now you are supporting it? Please clarify your statements.

I believe that you are a narcissist who has found prey. Once this narcissistic supply source dries up, you will doubtless find another. After all, Dr. Wes was one, but it didn't work out too well. I wonder where you were before Dr. Wes?

Anonymous said...

What do I need to hold your fuckin hand? A person who takes a view that things are biologically determined, in the absence of any objective individualized biological sample, scan, test, diagnostics, proving their position, is nothing but an ideologue, a brain blamer, who has no evidence to back the claims they are making about the causation of some shit that comes into the whole mind body nature nurture thing.... this sick faggot Alan is claiming his problems are biologically determined... hence I label him a biological determinist.

Fucking look it up and fuck off.

And I don't know who Dr. Wes is what the fuck are you talking about? actually don't tell me... I don't care to speak to you at all. I'm here for Alan... not the psychos he spends his nights with.

Anonymous said...

"This person, as vulgar (the f-word is a cuss word, is vulgar, and has no place in polite conversation) and hateful as he is, does have a point here. Why does not medicine perform tests on transsexual candidates to verify their condition?"

Anonymous agrees. Of course I have a fucking point. It's the whole point.

In answer to your question... the reason they don't perform tests is because there are no fucking biomarkers for TS because it's not a biological condition... it's an environmental psychosocial corruption and thinking habit formed by some heinously bad childhood or some other confusing fuck up in raising healthy stable adults...

the fact that biological interventions are being performed in the absence of any biological diagnostics, means it's nothing but butchery of the body.

And fucking endocrine disruption, stabs in the dark attempts to bring about some fucked up change, is bound to result in cancer or some serious shit...

You're fucking fucked up.

And the doctors that prescribe the hormone perturbment, and surgery are unethical as they come.

Zoe Brain said...

Why does not medicine perform tests on transsexual candidates to verify their condition?

Very good question! They do of course, but the tests are all psychological at present.

You must remember that over 50% of the literature in the subject is less than 10 years old. The first test that was definitive had the unfortunate side-effect of slicing up the brain, so wasn't exactly practical. The only tests that leave the patient alive are about 5 years old now.

fMRI scans show great promise, and will, I believe, be used in the future. But this technology is so new, it's not even being used yet to diagnose schizophrenia, a condition where the degenerative changes are eye-poking-outedly obvious.

Yosemite Sam is correct in some ways - psychiatry is still in the "malign humors" and "phlogiston" stage, more art than science, and with at best a 30% success rate. We may have to wait till the Old Guard dies off to get some better diagnostic tools in common use.

Right now, there is an immense debate within the two APA's - the American Psychiatric Association and American Psychological Association - about whether "transsexuality" should qualify as a mental illness or not. At the moment, it is so classified, and so is deemed rightly in the province of the JuJu Masks and Rattles - sorry, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Test, the Ego, Super-Ego, Id etc.

The problem is that in order to give informed consent to surgery, the patient must be deemed sane, and pass tests of their sanity. But in order to qualify for surgery, there has to be a formal diagnosis of some kind of medical condition. Historically, there was no evidence for a biological cause other than deduction, so it had to be classed as a mental disorder - rather like chronic stomach ulcers before the Helicobacter bacteria was found to be responsible. As late as 1976, they were still giving ECT and even lobotomies without consent for that condition.

Transsexuality is thus in the unique position of being a mental disorder that requires surgery to avoid significant chance of self-harm, and yet not a mental disorder ( which would obviously preclude informed consent ).

Let's just say that there is considerable resistance within the psychiatric establishment to yet another "infringement on their turf".

Ah, but it's not that simple: for many TS people are scared that if they don't "pass the test", don't have typical neurology for a transsexual, then surgery will be denied them, even though that means their minds rot and they kill themselves. They quite rightly point out that no such test is required for breast implants, "nose jobs" and other body modifications.

Ok, so we need more evidence here, enough so that we can be confident that our diagnostic techniques are really reliable, even in "fuzzy" cases. Enough so the reliability of diagnosis is at least as good as what we have now.

Who's going to fund it? Left-wing academes have a strong emotional and political commitment to gender being merely a social construct, with no biological basis. Post-modernism means you can, in fact, you must ignore inconvenient data if it will lead to an undesirable outcome.

And Right-wing groups would rather see these freaks and perverts quietly disappear, and certainly won't authorise the spending of a single penny on research that will only benefit a few, anyway.

Janice Raymond, in addition to writing "Mein Kampf" of Transphobia, "The Transsexual Empire" in the Carter era, also was commissioned to write a report on Transsexuality for the US government. As a result, no federal funding can be given to research into transsexuality within the USA. It was also used to remove existing benefits in insurance and state medical care, benefits that still have not been restored.

That's why all the papers quoted have been from work done in Europe and elsewhere.

I'm trying to get a study done using fMRI here in Australia, but as fMRI scans are hideously expensive, I have little hope of success. But you never know your luck.

To answer Yosemite Sam's quite valid point about whether I have a male or female brain, I've tried to stress that "masculinised" and "feminised" would be more accurate, biology has a bimodal distribution rather than a strict, hard-bordered binary.

The evidence from the soft, squishy psych tests - not good data, merely the best we have - is that I'm unusually feminine in a few areas - notably maternal instinct - and definitely masculine in others - such as instinctive ballistics calculations.

If I did have a masculinised lymbic nucleus, a hypothesis I can't disprove, I would be the first and only person showing my set of personality traits who did.

Oh yes, and it would be useful for Yosemite Sam to look up Hypogonadism

The picture on the Wikipedia site doesn't quite describe my body before transition, but pretty close. Less alviolar development, and larger testes, but otherwise a very accurate match indeed. I was diagnosed with PAIS-1 in 1985, but as there's no good test for that apart from gross physical examination, a misdiagnosis of another Intersex condition is common.

He keeps on making the most hilarious assumptions, which if he'd read my blog, would be shown to be so far from the truth that he just makes himself look ridiculous.

Anonymous said...

Vulgar Anonymous,

You are a liar.

Also, I had forgotten to sign the comment where you had a point, so please give me due credit.

I'm sorry. I thought the lawsuit in question was filed against Dr. Wes. He was only named in a discovery disposition regarding an _anonymous_ poster on his blog:

http://drwes.blogspot.com/2008/10/bloggers-beware.html

(There are lots of useful comments here, and I want to see those anonymous comments for myself. I think our vulgar anonymous might have a thing or two to do with them.)

--------

Zoe Brain,

You may think that you're helping out a closeted transsexual person, but I don't think that's the case with this person. This person came from Dr. Wes's blog, coming over here in response to your show of support on Dr. Wes's blog. This is person either

http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/warriorshtm/troller.htm

or even

http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/warriorshtm/godzilla.htm

I think this person might have something to do with the lawsuit filed that involved Dr. Wes; after all, why would this person post the nasty comments here in response to a CT scanner?

Follow the order:

-------------
First:

http://drwes.blogspot.com/2008/10/even-bigger-better-scanner.html

"Anonymous said...
Alright you ignorant fucking cunt, it's time to put comment moderation on and slow you the fuck down.

You fucking pathetic fucking elitist cocksucker!

You're fucking done.

You fucking will learn and be inconvenienced until you learn.

7:14 AM CDT"

"Anonymous said...
Mark my fucking words wesley. Mark my fucking words.

7:15 AM CDT"
---------

This is followed by:

http://drwes.blogspot.com/2008/10/so-now-what.html

Where he references the nasty comment. We have another nasty anonymous, or is it the same? post again:

"Anonymous said...
Well you're gonna have to do something you fucking money grubbing cunt aren't you? You sure are motherfucker! Thankyou for DOING AS I COMMANDED and turning comment moderation on. The thing to remember about that is, I don't get thwarted in any way by you turning it on... I am satisfied that you are reading this, so I still got to you, and I got to you in a big fucking way. Next time, instead of being an arrogant ignorant white coat mafia cunt maybe you'll talk to the 'little people' and offer them what they fucking ask for. If I chose to, give up my time, I could infiltrate and annoy the shit out of you no matter what changes you make to your blog.

I have means of proxying my ID details to any nation state in the world.

You've been targeted specifically because of something you did. Believe me. It would have taken a couple of seconds out of your day to avoid crossing me. This isn't an attack, it's a retaliation.

I'm satisfied you read this. And this is the price you fuckin pay.

12:18 PM CDT"

--------

You respond to that post. And lo and behold the person comes over referencing your post over there:

http://aebrain.blogspot.com/2008/10/little-boxes.html

---------------

I recommend that bloggers have the dates of commenters' posts appear along with the times. In addition, I recommend keeping a complete list of the chain of events followed with regards to this nasty anonymous. By jumping from Dr. Wes's blog to yours, he has found new prey.

We should keep up the effort to stem the tide against evil.

Zoe Brain said...

the reason they don't perform tests is because there are no ******* biomarkers for TS

Well, apart from these ones...

Male-to-female transsexuals show sex-atypical hypothalamus activation when smelling odorous steroids by Berglund H, Lindström P, Dhejne-Helmy C, and Savic I.

A Sex Difference in the Human Brain and its Relation to Transsexuality by Zhou et al.

Male-to-Female Transsexuals Have Female Neuron Numbers in a Limbic Nucleus by Kruijver et al

A polymorphism of the CYP17 gene related to sex steroid metabolism is associated with female-to-male but not male-to-female transsexualism by Bentz

fMRT zur Diagnose bei Transsexualität geprüft Ärzte Zeitung, 30.05.2006

etc etc

Links are in other articles on my blog.

Saying the same thing over and over again in the face of contradictory evidence doesn't make it true.

Cardinal Pole said...

Zoe, if you'll permit me, I'd like to go off on a bit of a tangent, in light of last week's passage of the Victorian abortion free-for-all laws:

You say that

"maybe, just maybe, some child just growing up now will be helped by one of these fledgling psychologists"

Well, maybe a child now, but not in future, if the mother or father detect that the unborn baby is intersexed and decide to kill him or her in utero, which they will be perfectly free to do up to two-thirds into the pregnancy (and afterwards as well, if the mother can find a doctor to support her in saying that bearing an intersex child would be 'psychologically damaging' or whatever to her).

In your research, have you ever come across any data on how many intersex persons are killed in their mothers' wombs? I have heard that in America one hardly sees any Down Syndrome children anymore because they have all been slaughtered before they could so much as cry out in their own defence. If abortion laws are liberalised any further you will find that it is not 'right-wing' people who have made intersex people "quietly disappear". Have you ever blogged on this topic?

Bad hair days said...

Maybe what we witness here is the brith of a new mental disorder? Online Turret Syndrom?

Zoe Brain said...

Hi, Your Eminence!

You can see why I find someone who holds very different views, yet is unfailingly polite, such a blessing.

Especially one who doesn't let me get away with anything. Your input is most valuable.

Now as regards Intersex and abortion - most IS conditions are not detectable in the womb. Those that are are so rare that to test for them routinely would endanger the foetus. Klinefelter would be one easily detected, but there's no general reason to test for it, at least, not in Australia.

There are some exceptions - cloacal extrophy is probably detectable via ultrasound.

There is distinct disquiet though amongst IS and TS people that genetic testing of foetal tissue will, in future, allow early detection, and termination.

The reason people are so concerned is that those in charge of revising the DSM-V, the official manual of psychiatric diagnoses, are eugenicists who favour disposal of the nonconforming.

As you know, I regard abortion in the first trimester as tragic, but not criminal, and abortion in the third as infanticide.

I don't have any figures, I'm afraid. I don't think anyone gathers them.

From the Intersex Society of North America:
Even today, the goal of many leading teams treating intersex is still to make intersex disappear. Pediatric endocrinologist Maria New, recommends Dexamethasone to women who may be carrying an XX child with CAH; these treatments do not alleviate CAH, it only makes the child’s clitoris appear smaller (and, clinicians hope, makes the child less likely to grow up lesbian). Abortion is routinely offered to women who are likely pregnant with children with intersex conditions, including Klinefelter’s Syndrome. Many surgeons maintain the paternalistic attitude that they should remove healthy testes from babies with AIS to “spare them the trauma later,” thereby denying these girls the opportunity to have a natural puberty and to come to know themselves, in a sexual way, free from surgical scars. Many endocrinologists press unnecessary—sometimes devestating—“normalizing” hormone treatments on patients who are otherwise healthy. Finally, doctors continue constructing vaginas in infants and young children, despite arguments by many medical professionals that early vaginoplasties fail too often and are unnecessary to begin with.

By contrast, as in the women’s rights movement, the civil rights movement, and the LGBT rights movements, the goal of intersex advocacy groups is to have people understand intersex conditions as human rights issues. ISNA maintains as its fundamental principle the principle also fundamental to the women’s health movement and the LBGT rights movements: that one’s genitals are primarily for one’s own use, not for the comfort of others.

Anonymous said...

"
fMRI scans show great promise, and will, I believe, be used in the future. But this technology is so new, it's not even being used yet to diagnose schizophrenia, a condition where the degenerative changes are eye-poking-outedly obvious."

Bullshit. The so called 'schizophrenics' in the studies were all assigned that value without a biological test. And they are all on neuroleptics for years at a time, which are proven to bring about iatrogenic structural damage in the brain. Pretty pictures might do it for you Alan... but the glaring fact that no replicated biomarker is in use after 200 years of blaming the brain for the distress labeled schizophrenic tell another story. The only thing eye poppingly obvious about this is your blind deference to the biopsychiatric disease model, which possesses no diagnostic technology.

Your cherry picking of non replicated studies in relation to your own environmental neuroses is completely negated by the fact you have no biomarkers. If they were reliable biomarkers Alan, if those you cite were replicatable and reliable, they would be in widespread clinical use for diagnostics.

They are not. And the political impetus for biodeterminists to 'prove' their ideology is the real reason you will find again and again endless attempts to justify the biological basis for your problems, and the problems of those given the schizophrenia label.

It's all very well, and predictable to say 'we will have technology one day' the problem is you don't have it now, and you won't have it any time soon, yet you still lie and misrepresent the facts today in 2008.

Also neuroplasticity would suggest that a group of males like you who all developed and fostered and indulged an autogynephilia, looping the same thoughts, actively, not passively through their minds throughout life, could potentially have similarities post mortem, because the entire group learned and fostered the same thinking styles throughout life.

You claim ORGANIC, INHERITED female neurology without any grounding in objective neurological science for your own case or any individual case.

You've somehow developed and fostered in yourself Autogynephilia and you've let it destroy your life and body. There's no evidence you didn't learn your behaviors and thinking styles well after you were born.

Your subjective psychological anecdotal tests are nothing biological.

The only demonstrable biological thing with you is the biological harm you've done to your body through your harebrained 'interventions' and desecration.

Several unreplicated studies, don't make a biomarker. 10,000 wouldn't. I wouldn't bother trying to set up yet another one in Australia.

I've got a guy here in front of me, who is saying he is not a male. He's providing anecdotal crap like the 'maternal instinct' and spurious body measurement crap that is starting to sound like phrenology or measuring skulls in so called schizophrenics... it remains pathetic.

The fact of the matter is, someone prepared to go the lengths that you have, has well and truly proven to himself his claims that he is a woman, that's fine, whatever. You're going to have a harder time proving to others who require hard evidence.

You're a true believer, a fanatic, and you've spent 40 odd years running a continuous loop through your mind about certain 'facts'... so whatever pal... it's like arguing with a suicide bomber.

It's just an offense against reason when you claim nature is the one who has done this to you... when it's entirely demonstrable that what is more probable is that it was a learned state of mind and a thought habit laid down early in life and perpetuated simply by you being exposed to the sorts of pseudoscience you spout.

You went to boarding school, a clearly unnatural decoupling from your parents at a crucial age... it was probably that which sealed your fate.

Seriously pal, to sit there and use the pathetic red herring of fMRIs in those people toxified by years of chemical lobotomy is just pathetic.

And this pie in the sky bullshit that the human brain is going to be able to be understood by science any time soon is just pathetic too.

Whatever floats your boat though... you can pile on all sorts of wild assumptions about your biology, from the primitive standpoint of 21st century neuroscience, and paint it as though it is 27th century neuroscience, which is what it would probably take.... you can pile all this shit on...

but you can't objectively prove that with a little careful stewardship... throughout life... stewardship of free will and healthy upbringing... you could just be Alan the 50 year old guy playing golf on weekends, the happy family man.

You certainly aren't in a position to say 'if nature hadn't have made me be born with aberrant biology I'd be a totally different person'.

Me? I've never felt the need to measure my gonads in relation to 3 billion other men... I'd hazard a guess they vary in size much like heads, noses, penises, and assholes. Everybody's got one.

The problem with normative statements about gonad size is obviously going to be sample size, race, and even then... this whole neuroplasticity thing really throws open the door to what a learned loop of thought processes related to your beliefs about yourself over decades of life could actually do to the endocrine system... people might even be able to will structural change unwittingly (using the term 'will' loosely of course).

At the very least I'd like to see some intellectual honesty from you. Those self identifying as Trans, and remember no one else has the technology to identify you, so self identifying is the only way you all are identified, and that is inherently anecdotal and subjective in itself.... I'd like to see some intellectual dishonesty exit the equation and for you to just generally come clean with the following....

You're at the coalface of the mind body problem you people. I don't 'want' you people to be miserable and suiciding and all that... I think you've a right to be happy but I don't think you have the right to fight a holy war against the traditional family, a war where you are armed with pathetic pseudoscience and wild assertions as to your alleged organically determined state.

What you did today to a bunch of 21 year olds was stand up there and make a very shaky case that your consciousness played no role in you ending up where you've ended up.

The bottom line is, I could decide today to make a concerted effort to become a pseudopatient of one of your doctors... all I would have to do is meet a few of you, research all the pseudoscience you've filled your head with... and I could easily pull out the measuring tape, or the unreplicated studies and build a case just like you've built...

Just like the pseudopatient experiments that have been replicated many times where people fake delusions and get diagnosed with schizophrenia... the same could be done with your problem.

All the anecdotal material you generate here on your blog... I could do the same... I could set a five year goal to completely mimic your self reportage of your feelings since you were seven years old... I could reverse engineer the whole process. I could consciously tear apart the view those close to me have of me... and replace it with the desired environment of self reported gender identity crisis.... and the fact you have no biomarker, would mean there is no gatekeeper no check and balance, no final obstacle standing in my way before the surgeon's knife comes out....

I'm don't mind if you end up happy. But don't undermine your own volition and free will in getting to where you've gotten. You don't have any hard evidence that organic preordained anything took control of you at all.

I have a completely different value system to you. I don't care about gender really... I care about a man and a woman making a baby and it's no accident that that's the way it works, and i care about 20 years of a stable mother and father of each sex raising a child...

But as far as now... right now that I am young and unmarried.... my gender is not something I am concerned about. I don't need to fulfill a male role until I become a father. And the primary reason I would even enter a long term relationship is to find a suitable mother for my children. I would then, no matter what, for the 20 years of upbringing and hopefully beyond... fulfill the father male role, and ensure by hook or by crook that my son or daughter was exposed full time, full on, to the tried and tested things that a child should see, and should not see, when they look around at the world... the end of all this is a stable child, a stable adult... who doesn't end up hacking up the body I nurtured and spitting in nature's face. Because my value is nature is to be respected. You, on the other hand, use pseudoscience to claim nature just decided after thousands of generations of success to fuck everything up. In the absence of objective individualized (Alan specific) evidence.

Apparently in your world, Alan, and Alan's environment, shoulder none of the blame whatsoever. Switch 'blame' for a less harsh word if you like, but you know what I mean... explanation for the current situation then.

Anonymous said...

For someone who sees the DSM cabal is stacked with eugenicists, you seem to have a very undeveloped critique of the nature of somatic psychiatry, when you go ahead and spout the feeble fMRI schizophrenia studies, which are clearly just a graphical representation of neuroleptic induced brain damage.

I do have to give this to you though, I'm of course very pleased you admit abortion is infanticide... even if you place trimester caveats on that. It's a lot more than I expected from you.

Of course, my position would be that intervening to prevent the growth of a human being in utero at any stage is killing. Anything that would progress to a sapient human being without intervention... intervention cannot be justified as far as I am concerned.

Anonymous said...

Of course, the ignorant commenter who posed the question about the abortion laws, is just a classic example of just how far to the extreme you've all been brainwashed into a biodeterminist ideology with regards to your problems.... I mean he/she clearly assumes it is 'detectable'. Which is, pathetic.

It's been very interesting to discover how all you environmentally confused people hitch your wagon to the rare, VERY RARE, legitimately intersexed people.

Bad hair days said...

Did you mean hermaphrodietes? Because interesexed is something, Zoë cane somatically proof to be. And intersex conditions itself aren't that seldom at all, aprocimatly one in 500. Have of them get mutilated as babies to assign them a binary sex. Which for you I think is perfectly well done so?

Cardinal Pole said...

Thank you for that information, Zoe.

Anonymous said...

Sie sind falsch. Zoe kann kann nicht auf eine objektive Beweise für die Intersex. Sie benötigen zum Lesen meiner Beiträge wieder. Sie sind völlig falsch. Ihr Problem besteht darin, Umwelt-Bad Haar Tag. Essen meine Scheiße.

Bad hair days said...

> Essen meine Scheiße.

Your eating your shit? I really think you have serious problems.

Anonymous said...

Eat MY shit I meant... maybe my german is as bad as your english... let's call it even. How's that for equality.

Bad hair days said...

>Eat MY shit I

No, thanks, its enough to read some of it.
At least I don't have to use a translation tool ;-)

Anonymous said...

Like I said, my German is just as bad as your english, regardless of where it comes from... translation tool or not.

You like the phrase 'at least' do you?

Ok, let us play ball... here goes..

At least I'm a native speaker of the lingua franca of the world.

You germans had your chance to make deutsch the lingua franca of the world but your thousand year reich only lasted six years...

Some more?

'At least' my nation didn't try to take over the world and exterminate millions of people.

'At least' I can see a third rate power's language isn't worth investing finite time learning.

Anonymous said...

One more I couldn't resist.

'At least' I get to watch you invest time learning a first rate power's language.

'At least' I hope if you are fake german woman you don't shave your pits.

Bad hair days said...

Because you like it so much:
At least I know Godwins law.

Anonymous said...

At least I know there is nothing fallacious about my assertion that you had your chance to have your language become the lingua franca of the world.

If germans don't want to be reduced to hitler they shouldn't have reduced themselves to hitler themselves. You now pay for the next thousand years. That's the job of people that lose world wars of conquest... they end up getting ragged for several generations... deal with it. It's just the way it is. You need to understand that simply being German casts into doubt your capacity for reason for generations to come.

You wouldn't be complaining if you won the war. Just because some cocksucker comes up with a 'law' doesn't mean you are forgiven for being a weak minded malleable nation of easily led cunts.

You're pathetic. Go and burn some books and lock up some historians or some shit you fascist unfree to speak dickhead. Try buying Mein Kampf at a bookstore or some shit why don't you and see how fucking free your nation is.

You're indebted to my grandfathers for the fact you're not speaking russian.

Zoe Brain said...

Er spinnt immer mehr.

Aber es macht nichts.

"Just don't mention the war"...

I had enough problems explaining Monty Python to the mitarbeiters, meine Kollegen, in Bremen. Fortunately, I think it was NDR who screened it in translation shortly before die Mauer came down.

I refuse to explain Fawlty Towers.

You know, if Yosemite Sam could find just one study contradicting those articles, he might have a point. However, facts aren't the issue, he's in it for the arguments. To state the bleedin' obvious.

I mean, if he'd read this blog, he could have said something exotic, like
Mi pisas sur vin kaj vian dikpugan amikinon, vi hundarcxuristacxo!
Or even
Ne insultu min tiel, vi malbela picxvizagxo. Feku en vian cxapelon!

One thing, Yosemite Sam. Insulting me is fine. Insulting guests - other commentators - isn't.

Anonymous said...

unreplicated studies. No diagnostic biotechnology to prove a biological basis for your problems. You can't prove you're not crazy Alan. You're not crazy in most functional aspects of life, but in your gender area, you are definitely crazy.

And threatening your guest? What are you gonna fucking do Alan? Ban me? Go the fuck ahead.

'just one study contradicting your articles'... how about one neat little statement.

Your pathetic articles have not led to any reliable diagnostic biotechnology to prove your assertions about your own biology.

So you're crazy.

And a danger to innocent children.

Your life is fucked. You're in denial of fundamental cornerstones of your humanity and the role you are honor bound to play now that you have created a son with a woman.

Happy Snaps now at age 7 hide the coming psychosocial storm you will unleash on the boy when he grows older. I hope you'll be paying for his therapy.

Say Hi to your mom for me Alan.

You fucking asshole for having a kid.

You didn't think 43 years was long enough to figure out what kind of family a kid needed? pathetic.

Love won't cut it. Plenty of divorced parents love their kids too, but even something as run of the mill as a divorce fucks the kids up for life. Think what you'll do... spectacularly fuck the kid up you just wait.

If your dick went in a woman's cunt, and your come made her pregnant and you now have a son... You're a man.

THis whole anorgasmic bullshit you come up with. What the fuck do you think constitutes a fucking orgasm you fucking mindless crazy?

If come shoots out a dick, an orgasm has occurred. The fact that you've cultivated your paraphilias for 40 years like an irresponsible navigator of life and you block it out is irrelevant.

You are unable to figure out how to be a human being. You're never going to be whole unless someone blasts you full of a serious cocktail of drugs and gives you complete amnesia and you have to relearn how to live, this time without the environmental exposure to your pathetic obsession.

There was a guy from new york who woke up on the subway with amnesia, complete retrograde, forgot who he was, had to relearn life, start over. If that happened to you, you can't guarantee you'd be alan the 50 year old normal man. And you know it deep down you've got overwhelming biological evidence that all this rubbish you've inflicted on yourself and your son aren't in your head.

End of story.

You are one messed up unit.

And fuck the german, I'm gonna go spam his blog for a few days now... I'm done with you.

Fuck the fucking german.

And the fact you are allowed to go unchallenged and lie to kids at college today is obscene and just proves how fucked the ivory tower really fucking is.

You're not intersex. You're into sex. Sex where you pretend you are a vagina. Why couldn't you just get your wife to fuck you with a strap on and keep it between the two of you. Instead you have to publicly humiliate yourself irrevocably.

Anorgasmic... oh please! half the men in the world are anorgasmic around fat chicks. Jesus christ you carry on with some shit.

You're not a trailblazer, you're not lighting the path for a subjugated minority who are being discriminated against for their biology. You're just a man who should have manned up and kept his private philias to him fuckin self and shutted the fuck up and been part of the human family and part of the solution for making kids upbringings easy. Instead, by design you're right in the kid's face with something very fucked up. It's not an adult responsible thing to do to a kid. Billions agree with me. I'd put Michael Jackson's kids and your kid on the same future trajectory at this stage.

The fact that you harbor secret fears speak volumes.

'Loving' a kid isn't just sentiment and fuzzy thoughts sent in his direction. It involves actions, and by design taking a scalpel to important pieces of the puzzle of growing up, is a cunt's act, it fucking is Alan!

Ambivalence at best is all you'll end up with from him. it will probably be like, I love you dad, I know you love me, but he will always wish he was born into a normal family, a stable family, he will.

At the very least I wouldn't be rocking the fucking boat. If you pull some shit like not leave him with a shitload of cash you deserve to die. Make sure that kid has a money bin for fuck's sake in order to make up for the things you've gouged out of his life.

The phd should boost your earnings, see to it he is looked after by at least one of your actions for god's sake. Your action of denying him his rightful father through selfish indulgence in fantasy is one thing... but don't let him down any more than that fanatic part of yourself is convinced you have to.

Hell, my mother could hook up with a fucking serial killer and take a smiling photo of me in the park at age seven and I could think he is the best guy in the world. You're not out of the woods yet by any means... in fact... as far as school and so forth goes... you'd only be a couple of years into it. The storm is yet to come. It will come... I think you're a dangerous, deluded, reckless human being, who wasn't hurting anybody until he decided to having 'anorgasmic' ejaculations inside women's vaginas, what? 36 years after he decided he was a woman?

Pathetic.

We're done here. I'm off to play with the German now. You're no fun anymore Alan.

And the more I dig, the more morally obscene you become for what you're doing to your kid. And this session of lies to psychology kids today... well that just proves to me what a dangerous self promoting fuck head you really are.

You should be ashamed at how out of hand you've let your fantasies get.

Only an immoral man would work for the military industrial complex too.

Defense? you're not even prepared to defend the family.

No fake woman could ever be a 'good parent'.... a well intentioned and for intents and purposes loving parent maybe... but in effect, in actuality and results, runs on the board, it won't pan out and you know it. The mother knows it. Billions agree.

'late puberty' are you fucking kidding me? Poisoning your body isn't puberty Alan, how pathetic.

You're not a woman. You're not any woman billions would want any where near them or a kid. I certainly wouldn't want to be in your presence. Let alone have sex with you. You're certainly no good to me in terms of providing me with a fertile egg. You're certainly not welcome in any community I want to be a part of. Alan the 50 year old guy who plays golf and shows some concern for his kids mental health in the future is welcome.

Do your best to just fucking earn some money for your kid the next 10 years before your toxic endocrine meddling does you in will you? do me that one favor.

That's the best we can hope for. Palliative care.

Professing to love a child, and actually doing no harm, are two different things.

On your deathbed you'll be filled with regrets.

I think it speaks volume about the value of degrees conferred by tertiary institutions these days that a guy who can't figure out how to man up and be a father to his son gets to call himself Dr. in a couple of years. You can't profess to know anything except how to monumentally publicly demonstrate how not to live one's life should one be inclined to the kind of paraphilia you developed.

Your mother must of been a real cunt or something.

I'm off to the German blog now... time to pay him some attention.

Bad hair days said...

> And fuck the german, I'm gonna
> go spam his blog for a few days
> now... I'm done with you.

> Fuck the fucking german.

Thank you. I already wanted to ask if Zoë can lend you over to me.

That will be so much fun.

cybelline1 said...

The moment I read your blog I thought to myself - oh, you are really opening yourself to the worst elements of the abusive trolls like the anonymous comments made above. My trans group last meeting dealt with weathering attacks like the woefully uninformed abuser above as a safety issue. Thank you for sharing your experience and your power point. Thank you for adding to the conversation for all of us. You are loved and supported.

Zoe Brain said...

Thanks, cybelline1

I can't claim any bravery - my transition was unusual as you know, and very, very public. Changes from day to day witnessed by co-workers, people I'd known and been friends with for years. Not something I could conceal, Stealth was never an option for me.

So I make the most of it.

The thing is, no-one can make you feel bad about yourself other than you. Now sometimes feeling bad about yourself is reasonable, when you've done something less than ideal. I'm very aware of my own fallibility, and yes, sometimes I give consent to others to make me feel bad. When objectively, I should feel bad. It's called "taking criticism", and it's something anyone dealing with safety-critical systems has to do, or people will die.

Others can take away your Pride. And contrary to the song, they can take away your dignity too. But they can never take away your honour, only you can do that.

Yosemite Sam tries to make people feel bad. I feel sorry for him, but it's beyond my powers to help him. He misuses his intelligence - and he's bright, no doubt about that - to find emotional buttons and push them, just to hurt. It makes him feel superior.

Except - I refused to be hurt. That took no act of will, I tried to evaluate what he was saying to see if there was any truth in it. But he was so OTT...

Frankly, it tickled, it was sidesplittingly funny, as well as quite interesting from a psychological viewpoint. He obviously used tried-and-true methods, and all he got was laughter.

What's tragic though is that he does have a fine intellect. He really is superior in many ways to most, though he doesn't realise that. Or at least, he would be superior if he used his Mutant Super Powers for Good and not Evil.

I feel sorry for him. But not as sorry as I do for those around him who take him seriously.

Anyway, in return for my meagre efforts, I've received love and support from people who are the salt of the Earth. Thank you. I'm not sure I deserve it, in fact, I know I don't deserve half as much as I'm given, but I deserve a little of it.

It's nice that you gave me some, deserved or no. Thanks. Take care,
Hugs, Zoe

Lloyd Flack said...

I'm not sure if he realizes that all his obscenities completely take any sting he intended out of everything that he said. It made him a complete laughing stock. Every time he said fuck everyone laughed. I suppose he's not used to dealing with audiences who are indifferent to obscenity.

One thing I'm sure he doesn't realize is that he was treated gently because of his obvious problems and well we had mixed feelings about making fun of someone like him. It would not have been difficult to find his hot buttons and push them. A bit of me wishes I had, another bit is glad that I didn't.

Zoe, I think you've been a bit too charitable in your description of him. I think the germ of his problems is not of his choice. But I also think that he has no intellectual honesty, in fact probably not much honesty. In the comments above he did lie about having been on Dr Wes's blog. He is one of the willfully blind.

Bad hair days said...

The one thing anyone like him cannot stand is when he is not taken serios. So I pushed a button on him. May be a bit too hard and this fun toy is broken, because he still didn't come over to my blog as promised.

Maybe his just gone to bed. The sun must shine now over there and thats not good for trolls.

While I don't share Zoës thoughts about his intelligence (he tried to fool us into believing he can speak a foreign language and I think he acted the same way googling up a few terms beforehand) he was the troll with the longest posts I ever met.

Anonymous said...

Zoe, Really? I am in Memphis, TN, so I hope you don't mean me, because your trail would go cold. Anyway, I am off to follow this person. I shall give you a report of the path he takes.

Anonymous said...

Hi, Zoe.

Kudos for continuing to educate the world at large. And that includes, everyone, doesn't it.

Hugs to you and your family.

Anonymous said...

@anonymous: What geat statements out of the anonymity of the internet; A voice of no culture, no tolerance and absolute incompetence and ignorance speaks to us. The sheer indignity to use f*** words in a public dicussion makes me shiver and because of the wording I do not even care about the consense of the words useless put together (might be, there is any)

привет ACE

RadarGrrl said...

You here again, Anonymous Coward? Piss off already!

Bad hair days said...

Uhm RadarGrrl, that wasn't the yoesemite guy.

RadarGrrl said...

No but there he sits, fifth from the top.

Bad hair days said...

The poor exception thAt Yousemite-Guy would comment on my blog had a sudden rush to hits, its amazing. Come over, funny cartoon guy, and do that work for me, you promised.

I'll need fresh troll steak that morning. I survived Internetexplorer versus Netscape and Linux versus Windows and some more relevenat discussions. I gained friends in all of that (funny enaugh most often on the opposing side).

SarasNavel said...

Aw, Zoe,

You have your very own pet troll! It's so cute, the way he gets so mad but fails to convince anyone of well, much of anything except how near the surface his own demons lay in wait. I'd guess a homophobic Fundamentalist, but my Hatred Bingo card is full.

By the way, to clarify one minor point that I noticed early on. Over here in America I've not noticed any decline in the number of people with Downs'; if any less have been delivered it is mitigated by the greater acceptance into mainstream society that they now seem to have attained. Ironically, I 'blame' the Christian Fundamentalists.

Thanks again, Zoe, for helping to chip away at society's ignorance, one post, speaking engagement and commment at a time. I don't always (often?) agree with you regarding trans politics, but the world would be a darker, simpler place without you and your research citations, analysis and fresh hypothesis.

Anonymous said...

There's no need for a hypothesis or citations... there is only this...

Sick fuck selfish fetishist man damages and destroys by design father son relationship and harms seven year old boy's mental health. End of story.

He would have been better off playing family man and getting his wife to fuck him with a strap on.

End of story.

Bad hair days said...

That means you don't come over to play? Ok, there was one disqualification, but lets see. I think you have a bit hate that you you'll spew arround thats worth an answer.

Good morning, by the way.

Bad hair days said...

@Yosemite somewhat
I prepared a playground for you on my blog. With your perfect german skills you might translate it with the google translation gadget on the right down.

the post is: http://badhairdaysandmore.blogspot.com/2008/10/ein-troll.html

Just because its so common (i dont think it gets you trolls somewhere)
Heres a fish
<><

Bad hair days said...

All that preparation. More than eight hours of waiting time. Even driven in your hate, you don't keep promisis.

You go after that german?

Well may be you ment some soccer star, because you didn't have the balls to show arround my blog.

RadarGrrl said...

Hey! Amonymous Coward!

Would you name your next kid after a duck?

Bad hair days said...

I know I'm not Anonymous, but Rubber Duck is rempting.

Oh while we have some guests here, that was so called inrony

Anonymous said...

Yosemite Sam seems to be trying to deny that there is any gentic or developmental basis for any mental abnormalities. Could this be an attempt to deny problems that he has? People here are guessing malignant narcissism but this is only a guess. It could be any of a variety of other mental conditions. I wonder if any people that he knows are suggesting that he seek treatment for whatever his problem is and he is trying to deny the necessity of this?

RadarGrrl said...

How about a chicken?

Anonymous said...

"Yosemite Sam seems to be trying to deny that there is any gentic or developmental basis for any mental abnormalities. Could this be an attempt to deny problems that he has? People here are guessing malignant narcissism but this is only a guess. It could be any of a variety of other mental conditions. I wonder if any people that he knows are suggesting that he seek treatment for whatever his problem is and he is trying to deny the necessity of this?"

Wrong you stupid motherless cunt... I'm simply saying that completely fucked up crazy people like Alan, in the absence of any evidence, biomarkers SPECIFIC TO THEIR OWN BODY, any diagnostics, to prove ANY organic element of their troubles, are denying that their neuroses are psychological and environmental.

Fuck you.

Anonymous said...

Yosemite Sam,

You did not need to say it in so many words, as what you are saying would be generally agreeable, were it not for the fact that Zoe's body changed on its own. (Zoe has been blogging on this since 2005). But hey, I guess up is down and left is right, and Zoe's body didn't really change on its own, did it?

Also, neuroses are too generic, you are referring to the sense of the person's body not matching right and the social role not matching right. It is true that there is not any test to be performed on specific individuals, yet.

I shall inform the Queen the necessity of having tea with you, as your English is quite pleasant and thrilling, and is representative of a calm, reasoned, fully rational mind.

Zoe Brain said...

Sumptos - Drink Warning next time please. It's rare that a comment makes me burst into giggles, so congrats and thanks.

Yosemite Sam - the name's Zoe, by the way. I had it changed in August 2005, one of the first things I did in transition. By October 2005, all my official documentation was made consistent, barring the Birth Certificate, although I didn't get an Australian passport till over a year later.

Unknown said...

Yosemite Sam, you berate Zoe for supposedly not showing evidence of biomarkers for her condition being found in her body, and insist that therefore her condition is "psychological and environmental" in origin. I'm satisfied with the evidence she's provided, but you disagree. Fair enough.

So, where's your evidence? I have yet to see any solid, credible research showing even any plausible "psychological and environmental" origin for Zoe's condition, or transsexualism in general. And believe me, I've looked for it. So I'd appreciate links to original research articles published in respected, peer-reviewed journals if you have them.

Lloyd Flack said...

I think the effect of DES is as close to a smoking gun as you are going to get. About 20% of genetically male offspring whose mothers took DES in early pregnancy were transsexual. Quite a few were intersexed in other ways. It is very hard to plausibly explain this unless DES affected the brain leading to the transsexuality.

Now if in utero influences have caused one group to become transsexual then it is quite reasonable to look for developmental accidents and mutations as a likely cause for other cases of transsexuality.

Unknown said...

@lloyd, if that was meant as a response to my post, I wholly agree. In the context in which Yosemite Sam used it, I didn't think he meant that kind of "environmental" influences, as that would entirely undermine the point he seemed to be trying to make.