“Transgender Women have needs and desires just like any other person. However due to their unique position, they have a greater understanding of life and realize the essential fallibility of humans. . . . Transgender Women are also sexually very active and are much more nubile than the average cis-woman. Therefore men with a high sexual appetite (that is every man alive) will have a great time with them.”
–Transsingle Dating Site
While I prefer not to make sweeping philosophical statements of belief, there are aspects of the present subject matter that are too unexplored and unfamiliar to present them on a pure evidence-basis; at the same time, the subject is so fraught with strong emotional opinions that it may help if I make my own “position” as clear as possible–regarding why I consider the subject important enough to write about, even though I have no transsexual tendencies myself, nor any significant dealings with people who have these tendencies in my daily life.
I have arrived at the subject matter by an indirect route, through my researches into trauma, psychic fragmentation, organized sexual abuse, mind control, transhumanism, alien abduction, and other occult or spiritual systems of beliefs, social and cultural engineering, crowd control, and mimesis. Something that has become more and more apparent to me–albeit at a very intuitive level–concerns a largely unrecognized psychological (and frankly, metaphysical) reality, that of ancestral possession. At this point, I would probably say that ancestral possession is the primary motivating factor in history, and that without including it, no understanding of human behavior is going to be complete. This is particularly the case if we are looking at human pathologies, which are I think the sine qua non of human behavior, and hence history.
While not all ancestral patterns are pathological, all pathologies are to some degree ancestral. Our ancestry of course goes back a long way–prehistory–and the most easily observable ancestral influence is that of those family members we have had direct contact with, especially the ones we grew up with and were raised by. Of these, none has a greater influence on our psychological development than our mother. To an incalculable extent, our self-image, our preferences, desires, fear, obsessions, and choices are determined by her influence–especially if we understand that our mother and our father’s influence is itself a continuation and extension of that of the ancestors, those who have now passed on. Nonetheless, in a purely observable (though still somewhat mysterious) framework, I am confident in making these two statements: that psychic possession of men by their mothers is the most essential and unrecognized aspect of ancestral possession (and hence of human history); and that the primary cause for the multitude of desperate quests for identity that have manifested throughout history in all forms of violence is this same mother-possession.
I realize that this is a thesis statement and that it is not the thesis of the present piece. I present it now as rather the essential background that provides primary context for the author’s own history and hence interest in this subject.
*
After the first part of this series appeared, I received some criticism that it was lacking nuance and making the mistake of putting every transsexual in the same box together, when there was a very wide spectrum of individuals to consider. One thing that I hope has become clear, to anyone reading this series, is that the transgender/postgender agenda is quite distinct from transsexual individuals, at least to a large degree. In other words, a vast portion of the push behind trans/postgenderism is not coming from individuals who have or wish to transition (yet). Like the person who commented at my blog (Claire), there’s an unknown but significant percentage of transsexuals who are not supportive of the trans/postgender push. Nonetheless, for obvious reasons , the social and cultural movement and the individuals it points towards (and to some degree stems from), cannot be separated. Without the existence of transsexuals within our culture, no “Trans Agenda,” and without the Trans Agenda, there would be a lot less aspiring transsexuals than there currently are.
While the first statement will probably go uncontested, the second will no doubt stir the hackles on many a neoliberal neck. But human beings are imitative creatures and this goes double for heavily socialized human beings. Culture is a process by which certain behaviors “go viral” and become fashionable, i.e., inspire imitation. Naturally, the more prolific (and the more widely represented by the media) a given behavior becomes, the more people are going to imitate it. The manufactured transgender movement is really no different from any widespread marketing campaign that depends on both memetic and mimetic engineering, and central to its success is representing the idea of chemically and surgically induced sex changes as healthy, normal, and desirable (and sexy and hip).
As with homosexuality, however (and being nonwhite, and being neurodivergent), it is not enough for transsexuals to aspire for equality. The previously marginalized subset aims to colonize the mainstream, and, like a cuckoo, this means ousting the previously dominant ideology, or at the very least forcing it to change its ways. In the present case, it is not merely ideology that has to be radically reconfigured but biology. Since the Trans Agenda advocates the use of technology to alter people’s biological gender, the very idea of biological gender must be recalibrated to match the technology. The “is” determines the “ought”: as soon as it becomes possible to alter gender, an inevitable shift in cultural values occurs–including moral ones–that is geared towards making gender alteration socially acceptable. Since social etiquette and ethics form a complex system, this means that the entire philosophical and ideological basis of society must undergo a corresponding shift to accommodate the new technology and the new fashion, and to make room for the newly manufactured identities rolling off the factory lines, complete with their particular (and equally manufactured) sets of desires.
Now, like being a woman or being homosexual once was (ironically, both of these social identities are receiving short thrift from the Trans Agenda), the trans identity is being subtly equated with higher social standing and a kind of moral superiority. In certain circles, it is even being touted as a spiritual calling, a veritable attainment of non-dual reality in which gender is as mutable and arbitrary as any other form of consumer preference. Presumably this is because transgenderism has the relatively novel ingredient of actual physical transformation. While it is still a “choice” (albeit one attributed to some mysterious and anomalous whim of human biology), it is a choice that requires the ultimate commitment imaginable, short of death anyway.
Speaking of removing body parts, this is probably an opportune moment to ask: how long before apotemnophiliacs replace transsexuals as the ultimate marginal group? Apotemnophilia is a neurological disorder characterized by an intense desire for the amputation of a specific limb or a need to become paralyzed, blind, or deaf.
Apparently rational individuals are asking for the amputation of healthy limbs or the destruction of functioning senses, and seeking surgeons to oblige them (or in some cases purposefully injuring themselves to force emergency medical intervention). Apotemnophilia was first described in a 1977 article by psychologists Gregg Furth and John Money (that pioneer of transgenderism and pedophile rights; see “Apotemnophilia: two cases of self-demand amputation as paraphilia”). In 2008, the afore-cited V.S. Ramachandran, David Brang, and Paul D. McGeoch proposed that apotemnophilia is a neurological disorder caused by an incomplete body image map in the right parietal lobe. A separate definition of apotemnophilia is erotic interest in being or looking like an amputee. In a similar way, there are transsexuals whose primary drive to transition to the opposite sex is the erotic charge they get from imagining themselves in a different gender body. This is known (in the case of men) as autogynephilia: “a man’s paraphilic tendency to be sexually aroused by the thought or image of himself as a woman.”
The question of course is, why are apotemnophilia and autogynephilia considered paraphilias, while (the more “progressive” version of) transgender is not? The answer is that, through a combination of activism, media representation, and the growing numbers of advocates and defenders, it has been stricken from the list of paraphilias, and scientific research has gone full throttle to try and produce enough stupefying, generally pseudo-scientific evidence to keep it that way. But presumably all the arguments being made to defend transsexuals from the stigma of paraphiliacs (i.e., psychologically disturbed) could, if one wished, be equally well applied to cases of apotemnophilia (and autogynephilia)? And where would that end? A person might–like the author Paul Bowles–wish to do away with the body altogether, and opt for existence as a severed head floating in a jar. Who are we to say that this is an unhealthy life choice? But of course, the transhumanists are already working day and night to bring this grisly reality to fruition, and perhaps the ultimate social attainment will someday be recognized as having been achieved by those individuals who saw themselves as non-biological, non-human, and as “pure information,” people who chose to be removed from the physical realm altogether in lieu of an exclusive but eternal existence as Facebook accounts? But I fear I am in danger of becoming a pundit, so maybe I should stop there.
Except to add, in passing, that my brother Sebastian claimed to have had sex with a quadruple amputee prostitute in Amsterdam and wrote about it in his memoir, Dandy in the Underworld. Several years before he published the account, in late 2003, I received a photograph apparently of my brother inserting his erect penis into a dark-haired, legless, armless woman. Not only had he paid to have sex with her, apparently he’d arranged to have himself photographed in the act and then turned the photograph into a grisly greetings card, with the words “If you’re happy, clap your hands!” inscribed on the back. He then sent it to his family, friends, and who knows how many assorted others. I later found out that the photo was a fake: he had had someone Photoshop his head onto another man’s body, using a piece of apotemnophilia porn for his template. When I spoke to him at the time I received it however, he insisted it was authentic.
What appalled me about the image (and most of all his choice to use it that way) was how it exploited the woman’s suffering and misery. If I’d said as much, my brother would probably have countered that I had no business projecting my ideas about exploitation or human suffering onto the woman, and that (like all prostitutes, in my brother’s view) she was fully in charge of her choices. I can almost hear him saying it now. And in fact, in his memoir, he wrote just such a comment, one that seemed especially tailored for me: “She wasn’t a victim. She was a warrior.” But as it turned out, my brother never even knew the woman in the photo, so how could he possibly know what her perspective on her condition was?
*
What originally sparked this three-part series was ostensibly an email exchange between myself and two others, about a spiritual teacher who is currently undergoing a sex change. One of my correspondents—himself a spiritual teacher–made a quip about how the non-dual movement had always been moving in this direction. So what direction is this? Towards the equivalence of psychological trauma, infinitely expanding paraphilias, and a total rejection of our embodied human existence with enlightenment? The spiritual guru in question is named Francis Bennett, and he has been endorsed at his website by the well-known Advaita guru Adyashanti. Bennett made an announcement on Facebook on 16 November, 2016, to the effect that he was a woman in a man’s body:
“It has been a bit of a relief to find out that this is what I have been unknowingly dealing with my whole life. In a certain sense, it explains a lot in my psyche and even in my body which I have always wondered over. Many people that have these kinds of chromosomal anomalies do not struggle at all with gender identity and feel themselves to be very fully identified with the gender they were perceived to be at birth. But some of them, like me, have always felt a kind of ambiguity around their gender identity. . . . Some studies would indicate that this also has some basis in physiological changes that happen in the womb as the fetus develops and experiences certain effects in brain and hormonal development. To be honest, I have always felt somewhat ‘gender ambiguous’ and as a little child of 5 or 6, I had deeply questioned my gender identity already. Between the ages of around 5 and 11, I actually felt inwardly that I was a girl, even though I obviously had a boy body on the level of appearances.”
This “spiritually awakened” teacher ends by quoting the Hollywood movie Forest Gump: “I am reminded of what Forest Gump’s mom once said to him, “Life is like a box of chocolates Forest. . . . Once you open the box, you never really know what you are gonna get!”
In a later article, Maestro Bennett continues with his Gumpian vision:
God created humankind in the divine image … both male and female (Genesis 1:27). So God as Creator is both father and mother. God is both male and female. God is fully androgynous……God is therefore trans-gender if you will…
I believe that we LGBTQI persons can be considered to be special gifts of God not in spite of, but precisely BECAUSE we are different and don’t fit within normally accepted societal gender or sexual attraction categories. We have been rejected by the leaders of most organized religions. Simply to survive emotionally and spiritually, we have been often forced to look more deeply into the meaning of life than the average person who fits in more easily. Our rejection by mainstream religions causes many of us to question the basic tenets of these religions in order to determine what fits for us and what does not. Though not always, this in turn can sometimes result in a higher level of spiritual consciousness. . . . Because our very survival depends on it, we who are different must question all these things. As survivors of this painful process, we are perhaps better able to tap into the true nature of God/Source/Consciousness, and the intended relationship of humanity with this absolute Reality.
Bennett considers himself “fairly well out on the transsexual end of the transgender continuum” and therefore has opted to undergo a full sex change. “There is a deep peace in this decision.”
Maybe I am a stickler, but isn’t there something a bit “off” about someone who claims to be spiritually awakened, and who host satsangs for spiritual seekers to help them find their way, claiming they have found peace by having a sex change? Whatever happened to looking within?
Bennett consider himself to be on a mission, however:
I feel that I and all LGBTQI folks, are called, by our very existence in the world, to openly challenge the teachings and attitudes of spirituality that serve to enslave both men and women of whatever gender identity and sexual orientation, into rigid gender roles and categories that prevent them from fully embracing both the male and the female aspects of their souls, that prevent most from becoming whole and integrated in the true image and likeness of an androgynous, trans-gender God.
In other words, for these pioneers of transformation, spiritual freedom is only possible via corporate-backed sex change surgery and military-industrial chemicals.
Meanwhile, the meme is spreading via things like Paul Brandeis Raushenbush’s podcast at the Huffington Post: “God Is Trans: The Extraordinary Spirituality Of Transgender Lives.”
“During this week’s segment you will hear from a Christian, a Jew and a Buddhist about their lives as trans people, and the surprising and instructive ways religious figures acted with compassion as they transitioned to presenting as their authentic selves. Their journeys invite new understanding of spirituality by urgently presenting the deeply religious question: ‘Who Am I?’ Recently Bruce Jenner spoke on national television about life as a trans person, ushering in a new era of visibility of trans people. My hope is that the stories of Joy, Taj and Ellie will be cause for further celebration, and that their spiritual stories will offer all of us lessons for discovery about self, others and even God.”
Is there any way intelligent discerning people would buy this crap, I wonder, if they hadn’t already been so thoroughly worked over by the Identity Police, and so burdened by guilt, shame, and fear around transsexuality, as to be unable to even think clearly about it? Have we all been spiritually Gumpified into believing that life is a corporate conflation of sticky sweet comfort products that can all be lumped together into a single heart-shaped box?
And is it any wonder that the flip side of this cultural saccharinization program is the idolization of sociopathic killers?
*
At this point, the reader may well say, it’s easy to bitch and moan, but what am I actually proposing to do about any of this? Unfortunately, I am not in the business of offering solutions, not because I don’t want them but because I still think the best solution is found by fully taking on all the implications of a problem, and seeing it for what it is, without trying to fix it.
Imagine a very different sort of society in which confusion around one’s sexual identity was not seen as a problem to be fixed, in which suffering and identity crisis wasn’t seen as something to be avoided, or even alleviated, necessarily, but as a process to be observed and respected and allowed to happen. A society in which those individuals with especially fluid, anomalous, or unstable identities were given the necessary space and compassion (and attention) to be “liminal,” to remain essentially noncommittal about their sexual or gender orientation or anything else. Imagine a social environment where there was no pressure to fit in at all (provided one was not being actively hostile).
The point being: how many individuals are now jumping aboard the transgender bandwagon because of a combination of the pressure to conform in some way (the old world we are supposed to be evolving past via these new ideologies) with a more subtle pressure to early-adopt the non-conforming new identities being prepared for them, in tandem with a cynical marketing campaign–and/or a long-term, multi-national social engineering program (such as outlined in “Occult Yorkshire”)? How much is living in a society that sees social identity as the sine qua non of happiness, purpose, and meaning creating the very distortions, paraphilias, and biological “quirks” that are giving rise to growing numbers of alienated, dissociated children in search of a social identity that will match their anxiety and alienation? Do the vastly increasing numbers of transgender-oriented individuals have anything to do with a growing reality of transgenderism at a psychological or internal level, or do they relate to increased identity confusion and the ever-growing fear of being marginalized (because in liminal times, groups seek a scapegoat), combined with ready-made bogus identity-solutions that are generating vast profits for the ruling class and their corporations?
The idea of a “trans movement” suggests there is a new species emerging among us. While there may be a kernel of truth in this (there is definite overlap between transsexuals and autistics, which is a form of neurodiversity), I think that transgender is mostly a way for social (and possibly biological) anomalies to reduce and contain their feelings of alienation by over-literalizing them and converting them into sexual and cultural terms that relate to social identity. This requires ignoring the fact that social identity, whether it refers to “gender,” “race,” “class,” or all three, and regardless of how many bells and whistles are added to it, is the primary cause of human alienation. What might someone struggling with an interior experience that doesn’t fit the social molds tell us, if we gave them room to do so, rather than dictating the terms of their alienation to them? The same applies to autistics and to children in general: the social goal is always to socialize, to turn anomalies into productive members of society and good consumers of product, never to let them be and give them space to discover who and what they actually are.
The question of what to do with social anomalies is the same as what to do with any lost soul (i.e., human being): listen, connect, share as deeply as we are able, and only then consider the possibility (or need) for guidance. The one thing that any of us really needs, and the only thing that ever really helps, is a working connection to our own sense of reality. Call it psyche or soul or intuition or God, once we have it, nothing can take it away. But if we don’t have it, no amount of naming or identification, no matter how ideologically “advanced,” is ever going to secure it for us. Ideology is not a means to establish a sense of reality, but as a very poor surrogate for it, it’s most destructive when it manages to persuade us we have found reality–our new, improved, socially sanctified identity–and so we stop seeking.
The problem with “pathologizing” anomalous traits is that there is a cultural stigma attached to pathology in a way that there isn’t–to anything like the same degree–with physical ailments. The term “mental illness” is inherently derogatory, not because there is shame in being damaged, but because it misrepresents the reality of what causes self-destructive behaviors, both subtle and extreme. First off, what’s invariably being addressed when people talk about mental illness pertains to the psyche and not the mind. Secondly, how is a mind supposed to get ill anyway? Illness is a term that was coined to address physical symptoms, that superimposed a biological map onto a psychological one, as if there could be an exact fit. This is absurd. The way the body gets ill and why, and the way to treat physical illness, may have very little in common with psychological imbalances.
If someone called me mentally ill, I would find it offensive. If someone suggested my psyche was out of balance due to trauma, I might be a little more amenable to discussing it, if only to point out that we are all, to varying degrees, out of psychic balance due to past traumas. We are all broken–but none more than those who want to pretend they are whole, that brokenness is their true nature, a birthright, and their very own special snowflake-ness. If psychological trauma is universal in our current society, and if it has a direct effect on our experience of our bodies and our sexuality, to suggest that transgenderism relates to psychological trauma—at least some of the time—ought not to be terribly controversial, much less equated with transphobia. The fact that it is indicates that there is a massive program of denial at work.
Since no one wants to talk about trauma or psyche, it has become a toss-up between slapping a label of “mentally ill” on someone and prescribing the latest pharma-cure, or creating a new ideology and lifestyle choice–or a new biology–to be celebrated and championed. In either case, big bucks are being made, accountability and understanding is being avoided, and troubled souls are being cruelly exploited. The saddest part is that those exploited souls are being turned into advocates of the corporations, and pushing the very agendas that are exploiting them onto others.
*
One of the things that seems to prevent open dialogue about transgender is the assumption that one has no business talking about it unless one has experienced it. In principal I agree, but only if we are going to apply this across the board, and are willing to say, for example, that we have no business talking about the wrongness of the Jewish holocaust because we have no idea what it was like to be a Nazi. No one is likely to say this, however, because the assumption is that we know immoral behavior when we see it, and we don’t need to experience it from the inside to judge it as bad. When it comes to transgender, the assumption is that people know what they are experiencing and have the right to define it for themselves, so if they say they were born in the wrong body, we should take their word for it and try to help them. This line of reasoning is inherently problematic and even self-contradictory, however. Really, it comes down to indulging people’s whims regardless of whether we understand them or not, and provided their whims are sufficiently fashionable to have received some sort of ideological and institutional support. When non-conformity becomes the norm, then we will conform to it. And meanwhile, the true anomalies continue to get marginalized out of existence.
In 2008, during the same period I met my wife online and began to recognize the depths of my own psychic-mother-enmeshment, I was for a time in contact with a transgender person. This person called themselves the Dream Queen and did online dream interpretations. They were very intelligent and insightful and our correspondence was a rich one. I found them charming and likable (they were still biologically male but I didn’t find it difficult to think of them as a female at that time), even to a degree attractive to me. They described their self-transformation in a similar way to how Genesis P. Porrige talked about his, i.e., in alchemical terms, as a sort of coniunctio oppositorum by which they desired to enact the alchemical marriage through surgery. My feeling, then and now, was that they were over-literalizing a subtler psychological journey. But if I said as much, I was delicate about it and no conflict ensued.
At a certain point, this person began to suggest that I was like them, and that I would someday go through the same process and undergo surgical intervention in order to realize my true alchemical nature as a hermaphrodite. I began to feel mild panic: what if they were right? I knew deep down that such a path was not for me; and yet still, my identity at that time (I had just turned forty) was sufficiently shaky for me to have vague feelings of doubt. By that age, I’d come to accept that life was so unbelievably strange, so full of unexpected curves, that nothing could be ruled out completely. The Dream Queen was so convinced of it, I felt briefly afraid that this might really be my future!
I assured them they were mistaken and gave my reasons. It didn’t create a rift between us (though we did lose touch over time), but I suppose it made clear that there was already a gulf there: I was not willing to make the leap which they saw as our shared destiny; by the same token, I was not able to fully endorse their own choice, at least not if full endorsement meant imitation.
As an adolescent, my hero was David Bowie. I painted a portrait of him, dressed in gaudy clothes, and wore eye makeup at weekends. I was a late bloomer sexually, and although I was interested in girls at the normal age, I never went further than a kiss and a grope until I was in my twenties (I didn’t consummate until I was twenty-seven). As I wrote in Seen and Not Seen, I didn’t even use ordinary porn during my teen years, but opted for darker material. I was deeply confused about my sexuality and afraid of girls. My mother worried I was gay during this period (I overheard her talking on the telephone), and there were times when I wondered too–not because I was ever attracted to boys, but because I knew there was something fundamentally different about me, I just didn’t know what it was. According to my mother, the first thing she said after I was born was, “Oh, I wanted a girl,” and maybe this had something to do with my sexual confusion later in life. Beyond any doubt, the difficulty I had owning my sexuality, from adolescence to date, is directly connected to an unhealthy bond with my mother, and it was this very bond that I began to unravel in my forties, when I met my wife. Without having done so, I would never have been able to commit to her as I did.
My experience with the Dream Queen illustrates that, if anything, I’m flexible and open, maybe to a fault, when it comes to cultural anomalies and my affinity with them. My “problem” with the Dream Queen only began when they tried to impose their worldview onto me and recruit me into their alchemical trans-agenda. Even then, it was not actually a problem (unless it was for them), simply a clear boundary. I wonder if the more strident “cis” defenders of trans rights ever come as close to contemplating their own transgender potential as some of us who are rigorously questioning the narrative? My guess is, most of them don’t. It’s all theoretical to them, an ideological question and nothing more. This is why even those bold enough to question the trans narrative end up spouting latitudes like “Live and let live.” We are encouraged to approve of people’s choices, but not to empathize with them. Empathy is too scary.
*
It has been a lifetime struggle for me to find a way of being that fits my own internal experience of being a man, and it’s a struggle that continues to this day. In a sense, that struggle has been invaluable to me, because I have had to discover an authentic sense of my sexuality without relying on any kind of social signage to guide me. During my adolescence, when I was aware there was something anomalous about me but not what it was, there were no “programs” to “help” me find my sexual orientation, no boxes I could put myself into to feel more secure (at least not until I found the box of “sorcerer” and alien hybrid, which worked for a decade or so). Essentially, I had to carry that feeling of being a misfit, a freak–of being somehow broken–with me through my life, like a splinter in the brain.
Now I’m fifty, and I know that splinter was in many ways the truest thing about me, because I was broken, my sexuality was polluted, hijacked, co-opted, and stolen from me, through a combination of a toxic culture, horrendous parenting, sibling abuses, and unknown human predators–in other words, exposure to the world. That doesn’t give me a clear sense of my sexual identity–I don’t identify primarily as a trauma-victim–but it at least gives me a clear sense of why I was unable to fully experience, express, and embody my sexuality. It also lets me know that there is something still to discover, underneath all the trauma and the poisons, behind the social programs of abuse and the phony solutions designed to keep us inside them, there is that which I truly am, and always have been.
The older I get, the more integrated, the less preoccupied I am with my self-image, and the more ordinary I am able to be in my daily existence. I may feel anomalous–in some ways more than ever–but there is less of a need to make others recognize and affirm it, and more of an ability to go along with the social norms on a surface level. I have a mortgage, run a small business, and live a generally quiet life with a wife and a cat. My internet explorations notwithstanding, my rebellion is more and more directed inward. Creating a special category of identity is less and less important to me; identifying as human is enough.
My single biggest regret in life at this point is probably getting tattoos when I was thirty-five, when I believed I was a living avatar of Lucifer. I got the tattoos to mark that allegiance, to brand my body as property of Lucifer/the divine. It was a pointless exercise, and the only real effect it had was to brand me as a weirdo, to reinforce my sense of alienation by making it physical, tangible, and visible to others (what’s worse, the skin under one of the tattoos is irritable to this day). This stands alone as my only act of self-mutilation (not counting a pierced ear which has since closed up), and the only positive function of these tattoos now, in my view, is as a visceral reminder of my ego-inflated hubris and folly.
It’s my view now that the body is the base reality of human (and organic) existence, and that all existential questions begin and end with the body. I think that unconscious (and often conscious) fear, shame, resentment, and loathing of the body is so common in our “civilized” human society now as to be almost universal. Unconscious hostility towards our bodies is often directed outward at other bodies; but it is also directed inward, and on a daily basis, in the form of alcohol and drug abuse, unhealthy sexual promiscuity and abusive relationships, poor diet, and surgical “solutions.”
I consider that, for myself, love, respect, and enjoyment of my body is the only solid basis for a healthy relationship to others and with life. To start out from the premise that the body is “wrong” and in need of adjustment or improvement (unless it actually lacks functionality in some sense), then, is to establish the supremacy of mind/preference/desire over the reality of the body. I think that all other pathologies (destructive behaviors) stem from this basic misunderstanding, and that it is a misunderstanding that is rooted in unconscious hostility towards our own bodies.
*
“Pro·crus·te·an: (especially of a framework or system) enforcing uniformity or conformity without regard to natural variation or individuality.”
It is an irony that the transgender movement, which may well have begun as reaction against a Procrustean social view of gender, has become itself Procrustean.
Every individual has within them both sexes, both biologically and psychologically speaking, as mother-father imagos–which combined relate to the energetic ancestral line. Bringing those polar-forces into balance within the psyche is essential to a full and healthy life; and yet, due to social factors that seem designed to prevent a natural development of sexuality, it is also extremely rare.
To see transgender as an expression of this lack of balance is not to reduce it to a symptom or to a pathology. It is potentially to understand it, like all symptoms, as a process by which balance or wholeness can eventually be restored to the collective.
What troubles me is that it is perfectly natural, even inevitable, to experience confusion over our sexuality, and that reconciling male and female within ourselves is central to the “alchemical” work of individuation. Literalizing this as a biological problem that can be fixed by mechanistic means, whether by dressing up, chemical intervention, invasive surgery, or a combination of all three, is a means not to embrace difference but to banish it. It is a drive towards homogeneity and in-humanity, disguised as the exact reverse, as a humane approach to diversity.
The aim of this series has been simply to ask this question: What might be on the other side of that threshold of sexual identity confusion, if the movement was directed inward rather than outward?
Well yeah, so far so good. It’s just that it’s all been done before, there are so many of us now, with just minor variations. You can more or less get a read of the parameters of someone’s psyche at 5, or 15 or 25 and then predict their probable life course over the next 20-50 years, are they going to experience sexual ambiguity, are they going to have a mid-life crisis, are they going to eventually ‘find god’ and so forth. Each persons experiences and emotions are their own personal ‘alchemical journey’, but on the whole, there is very little new under the sun.
You can just figure out that you are to all intense and purposes a copy of this other person, who just happens to be 20 years older than you, and you read their biography if they are famous, or their blog if they aren’t, and maybe try to optimise your own life to follow their path to success and avoid any pitfalls they may have fallen into, like not getting that tattoo, or not getting into drink and drugs, or not getting married to a women under somewhat false pretences if they are later going to come out as gay, and so your path goes just that little bit smoother, and you leave behind yet another trail for someone else just like you to follow.
I’m not the living avatar of Lucifer, I’m just a biological copy of someone else just like me, with some minor variations and a somewhat different upbringing. If most of the people who are like me have different genitals, many of the paths to natural self-expression that are open to them are closed to me, and vice versa.
So if the other version of ‘me’ is an actress, singer, and dancer, well I have to be a composer or director or choreographer or something, and sublimate the emotions I would dearly like to experience in real life into producing a drama for another younger version of ‘me’ to star in.
I put in years of effort to study the works of X, Y and Z predecessors, munge it together and recycle it for a modern audience, and say that it says something new and profound about the ‘human condition’, and if I do a good enough job I get residuals and royalties, and if I don’t do a good enough job, well people can always watch the original versions from the 1970s on iTunes. I’m probably not going to be the next Shakespeare at any rate, whatever I do, there are too many distractions nowadays for anyone to reach that kind of depth or productivity. I’d probably have to spend more time managing my social media profile, just to be noticed, that I would producing any really great works.
Or I just say, hey, I’m an *sexual, I’m a much misunderstood and persecuted minority, you now have to respect my lifestyle choices, and I go and get fixed up so that I can experience that anticipation, and search and first romantic fling with a man for myself, and live out those oh-so essential emotions in real life instead of through a fiction, and hang posterity. There are millions of us now, all trying to be a creative, or trying to make a living as a critic or a pundit of something or other, that I doubt my input will be missed that much.
brilliant comments …. now i get what this series of blogs is about … although i”ve never heard of ancestral possession … and you’re probably / almost certainly (mostly) right in your conclusions …
RE:……”although i”ve never heard of ancestral possession …”
Ancestral Restoration /healing the Ancestral line and understanding the impact of “ancestral possession” in certain circumstances is a very important yet often unrecognised area of holistic therapy.
(copied from Humanityhealing.net)
“We are the Progeny of the Past. We are the biological collective result of countless generations that lived, learned, taught, created, and dreamed. They collectively created our physical reality through their successes and failures. The actions of our past generations inevitably influence and impact our present one.
The cells of our bodies contain the echoes of our ancestral family memories. They are significant factors that determine the way we perceive and deal with our current reality. Reconnection with our lineage helps us to understand who we are and where we came from. We can then determine what is needed to complete our journey,and liberate us from the Wheel of Samsara so that we may take the next step in our Soul’s evolution.
Many cultures have active traditions of honoring one’s ancestors, but to truly honor one’s ancestors moves beyond mere respect to recognition of both their positive and negative impact on our current life.
We need to adopt a curative attitude towards our ancestors. The message they transmit through time is one of continuation, knowledge and loving support. To properly honor one’s ancestors, you must be open to forgive them unconditionally, because only through their pardon and Healing can you liberate your negative inheritance.
Realigning our ancestral process is a necessary reorganization that will allow the release of energetic blockages in one’s life and in the lives of one’s descendants. It is an intense and deep process of multidimensional forgiveness that encompasses a realm beyond time, space, dimensions and frequencies. It is an act of reverence, honor and acceptance, which will release the old paradigm, Heal ancient wounds, and clear the phantom pains imprinted in our memory cells and in our pain bodies.”
maybe we need more tibetan healing bowls …. and free healthcare by native american shamans …. to heal our fragmented psyches.
Funny you should mention Lucifer right after i was thinking about the Androids ( Androgynes) in West World and the film Prometheus .
The elites see the masses as being less human than themselves and are keen to automate all their jobs, hey , why not just automate the masses themselves ?
Obviously they will come after anyone who attempts to milk a cow and sell the milk locally with black helicopters and the full force of the law, but they are happy to subsidize , facilitate and otherwise promote the concept of gender reassignment .
I agree its a matter of the dispositions internale being projected outward , and seen through this prism , failed alchemy .
Camille Paglia talks about the appearance of the hermaphrodite being coincident with the declining stages of civilisations seen through a cyclical view of time , appearing again and again throughout history . Of course ,the decline is prominent in the psyches of the elites themselves who are probably imagining we are on the cusp of the next great leap forward rather than collapse ( like Weyland in Prometheus ) . They are keen to recruit those who tend this way to advance their thesis and see what is possible .
The Devil of the tarot, which is the sign Messr Horsley was born under , features this trans symbolism prominently in occult lore , and is also known as the gate of death .
Personally , i still do not condemn Claire or the others or deny their right to exist , though that just could be my own neo-liberal indoctrination , but i dont care , she seems like a nice person and a victim just like all of us
Just a quick reply for now Albigensian, but I do not see myself as a victim. I did, a long time ago now, but I grew beyond that and don’t any more. And successfully transitioning was a part of that. But I definitely don’t set myself up as any model to follow, something I will elaborate on in another reply later.
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/sam-dorman/camille-paglia-transgender-mania-symptom-cultural-collapse
https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSdQWiGHR_JssP95KZdsQK950OtSsmxENt-YnHWnrEMzyaIfL5p
Ancestral possession? Right on, Jasun! Hey, as you might imagine, there’s an app for that! Actually it’s been around for 3 decades now, before the Internet, so maybe I should say there’s already a meme for that.
I refer to what I might term the “ancestral possession” therapy created in the late 1980’s by the German psychotherapist Bert Hellinger, which is known today as “Family Constellations,” a therapy he derived from the original psychodrama of Jacob Moreno and the family sculpture techniques of Virginia Satir.
But because he was once a Catholic missionary priest in Africa, Bert’s breakthrough was to appropriate the shamanistic ancestor worship practices of the Zulus and impose them upon an unsuspecting client base of white Europeans.
I myself intensely experienced Family Constellations between 2004 and 2008 here in Los Angeles, acting as a representative of family members and ancestors in well over a hundred different constellations so I can speak to the process.
For this comment, I decided to Google “Bert Hellinger” and “ancestral possession” and here is the first return, which can give a glimmer of an idea about the therapeutic aproach that treats our “ancestral possession.”
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/28268971_The_Natural_Ancestors_An_Ethnography_of_Family_Constellation_Therapy
Tom
‘Appropriate’? Why isn’t ‘Use what he had learnt from them’ good enough? Do these people use phones? Are they ‘appropriating’ this White technology?
Thanks Tom & Pea for the ancestral feedback. Albi, FYI I wasnt born under the devil sign but the emperor, I ain’t no goat but I am a ram. Interesting tarot image though. & thanks for the Paglia link, including this:
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/sam-dorman/camille-paglia-transgender-mania-symptom-cultural-collapse
also of relevance: “‘Another Day, Another Demand’: How Parents and Children Negotiate Consumption Matters,” by Sharon Boden, University of Warwick
Ideological idiots: those who can only think ideo-logically & demand a lowering of consciousness to address their “arguments.”
Maybe this is the real objective?
Jasun,
I do believe you have found a cool-headed compadre in Camille Paglia, whose interview I just read this morning. The question about transgenderism is the 3rd and last, so scroll down near the bottom to pick it up. I excerpt a few sentences. You both supply some welcome transcendence of the Trans-Agenda. (And who knows? It might even distract me from my Autard’s obsession with the Levenda Agenda, but I digress.)
Tom
http://www.weeklystandard.com/camille-paglia-on-trump-democrats-transgenderism-and-islamist-terror/article/2008464
“Although I describe myself as transgender (I was donning flamboyant male costumes from early childhood on), I am highly skeptical about the current transgender wave, which I think has been produced by far more complicated psychological and sociological factors than current gender discourse allows.
Furthermore, I condemn the escalating prescription of puberty blockers (whose long-term effects are unknown) for children. I regard this practice as a criminal violation of human rights.
It is certainly ironic how liberals who posture as defenders of science when it comes to global warming (a sentimental myth unsupported by evidence) flee all reference to biology when it comes to gender.
Biology has been programmatically excluded from women’s studies and gender studies programs for almost 50 years now. Thus very few current gender studies professors and theorists, here and abroad, are intellectually or scientifically prepared to teach their subjects.
The cold biological truth is that sex changes are impossible. Every single cell of the human body remains coded with one’s birth gender for life. Intersex ambiguities can occur, but they are developmental anomalies that represent a tiny proportion of all human births.”
Right, it’s in the chromosomes, in every cell in the adult’s body, which would show up in DNA test, and definitively prove someone is a male..
Except there are all sorts of ways that people can have XY chromosomes and still come out of the womb looking and thinking like girls, with fully formed external genitals and even internal reproductive tracts to boot.
https://www.quora.com/What-causes-a-person-to-be-transgender/answer/Hugh-Easton-1
Most people do not get their chromosomes tested unless they have an identifiable problem, so if how they feel matches what’s between their legs they are really none the wiser about their genetic sex markers. They don’t even figure out that they have anything different about them until they discover as teenagers that they don’t menstruate because they have no womb, or can’t get pregnant because they have no ovaries.
You’d try telling a 16-17 year old girl, who has always been seen as a girl by everyone she’s ever known, and always thought of herself as a girl, and maybe even menstruates, that it turns out nature has screwed up, and since we’ve discovered you have XY chromosomes, that means you are really actually a ‘man’ deep down, just with some superficial female parts..
Would you seriously expect her to go out and have her passport and driving licence amended to match her genes? Would she then possibly be called up and expected to join the army as a man? Or would you just let her carry on living the life she’s already grown up to expect, and maybe give her some help to conceive or adopt a baby if she wants one.
Nature is much more complicated than the ‘cold hard fact of every cell of your body carrying your birth gender’, it’s all in how those genes are expressed, both in what your body actually looks like, and in how you think and feel.
Now most transgender people are not also intersex, or at least not obviously so, with one of the already well-known specific genetic or chromosomal abnormalities, but the same kind of process that makes someone with XY chromosomes and CAIS still develop internally and externally as a female, could also make the brain of someone else develop as a female while the externals features still resemble a male.
I very nearly applied to the Leeds U Gender Studies dept to do a Masters but then I found out their attitude to biological sex differences which contradicted what I had learnt 30 years earlier under Professor John Blundell at the same University when I studied physiological psychology with him. I began to wonder if they wanted me as their poster child to sell their snake oil.
This and other reasons led me to entirely revise my views on this whole business.
There are transsexuals who function in society, but this current wave has nothing to do with that, and I shall make a longer comment later on this point.
OMG, Jasun! You had better watch your pronouns!!! Maybe time to flee South over the border to the good old USA where mis-gender pronouns have not (yet) been criminalized. Or will you stay in BC and take some of those anti-gender bias courses that will rehabilitate your vocabulary?
http://dailycaller.com/2017/06/16/canada-passes-law-criminalizing-use-of-wrong-gender-pronouns/
“Canada passed a law Thursday making it illegal to use the wrong gender pronouns. Critics say that Canadians who do not subscribe to progressive gender theory could be accused of hate crimes, jailed, fined, and made to take anti-bias training”
RE: “Canada Passed a Law”…….Oh for heaven’s sake (ooops can I still use that word or is it banned like Easter Eggs needing to be called Spring Spheres?http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1376539/Seattle-school-renames-Easter-eggs-Spring-Spheres.html) this is getting more and more ridiculous by the day! …I like the comments this young woman makes re “Feminine Consultant Teaching Transwomen How to Play Women”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2EdBUeNlW4
Your reflections on the transgender fad are interesting. I have a two-part take on it, or maybe three- part. First, remember the famous saying from Thomas Aquinas: gratia supponit et perfecit naturam–“Grace supports nature and brings it to perfection.” That is, nature and grace are not opposed. They are mutually supporting. That is to dignify the physical body and make the idea of grace attainable. This idea was thrown out at the so-called Reformation–Martin Luther detested Aquinas and the philosophical tradition behind the idea of mutually supporting grace and nature.
SO: what does this do? It makes the idea of grace anti-natural and anti-body. In reality we are living through the culmination and logical result of Protestantism, the divorce of spirit and life. Everything we do in the modern age is extolled if it somehow contradicts or overcomes nature. Is this not so?
Second part: — not so esoteric– sexual experimentation, promiscuity, homosexuality, breakdown of marriage and family, etc. are quite consciously fostered by the “globalists” or the “elites” or the “Zionists” or whatever you want to call them– for the purpose of breaking down the culture, destroying Christianity, and making man cultureless and malleable. It’s political manipulation in the extreme.
Part three: so what happens when people lack cultural grounding and become malleable playthings, falling prey to sexual fashions? Rene Girard writes about “mimesis.” Young people imitate other young people who want these operations. It’s a case study in violent contagion. It can only happen in societies on the cusp of deterioration — I think you make that point somewhere.
Best wishes, keep up the good work– Caryl
Great article. It seems that the article used the transgender subject as more of a back drop as opposed to the main subject.
Which was a very pleasant surprise if I’m correct.
To me, this was an article about personhood and possible explorations we could all take if we can learn to step away from the din of cultural and personal exploitation through whatever means we’ve been assaulted by it.
Very well done.
It is now, simply,Back to Basics.
RE:lyrac –“Grace supports nature and brings it to perfection.” That is, nature and grace are not opposed. They are mutually supporting”
Dakini Shakti Malan:http://www.shaktimalan.com/about-shakti/
Lovers Unite Beyond Identities that Divide
There is a force in this world stronger than any attempt by any superpower to create division, animosity and war between people. It is the force of Love. Whether we live in the Amazon or New York City, whether we are 14 or 94, black or white, straight, gay or transgender, rich or poor – Love is what makes our humanity sing.
For too long have we been defining ourselves as human beings through categories of inclusion and exclusion, through unconscious hegemonies of power held by those with the most mainstream and dominant identities. It is brutally clear by now that this way of co-existing is only creating war and destruction.
But what do we have left if we drop the labels that define us? What if we could get in underneath our understandings of gendered, racial and sexual identities – and meet ourselves, and each other, in the naked, innocent purity of Love? What if love as erotic attraction becomes a universal force that unifies rather than divides us?
Can we truly start to imagine a world which is ABOUT making love, and not war? And can we stand together – speak together – create together – a world which goes beyond every definition we have ever known – a world built entirely from us following 100% the knowing of our hearts?
I liked the Paglia links also, so thanks. Related to her bit about ISIS hating our decadence — to me its ironic because this laser focus on freeing the mind (spirit) from matter is the ultimate expression of the whole Piscean Age ontos: matter bad/ soul good. Thus Elon Musk or Paul Bowles saying lets just upload our soul essence into an iridium chip &c.
Related closely is the other part of the whole Islamo Christian thing: there can be only one Truth and even thinking otherwise leads to damnation and soul oblivion.
As to ancestors, before the Hellenistic- Christian push toward monotheism, people venerated their ancestors in a healthy way. Now thanks to Jesus or Science, the ancestors are all either in hell or simply dirt. (h/t Lou Reed). If the shamans are right and those weird things you meet in DMT trips are souls or spirits, then worrying so much about necrodestination is really a laughable waste of time.
I think you’re onto something.
Thanks everyone for the comments. A few recent thoughts I’ve been having.
The concept of rights is a Trojan Horse for coercion. Who or what is bestowing these rights if not the same entities that are controlling our behaviors to begin with?
I don’t see a clear line between harming other people’s bodies and harming one’s own. The unexplored question is what constitutes harm.
The current push is to raise up ego-defense feelings over the body’s natural needs for optimal functionality. Fragmentation over wholeness.
As a general rule, the body knows best, nothing is superfluous just because we think it is. Grace & nature work together. If we are opposed to nature, that’s not grace that;s moving us but something else. Dis-grace?
As Trans shows, every “right” bestowed by the state entails taking others away; what the state gives with one hand, it takes away with the other. What it never gives is awareness of the possibilities of discovering our own resources. I am not sure how that could be made into a “right.”
If a person is possessed by an ancestral fragment that identifies with a former gendered life, what are their options? Of course, this isn’t a question scientism is going to be asking anytime soon.
I don’t have the right to have my body buried in the garden; or to drink raw milk from a cow (in Canada & parts of the US), or work on my own car (if it runs on protected software). But the state has the right to take my children away if I don’t support a corporate drive to encourage him or her to have sex change.
The context is important here. A person can only have a “right” to surgically alter their body because the corporations are selling the tech. That same person does not have a right to cut themselves with a razor blade, much less castrate themselves. That is considered self-harming and they can be committed for that. But if they pay the system to do it to them, then it is self-improvement and they are championed as public spokespeople.
The same system that tells us we cannot drink raw cow-milk is telling us we can surgically alter our gender. Think about that. What does that indicate about the drive behind this bestowal of “rights”?
There is a big big difference between giving trans people HRT and giving them surgery, although most people don’t seem to see it that way. If a person is neurologically transgender, then giving them HRT actually provides them great relief from a whole variety of psychological, psycho-somatic, and physical symptoms, for which no other treatment has proven nearly as effective. (Plus it also gradually gives them the secondary sexual characteristics that they really really desire, so it’s kind of a win-win from both their perspective and from that of the states).
It’s the untreated, un-self-aware trans people that have the real mental health problems, the ones that go really crazy as they get older, and start telling people they are the reincarnation of the son of God or whatever, or they just feel really mistreated by the world and set out to take their revenge on the innocent, through outright violence for the low IQ and social manipulation for the high IQ, for a lifetime of mounting frustration and being perpetually misunderstood, for reasons they cannot fully understand or explain. I’m sure if you let the people that really want to, transition as early as possible, with the full acceptance of their parents and community, before they go too far off the rails, you’d find you’d also dramatically reduce the prison population. You kind of need to factor the cost of potential long-term treatment against the knock-on costs of withholding it.
You let a latent trans woman actually be a women, and you kill two birds with one stone, they feel that much better almost instantaneously, they get a healthier outlet for all their latent otherwise barely suppressed narcissism, and they even club together and actively campaign to collectively be allowed to removed from the gene pool, and so don’t pass on their possible accumulated genetic defects further down the line. It’s kinda eugenics by the backdoor, but it’s framed as a civil rights issue to make them think their lifestyle choices are being fully ‘respected’, and they are not oh-so subtly being culled.
Just read back through some of this stuff to see how much happier they usually get..
https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/board,42.0.html
There are probably no ancestral fragments of past lives that posses people, well no more than subtle forms of epigenetic inheritance direct from parent-to-child at any rate.
Come on, it’s the 21st century now, we have the human genome project finished, and even consumer-level DNA sequencing already, so there are really just brains, which can be partially or fully ‘corrupted’ if you will, by prenatal hormonal fluctuations, and various other genetic or chromosomal abnormalities that make people more or less susceptible to the various hormones which usually act in concert to define the structure of the brain, the parietal lobe, cerebellum, corpus callosum etc. and thus the parameters of the internally experienced psyche, and subconscious sex-specific identification and behaviors.
I really don’t know why people seem so inclined to posit the existence of strange ethereal forces to explain the physical biological processes and phenomena which are more or less now understood.
I think the human body should know best, for a fully-formed male or female it generally knows what it really needs to be healthy. Except that mankind has been messing about with the natural processes of reproduction somewhat, and some people are being born a bit messed up, so some small fraction of people now need a little help to feel optimally functional and less psychically fragmented.
No one now disagrees that it was ‘us’ not ‘God’ that made a mistake with thalidomide, so why is it so hard to believe that a collective ‘we’ might have made another serious mistake with hormonal pregnancy supplements and contraception and so forth?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/10819186/Is-this-the-forgotten-thalidomide.html
Right well, I guess certain people would prefer that no one thought to sue them over that kind of thing, so hey, lets call it ‘civil rights’ if you like.. Better still, if you can even get people to pay for their own treatment..
The thing is that you are drawn to comment here because of your prior-interest in trans issues, which is fine and good, but the context which I and my readers and listeners are looking at this question is not one that you are interested in, since you consider it ethereal rubbish. But when you comment something like “Come on, it’s the 21st century now, we have the human genome project finished, and even consumer-level DNA sequencing already, so there are really just brains,” you are like a Christian fundie at an atheists convention. The focus of this blog-space is depth psychological and soul-oriented, it’s not scientistic- reductionist. If you don’t allow for any difference between a deep-psychological experiential investigation of the Soul and religious dogmatism, then you are probably in the wrong place, so far as getting much satisfaction, at least.
Re: HRT and giving relief to people suffering gender confusion. What needs to be factored in here, IMO, is more than just a person’s emotional and mental relief. If relief was the only measure of suitability, then shrinks would prescribe alcohol to their patients. What are the side effects of HRT? What is the original cause of the confusion and is the HRT addressing that or sidestepping it? Our current culture is one that tends to blindly accept the suitability of medical solutions, based on the premise that “we are just brains, right?” or just biological machines to be adjusted chemically or otherwise to keep the feeling-thinking ego self “happy” (gratified). But the main benefits of this approach, IMO, aren’t the individual, or even the collective, but the State that requires a docile, stupefied slave class to maintain it. A Brave New World.
The argument that doing whatever it takes to keep ourselves happy (provide relief for our confusion) depends on ignoring the reality that we are going to die eventually anyway, and it wont make any difference whether we were happy or not. It supposes that there is no other reason for us to be here besides being as comfortable and as content as we can be, and then dying.
But from this point of view, doesn’t it make just as much sense to focus only on the organism and override all feelings of desire and distress that don’t directly serve that organism (i.e., an ascetic lifestyle)?
As I see it, we want to satisfy our shallow desires for comfort, gratification, and pain relief, and then we come up with the (equally shallow) rationalizations to do so. The Soul – our deepest & truest nature – is the first casualty of this convenience.
RE:”Come on, it’s the 21st century now, we have the human genome project finished, and even consumer-level DNA sequencing already, so there are really just brains,”
This was written to the scientific community at CERN by the late, highly regarded Western Spiritual Master Barry Long.1991 http://www.barrylong.org/statements/speedoflight.shtml
“The present scientific mind is searching for balance through activity, mistaking this for equilibrium. But balance is simply the balance of forces – the balance of existence. You will manifest that particle, as I say, but your creation will still be in existence, still as good as a mile away from the original state.
The fact that your findings increasingly agree with those of the cosmologists is also predictable. You are both looking for the same thing with the same present scientific mind and therefore creating that thing – one in the micro field and the other in the macro field. Thus I can confidently say without any possi- bility of error that each in time will confirm the other’s discov- eries. Like you, the cosmologists will find the macro equivalent of ‘top quark’ – but once again, the ultimate, the universe, will be seen to have receded. The carrot will still be a foot from the donkey’s mouth – and I do not mean that disrespectfully.
What you are really looking for, of course, is the consciousness of the absolute. But due to the limitations of present scientific thought all you can employ is consciousness of the ultimate. The difference is that consciousness of the absolute is your own pure consciousness which is without limitation; and consciousness of the ultimate is the consciousness of the brain. Consciousness is behind or beyond the brain, which is the ultimate limitation, or the limitation or end of ultimate knowledge. Ultimate refers to ‘last’ or ‘furthest’ so the present scientific brain is always looking into the past – e.g. for the beginning of the universe – when it is logically evident that what precedes the beginning, or the past, is the present, now. The consciousness of this is the con- sciousness or realisation of the absolute – the state beyond the ultimate or the state beyond the brain.”
New men’s fashion
http://www.sadanduseless.com/2017/02/fashion/#Wu1flkGYC2gAccSd.99
If the saying is true that “clothes make the man,” then would these fellows require re-christening into the Church of England?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4612762/Church-England-chief-backs-christenings.html
Church of England chief backs ‘re-christenings’ after sex changes: Officials risk furious backlash by introducing ‘services of welcome’
* Church of England suggests offering transgender Christians re-christenings
* Move is believed to provoke a furious backlash among some traditionalists
* Last year committee said rules that might stop people changing sex should be abolished
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfhErut2-j8&t=2s
https://radio.therightstuff.biz/2017/06/09/the-paranormies-present-the-ahnenerbe-hour-s2-ep16-pedotube/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQP3bsv600s Generation Snowflake
“Students at the prestigious University of Michigan are claiming to be “intimidated” by the “masculine” wood paneling on the walls of academic buildings on campus.
Anna Wibbelman, former president of Building a Better Michigan, stated at a student government meeting that “minority students felt marginalized by quiet, imposing masculine paneling”
http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2017/05/18/university-of-michigan-students-intimidated-by-masculine-wood-paneling-in-academic-buildings/
Is it possible that this or other seemingly spoofish examples are exactly that: live-action-role-playing (LARP-ing) by irreverent lulz-seekers to see who believes it & rofl-ing in secret when it gets taken stone cold seriously? There must be some element of this by now, surely? This is the sound of me trying to be optimistic.
‘Binary and absolute differences’ relate to ‘exploitative structures’
“Feminist researcher supports ‘combining intersectionality and quantum physics’ ”
https://www.thecollegefix.com/post/32830/
A feminist academic from the Netherlands has written an article melding the worlds of quantum physics and intersectionality in a journal published by Duke University Press.
Whitney Stark argues in support of “combining intersectionality and quantum physics” to create “different perspectives on organizing practices” conducted by “marginalized people,” and to enable “safer spaces,” in the latest issue of The Minnesota Review.
She is a listed as a “current researcher” in the Somatechnics Research Network, hosted by the University of Arizona, whose scholars “reflect on the mutual inextricability of embodiment and technology.”
Stark identifies “classical Newtonian physics” as one of the guiding sciences at the heights of Western imperialism, “which identifies separated beings and absolute differences between particles and waves, space and time.”
“This structural thinking of individualized separatism with binary and absolute differences as the basis for how the universe works… is embedded in many structures of classification,” according to Stark.
“Assembled Bodies
Reconfiguring Quantum Identities
Whitney Stark
Abstract
In this semimanifesto, I approach how understandings of quantum physics and cyborgian bodies can (or always already do) ally with feminist anti-oppression practices long in use. The idea of the body (whether biological, social, or of work) is not stagnant, and new materialist feminisms help to recognize how multiple phenomena work together to behave in what can become legible at any given moment as a body. By utilizing the materiality of conceptions about connectivity often thought to be merely theoretical, by taking a critical look at the noncentralized and multiple movements of quantum physics, and by dehierarchizing the necessity of linear bodies through time, it becomes possible to reconfigure structures of value, longevity, and subjectivity in ways explicitly aligned with anti-oppression practices and identity politics. Combining intersectionality and quantum physics can provide for differing perspectives on organizing practices long used by marginalized people, for enabling
apparatuses that allow for new possibilities of safer spaces, and for practices of accountability.”
I thought this was interesting ….
https://www.demilked.com/androgynous-model-rain-dove/
Man Or Woman? This Androgynous Model Will Make You Rethink Gender Stereotypes
“When I was a firefighter they thought I was a male … and I went with it because I really needed a job …”
Now, Rain Dove is an activist.
“We’re all struggling to be unique”
“And the most unique thing you can be is yourself”
“The gender thing doesn’t exist”
“It’s a social construct you don’t have to fit into”
“There are people who will love you”
“There are people who accept you”
Baby becomes world’s first to have gender marked ‘unknown’
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/baby-becomes-worlds-first-gender-marked-unknown-090706538.html
An eight-month-old baby is possibly the first person in the world to have their gender marked as ‘unknown’ on their health card.
Searyl Atli’s gender has marked with a ‘U’ on her Canadian health card, standing for ‘undetermined’ or ‘unassigned’.
The baby’s parent, Kori Doty, does not identify as male or female and prefers to use the pronoun ‘they’, and wants to raise Searyl’s genderless until the baby has a “sense of self and command of vocabulary to tell me who they are”.
>The baby’s parent, Kori Doty, does not identify as male or female
And yet they happily (I assume) bore the child, performing, at least for that time, the female role. This is the kind of episode which tends to discredit the field.
Given that the mother didn’t like to have a gender ascribed to herself, then one might consider it possible that the child’s sex/gender was not undeterminable from its anatomy, but rather that she chose to withhold identification for her own reasons.
Jasun,
While I appreciate and applaud your deep concern for the complex issue of human transgenderism, I wonder if you might also extend that same concern to the plight of transgender fish?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/07/02/fish-becoming-transgender-contraceptive-pill-chemicals-flushed/
Fish becoming transgender from contraceptive pill chemicals being flushed down household drains
Court rules in favor of gay man forced into conversion therapy by Henan hospital
—————
On Tuesday, a court in Henan province ruled in favor of a gay man who brought a lawsuit last year against the government psychiatric hospital that forced him to undergo therapy aimed at changing his sexual orientation.
The court in Zhumadian has ordered the hospital to publicly apologize to the man, surnamed Yu, and pay him 5000 yuan in compensation for subjecting him to more than two weeks of brutal forced conversion therapy.
The 38-year-old man was kidnapped and brought to the Zhumadian Psychiatric Hospital against his will by his wife’s family after she discovered his true sexual preference. Despite the fact that homosexuality was removed from China’s list of psychiatric disorders in 2001, the hospital still diagnosed Yu with “sexual preference disorder.”
In order to “cure” him of this “disorder,” Yu was beaten and drugged over the next 19 days at the hospital, finally getting out after his friend called the police.
The case follows a landmark ruling by a Beijing court in 2014 against a private Chongqing counseling center (and Baidu) which had used electroshock conversion therapy in an attempt to “cure” one man’s homosexuality, leaving him traumatized.
Is there any actual way to link between the 3 different pages of this article? There don’t appear to be any links to other pages on your blog here which makes navigating a little hard.
I added links to the bottom of parts 1 & 2
I was trying to get back to those from this one!
I accidentally posted this to part 2 by mistake when it is appropriate to this Part 3 concerning the subject of apotemnophilia.
I want to make a comment about the apotemnophilia point that was raised.
This condition could be psychologically derived, or it could be due to brain mapping dysfunction.
With transsexuals there are many other characteristics.
I have cited evidence not only from Ramachandran who demonstrates evidence that there is a neurological mapping issue with at least some transsexuals, but I have also mentioned the work of Gooren, Zhou et al from the early 2000s relating to the striate nucleus, a neurological body related to the fight or flight response (which is gender dimorphic) as well as the evidence on rodent brain development and sexual behaviour, which probably relates to the hypothalamus as well as possibly other brain structures.
I have also mentioned the case for sex/gender dimorphic brains. Simply put, all mammals display sexually dimorphic behaviour from instinct, and their behavioural differences are clearly only slightly influenced by social learning.
So while transsexuals may have brain structures which would produce a sense of apotemnophilia, I would argue that there is, or at least can be, more to this, with it being in many cases a global neurological phenomenon, which includes instinctual behaviour from the structures mentioned as well as possibly others. One of the comments I notice mentioned neotyny, and I think that transsexualism is in some way due to that or a related phenomenon. Certainly in my own case I was a late developer in most things physically, particularly puberty.
In addition to this I would mention anecdotal observations by many about how androgynous transsexuals often are, even before any medical treatment. I see transsexuals who have bodily morphology, skeletal proportions and so forth appropriate to their desired sex/gender and who pass already to some extent as their desired sex/gender even before any medical treatment.
I would suggest that the transsexual phenomenon relates to the concept of morphic field, or the ‘Spectral dimension’ argued by Dr Jason Reza Jorjani in his Prometheus and Atlas.
I’m inclined to believe that this relates in some way to Androgen Insensitivity, at least in MtF, the condition in which genetic males fail to virilise in utero and results in a female phenotype despite the male genotype.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenotype
In my own case my phenotype was quite androgynous, but also I had a minor birth defect besides which the presence of male hormone in my body caused a medical problem which was only resolved when the male hormone was blocked. And to add to the confusion, when I underwent medical examination my female hormone levels were so high that the doctor I was seeing was convinced I was already taking female hormones. So clearly I had a hormonal war going on within my body.
So my position on apotemnophilia is that while this condition indeed exists, classic taxonomic transsexualism would arise from a global neurological condition, probably caused in utero, although possibly consolidated in the neonatal period. A diagnosis of apotemnophilia would thus be incorrect as the apotemnophiliac appearance is actually part of a larger global neurological feminisation of the brain (in the case of MtF for example).
Recycling some comments from my emails to you, with additions:
My interest in transgender – and in human sexuality in general – is relative to two primary contexts: firstly, the past, that of long-term social and cultural engineering that is driven by organized programs of sexual child abuse, extending to the effects of trauma in general, regarding the fragmentation of the psyche, which I consider universal; 2) the ways in which our social reality (inc. language) has become so distorted (& fragmented) that we no longer have the perceptual or cognitive tools to understand, apprehend, or talk about deeper reality at all, and are currently being policed into a kind of doublethink-newspeak that is both founded in and further exacerbates a profound state of disembodiment and dissociation.
One thing I’d say is close to a position that I do have is that the organic, embodied union between man and woman & the creation of life is the cornerstone of human existence and as yet it has never really been accomplished in a way that is healthful, natural, and trauma-free, even as we are collectively moving further and further from this, our divine potential. Yet the common view now is similar to, “Been there, done that, all I got was this lousy T-shirt,” that all these other emerging variations of human desire are just as good as – or better than – the one that Nature designed us for. This is total bullshit IMO, and in fact all this diversity is simply the inevitable result of a culture in decline. Meanwhile, there can be no healthy society that isn’t founded upon the holy trinity of natural man, natural woman (the harmony of the opposites), natural child-birth, trauma-free.
This doesn’t extend to some crazed desire to eradicate any kind of coupling that isn’t “vanilla,” since in our current condition that might mean eradicating every last man and woman and trans on earth (& anyway I don’t ever prescribe social recourses). What it does entail is a refusal, on my part, to accept the pushed narrative that says there are all these natural variations on the procreative blueprint of Nature itself, as opposed to trauma-sourced fragmentations and distortions running amok.
Maybe there are cases, but until I see compelling evidence that factors in the evidence I am presenting, then I will remain in a questioning position. Meanwhile, I don’t need to show that every expression of “non-vanilla” human sexuality or gender-identification is trauma-sourced (which would obviously be impossible), only that some are, and of this I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever. And if there are some, then these are the cases that interest me, and that’s my avenue of investigation.
to be clear, I reject the notion of a gendered self, or of the existence of gender outside of biological sex
there may be a Self in a Jungian sense, a Soul-Psyche that is the core of the true individual and that pre-exists biology; but I can see no logical basis for assigning a gender to this, in fact I see that as inherently contradictory, since sex-gender relates to procreation via genitals and a Soul-Self has no body.
I feel roughly the same way about your brain hypotheses as you do about my ancestral trauma ones, so this may be an impasse. To rely on so much medical jargon to me indicates a kind of entrenchment (something I do worry about myself when it comes to my heavily psychological viewpoint, hence I try to keep it simple and experiential). I admit I don’t fully understand your position so it would be wrong to reject something I don’t understand. But I still think the onus is on you to provide a larger context for some sort of third sex or biological screw-up that technology is required to correct, and to do it in simple language that doesn’t require the reader to bone up on all sorts of possibly bogus (and constantly changing) brain science. That stuff always cuts both ways anyway, as I showed in the article.
I’m also surprised to hear you cite something as New Agey as morphic fields; not sure how that is any more solid or scientific than ancestral souls.
Obviously I can’t argue with someone who says they are happy with their decision or tell them they aren’t. But the number of times I have heard people insist they were trauma-free while all the evidence screams to the contrary, that’s really a red flag in and of itself. The world is the way it is because of something; it didn’t just start going the way it has gone without some base cause.
People manage however they can; you made your choice and so naturally you are committed to arguing in favor of it. You want to testify to the benefits of transitioning, while I am questioning this in a larger social context. But I’m not here to question individual choices. I can discuss homosexuality as a possible paraphilia based in mother-enmeshment, etc., without directly challenging someone who wants to live that lifestyle; it’s up to them if they feel challenged or not. Same with talking about the harm done by medication and how it fails to address the root cause of “mental illness.” It’s not the same as telling people they shouldn’t take meds. It’s just looking at the facts. My position is that I don’t have to take on someone else’s beliefs simply because they feel threatened by mine.
I think the base disagreement is you want to present a biological explanation that is not rooted in psychology, and while I don’t rule that out, I’d need to see some solid basis for why biology is mutating in this way and why, if it is biology doing it, it requires human technology to “correct” the biology that’s doing it. There is, IMO, an inherent contradiction in the arguments for transitioning as natural response to biological conditions.
On the other hand, if you are simply saying that, for some people, this is the only way they know how to deal with a difficult predicament, then you’ll get no argument from me,
Lots of points here so I’ll try to isolate them.
A simple one. Morphic fields. I only mentioned this briefly as I knew you would not consider it evidence. However, I have looked into the subject quite extensively and especially in view of Dr Jorjani’s ‘Prometheus and Atlas’ I think it even more likely. If anyone wants to look into this further I would suggest that book on this point.
But I don’t put it out there as a cornerstone of my argument, although some of your stuff about ancestral spirits is surely not far from it and as nearly New Agey as that?
Before I respond to any further questions I will just add that your refusal to accept my points I find unhelpful. There is a great deal of material in the literature about sex differences which may be applied to this condition, but there is very little on the ancestral spirit possession to support your own view, at least that I am aware of.
I’ll get back to the article here. Some of the stuff at the top of the page is stuff I would wish to have no association with and I simply don’t want to talk about it as it has absolutely nothing to do with me.
Further down:
>A society in which those individuals with especially fluid, anomalous, or unstable identities were given the necessary space and compassion (and attention) to be “liminal,” to remain essentially noncommittal about their sexual or gender orientation or anything else. Imagine a social environment where there was no pressure to fit in at all (provided one was not being actively hostile).
This is a very interesting point as it is exactly what the Radical Feminists said to me over thirty years ago.
Trouble is, I never wanted to be ‘liminal’. I was always quite clear what I wanted. I wanted to be a girl. I spent most of my twenties fighting it until I accepted that it was not a fight that could be won.
When I did begin to transition, that was what they said to me.
It seems to me that almost the entire flow of your three pieces is directed against the cultural push to promote transgenderism. Which in so far as that goes, I applaud.
But what you completely fail to understand, is that many transsexuals got into this decades before any transgender movement and so forth.
My own transition was accomplished in the face of extreme social opposition. The lionisation of transgender we see today was entirely the opposite back in the eighties and even more for those who went earlier.
>social identity, whether it refers to “gender,” “race,” “class,” or all three, and regardless of how many bells and whistles are added to it, is the primary cause of human alienation
Well I’m just going to have to disagree. Social identity can be a two edged sword. Even the poorest people can have a strong pride in their social identity and I really respect that. I utterly reject the ‘We’re all the same, we’re all One’ stuff we get from the New Age left.
>The saddest part is that those exploited souls are being turned into advocates of the corporations, and pushing the very agendas that are exploiting them onto others.
No-one was pushing this as an agenda in the mid-eighties, it was social outcast territory. No-one encouraged me, it was something I had to drive on my own, and no-one exploited me. Except perhaps the Gender Studies department who wanted me as their poster child, but I didn’t go along with that.
> it comes down to indulging people’s whims regardless of whether we understand them or not
There are diagnostic assessments which can give indications as to the probabilities of success in this matter. It is not hit and miss, or at least it shouldn’t be. Obviously doctors putting through patients who should not be. There was a doctor called Russell Reid who had his license to make SRS referrals revoked because he was too free with them and someone regretted their surgery. That kind of thing is too common these days and is what you are talking about, but always you seem to conflate the entire umbrella population which is highly diverse so this is poor argument.
>may well have begun as reaction against a Procrustean social view of gender
Again you are suggesting a social origin for the phenomenon, without actual evidence ~ ‘may well have’.
>What might be on the other side of that threshold of sexual identity confusion, if the movement was directed inward rather than outward?
I don’t know as far as others are concerned, but my own path was the result of a movement that was directed inward for several years in my mid twenties. As I believe I have mentioned elsewhere, it was only after I had completed my Art Therapy training that I came to understand I could not change the way I felt.
The problem I am facing is that while you may say
> if you are simply saying that, for some people, this is the only way they know how to deal with a difficult predicament, then you’ll get no argument from me
you have mounted what comes over as an argument that ‘They should not exist’. Well, in an ideal world, probably not, but it’s not ideal, and things don’t always go to plan. This whole thing seems to amount to you wanting me to have taken a different path or something. I had this with the Gender Studies people. They seemed to think they had the right to interpret me, and they didn’t. And you don’t either. If you won’t accept my own reports of my ‘inner movement’ as you put it, then what can I do?
You say that I would justify my path even if I had regretted it. That’s really going over the edge in terms of all that you have said so far that keeps on coming back to you don’t believe my account, you even cast doubt on it so as to evade dealing with the points I make.
This is the last point for now. You say that those people who engaged in sex reassignment in the past are part of the current transgender push whether they like it or not.
I utterly reject this assertion. I would say that, on the contrary, Cultural Marxists, Feminists and the general left have appropriated the phenomenon in order to use it for their own nefarious purposes.
Reviewing the material on the existence of transsexualism it becomes clear that long before any transgender movement, even hundreds of years ago, there were trans people. Until quite recently it went on quietly in the background. Now, in the last few years, since things like the Gender Recognition Act 2004, which is extremely flawed, activists have tried to push for the decoupling of sex and gender entirely. Most classic transsexuals would say that we have never wanted to deconstruct the social gender we were brought up with, we don’t find it Procrustean, we just want to fit in on that spectrum in a place where we would be more comfortable.
Being blamed for what is happening when I am one of the few transsexual people out there making a stand against it in the alternative media is a bit rich, really!
Question: If there are no neurological sex differences (in this I include the nerve complexes in the heart, solar plexus and other locations in the body) then how do differences in instinctual behaviour arise?
>Question: If there are no neurological sex differences (in this I include the nerve complexes in the heart, solar plexus and other locations in the body) then how do differences in instinctual behaviour arise?
This stems from a prior assumption that the brain determines instinctive behavior; all your arguments around this are brain-centric and I have already addressed why I don’t go along with brain-centricism.
>You say that those people who engaged in sex reassignment in the past are part of the current transgender push whether they like it or not.
I didn’t say this in this in those exact words, and so, once again, you are subtly distorting my points and then disagreeing with them. Please quote me exactly, to avoid this sort of “discussion creep.”
>This is a very interesting point as it is exactly what the Radical Feminists said to me over thirty years ago.
And look where they are now! It’s ironic that I find myself in agreement with Rad Fem theory since overall I would have said I was unsympathetic to feminism as a movement, even though I recognize the genuine motivations behind it (as well as the not-genuine ones).
>But what you completely fail to understand, is that many transsexuals got into this decades before any transgender movement and so forth.
So either something that emerged randomly due to social factors was exploited, or it was being engineered from a very early time. Probably a bit of both.
>Well I’m just going to have to disagree. Social identity can be a two edged sword.
I agree that some social identity is unavoidable, so not all bad. I didn’t say that social identity invariably leads to alienation, however, but that the primary cause of alienation is (a confining) social identity. I will stick by that statement, allowing that there is a still deeper cause for the creation of confining social identity (namely trauma, fragmentation, and dissociation). As a general rule, the more de-fining a social identity is, the more con-fining.
>No-one was pushing this as an agenda in the mid-eighties, it was social outcast territory.
That depends how you trace it back; as a continuation of the social drive to normalize and celebrate sexual difference, then it began well before the 1980s. The Trans movement can be seen, as social phenomenon, as being a clear continuation of the homosexual rights movement.
>Except perhaps the Gender Studies department who wanted me as their poster child, but I didn’t go along with that.
You contradict your previous statement here. If someone wanted you as their Poster Child, then someone was pushing an agenda.
>you have mounted what comes over as an argument that ‘They should not exist’.
That’s patently ridiculous and in fact I went out of my way in my last comment to make it clear that wasn’t what I was saying here.
>This whole thing seems to amount to you wanting me to have taken a different path or something
You’re making it about yourself because you identify as Trans (even though you say you don’t). You present yourself as “exhibit A” that transitioning is a healthy/necessary life choice, and that it has nothing at all to do with environmental/psychological factors (except perhaps for chemical ones!). But then you object if I address your own personal life choices or past, even indirectly. You want to have it both ways because, of course, then your position is unassailable. You can argue whatever you want and if I question it, I am impinging on your sense of identity. That’s exactly the kind of manipulative tactics you profess to despise about the Trans Agenda (if I read you right).
At my end, what I experience is that you want me to change my point of view about reality to make room for you, a single individual. Look at how many comments you have made at these three posts so far! This is just one person’s blog: why does it matter so much to you what I think? I can’t imagine, for myself, caring enough about someone else’s point of view as to try and set them straight to this extent.
>Well, in an ideal world, probably not, but it’s not ideal, and things don’t always go to plan
What would be different in an ideal world that would prevent gender confusion or the need to transition? This comment causes me to wonder if we disagree as much as you think we do.
>You say that I would justify my path even if I had regretted it.
Again, I don’t believe I said this, so I would need an exact quote to address it. I seem to be a sort of stand-in for a voice in your head you are arguing against.
>you don’t believe my account, you even cast doubt on it so as to evade dealing with the points I make.
Where exactly does it say that I am obliged to believe anyone’s account of themselves? I believe you are sincere, and that’s the reason I continue to engage with you in this discussion. But that’s as far as it goes. If someone tells me they were abducted by aliens, believing they are sincere does not mean I believe their account.
>But I don’t put it out there as a cornerstone of my argument, although some of your stuff about ancestral spirits is surely not far from it and as nearly New Agey as that?
I didn’t say it was; I don’t have a firm position against metaphysical readings the way you do (though I feel the same way about New Ageism).
Ancestralism is just common sense, to me. Your viewpoint, from what I can tell, seems characteristic of the nihilistic late modern phase in which we are all discreet snowflakes being created from within by our own wills, entirely unshaped by environmental factors, it’s only that you have elevated the brain to the throne of being, in place of a soul. My position is the inverse, that no individual exists save as a biological organism and even there, it’s blurry line between organism and environment (and family and social system). So any phenomenon at all, currently transgenderism, is always a result of environmental and psychological factors. Always, without exception, at least barring divine intervention which I don’t rule out as a possibility either (though in this current case I would). There is an aspect of us that is eternal and unaffected by the phenomenal universe, but this is also the part, for obvious reasons, that has no problem or issue with its phenomenal existence. As I understand it, you want to posit something emerging into the phenomenal world (a female brain in a male body, e.g.) that is not a byproduct of that world, i.e., not an expression of prior distortions or dysfunctions (and we ARE talking about something dysfunctional here, by definition). Yet this discreet brain-self is somehow compelled to adjust its biology to better fit into the phenomenal world, socially, rather than tracing its discomfort back to its root cause (past the brain-body dysfunction). It doesn’t make any sense.
To you, switching sex fixed your problem. From my point of you, you only palmed it off on subsequent generations, because, outside of some fancy talk about brain function, the deeper cause remains unexplored.
Also, I am still unclear as to why you resist the trauma-interpretation: is it simply because you are 100% sure there is nothing like that in your own past? Or is there something you find inherently objectionable about positing trauma and fragmentation as a causal factor in gender dysphoria?
Regarding apotemnophilia: I am curious what your position is on someone wanting to have their limbs removed to better suit their felt sense of identity? Should they be allowed? Is this intrinsically different in your view to sex changes; if so, why?
I just saw this on the subject:
The phenomenon is not as rare as one might think: healthy people deliberately setting out to rid themselves of one or more of their limbs, with or without a surgeon’s help. Why do pathologies sometimes arise as if from nowhere? Can the mere description of a condition make it contagious?
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/12/a-new-way-to-be-mad/304671/
Alright then, to put it even more simply: On what basis do sex differences in instinctual behaviour arise?
I’m not qualified to answer that but intuitively I would say, on a cellular basis. Male and female bodies they be different, dude. Instincts also can be scrambled.
Use of the appellation ‘dude’ in this instance is insulting. I am not a ‘dude’ so I would ask you to address me with respect. Okay?
respect is one thing; pussy footing is another.
I didn’t contradict myself. My example of when I faced social resistance was over thirty years ago. The occasion when I said I felt the Gender Studies people wanted me as a poster child was a mere seven or eight years ago. A lot had changed in the intervening space.
Hang on, I never said I don’t identify as trans! Where did you get this stuff from? I just don’t like the lobby, I thought that was clear.
Private correspondence: >you made your choice and so naturally you are committed to arguing in favor of it;
I think that’s tantamount to suggesting that I would say it was a success whether that was true or not. So to say such a thing is to indeed suggest that my statement that I have not regretted is questionable.
That’s extrapolation and the result the same, you’re getting me to argue a point I didn’t make in those exact terms (e.g. “regret”). It’s as if you think adding a word here or there makes no difference. What’s that expression about philosophizing with a hammer? I prefer to use a laser.
I don’t have a ‘position against metaphysical readings’. In fact, if you knew me and my online material better you would know that I’m big into metaphysics. And I do have metaphysical views about this. But I doubt whether you would consider them if you have problems with such well established ideas as morphic fields. Surely ‘ancestral possession’ is a pretty out there kind of a New Age concept isn’t it?
If you can find a new age source for it, then it must be. I personally never heard of it and thought I had coined it. I dont have a problem with morphic fields.
I don’t understand what you are referring to here. As far as morphic fields go, I have to ask why, if you don’t have a problem with morphic fields, you criticised my use of the idea when I mentioned it?
>If you can find a new age source for it, then it must be. I personally never heard of it and thought I had coined it. I dont have a problem with morphic fields.
I didnt criticize it, i said that it didn’t seem any more scientific than ancestral possession.
I have said repeatedly that I don’t have a problem with the idea of trauma as a possible cause amongst several. I just don’t think that I experienced trauma prior to my experiencing my sense of gender dysphoria. Continually badgering me on the subject as if you expect to get me to admit something myself is a waste of time. It is a possible in general cause, but I don’t see it in my experience, so please stop pressing me when I have already made my position clear.
If you don’t want to be pressed, I suggest you stop commenting at this blog. You don’t make the rules here, though it seems like you would like to, and that you feel this subject shouldn’t ever be discussed without your moderating influence.
Everyone has experienced trauma and most of us don’t remember it because it happens prior to the emergence of a mental memory-storing self and hence goes into the body. The mental memory-storing self (constructed identity) is, in this view, created through and as a defense against trauma.
One way to gauge for it, then, is, the more extreme behaviors and dysfunctions a person demonstrates (i.e., my brother, or myself), the more likelihood there is of intense trauma buried in a person’s body/psyche. Your own life trajectory includes what I would call extreme behaviors and dysfunctions (choosing to surgically and chemically alter sex).
If you don’t want to be see through that lens, then you need to keep out of my laboratory. I only have the one lens. It’s really that simple.
I don’t mind being in your laboratory, but what you do to me when I’m there is my business.
>Your own life trajectory includes what I would call extreme behaviors and dysfunctions (choosing to surgically and chemically alter sex).
You know almost nothing about my life or what I have experienced. I have however, given you some information privately about my medical history which most doctors would consider pertinent although you have ignored it. I would add that here you basically make a self qualifying statement. You believe that sex reassignment is an extreme and dysfunctional behaviour, so you posit that since I had sex reassignment I engaged in extreme behaviour and dysfunction. It is extreme, but that in itself is not sufficient to say that it is wrong. To say that it is dysfunctional is merely an unsupported assertion. It would have been more dysfunctional for me to commit suicide or mutilate myself as a result of my distress.
Sure we all experience some degree of trauma, but that is life. Your continual assertion that I must have experienced some trauma that must have had something to do with this is a mere assertion without supporting evidence. I think the real problem here is that you are projecting your own interpretations on me which are coloured by your own experiences.
Your absolute refusal to allow that there may be circumstances in which sex reassignment would be appropriate seems to me to be a fundamentalist viewpoint which is to use your own term ‘unassailable’.
>I don’t mind being in your laboratory, but what you do to me when I’m there is my business.
actually it’s my business too, and as i say, if you are consistently finding that you don’t like it, as seems to be the case, then I think it’s fair to ask why you keep coming back.
>It is extreme, but that in itself is not sufficient to say that it is wrong. To say that it is dysfunctional is merely an unsupported assertion.
The dysfunctional part I was referring to was the condition which you found yourself in prior to transitioning. The extreme part is the transitioning.
>Your absolute refusal to allow that there may be circumstances in which sex reassignment would be appropriate seems to me to be a fundamentalist viewpoint which is to use your own term ‘unassailable’.
I already said that reassignment, or medication, or any number of other recourses, might well be appropriate for someone, or the only way forward, as you put it, meaning the only way for them to deal with their level of distress and not combust. My point was that it may be more a way to avoid a problem than fully addressing it. I didn’t say that avoidance is never appropriate, however. I do it all the time. Again the assumption is, because certain behaviors are socially deemed inferior or whatever, that simply by naming them we end up reinforcing that social judgement. What i do want to reinforce is the idea that any behavior (inc avoidance) is generally better (more healthful) when done consciously than when done unconsciously.
Re Apotemnphilia. I don’t really have any position on this. Is it more common than usually understood?
It is non survival adaptive in ways that transsexualism is not is my prime concern. I could carry on my life, have a job, be a productive member of society, whereas if I had had my limbs amputated, I would not.
So I don’t think it is a good idea. Yes, possibly it is contagious, although I think anyone who picked this up would have to be pretty stupid not to exercise some cognitive override in such an instance.
If people are so unreasonable as to pursue this and fail to exercise cognitive override then there is probably not a lot can be done.
But I have given an account of how I think classic transsexualism only resembles this superficially. I have seen cases of men who have cut off their own penis but have no problem with existing in a male identity. I suppose this is a case of apotemnophilia but it is clearly distinct from classic transsexualism as I have argued above, so it’s not really my purview.
I don’t accept what you say here
>Ancestralism is just common sense, to me. Your viewpoint, from what I can tell, seems characteristic of the nihilistic late modern phase in which we are all discreet snowflakes being created from within by our own wills, entirely unshaped by environmental factors, it’s only that you have elevated the brain to the throne of being, in place of a soul. My position is the inverse, that no individual exists save as a biological organism and even there, it’s blurry line between organism and environment (and family and social system). So any phenomenon at all, currently transgenderism, is always a result of environmental and psychological factors. Always, without exception, at least barring divine intervention which I don’t rule out as a possibility either (though in this current case I would). There is an aspect of us that is eternal and unaffected by the phenomenal universe, but this is also the part, for obvious reasons, that has no problem or issue with its phenomenal existence. As I understand it, you want to posit something emerging into the phenomenal world (a female brain in a male body, e.g.) that is not a byproduct of that world, i.e., not an expression of prior distortions or dysfunctions (and we ARE talking about something dysfunctional here, by definition). Yet this discreet brain-self is somehow compelled to adjust its biology to better fit into the phenomenal world, socially, rather than tracing its discomfort back to its root cause (past the brain-body dysfunction). It doesn’t make any sense.
The ‘snowflakes’ remark is kind of insulting really.
Moving on, I do think that my condition is a by-product of the world, because I am a living person in the world and I am a physical being. And I have accepted, long ago, that this condition is a problem, so please stop beating me up with that. It is a by-product of some biochemistry which went wrong most likely. Your last sentence is not comprehensible to me. I suppose you are still pushing the ‘You should have looked inside and faced the true reality and then accepted yourself’ trope, but I did, yet you won’t accept my account. In fact you won’t accept pretty much anything I say. Indeed, I’ve disclosed material about my medical history to you in private correspondence which you haven’t even acknowledged or commented on in any way. They are facts of my medical history. I think really people like me have some kind of intersex type condition.
So may I ask, what do you think of intersex? Do they need to do whatever you decree necessary to heal their ancestral lines or something? You do seem to be suggesting again and again that I had some responsibility to deal with this in some other way than I did. And yet my own experience, confirmed my countless synchronicities and my own shamanic experiences is that I took the path which best expressed my energies.
I don’t understand what you say about the Rad Fems > And look where they are now!
Where? In my view Radical Feminism is not a good thing. It’s not clear to me what your own view on them is.
A couple of points I missed:
>I don’t understand what you say about the Rad Fems > And look where they are now!
Where? In my view Radical Feminism is not a good thing. It’s not clear to me what your own view on them is.
I was referring, a bit tongue in cheek, to the way in which that cultural movement has been ousted/co-opted by the trans one, insofar as men are once again defining what it means to be a woman and lesbian bars are being outlawed because they are anti-trans, and so forth (I forget the exact specifics here). I don’t have a clear view on rad feminism as a movement because I couldn’t list their arguments one by one. My general view is that women’s power is in their femininity, not in imitating men or adopting the values of so-called “patriarchal” society, and that the supposedly oppressive social roles of male and female are not really any more oppressive of women than they are of men, only women who want to have a particularly masculine sort of power & influence because they perceive that as having more social currency (which it once did, tho not anymore and it was always of dubious value anyway: the right to slave in factories and slaughtered in wars.). I do try and address arguments, beliefs, and individuals one at a time rather than take a blanket approach to anything, tho of course that’s difficult when we are stuck with the terms and the framing we have been given. But it occurs to me that your own experience as a transsexual who doesn’t agree with transgender movement may be similar to how many feminists feel about it, that their own identification (as women) is being taken from them by usurpers, and they are now being re-marginalized.
Which gets to the other question I missed: when I said you didn’t identify with trans, I meant transgender, as compared to transsexual.
>You present yourself as “exhibit A” that transitioning is a healthy/necessary life choice, and that it has nothing at all to do with environmental/psychological factors (except perhaps for chemical ones!). But then you object if I address your own personal life choices or past, even indirectly. You want to have it both ways because, of course, then your position is unassailable. You can argue whatever you want and if I question it, I am impinging on your sense of identity. That’s exactly the kind of manipulative tactics you profess to despise about the Trans Agenda (if I read you right).
Well, you don’t read me aright is what I have to say to that.
All I claim is that it worked out for me because I had the profile for it. I don’t object to you discussing my life choices, but you seem to be suggesting that I failed to take responsibility in taking the path you feel is the ‘correct’ one. I don’t see how I am wanting it ‘both ways’. I am not saying it is a ‘healthy/necessary life choice’. I am saying that in some cases it can be the only way forward. What is so wrong with that?
This entire thing has been about you trying to demonstrate that not only some, but *all* trans people are doing something that is fundamentally wrong. You don’t seem to want to understand the inner experience or drives behind it, but only to argue that people such as myself failed to take responsibility.
I accepted that you may have something with some of your ideas, but you seek to entirely reject everything I have offered.
You said earlier on that you didn’t have a position to defend, but clearly you do, and that position is becoming clearer as we go on. You’re entitled to a position, but I haven’t actually seen a great deal of evidence for you ancestral possession and fragmentation theory, while I have offered a great deal of material evidence and my own experience to support it, but you entirely reject it, so we’re not making as much progress as I’d hoped we might.
My sense is that you are reacting at a visceral level and this has been conditioned by some of the things you have seen and experienced. Your own traumas, the stuff with your brother, and that ‘spiritual teacher’ who suggested, even pushed the idea that you might be trans ~ an action which as a therapist myself I think is entirely wrong and I don’t blame you in the least for reacting strongly against them. But this has nothing to do with actual transsexual people who really do experience gender dysphoria. You should look at actual people’s lives rather than pontificate from a theoretical position.
>I am not saying it is a ‘healthy/necessary life choice’. I am saying that in some cases it can be the only way forward.
what’s the difference?
>What is so wrong with that?
you keep using terms like right and wrong; I’m trying to be careful with my language because I am aware of all the points you have brought up about me, so far, and the dangers of falling into these traps.
But everytime i try to present my reasoning you reframe it back into terms of a moral or other kind of judgment of you, personally.
>you seem to be suggesting that I failed to take responsibility in taking the path you feel is the ‘correct’ one.
not really; this is something I could say to anyone and everyone (and about myself on a daily basis) if I was so inclined and got into the nitty gritty of it with them. But it doesnt help to turn responsibility into a burden or overly literalize the notion of a right or wrong path, even with oneself much less with others. Addressing the consequences of forms of action doesn’t equal a moral judgment, because we aren’t able to act responsibility without self-awareness, in any case, so while there is accountability, there is no blame. I just try to be factual and upfront and I don’t mince words and in fact have a real aversion to doing so. I would guess you are used to being treated with an extra dollop of “respect” because your experience of changing sexes is difficult for people to relate to and so they are likely to want to defer and give you extra leeway. I’m not doing that, I’m extending to you the same amount of respect I would to anyone else, no more no less. No special treatment. Admittedlly the subject is charged for me, as well as you, but i don’t think you have zeroed in on the reasons why. I think this subject should be charged.
>My sense is that you are reacting at a visceral level
I always try to respond at a visceral level. I also try not to react, which i see as more of a social identity defense thing. The reason I posted the image of sex change surgery which I later removed at your request was to remind readers to tune into the visceral awareness of what the subject entails: corporate-facilitated castration and/or other forms of bodily mutilation. It’s not a pretty thing.
>You should look at actual people’s lives rather than pontificate from a theoretical position.
so now you do want me to case-study you? I am looking at actual lives, starting with my own.
the trans person wasn’t a spiritual teacher, really, and their comment didnt affect me in any deep way. I used it as an example of my open-mindedness about the subject, not as an example of bad trans behavior.
Is there an alien agenda connection?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-4274396/Man-spends-50-000-transform-genderless-ALIEN.html
Man spends $50,000 on over 100 procedures to transform into a ‘genderless’ ALIEN
Vinny said: ‘I want to be a sexless alien being, I want my outside to reflect how I feel on the inside.
‘The overall image I want to do is an alien. I want to be a hybrid, not male or female.
‘I don’t want people to think I’m trying to change into a woman. I could live without sexual organs so why should I have a penis or a vagina.
‘I do kind of look like a Martian, I have a really big head, no eyebrows and I’ve just been connecting with that.
I have been waiting for this one to show up.
“I have been waiting for this one to show up.”
.I find this very,very sad, ………..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VF6qC2UYq5U
This is interesting & relevant:
The Overton Window and Political Control
The Overton Window is a concept in political sociology referring to the range of acceptable opinions that can be held by respectable people.
“Respectable” of course means that the subject can be integrated with polite society. Respectability is a strong precondition on ability to have open influence in the mainstream.
Thus the Overton window becomes a mechanism of political control. If you can define the coordinating ideologies of all enemy political coalitions as outside the Overton window, then respectable society, which is your own power base, will be free of their influence, and they will be fatally marginalized. It is difficult to get your people to play along just by fiat, but it can be done. This is the basic insight behind official ideologies and religions, inquisitions, political repression of speech, and so on. It is an indispensable system of power for any ruling coalition, and is thus present in all societies.
The trouble with the Overton window as a mechanism of political control, and with politicization of speech and thought in general, is that it causes significant collateral damage on the ability of your society to think clearly. If some thoughts are unthinkable and unspeakable, and the truth happens in some case to fall outside of polite consensus, then your ruling elite and their society will run into situations they simply can’t handle. […] http://thefutureprimaeval.net/the-overton-bubble/
The original is in Spanish, THE TRANSLATION IS FROM REDDIT:
¿Cómo legalizar cualquier fenómeno, desde la eutanasia hasta el canibalismo?
Publicado: 18 abr 2014 05:30 GMT | Última actualización: 18 abr 2014 07:42 GMT
In today’s society of tolerance, which have no fixed ideals and a clear division between good and evil, there is a technique that allows you to change the concepts considered totally unacceptable.
This technique, called the ‘Overton Window‘ consists of a specific sequence of actions in order to achieve the desired result, “may be more effective than nuclear weapons to destroy human communities”, says columnist Evgueni Gorzhaltsan.
In his article in the ADME website, there is an example of how to convert to acceptable the idea of legalizing cannibalism step by step, from the stage at which it is considered disgusting and unthinkable to the public morals, until it becomes a reality acceptable by the mass consciousness and the law. This is achieved not by a direct brainwashing, but by more sophisticated techniques that are effective thanks to its consistent and systematic application without society perceive the process, believes Gorzhaltsan.
First stage: from unthinkable to radical
Obviously, now the issue of legalization of cannibalism is on the lower level of acceptance in the ‘window of opportunities’ of Overton, since society considers it as absurd and unthinkable, a taboo.
It is possible to change this perception by transferring the matter to the scientific sphere, as for scientists usually there is no taboo subjects. An ethnological symposium about exotic rituals of polynesian tribes can be used to discuss the history of the subject of study and obtain authoritative statements about cannibalism, and then ensuring the transition from negative and uncompromising attitude of society to a more positive attitude.
Simultaneously, you must create a radical group of cannibals, although they exist only in the Internet, they will surely be cited by numerous media outlets. As a result of the first stage of Overton, the taboo disappears and unacceptable issue begins to be discussed.
Second stage: from radical to acceptable
At this stage, one should continue quoting scientists, arguing that no one can say that has no knowledge about cannibalism, as if someone refuses to talk about it will be considered a hypocritical bigot.
By condemnming the intolerance, it is also necessary to create a euphemism for the phenomenon itself and thus separate the word from its meaning. Thus, cannibalism becomes ‘anthropophagy’ and later in ‘anthropophilic’.
In parallel, one can establish a precedent of reference, historical, mythological, contemporary or simply invented, but the most important is to be legitimized, so it can be used as proof that anthropophily principle can be legalized.
Third stage: from acceptable to reasonable
For this step it is important to promote ideas such as the following: “the desire to eat people are genetically justified,” “sometimes a person has to resort to this, if in favorable circumstances” or “a free man have the right to decide what to eat.”
Real opponents to these concepts, ie, people who do not want to be indifferent to the problem, are deliberately converted by public opinion into radical enemies whose role is to represent the image of crazy psychopaths, aggressive opponents of anthropophily clamoring to burn cannibals alive, along with other representatives of minorities .
[The translation was lacking something so I adjusted it where emphasized. Here’s the original Spanish: Los adversarios reales a esos conceptos, es decir, la gente de a pie que no quiere ser indiferente al problema, intencionadamente se convierten para la opinión pública en enemigos radicales cuyo papel es representar la imagen de psicópatas enloquecidos, oponentes agresivos de la antropofilia que llaman a quemar vivos a los caníbales, junto con otros representantes de las minorías.]
Experts and journalists show that during this stage of human history there have always been times when people ate each other, and that this was normal .
Fourth stage: from reasonable to popular
The media, with the help of well-known people and politicians are already talking openly about anthropophily. This phenomenon begins to appear in movies, lyrics of popular songs and videos. At this stage, begins the promotion of historical characters who practiced anthropophily.
To justify to the proponents of legalization of the phenomenon, it can be appealed to the humanization of criminals by creating a positive image of them saying, for example , that they are victims, because life forced them to practice anthropophily.
Fifth stage: from popular to political
This stage is the preparation of legislation to legalize the phenomenon. Pressure groups are consolidated in power and publish research that supposedly confirm a high percentage of supporters of the legalization of cannibalism in society. In the public consciousness establishes a new dogma: “The prohibition of eating people is forbidden.”
This is a typical technique of liberalism that works due to tolerance as a pretext for prescribing taboos. During the last stage of the ‘moving windows’ of Overton, from popular to political, the society has suffered a disruption because the norms of human existence have been altered or destroyed by the adoption of new laws.
https://www.reddit.com/r/russia/comments/37j20k/%D1%82%D0%B5%D1%85%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%B8%D1%8F_%D1%83%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%87%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%B6%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%8F_an_explanation_of_the/
https://actualidad.rt.com/sociedad/view/125437-legalizar-overton-eutanasia-incesto
The Unthinkable
The Radical
The Acceptable
The Sensible
The Popular
Policy
DAVID ICKE ON TRANSGENDER AGENDA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccUcvnXj0vM
The Death of Gender (Alan Watt)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9BBJk6rakQ
I have one last video that I would like to share that I just watched. Actually, the entire video is 2 1/2 hours and there is only one segment on the transgender issue, which I have transcribed. It starts at about 46:40 of the video and goes for about 10 minutes. I guess that many people do not believe in reincarnation, but her theory of the topic does mention reincarnation. Hopefully, that will not deter everyone to ignore her comments as I found her comments quite interesting. (ps, also whether you believe she is literally channeling the Pleiadians or not, I still think her comments are worth a read … or a listen).
Jasun, thank you for writing this blog entry as it has inspired me to ponder this issue more carefully.
The Pleiadians. The Transgender Agenda
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlZQEselTnI
She is asked: Is there a reason for the increase in transgender people in recent years?
She responds: There is an agenda. If there was no agenda, it wouldn’t be in the media everywhere. You live again and again. You live as man. You live as woman. For most people, the soul makes the transition and adapts relatively easily. …. this has worked for thousands of years. What has happened since the 1950s … a lady named Rachel Carson wrote a book called Silent Spring. She blew the whistle on chemical companies. She said they’re ruining the planet. Animals are growing double sex hormones. By the 80s there are all kinds of pharmaceuticals. We look at reptiles … the creatures that live by water. If they are going through transformation and having no genitals or both genitals, nature is messed up. We’re polluting the Earth with chemicals that go in the water and in the air. And this breaks up the messages of continuity within the chromosomes. It destroys the chromosomes, which are in the cells and the DNA matter. So someone may say they’re in a male body, but don’t relate. They may not believe in reincarnation, but they remember. Now, because of this ubiquitous spread of chemicals that are destroying our biological integrity and an anything goes ultra-permissive lifestyle and memories coming up without people understanding them, people are insisting now that they are not who they are. It is not a good idea to cut off body parts, to change your identity. Whether it is cutting off your penis or rearranging your vagina or putting a pig heart in your body or getting a head transplant or adding breasts when there is none there. If you have to put all kinds of medicines in the body to reshape the body. You cannot turn a man into a woman or a woman into a man. They may feel more comfortable because when they look in the mirror, it meets their expectation. But a man will never be a woman and a woman will never be a man. You may want to be, you may act like it, you may think like it, you may take the hormones to make the body artificially feel that it is. But if you stop taking the hormones, you can’t. There is an agenda to break down the family. If they break down the family, then they know that they’ll create chaos on the planet.
In Atlantis, there was genetic engineering. They were turning men into women and women into men and then they started building beings who were part animal and part human. Most of it was to entertain, but much of it was for sexual gratification…
How to Avoid Hormone Disrupting SOY PROTEIN in the Diet (it is everywhere!)
http://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/soy-protein/
You may wonder, is soy really so dangerous? The story of James Price, a retired US army intelligence officer and helicopter pilot, should serve as a dire warning about the dangers of soy in our diets. James Price developed a serious and mysterious health problem. His swollen and painful breasts looked as if they had gum balls implanted underneath. The slightest touch triggered throbs of pain.
“Men aren’t supposed to have breasts,” he says today in a quiet Texas drawl. “It was like my body was feminizing.”
A lean and wiry man, the breast development, known as gynecomastia or man boobs, stood in stark contrast to the rest of his body. But it was not Price’s only symptom. His beard growth had slowed, he’d lost hair from his arms, chest, and legs, and he’d stopped waking up with morning erections. “My sexual desire disappeared,” he says. “Even my emotions changed.”
Soy Adds Excessive Estrogen to the Diet
Tests further revealed that estrogen levels in his bloodstream were eight times higher than the normal limits for men. Healthy women had lower levels! Price’s estrogen was so high, in fact, that the doctors were at a loss to explain it. One physician became so frustrated he eventually accused Price of secretly taking estrogen.
Yes, Rudolf Steiner spoke of Soya as the “opiate of the masses” and how it would be a hallmark in later years (ie now) of our materialistic culture and the “dumbing down” of society. I guess there is a lot written in any Bio-Dynamic agriculture articles…….
re the hormones though:
“On a crisp winter morning in Belfast, Dr Lorraine Anderson was nearing the end of her doctorate research project. She had spent weeks hunched over a microscope looking at samples of sperm. Anderson was trying to figure out what made some sperm move slower than others. As a specialist in reproductive medicine at Belfast’s Royal Maternity Hospital she was particularly interested in why some samples moved so sluggishly that they would have trouble reaching and fertilising an egg. Anderson knew that a sperm’s ‘motility’ was one of the critical factors in fertility. ‘It doesn’t matter how many sperm a man’s got; if they can’t get from A to B then there’s little chance of reproduction,’ she says.
Anderson’s ‘eureka’ moment arrived when a complex analysis of the samples she was working on revealed that the seminal liquid surrounding the slower-moving sperm contained chemicals called isoflavones. These compounds are also known as phyto-oestrogens or plant-oestrogens because they mimic oestrogen, the powerful female hormone.
These compounds are also known as phyto-oestrogens or plant-oestrogens because they mimic oestrogen, the powerful female hormone.
These highly active compounds are found in large concentrations in soya. Indeed such are the doses of these chemicals, a woman drinking two glasses of soya milk a day over the course of a month will see the timing of her menstrual cycle alter. It has been estimated that infants who are fed soya formula exclusively receive an amount of oestrogen equivalent to five birth control pills every day.
For a growing number of scientists the question is this: if such a strong biologically active compound is found in soya, what is its effect on humans regularly eating or drinking products made from the bean?
…However, aside from research linking soya to reduced male fertility, studies now link the phyto-oestrogens found in the plant to an increased risk of other types of cancer. It has also been claimed that it damages brain function in men and causes hidden developmental abnormalities in infants. Some even attribute the early onset of puberty in western women to the spread of soya in diets.
Certainly, Dr Anderson has no doubt about the conclusions of her own research: the more soya a man eats, she believes, the more difficulty he will have in fertilising an egg. Anderson’s head of department, Professor Neil McClure, is one of Britain’s leading fertility experts and he is already acting on the results. ‘If a couple were having trouble conceiving and the man’s sperm was a borderline case, then I have seen enough evidence from these studies to advise a change in his diet to minimise soya.’
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2004/nov/07/foodanddrink.features7
there’s a new career path available … this person is a ‘trans influencer’.
Trans Influencer Jackson Bird ….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYvej-OWgJE
http://www.yesmagazine.org/for-teachers/writing-competition-essays/writing-lessons/gender-pronouns-student-writing-lesson
“Gender Pronouns” Student Writing Lesson
Writing Prompt:
Society is shifting from a binary “he-she” world to a more fluid spectrum of gender identities. As the story’s author Cole points out, pronouns can be the basis from which all of us learn to see and respect each other’s identity. Some people feel awkward or uncomfortable with this transition, asking questions like, “What’s with this ‘they’ thing?” Others find it freeing.
Students, please respond to the writing prompt below with an up-to-700-word letter to the author:
Is there anyone in your life—you included—who is not comfortable being referred to as “he” or “she”? Write a letter to Cole on how you feel about this expansion of gender pronoun language. How do you deal with this cultural change?
Your brief mention of ancestral possession, especially psychic possession by the mother, has resonated with me and seems to explain some things. I will search your site for additional info on ancestral possession, especially psychic possesion by the mother.
I have written very little about this topic, but it comes up quite frequently in podcast conversations. Try a search for liminalist “ancestral possession”
When I encountered the author’s mention of ancestral possession, I was struck by the same feeling the Seinfeld character Elaine Benes must have experienced after finding out that Kramer, having inspired her to take the helm of her boss Peterman’s abandoned company by relating that challenge to the ethos of karate, was actually competing in his class against small children.
i have more respect for you after finishing this series now… i do not apologise for being blunt but i think i could have been more polite in my other comments. i was annoyed. i still am somewhat
there is no doubt that transgender is trending and i think it’s courageous in some ways to speak openly about an identity that you are not, it’s something that i think girard has opened up, being able to remain critical by understanding wider societal trends, even when the group gods tell you that you must not be.
anyway, you keep bringing up this idea of “being born in the wrong body” and this is a distinctly western narrative. much of your writing i find accurate, beautiful and interesting, i enjoyed learning about ideas about the body, i enjoyed the connection between ideas and so i do think you should keep it up. perhaps my criticism may be that you may be using “transgender issues” as a scapegoat for an overall apocalyptic lack of control (which girard identifies) that seems to be coming over the world. we are living in really dangerous times, but i don’t think it’s just because of trans folks at all
Jasun I want to tell you about my dad and his surgical trauma. These are my thoughts that tie in to what you have touched on in this post. I found you somehow reading Miles Mathis. So before 1987 babies who needed surgery were not put under anesthesia or given painkillers. Babies were given curare to induce temporary paralysis and a little nitride oxide (laughing gas) the pain was mostly ignored. My dad was born in 1926. He was born with a cleft pallet, a tooth growing out of the roof of his mouth and a split(rabbit)lip. He could not suck a nipple or bottle, I’m not clear how he was fed in the first days. He had three surgeries before the age of one. Its amazing he lived thru them. He was not circumcised the doctors decided not to because of what he had already been thru. He was a sickly kid with lifelong allergies and asthma.
Growing up with my dad and mom was confusing. He was warmer than my mom but l felt like l was living with a tiger that l never knew when he would find or see something that l was doing to verbally attack or ground me for. Also the disgusted looks and the not knowing what would set him off was such a felt sense of threat that still lives in my body today. He did not spank hit drink or do drugs. He was a collage English professor who lived to listen and record opera. Wagner was his favorite. My bedtime stories were told by him as Poe on the table with the pendulum swinging ever closer, closer to cut him in half. Also greek myths as bedtime stories.
I knew my dad was gay long before I knew what that meant. My best friend in grade school l later learned was gay, My best friend in my teens turns out he was gay too. When I was in my late 20s I asked my dad if he loved himself. He said no as he was such a burden to his parents with him being so sick as a kid. Another time when he changed his major from science to English, his dad said to him, only fancy men are English professors and he was not happy with my dad. When l was 36 l asked my dad if he was gay he said no but l do have homo erotic fantasies. I asked him if mom knew and he said I don’t know why don’t you ask her. I said ok. it was late and as l lay in bed I thought to myself no I’m not going to ask mom. That is not my job to be your emotional regulator. My mom told me the next day that dad talked to her about his fantasies and she said it was no big deal for her.
I have more to tell and I am tired so will stop for now.
PS I have spent my life avoiding the need to wright as my dad was not a good teacher for us kids when it came to the hell of writing thank you letters and the check marks in the margins of things that needed to be corrected of said letters.
thank you for sharing this Laura. I presume the context for it is the possible parallels between your father’s trauma and his sexual orientation?
Thank you for responding Jason yes I believe his surgical trauma create his life long health problems his sexual preference and his covert narcissist personality traits. I’m also guessing there was mother stuff even though he said they had a great relationship. He wrote to her every week for the rest of her life and named me after her. Sigh, I only saw her two or three times as a young child so I don’t know much about her. Grandad died when I was 5. I have always had a live and let live attitude especially when it comes to people on the fringes. I like men yet I feel like I’ve been a fringe dweller my whole life. (In A good and interesting way) I’ve always asked why and still do. To understand how my childhood affected me and how their childhoods have affected my friends and the people I love. My dad died at 92 quickly within a week of becoming ill the way he wanted to . I grieved the loss of my father years before he died, he was not wired to be the father I needed as a child. It wasn’t because of his gayness that I struggled so much in my relationships It did not help me.
In 2013 I dated a Bob for a year and a half and after I told him to leave. I googled the behaviors I was doing in the relationship that were not me . And Up came stories about covert narcissism . In all my years of searching self-help and counseling, narcissist personality never came up. I thought I knew what a narcissist was as in the Greek myth of Narcissis .
What a revelation, Bob, i’ll just call him Bob was a covert narcissist. As I learned more and understood their behaviors and traits, I went back through past relationships friends and romantic all the way back dad. My autonomic nervous system was wired to draw in or me too gay and bi men and one transgendered m to f covert narcissistic roommate. Also at least one covert narc female friend, or more. I prefer my own company or the company of men not too many female friends sadly. Thought I had mom issues, could be.
I must say wrighting is very hard for me. I appreciate how well you write Jasun. I have a few more paragraphs to go before l finish. But will stop for tonight.
Jasun, when I read things like this, the articulation and honesty you express remind me of what originally drew me to you.
I am more than a little embarrassed to put it this way; but in all the years in which I have commented, researched, and explored these issues, I have never found someone whose perspectives, experiences, and conclusions, so closely mirror my own.
A large portion of it is the occult element; what you went through in that regard. These other issues, philosophy, history, culture… they are all things that I can discuss with others. But, you are the only one who understands what happens to the mind and body when you open the door to those other currents. This is the one thing that no one in my circle can relate to. And, you can. So, for me, that means a lot.
We are worlds apart on some levels; particularly in that I still practice magic. But, what we align on is what is important. I know that in regard to your spiritual development, the choice of Oshana for instance, you have taken some flak from some. But, while I do not endorse what you describe, I am happy that you are finding your footing; moving down a path that is giving you what you need. I feel the same way about this development for you, that I do when I see my two roommates finding comfort and joy in each other. It’s something that seems impossibly distant to me; like a fond dream that I may have had when I was a child. Something that I know I will never have. But, knowing that others find it, have it, hold it, gives me some small amount of comfort.
As always, thanks for what you give here. I hope that your work and life continue to prosper.