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RE: Why Being Transgender Shouldnt Be Accepted

in #life8 years ago (edited)

Nested Reply @son-of-satire

You put forth a cogent position. It appears to me that you have a bit of knowledge in the area of human psychology, vis-à-vis neuro-plasticity, a very interesting topic that I admittedly have little knowledge about.

Thanks for participating in this thought-provoking discussion, btw. I truly appreciate it.

I think for every person trying to fit in, there is another fighting for uniqueness, especially in today's world were the public education system cripples our sense of individuality before we even get the chance to see it develop. I strongly hold the position that a number of homosexuals and transgenders are driven to their decision by a desire to stand out amongst the crowd after leading a life of essential invisibility.

That first point, to which I wholeheartedly agree, is the culprit, regardless of whether sexual orientation is strictly genetic (choice is ruled out) or not. I think your next statement takes a rather large leap from that foundation, and I'm not so convinced that people would be able to physiologically change themselves to such a degree (completely flipping their sexual orientation) by mere will , but perhaps there is something to the neuro-plasticity case that you brought up later on in your post.

Where some would hear bigotry and and end up a bigot themselves, there are some who empathize with the victims of this bigotry more than with the bigot. If one has also suffered persecution or ridicule in their life, then that empathy can manifest itself in a strong connection to the victims (in this case homosexuals). Now for most, this would be nothing more than a shared understanding of the plight of life, yet for others, that shared persecution could create the illusion that one must also be gay and that's why they have suffered in the same way. What we consciously think about, is only 10% of what actually goes on in our mind. The unconscious mind makes more decisions for us than we are aware, and is for the most part, the true driving force behind our life choices and the path we take.

I agree on your statements about the unconscious mind, but I posit that the case you brought up about certain people being predisposed to "becoming" gay through their ways of empathizing with homosexuals are latently gay; that's to say, they were born with a predisposition to homosexuality. In other words, they may not have had any choice in becoming gay and this unique manifestation of empathy was perhaps only the circumstantial "gateway" to pass the message from the unconscious to the conscious. They may well have discovered it in some other way had they not done so via the empathy pathway.

Think of it like an urge that's dormant from the perspective of the conscious mind, due to applying various psychological mechanisms of suppression, but alive and dripping with anticipation to be realized and expressed at the unconscious level. There's a certain type of pressure there that builds up over time and must eventually be acknowledged, or else it will find some way to uncontrollably leak out. You could say empathizing with homosexuals is a type of "faucet" for that realization to leak into the conscious awareness, but there are a million and one other ways that it can happen.

And it's my position that the only reason people ever feel they "discover" their homosexual tendencies is because they were conditioned by their upbringing to hate, fear and suppress it. The truth of it rests in the unconscious, irregardless of conscious awareness of it, or lack thereof.

The symptoms of suppression can be so strong that a homosexual may not even realize that he/ she is such, whilst others around them are very aware of them being homosexual or, at the very least, exhibiting strong homosexual signals that leave them with little doubt. This is because, as you mentioned, the unconscious mind controls most of our movements (both of thought and action). The mind of a man in denial may not allow itself, for a time, to see the signs, but, for those not under such hypnosis, the signs can be overtly obvious. In any case, it will eventually come to the surface. How it's dealt with when it surfaces will depend a lot on how open one is to accepting it and this openness, or lack thereof, comes mostly down to what the person in question was conditioned to believe about it and how deeply rooted those beliefs became over time.

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Thanks for participating in this thought-provoking discussion, btw. I truly appreciate it.

I thank you too. I am a lover of discussion and believe that there are lessons to be learned through conversation and the understanding of different perspectives. I must offer you even more gratitude beyond that for allowing us to discuss this controversial topic in a respectful manner, in spite of being on completely opposite sides of the debate. I received a couple of very ignorant and hostile messages on this thread and in contrast, it highlights your maturity and willingness to indulge in perspectives that contradict that of your own, rather than lash out in defense of your belief structure.

I'm not so convinced that people would be able to physiologically change themselves to such a degree

I can understand your hesitation here. For this to be true, it would suggest that the mind has a power over the body that defies our understanding of modern science. If I may share an example of the mind doing just this, perhaps it will open your mind a little to the possibility of what I previously mentioned.

I have no doubt that you are familiar with placebos. Not many know this, and I only do thanks to a very insightful TED talk that I seen a few years ago, but a surprisingly high percentage of recoveries--even in hospitals--are the result of placebos.
There are also nocebos, which are the exact opposite. For example; someone truly believes that they have cancer, and as a result of it, they develop cancer.

I think the placebo is an excellent demonstration of the power that the mind possesses over the body, having the ability to cure terminal illnesses way beyond that of modern medicine. The hard part is getting someone to believe they will get better, but once they have that mind set, the mind conveys that message to the body and the body makes it happen.

With placebos, we are talking about radical changes in body chemistry in typically a very short time frame. So I believe it is worth entertaining the possibility, that over a longer time period, the brain could alter the body--with a particular mind set--in unimaginable ways. I'm not saying we could will ourselves to grow wings and fly away. Lol. That isn't natural. But because homosexuality is natural to some humans, I think that makes the change to this sexuality from heterosexuality a possibility-- over time of course.

I agree on your statements about the unconscious mind, but I posit that the case you brought up about certain people being predisposed to "becoming" gay through their ways of empathizing with homosexuals are latently gay; that's to say, they were born with a predisposition to homosexuality. In other words, they may not have had any choice in becoming gay and this unique manifestation of empathy was perhaps only the circumstantial "gateway" to pass the message from the unconscious to the conscious. They may well have discovered it in some other way had they not done so via the empathy pathway.

This makes a lot of sense. As though such an observation and the resulting empathy serves as a catalyst to one discovering their own sexuality, I would postulate that this has probably been the case for many. There may still be those however, whom were not naturally predisposed to homosexuality, yet a seed of confusion was planted during this empathetic journey of shared suffering, allowing for the mental environment which could later cultivate the belief that the person was attracted to the same sex after being subjected to more homosexual activity. This is of course merely a theory, but at least to me it makes sense from a physiological and psychological standpoint.

And it's my position that the only reason people ever feel they "discover" their homosexual tendencies is because they were conditioned by their upbringing to hate, fear and suppress it. The truth of it rests in the unconscious, irregardless of conscious awareness of it, or lack thereof.

I have one more analogy for you, though this one is a little more abstract.

Imagine if you will, a teenager at school, in the process of discovering who they are. They go through a phase of being an emo, a hipster etc until they decide upon one that they like. Perhaps they opt to become a skater, and arrive at that conclusion based primarily on the skaters that they meet being people that they respect more than anyone else. This person now identifies as a skater. But, 2000 years ago there was no such thing. So would that person, having been born at that time, have lived their life without ever finding their true identity?

Gender reassignment is a fairly new concept in the grand scale of time. Do you believe that the same percentage of those who identify as a gender that opposes that to which they were born with, felt trapped in a body of the wrong sex 2000 years ago, before there were transgenders around to introduce them to the option of making a change?

I think there may have been a very minute percentage who perhaps felt they were trapped in the body which was the wrong sex, but I struggle to believe it would be the same percentage that suffer from gender confusion today.

The symptoms of suppression can be so strong that a homosexual may not even realize that he/ she is such.

I agree wholeheartedly with this comment. I just also believe that the symptoms of persuasion are equally powerful, as demonstrated by the fact that we are so easily duped into believing that money is the most important thing in the world, and the purpose of life is to consume new products.

In truth, money is the proverbial leash around our necks and it was conceived to be as such, and the more material wealth that you acquire, the more difficult it becomes to see the beauty in the world that is everywhere around you and comes at no cost other than your attention. If billions of humans can be persuaded to embrace this erroneous philosophy, then what else can we be persuaded to believe?

Note: My apologies if my next reply is not until tomorrow as I have some followers eagerly awaiting the next part in a series I'm writing, and I keep getting distracted. I want to try and get it posted tonight if possible so as not to make them wait longer than necessary.