Kel,
 Trans is not all one thing.  However, in the case of those of us whose husbands have autogynephilia, it's "acceptable" insofar as they actually have a medical condition, a psychological one that is called "autogynephilia."  They can't help it.  Their sexuality is wired in an unusual way (which is called a "paraphilia"); autogynephilia is a "heterosexual targeting error" in which the "target" of their erotic interest is a woman...but the woman is the one they would like themselves to be, the one they try to "bring into being" through their actions of cross dressing, etc. There are other paraphilias: necrophilia is one, as is pedophilia.  All of these paraphilias, or unusual sexual attractions, affect only males.  
  I think the real argument is why are those with this particular paraphilia given a green light to express themselves in society, when we all agree that those with pedophilia and necrophilia need to treat their conditions through other means than freely expressing them.  As I understand it, the argument is that autogynephlia, unlike pedophilia, is an unusual sexual orientation that is benign--it doesn't exploit others.  
   If only this were true.  Those who have this condition are driven by it to believe in the "woman" they wish they were and pretend they are, which is where the real problems begin: feminized men (trans "women") are appropriating and redefining "woman" to center their own experiences and shouting down, targeting, or physically attacking (yes, it's happened) anyone who opposes them and this idea (sometimes I worry about being somehow hacked on this forum and becoming a target myself, given what I say and have said here).  
   Trans "women" also depend on gender norms to signal that they are to be seen as women. As a feminist who believes that our system of gender is part of a patriarchal system of power that disadvantages women and damages both women and men, who both equally are urged to repress universal human feelings and actions in order to adhere to "gender norms," this raises some real difficulties to me.  A man who isn't wearing a dress or makeup or jewelry or moving and speaking in sterotypically feminine ways has a much more difficult time being seen as a woman, so trans "women" often fiercely defend gender binarism (even as they argue they somehow in their persons overturn it), arguing that the problem isn't the oppression of females (the feminist argument) but of "the feminine" (the trans activist argument).  But many females also are quite wedded to feminine expression, and I don't go around calling them traitors to their fellow women or arguing they are setting back the movement for women's equality.
  I've seen arguments that say men with autogynephilia ought to be able to express their sexuality as they wish, but in private, as most of the rest of us express our sexuality.  I've also seen arguments that say we should all feel free to dress as we wish, feminine or masculine, and if a man wants to wear a skirt who cares?  Let's "ungender" our system of dress!  Women did it with pants, after all.  I agree with both of those positions, but the difficulty is that for an autogynephile wearing a skirt is never just wearing a skirt: it's something that's pleasurable and exciting because it makes them feel like a woman--and you just can't tell, seeing a man in a skirt, whether it's just an expression of style or something with an erotic charge.   
      My personal red line has been "call yourself trans; but don't call yourself women."  Unfortunately, because autogynephilia is a condition in men that makes them want to disavow maleness, to tell them to call themselves trans but not women hits them right where they want to deny reality.  And this, I think, is one reason we have feminized men  (trans "women") calling themselves women and insisting they are women, dammit, and that we all have to accept that and call them women--and for some reason this seems to be working.  As for your idea that no one would call themselves a baby...look up the 52 year old man who calls himself Stefonknee and insists he be treated as a baby girl.  I know of at least two cases where white males "identify" as transgender women of another race or ethnicity (as South Asian in one case) and have met with nothing like the ridicule facing Rachel Dolezal; somehow the fact they're transgendered has protected them from the same criticism.
  The bottom line for me, therefore, is, dress as you like for whatever reasons you like, but don't ask me to call you a woman.   As for the problem of males--pre-op intact males--in women's spaces?  That's a no-go for me.  No men with penises in my daughter's locker room.  And no "identifying" yourself into being a woman.  You're not a woman just because you say so. 
  
  

Last edited by OutofHisCloset (December 18, 2017 1:16 pm)

I'm well aware of what autogynephilia is, and that that there are other paraphilias out there that aren't accepted by society (and rightfully so).  I wonder why this one is seen as not only okay, but embraced?  I suppose you're right - that autogynephilia is likely seen as harmless - hurting no one - since it's likely that any partner knows this condition exists and is a willing partner to the person suffering from this ailment.  But of course we know that it's not always expressed prior to beginning the relationship, and therefore DOES hurt others.

I do know that there are people out there who live as adult babies.  I have seen shows on them.  My point about that isn't that no one identifies that way.  It's that there's no rush to accept them in that persona as a walking-around member of society.  They can do whatever they want inside the confines of their own home, but no one is making a stand for these adult babies and insisting that they have huge high chairs in restaurants for them.  We may see them as people with equal rights, but we're not trying to make their babyhood more socially acceptable for them.  It's up to them to navigate the real world in a way that satisfies their supposed needs without putting themselves in danger.  While I want no one hurt for how they identify (it serves no purpose), it seems odd that autogynephilia is being embraced in a way that other other similar mental illness or dysmorphia is.  In all other areas of mental illness we're insisting that they be treated as though they are ill, but need help to be "cured" enough to function in the real world.  We're not doing that with cross-dressers / autogynephiles - we're trying to bend to us accepting them for how they see themselves - that WE are the ones with the problem if we choose not to call him a HER at their request.

I just wonder why the double-standard - why autogynephilia is the one mental illness that we're literally catering to.  We aren't supporting people getting their limbs cut off if they feel like an amputee trapped in an able-bodied person's body.  We don't see them as living inauthentically if they keep their legs.  Or that we need to start calling someone a duck if that's how they say they identify.  Why is this ONE disorder given so much..... room in our society where other disorders are not?

Just curious.  It matters not to me, really.  But I think it's an interesting question is all.

Kel


 

Oddly enough, Kel, there's a strain of the therapeutic community which actually argues that those who wish to be amputees should be accommodated in their desires to have a limb amputated.  And I have read an account by a woman who used to work at the gender clinic where "Stefonknee" used to go, and they were required to "affirm" "her" identity!  

 As for why men who want to be women are so accommodated, I think Duped is right: most people have no real experience of autogynephilia and don't even know it exists or what it is.  
 
 My own belief about why such men are accommodates is that sexual politics plays a role, too. Women embrace men who want to be women because they're so entranced at the idea someone would wish to share women's condition (because such men are choosing to give up the perks of being men and experience the sexism we do).  And I think men embrace men who want to be women (at least at the celebrity level, but not for the most part as sex partners)--Caitlyn Jenner, Laverne Cox--because it shows male superiority in another way--men can even do WOMAN better than women can (and I have read accounts by transsexuals who say this!). 
 
  But that's just me...

I just watched Stefonknee, too.  Ummmmm, wtf???  For what it's worth, it seems that "his" adoptive "parents'" children are adults, and they themselves have children.  So these people are allowing him to play alongside their grandchildren.

So now we can identify as a different age, too?  So,.... we can get married, have SEVEN children, and then "lose" it all when we "go trans", and then have good weeks where we don't even think of our past lives for up to a week at a time? We must be in the end times, because it can't get much stranger than this shit.

Kel

Lynne,
 I agree with everything you said.  Leftists embrace the idea that there is no such thing as biological sex and that biology is a social construct while those on the right eschew climate change.  Science, anyone?  

 Kel and Duped: while you're weirding yourselves out, look up "Danielle" Moscato, a man who claims he's a woman and makes no attempt at looking like a woman.  Not as absolutely out there as "Stefonknee," but an eyebrow raiser nonetheless.