rinku: Maybe this is why there are no homosexua

Paul Eres (

rinku) wrote,
@ 2007-09-26 17:06:00

Entry tags:

world

Maybe this is why there are no homosexuals in Iran:

"Iran carries out more gender change operations than any other country in the world besides Thailand. [...] [S]tate support has actually increased since Mr Ahmadinejad took office in 2005. His government has begun providing grants of £2,250 for operations and further funding for hormone therapy."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,2176958,00.html

(Post a new comment)

	miyu_sakura 2007-09-26 09:23 pm UTC (link)
	Oh that's not creepy. Not creepy at all. And what does that have to do with homosexuality? raises eyebrow (Reply to this)(Thread)

haggard
2007-09-26 09:39 pm UTC (link)

Pressure against homosexuality may cause males to become females. Personally, I would have assumed the reverse--that this is due to females becoming males in order to avoid sexism.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	rinku 2007-09-26 11:51 pm UTC (link)
	Actually 'gender change operation' isn't necessarily only male to female. It's more comment, but it applies to both. (Reply to this)(Parent)

rinku
2007-09-26 11:54 pm UTC (link)

Dunce. People who have a gender change operation do so because they feel more comfortable in the other gender role. Except in Thailand where they do it for the money (ladyboys).

Anyway, you said you weren't going to bring up this topic again, so don't. I just didn't like that you were accusing him of hate speech and yourself engaging in it, even if you were joking.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	miyu_sakura 2007-09-27 12:46 am UTC (link)
	Dunce. Lots of homosexuals are comfortable as they are and still like the same sex. Theory incorrect. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	rinku 2007-09-27 12:48 am UTC (link)
	Only in countries where homosexuality is tolerated / where there's a community of open ones, dunce. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	miyu_sakura 2007-09-27 01:03 am UTC (link)
	Why don't you just marry the guy since you are clearly gay for him? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	rinku 2007-09-27 01:04 am UTC (link)
	Dunce, it's because I want to marry you. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	miyu_sakura 2007-09-27 01:10 am UTC (link)
	But I don't like Iranians :( Or Russians :( (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	rinku 2007-09-27 01:12 am UTC (link)
	I didn't say I'd succeed. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	nastygakusei 2007-09-27 01:27 am UTC (link)
	no way. you can do way better than her (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	rinku 2007-09-27 01:31 am UTC (link)
	Name one person who is better than her. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	nastygakusei 2007-09-27 06:31 am UTC (link)
	Too much effort for such a mundane task : P (Reply to this)(Parent)

	miyu_sakura 2007-09-27 01:36 am UTC (link)
	Tsk. Well with that kind of attitude... You know a little thing like willingness never stopped Roark! (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	rinku 2007-09-27 01:45 am UTC (link)
	You're a lot better than that idiot that Roark raped though. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	wynand 2007-09-27 12:14 am UTC (link)
	Gender change/transgendered issues have nothing to do with homosexuality. There's GLB and then there's T and not always the twain shall meet. STOP THE OPPRESSION (Reply to this)

	wynand 2007-09-27 12:17 am UTC (link)
	Seriously! To assume that all gay men seekretly want to become women (or that all men who want to become women are gheeeey) is to misunderstand sexuality and gender completely! STOP... THE OPPRESSION (Also: we have a writing group in Manhattan on Sunday; come sometime if you have writing and wish to read it/receive critique) (Reply to this)(Thread)

	rinku 2007-09-27 12:24 am UTC (link)
	That's an American homosexual myth though. It's generally recognized that a primary reason for gender change is homosexual feeling. I've seen studies on this, whereas you have seen only propaganda clearly. I'll ask Carrie (my cousin) if she wants to go to one of those writing groups. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

wynand
2007-09-27 12:47 am UTC (link)

Which studies? Point me to them.

I am basing my assertions on Kate Bornstein's "Gender Outlaw" (Bornstein, born Alex Bornstein, changed her gender but remained attracted to females pretty much exclusively; others in Bornstein's circles report similar results) and on the fact that I have cross-dressed not infrequently but do not find men attractive at all. I am also basing them on lots of other readings from the actual lives of transgendered types, all of which are clearly propaganda, I guess.

What is a "homosexual myth"? What gives you the power to judge whether something is a "homosexual myth" or not? What are these "homosexual myths" even like? Do powerful warriors in loincloths kill giant snakes or something? Did Bullfinch or Edith Hamilton come out with a leatherbound (har) collection of such myths? I'm seriously excited by the idea that homosexuals have their own secret mythology full of derring-do and anointings with oil!

Anyway: show me these mysterious studies and we shall see.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

rinku
2007-09-27 12:54 am UTC (link)

http://www.godspy.com/issues/Surgical-Sex-Sex-Change-operations-by-Paul-McHugh.cfm

"Thanks to this research, Dr. Meyer was able to make some sense of the mental disorders that were driving this request for unusual and radical treatment. Most of the cases fell into one of two quite different groups. One group consisted of conflicted and guilt-ridden homosexual men who saw a sex-change as a way to resolve their conflicts over homosexuality by allowing them to behave sexually as females with men. The other group, mostly older men, consisted of heterosexual (and some bisexual) males who found intense sexual arousal in cross-dressing as females."

There are probably others, I read of them in college psychology classes and didn't save the notes. I'll look though.

Homosexual myths are like all myths of all subcultures which are things which are widely believed and "common sense" within that group but which are nonetheless just invented. There are writer myths as well, such as the idea of writer's block, or one's muse. In games the myths are things like "gameplay is more important than story" or even the idea of gameplay at all.

What gives me the power to judge whether something is a myth or not is easy: I see that a subculture believes in it without question or evidence, and I see that people who question it are attacked. If they do all of that, it's a myth.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

	rinku 2007-09-27 12:54 am UTC (link)
	And ignore that the domain says "godspy.com", I admit that sounds suspicious. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	rinku 2007-09-27 12:59 am UTC (link)
	Also your sources themselves are evidence that it's a myth: of course people in a subculture are going to say they feel like the myth makes them expect to feel. People are fairly malleable, they act the way they expect themselves to act. If you believe in writer's block, you see every period that you don't write as writer's block. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

wynand
2007-09-27 01:20 am UTC (link)

"When I became psychiatrist-in-chief at Johns Hopkins, I realized that by doing sex-change operations the hospital was fundamentally cooperating with a mental illness. We would do better for these patients, I thought, by concentrating on trying to fix their minds and not their genitalia." -- from the aforementioned study

Homosexuality is no longer considered a mental illness as of 1973. Gender Identity Disorder/transgenderism is still considered a mental illness, but I doubt that'll be true in the next ten to twenty years. So what does this mean that the hospital is "fundamentally cooperating with a mental illness"? Does he refer to GID?

"The subjects before the surgery struck me as even more strange, as they struggled to convince anyone who might influence the decision for their surgery. First, they spent an unusual amount of time thinking and talking about sex and their sexual experiences; their sexual hungers and adventures seemed to preoccupy them. Second, discussion of babies or children provoked little interest from them; indeed, they seemed indifferent to children. But third, and most remarkable, many of these men-who-claimed-to-be-women reported that they found women sexually attractive and that they saw themselves as "lesbians." When I noted to their champions that their psychological leanings seemed more like those of men than of women, I would get various replies, mostly to the effect that in making such judgments I was drawing on sexual stereotypes."

So according to this doctor, the defining characteristics of a real woman are, in part, as follows:

(1) non-sexual
(2) very interested in children
(3) not attracted to women, but to men

What do you think, ladies? Is that accurate? If you take this seriously, you have to believe that women are not interested in sex, are invariably interested in children, and are never lesbians.

I can't take this study seriously because of passages like this:

"This idea, a form of "sex in the head" (D. H. Lawrence), was what provoked their first adventure in dressing up in women's undergarments and had eventually led them toward the surgical option. Because most of them found women to be the objects of their interest they identified themselves to the psychiatrists as lesbians. The name eventually coined in Toronto to describe this form of sexual misdirection was "autogynephilia." Once again I concluded that to provide a surgical alteration to the body of these unfortunate people was to collaborate with a mental disorder rather than to treat it."

Why are these "unfortunate people"? If he said something like "incidences of suicide are 50% greater among this group" or "autogynephilia leads invariably to substance abuse" or something, I could understand the use of "unfortunate." But this guy believes that if you want to dress in women's clothing because it is sexually exciting, you are "unfortunate". Why?

But even ignoring this guy's bad arguments, this "study" still doesn't agree with your original point! The researcher talks about three types:

(1) homosexual men who want to become women
(2) heterosexual men who want to become women
(3) intersexed/birth defected infants who are changed into women due to penile damage

The first case isn't talked about much. The very existence of the second case is exactly what I was talking about, and this doctor admits that it is a phenomenon (even if he thinks that it's "strange" or an "illness.") The third case is another reason a lot of people opt for a sex change: learning that their basic gender identity is different than their outward genitals. The fact that as many men as he said opted for "restorative surgery" and changed from XY females to XY males is a counterargument to your original point!

So in conclusion:

(1) this study is biased
(2) this study contradicts you.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	rinku 2007-09-27 01:25 am UTC (link)
	I admit those are flaws, but it does say that people who have homosexual feelings make up a significant group of people seeking this surgery. That the main thrust of the article disagrees with me is irrelevant to that fact. I don't care about his interpretations of his findings, I care about his actual empirical findings. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

wynand
2007-09-27 01:35 am UTC (link)

I make no argument with the fact that lots of people have sex changes because they're homosexual. I think it's a silly thing to do, but I'm sure people do it. But to state that that's the only/primary reason for a sex change is just false.

Read up on the process for getting a sex change. It's really, really elaborate and involves a year-long "Life Test" (having to actually live day in and day out as the desired gender, but without surgery) and lots of counseling. What they're looking for is the idea that there's been a long history of gender confusion in the individual, a present gender confusion in the individual, and that other options for dealing with gender confusion are inadequate. Probably there's a big margin for error with this counseling, but it takes a lot of effort and committment (and a lot of money) to change your gender, and you have to actually feel yourself to be in the wrong gender (rather than just being a man seeking greater access to men) to both pass the screening and to be willing to spend hella money on surgery.

Summation: being gay can be a reason for changing genders, but it is not a sufficient condition for changing genders. You also have to have a basic gender identity problem (that may, but doesn't always play back into homo/heterosexuality.)

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	rinku 2007-09-27 01:48 am UTC (link)
	If you make no argument with that, then we are in agreement. My point was only that Iran has no active homosexuals because most of them either hide it, change into a female, or are executed, and thus that the president of Iran wasn't necessarily wrong. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

wynand
2007-09-27 03:11 am UTC (link)

What he actually said was "no homosexuals in Iran", though, which on the face of it includes "homosexuals in hiding". And homosexuals in hiding could certainly practice homosexuality (setting up their phallic altars and smearing themselves in the blood of Freddy Mercury or whatever). I think it was a joke comment anyway (he couldn't keep a straight face when he made it) so I don't pay it much heed

(Reply to this)(Parent)

	rinku 2007-09-27 01:49 am UTC (link)
	Also, the year-long processes for gender change isn't year-long in other countries! It's just an operation and hormone therapy basically. (Reply to this)(Parent)

wynand
2007-09-27 01:30 am UTC (link)

Furthermore: Kate Bornstein is one of the first big transgendered activists (had her operation in the early 80s I believe and was one of the first vocal transgendered women). If there is a "subculture myth" here, then she's one of the ones who created it.

So people are malleable; they act the way they expect themselves to act. They tell themselves stories about their motivations and act as though those stories are true. Fine. But when you're talking about people's motivations, you have zero ability to actually determine empirically why people do what they do. All you can do is tell your own story that explains someone else's behavior. But you can't know that your story is more accurate than the person in question's story if both accord equally with the facts. If I say I have writer's block, and you say "No, you don't have writer's block, you just don't feel like writing"--why are you more correct? What logical reason is there to accept your story over mine?

Same with transgendered people. They say "We do this because we feel that our bodies are at odds with our feelings." You say "No, that is a myth! Really you are just homosexual! I've read studies!" Why should we take your word over theirs?

If that's your definition of a myth, then myths are essentially neutral and can be used or rejected at will. I dislike the term "myth" because it's a mindtrap. And I suggest that if you talk to transgendered people about these ideas (say, post your opinions about transgendered people to a transgender-based livejournal community, of which there are several) you don't use the term myth, unless you want your eyes clawed out by red nail polish.

I do suggest you actually talk to transgendered people about this, though, since at least this study you've cited is equally as mythic (stating without evidence that transgendered people are either gay or mentally ill, for example.)

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

rinku
2007-09-27 01:40 am UTC (link)

People who create myths are the most prone to having them control their lives, think Ayn Rand etc.

I admit I don't know enough about this person to say though, it's just suspicious any time a group believes in something and attacks anyone who disagrees by calling them oppressive. How can questioning a belief be oppressive?

I'm not saying I'm more correct or that Borgstein is wrong, just that it's foolish to believe in anything without evidence, and what little evidence I've seen points to the idea that a significant portion of people who change their sex do so because they are homosexual. This is less true in America because homosexuality is beginning to be accepted, but it's still true in the majority of the world.

And talking to transgendered people (I only know one, and I haven't seen him/her in a year or so) wouldn't help because they'd just repeat the myth! That's exactly my point, you have to base belief on real things, not on what other people believe are real things.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	novahero 2007-09-30 02:08 pm UTC (link)
	What myth(s) did Ayn Rand create? Her aesthetic philosophy? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	rinku 2007-09-30 02:15 pm UTC (link)
	No, her aesthetic philosophy is a philosophy, not a myth. I'm talking about things like the idea that humanity is noble and inherently rational, which is just as much a myth as the idea that humanity is ignoble and inherently irrational. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	novahero 2007-09-30 03:30 pm UTC (link)
	I was referring to that, but vaguely/indirectly. The thing is that I associated that belief/myth more with Victor Hugo than her, though. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	rinku 2007-09-30 03:35 pm UTC (link)
	Hugo's was a bit different in details I think, but yes, they each had their own versions of it and Rand's was inspired by Hugo's. I'm not saying that believing in such myths is a bad idea, just that one should fully distinguish between mythical worldviews, which can neither be proven or disproven, and empirical knowledge, which can be. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	nastygakusei 2007-09-27 01:29 am UTC (link)
	I would go, if I didn't have to take the train back to Trenton sunday. Dammit, this sucks. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	konami 2007-09-27 12:27 am UTC (link)
	I assure you, nobody feels gay in Iran; they are all very miserable. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	rinku 2007-09-27 12:29 am UTC (link)
	I don't think he meant that nobody feels homosexual in Iran, I think he meant that nobody engaged in homosexuality in Iran (which is still wrong, but not as wrong). (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	konami 2007-09-27 12:31 am UTC (link)
	It was a joke... you know, the classic meaning of Gay. Anyway it's obviously a lie that there's no homosexuals, there's probably a bit less because they are sentenced to death if found out though. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	rinku 2007-09-27 12:34 am UTC (link)
	What's funny is that male homosexuals are sentenced to death but female homosexuals are just fined about $2000. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	rinku 2007-09-27 12:37 am UTC (link)
	Also, you can be arrested in Iran for going on a date. I don't like the institution of dating myself, but still, they've arrested 12 year olds for going on dates. I wish people would focus on human rights abuses like those instead of his "oh no he's anti-Israel! oh no he denies the holocaust and believes in 9/11 conspiracy theories!" (Reply to this)(Parent)

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