Mostly ignorance, and pardonable ignorance at that. While I've see cruelty, malice and spite, more often I've seen decent level-headed people who once they're made aware of the facts, have quite different views.
From WoodTV.com :
MUSKEGON, Mich. (WOOD) - Some Mona Shores High School students say administrators stole the homecoming king throne from the rightful winner -- a transgender senior.He Wuz Robbed. Nothing too unusual there, though the fact that his classmates stood up for him is rare, and extremely gratifying.
The controversy is playing out in the school's hallways, and on Facebook.
Some classmates believe the crown belongs to Oakleigh Reed -- who was born as Oakleigh Marie, but who now goes as Oakleigh Marshall, or Oak for short.
In fact, friends have started a Facebook page, titled, "Oak is My King."
"It's the senior class that votes for their representative," Reed said. "What they did was taking away the voice of the senior class."
Assistant Superintendent Todd Geerlings said the issue is simple: The ballots gave two choices -- vote for a boy for king and a girl for queen.
And, in school records, he said, Oakleigh is still listed as a female.
I think there's 11 pages of comments now. But you can see people's opinions changing, as they get more and more credible data about it.
There's still a mountain; and I still am working one teaspoonfull at a time. But I can see visible progress now.
One more thing - about the previous post on Monday - I got the complete set when RightWingGirl uttered the stock phrase "God doesn't make mistakes". It's all so farnarckling predictable... and really quite funny too.
5 comments:
The next generation, while still not perfect, is more accepting of diversity. They have a wider view of normal.
I'm 25 and people my age are much more accepting. They still don't much like the idea of somebody changing their sex, but they do seem to understand that trans people aren't changing their sex at all, just restoring it.
Among conservatives, most my age that I know are moving away from the authoritarian stances on social issues and embracing libertarianism.
I wonder if somewhere we can find stats on divorce rates for trans people who were married. I would guess that more and more couples are staying together through the challenge, especially younger couples, but without any actual data it's just a hypothesis at best :)
Hi Zoe,
In one of your comments at that site you make the following statement:
3) Permanent Institutionalisation - as you surmised, cross-sexed neurology becomes progressively dysfunctional with the wrong hormone mix. You can feel your mind rotting.
I'm keenly interested in this one, but I'm not able to locate the underlying studies about this. Can you recall which study(ies) focus upon this aspect?
Also, are these related to ideas about using short-term hormones as a diagnostic tool to help identify trans people?
Hi Diana - there have been no formal clinical studies as far as I know, and are unlikely to be any. Just as there are no formal clinical studies comparing those treated for gangrene with those left untreated.
There have been enough clinical observations of the effects of lack of treatment to make such a study unethical.
Some of the literature describing the progress of the condition from before 1960 may be useful, but they weren't very big on proper clinical trials back then. Anecdotal evidence only.
Thanks Zoe. It's an interesting point to me because I believe I experienced it - the "brain rotting" thing, not the institutionalization. But it's really hard to convince people to take trans people's word about that sort of thing.
Here's hoping further brain research can explain the mechanism ethically.
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