Dr. Thomas Szasz

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I stand mostly corrected, apparently ADHD and ADD made it to neurological category, I need to catch up or at least review stuff before I write it, things change so fast.. either that or I possibly remembered wrong which is likely.

Technically we're both wrong according to the DSM-IV, technically it's properly called AD/HD but yeah ADD is another word for ADHD which I didn't know until just now, thanks!

In the DSM-IV it is strictly speaking Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, but yes.

The neurological understanding of AD/HD has largely been a matter of the past 10 years I think, and a lot of it is still mostly in professional circles or among those who make a point of keeping up.

An excellent presenter of the science as it's currently understood is Dr. Russell Barkley. There are several videos of him speaking about AD/HD on youtube. He's not the only expert, however, and he tends to state things a bit more firmly than is necessarily accurate. But, still, a lot of good information.

As far as remembering wrong, there are a lot of beliefs about AD/HD from it not existing at all to it being caused by television or video games or bad parenting, that it's easy to pick up those ideas and in good faith accept them as true. I basically knew nothing about it before three years ago.

Well beside this fact that ADHD and ADD is in the other category what is already mentioned, i find ths bisection difficult.
And here I'm leaving the theories of Szasz, because he is much more extreme than I am...!

So far I know there are studies that in PTSD patients the amygdala is smaller. Then they made twin studies and found to there surprise that even the twin who didn't have PTSD had a smaller amygdala too.
So, of course everyone can get PTSD, but it seems like that some are more vulnerable than others.

Also Bipolar and so on who are neuro-developmental, twin studies showed with Bipolar that there is a 60% chance that the other twin also has Bipolar. That's very high, but also showes that there is more to it than "just" the genes or brain.

Edit: We actually know nothing really about the brain.

Last edited by Raziel on 06 Feb 2013, 4:40 am, edited 1 time in total.

Can I ask why you thought I was male?

I would have thought nessa would be seen as a female name

People often seem unsure due to my posting style which in my opinion is often gender-neutral

I think it was, because you didn't mentioned your gender in your posting and also talked about being "transgender".
Actually very often here I don't think about the gender the person could have I'm writing with in this forum.

I'm also transgender (but FtM), so very often I notice it faster when ppl assume I'm female or male.

But I'm having my chest surgery propably next tuesday.
I'm terrible nervous and also happy that I finally was able to find shrinks and doctors who let me go my way, because right, that's my very own desicion!
Actually my report stating that I'm transgender and so on, was written by a shrink who thinks very simmilar than Szasz and also believes it's the desicion of the patient what to do and what not...!
And this shrink literally "saved" my life.
He is actually a very well known transgender specialist in my country.

I didn't talk about being transgender though as I'm not

I talked about being put on the progesterone-only mini-pill

I think a lot of people who consider themselves to be transgender have a problem with their gender presentation more
than being 'in the wrong body' ie they think they should be a stereotypical version of their gender and because they aren't or don't think they are, they think there's something 'wrong' with them and hence seek to change gender and always want to become a stereotypical version of the opposite gender. it's all about not being able to accept not conforming to a gender stereotype in my opinion.

I don't conform to the female gender stereotype ie I look more androgenous than feminine and I get a lot of flack off people for it but rather than seek to change gender (as I like being female and would not want to be male), I accept that I am just a less feminine looking woman and that it is other people who have the problem in expecting all women to conform to a narrow stereotypical and heavily media-influenced idea of femininity.

I've known more than a few transgender people and I have never met one who expressed anything like this as a motivation for their transition. One trans woman (Julia Serano) described being transgender as something like "not having the body your brain expects." That is, her brain expected her body to be female, and not male. This discrepancy created distress until she was able to resolve it.

I've also encountered femme trans men, butch trans women, and people with non-binary genders (not men, not women) or no gender at all, some of whom transition, some of whom do not, many of whom do not adopt a stereotypical version of the "opposite" gender.

I would recommend finding out what trans people have to say about transition.

I have a book by Julia Serano and have read about the subject and watched documentaries about it. I therefore feel I have a good overview of the subject. Please show me an example of a 'butch trans woman' - I'd be very interested to see one. Every single one I have ever come across has exhibited a stereotypical, exaggerated presentation of femininity and conversely I would like to see an example of a 'femme trans man', as every example of such people I have ever seen has exhibited an exaggerated, stereotypical version of masculinity. People who want to be a butch version of a woman or a femme version of a man are usually gay ie they accept their gender and don't have a problem with not being a stereotypical version of it.

It is my belief that it is all about an inability to accept gender presentation and although I accept that people have every right to transition to another gender if they choose to, I personally think it is wrong for a person to butcher their body when the problem is not their body but society's and their own inflexibility when it comes to accepting gender variations.

Sorry.
I sometimes read too fast or too slow or too anything and have to go back and read it again, because of my dyslexia I had as a child, especially in a foreign language.



You know, Szasz says "we know nothing about the human brain", that is one of the reasons why I'm very critical with interpretations of another persons mind or because of a certain diagnosis this person has.



Well, I can just talk about myself and in my case I was genderqueer since kindergarten. There are photos how I cut my hair like a boy, even before I started talking (witch was late) and also the memories to it.
I also have the feeling there is nothing really I can do about this feeling.
If it would be "just" a problem how I interact with the world with my gender, I would be more stereotyped, witch I'm not at all. I don't care how others fiew me, it has something to do with my selfidentity and also I don't think it would have been that constant. But I don't like making any assumptions about reasons why I'm the way I am in any way, because I think they just can "miss the point" and always missinterpret at least one or the other aspect or me totally as a human being, because life and of course also the brain is far too complex to fit in some "easy theories", especially if they involves theories like: "all ppl with x diagnosis behave like this because of y" to make a simple example and reading a book about a person with x diagnosis or something simmilar doesn't really give an answer to that. But I'm saying that in general and to noone particular at the moment.
I just can tell how I personally feel about this matter and there I have to agree with Julia Serano, it is like not having the body that fits to the brain.



You know, I have an aunt with parkinson's and have also watched documentaries about it. I still don't think I can imagine how it is to live with it.

I can't just summon people to be self-narrating zoo exhibits (link) on request. Here is, however, a video of a panel on butch trans women from the Butch Voices conference:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xfTN-dKqO4

And a tumblr about femme trans men:

http://femmeftm.tumblr.com/

You can find multiple youtube videos by femme trans men on the topic of being femme trans men.

If you've read Julia Serano's book, I am uncertain how you could conclude that trans people turn to transition just because they think they should be stereotypical examples of their assigned gender and are unable to achieve that. What she writes is pretty much the opposite of this. What I have seen consistently is that it is because their assigned gender and sex are just wrong and causes significant distress until it can be addressed.

I think I'd also say that transgender people do accept their gender. That's why some transition. Not all need to transition, but those who do, seem to have fairly strong reasons for doing so, One of those reasons is accepting their actual gender instead of the one they were assigned.



We are all entitled to our own opinions, but we are not entitled to our own facts. In this case, your belief departs rather radically from factual understanding of who and what transgender people are. Also, referring to them as "butchering" their bodies is a rather polarizing statement, which is also based on this idea of transgender people that you've constructed that does not resemble any of the actual trans people I have encountered. Instead of telling everyone who trans people supposedly really are, why don't you ask someone who is trans and willing to talk to you about it? Failing that, there's always google and numerous blogs by transgender people of all genders all over the blogosphere.

Oh yes, someone wants here a zoo to satisfy their believsystem, isn't that nice? *sarcasm*

I'm also one of those ppl (but not that extreme ). I'm even as a guy slightly genderqueer and I so don't care. I didn't transition to fit in the genderroles, I didn't transsition to fit in any asigned roles. Why in the hell should I do that?
I don't feel confartable in my body, because my body doesn't fit to my gender, to MY self-identity. THAT's the reason!

I'm sorry if I've offended you - that certainly wasn't my intention

I was expressing my views on the subject and not saying these held for anyone but myself - they are just my ideas

I just find it near-on impossible to imagine any circumstances under which I would feel the need to radically alter my own body
unless my health was at risk.

If I felt I was in 'the wrong body' I would just learn to cope with it as that to me seems far less traumatic than having surgery to permanently alter my body. It seems too drastic a measure to deal with what is in effect a feeling in the brain.

I also can't see how a person can feel in the wrong body if they have never had any other body ie how do you know what it feels like to have the body of someone of the opposite gender and how do you know it would make you feel any better to have it?

I don't understand a lot of the terminology you use such as 'gender queer' - that is meaningless to me - does it mean gay?
the word 'queer' implies gay to me

I lose track of the parameters

By my understanding you were born with a female body but felt in your brain that you were male and should therefore have a male body in order to feel coherent/complete in body and mind?

Are you attracted to men or women?

Again this is very confusing - as a woman, if you fancy another women you would be seen as gay but if you transition to become male you would be seen as heterosexual

Another of my theories (which I've no doubt you won't like but that's fine) is that transgenderism could be in some instances due to a person not wanting to accept the fact that they are gay ie they don't want to be seen as gay so they change gender so they can have a heterosexual relationship with the gender they are sexually attracted to

I know people will have their own unique reasons for wanting to change gender and that's fine - these are just theories of mine plus there is such a thing as denial ie where a person is unwilling to admit the truth of a situation to themself

I don't understand this issue very well at all so these are my attempts to try and rationalise it to myself - I am more than happy to be corrected from your own point of view as you know far more about the subject than me. I don't have a set in stone belief system on this issue, I have just tried to rationalise it to myself and imagine how I would react if I didn't feel the gender in my brain matched that of my body.

I have to start with my initial stance on the subject though and apologise if it offends

Most of the trans women I know are butch or tomboys. I can't summon them to show you, because they're people, and people who I know, not random examples on the internet.

Anyways, genderqueer has nothing to do with sexual identity, its entirely gender identity. Genderqueer has to do with not fitting in the gender binary.

For example, my body is female, but my mind doesn't have a gender. It's not that I don't care about my gender, or that I'm feminist and think that my female body doesn't matter. My mind does not have a gender, it is lacking a gender. I do not fit in the gender binary. My gender is neither female, nor male, despite my body being female.

This is one type of being genderqueer.

Another type is someone who is both male and female. Another is someone who is sometimes male and sometimes female. There are lots of types.

You can't possibly know how you would react in this situation, if you are not.



It simply means that a person doesn't behave and/or feels in the assigned gendernormes in any way and has nothing whatsoever to do with the sexual orientation.



Even stastically this would make no sence.
Around 1/3 of transgender people are afterwards heterosexual, 1/3 homosexual and 1/3 asexual, bisexual or something else.
It also makes no sence that in our society we live today, that someone would undergo this operation because of a homosexuality and also homosexual people are in our society a lot more accepted than transgenders are.

You wouldn't be able to explain transgender with those theories. Others tried before you and what I've read on theories and it didn't work. Also you can't "cure" transgenders with any therapy out there. If the pressure of feeling in the wrong body is too much, many transgenders even commit suicide or are highly suicidal until they are able to transition. Afterwards they even might be considered are gay, genderqueer or whatever, maybe not. Also children who are not even avare yet of their sexual orientation can be avare of being transgender from very early on.

I take the points you make on board

I am very interested to find out how you know you are in the 'wrong body' if you don't know what being in a male body
is like ie you have no physical experience of it

Are you imagining what it would be like to have a male body or does your brain already think it is in a male body?

Also, if you identified as Gender queer, which means a person doesn't sign up to the norms of gender, how come you want to change gender ie if gender wasn't relevant to you why has it become relevant enough to want to change it?

Well, to imagine how it is to have no breasts is not that difficult, I had no as a child.
Is it more a self-identity thing and not being able to stand the feminine parts on the body and not seing them as part of myself.



I don't do that because of society and I'm not very interested in the fact how society sees the gender roles.
I'm in this way genderqueer that I don't care about those social norms.

I want to be happy and not please anyone with what I do or don't do.