Musings from my everyday life...

My dysphoria is not about wanting to remove all vestiges of maleness. Instead it’s always been about being drawn to being a woman. Don’t ask me how that idea got there, it's just been present from earliest memory. Part of my life journey has been about rejecting and then ultimately repatriating this difference of ours. Something I was happy to express while I was little but which was removed via the public shaming that inevitably comes with our socialization. I don't have the slightest doubt that this draw towards being female will continue to exist in me until my dying days and that it forms part of my intrinsic wiring. The reason I refer to it as dysphoria is because in the text book sense that is what it is: the desire to be the other sex. However that pull can be channeled in other ways and have it serve your purpose. I am fortunate that despite my stature I do pass relatively well. But even if I didn’t, my age and life confidence compensates for any fears I might hav

Walt Heyer is a man on a mission. He is being quoted by right wing publications and conservative Christian groups because he openly advocates against the transgender condition as being pure mental illness. Mr Heyer was indeed mentally ill at one point in his life. He suffered from depression and multiple personality disorder. At the hands of a therapist who should have known better, he was allowed to transition and ultimately have gender reassignment surgery. Now years later as a repentant man who found Jesus, he writes a blog railing against the folly of changing sex. I don't doubt Walt Heyer's conviction nor his intentions. He wants to help people not make the mistake he did. The only problem however is that he is trying to generalize what happened to him as being typical when it is not. Having been to his site on a number of occasions, read his personal testimonial and viewed him speaking on television I could see how he could sway the opinion of those who know absolut

When you strip away the personal agendas, misinformation on the web and invented pseudoscience we must admit we know very little about gender dysphoria. Its wrapped in mystery and despite our best efforts to uncover its origins we have come to a series of dead ends each time. All brains start off female and are then injected (for males) at the appropriate time with an androgen cocktail that is supposed to turn that fetus into a boy. Conversely, girls do not receive this same injection. But what if this does happen incorrectly in timing and/or in dosage and does not leave the evidence after the fact. This misfire might be relatively rare but happen enough times to affect a sliver of all babies born. We have other birth defects. There is Down Syndrome, physical abnormalities of every type, intersex conditions and so on. We also have seen fetuses being exposed to endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) as well as to the estrogen infused pregnancy drug DES. It would hardly be far fetch

Please watch this video where Julia Serano systematically dissects and dismantles the pseudoscience that is Autogynephilia. She summarizes very well what I have been saying in my blog for quite some time now. At 22 minutes its hardly long and will explain everything you wanted and needed to know about this disgraceful theory. Well done Julia.

“Radical feminists reject the notion of a “female brain.” They believe that if women think and act differently from men it’s because society forces them to, requiring them to be sexually attractive, nurturing, and deferential. In the words of Lierre Keith, a speaker at Radfems Respond, femininity is “ritualized submission.”” This is a quote from a recent New Yorker article called “What is a Woman” which chronicles the battle between radical feminists and transgender women. Well it’s maybe not a battle but more of a dispute. The natural differences between male and females have been duly noted in many scientific studies which have measured distinct brain patterns linked to behavior and to the creation of particular skill sets in each gender. The issue of masculinity and femininity is more up for grabs however. Here we are in murkier waters and we don't know to what extent this is innate in people. I believe its part biology and part socialization. What is interesting to note