My response to the article 'Smashing Gender Differences'. To understand this, it would probably be best to read the offending article first.

http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/coren.html

>>The Ontario Human Rights Commission has issued a report calling
>>for greater public education on the subject of transsexuals so that we
>>can all understand this poor, persecuted community. In other words, we
>>have to know more about people who want sex-change operations.

First, thanks for the sarcastic barb in the opening paragraph. I infer from it that your weapon of choice is a qwerty keyboard wielded with scathing sarcasm, cynicism, and hate. I will accept your challenge, and step up with the swish of a slip, to your iron gauntlet. En Guard!

As to your comment of 'persecuted' (stated sarcastically), I will enlighten you as to what 'persecuted' means in this response, but for now...

>>"Education about gender identity is crucial to both transgendered and
>>non-transgendered people," says the report. Funny, I seem to have
>>been doing fine so far without too much information on this, eh, prickly issue.

And I'm GLAD you have. There are many teenagers who are transgendered, and so filled by self-hatred because they assume they are twisted malformed freaks, because they read articles like yours, and can only come to the conclusion that you must be right. You've been published! So here are young people trying to deal with all sorts of social pressures, and added on top of that, they now have to deal with the pressure of being 'different'. Perhaps it's a young effeminate male, bright and shy, which now, because of this internalized feeling of femininity, is ostracized and socially tormented by all the IN people. This person suffers from not being able to be the way he is expected to be. Because, externally, no one can deny he IS a 'he', but in 'her' mind, she feels trapped acting the role society expects of her. The lie is strong, when everyone tells you something is true. What's more, the physical evidence tells you it's true, and yet, in your mind, you know it's a lie, a cruel joke of some switch putting your mind in the wrong body. Why does it happen? Well, read your next statement and you tell ME!

>>The paper goes on to state that education is imperative because there are so many myths
>>about the subject.

Before we go any further, go ahead, SHATTER the myths, and tell me why Transgendered people ARE the way they are........
Don't read any further until you HONESTLY think of why they ARE that way.

...Well?........

You don't KNOW, do you?
You've only heard the myths. You've only seen transsexuals on Jerry Springer, right?

>>For education read clumsy and unbridled propaganda.

Possibly. Every document you read is going to have a slant, and show at least a hint of the political motivations of the author, but at least the document would be an honest attempt at explaining a small faction of our species. Not our culture, our species. This is not an isolated incident over an isolated period of time. Transsexuals have been documented through history, and in many cultures and regions of the world. They are VERY low in number, perhaps only one in 40,000 people are transsexuals, and regardless of any amount of therapy, any amount of social pressure, many of these people NEED to change their percieved gender and live their life as the opposite sex.. Some of these people might be able to be 'helped' by therapy, or medication (particularly SSRI's, antidepressants such as Prozak), decreasing the urgency and strength of their discomfort. Some people are born with sex characteristics of BOTH sexes (hermaphrodites, the name from Greek Mythology, the beautiful child of Hermies and Aphrodite, a god with sexual characteristics of both male and female). It is not a clear cut case. The issue of transsexuality
is a spectrum. We are taught there are two sexes, male and famale. Can't you see there are only two bathrooms (except in 'Ally McBeal')? So, what if you're neither? What if you're born with one testacle and one ovary? What if your XY chromazomed with female brain functions (Yes men, women HAVE brain functions)?

>>That the report is based on a radical agenda is obvious to everyone.

Yes, OBVIOUS! It's obviously a ploy for world domination to create informative literature to protect the rights of a small minority from being murdered, raped, beaten, or forced into suicide because their friends, family and community ostrasize them. Because in this world of scientific insight, we're a big enough statistical anomoly to be considered the last bastion of the 'freakshow'. Look! The bearded woman and the man with no penis!

>>The only people who seem to be promoting all this rubbish are those intent on smashing gender
>>differences and doctors who make a great deal of money telling mentally ill men that it's okay to want to have your willy cut off.

Is so much of your identity of self based on that single system of your anatomy? Your sense of self is THAT strongly entrenched that you fear the loss of it so greatly? Well...yes. I'm sure not having your penis would be psychologically damaging to ANYONE who was malsculine in gender. Including female to male transsexuals...oh, but wait, I thought this issue was just about 'guys in dresses?!? Guess again. Now, along with the pansy men swishing around in dresses, you have 'butch' women with 'Dyke' Haircuts. But wait again! Those were words usually used to slander the gay community, and they're Non-PC, right? Ah, but you probably still hate those faggots too! And, probably the coons, and kykes! Do you see the point? I don't hate you for being you, but then YOU are the 'norm' and we are the 'freaks', a tiny minority. Call it what you like. We are contributing members of society, and we are your children, your syblings, your neighbors, and your friends. We are people who care, and have felt the cruelty of the world, and are willing to help others face life when it's tough. What are we doing to attract your wrath?

>>Some fundamental points. There is no such thing as a transsexual. There is no such thing as a man in
>>a woman's body or a woman in a man's body.

Thank you Doctor....And your degree in human behavior and psychology is from????
I dissagree. You say that only because you have never really MET one. I have never ACTUALLY seen Paris, therefore it must not really exist (But ILM made some convincing models, and composit cinematography!)

>>There are, however, some very sick people whose deep mental illness deserves our compassion
>>and care.

Here sadly, I must agree. Because of the stresses on marriages, employment, security in general, and high cost of psychological therapy, electrolysis, hormone treatment, and the actual surgical procedures, transsexuals must forego legitimate means of obtaining hormones, risking bodily harm 'self prescribing' hormone levels in hopes of alligning their bodies to their minds, or suffer without the proper therapy needed to get through the difficult social trap of gender bigotry. If we are not pink, and we are not powder blue, then we're in deep shit! We are treated with instant hostility because we break that binary gender view.

>>Any man who wants to have his genitalia surgically removed and some grotesque imitation of a
>>female organ put in its place requires years of therapy and medication.

Yeah! You're right!... Um, well, what about a man whose in a car accident, and needs his now-destroyed genetals replaced? If they skin graft from his thigh, and give him one of those impotence erectile inflation hoo-dickies to give the new 'organ' hydrostasis, what about him? Is THAT a 'grotesque imitation'? It IS an imitation, right? Now, what if the SAME procedure is performed on a female to male transsexual? THEN is it a 'grotesque imitation'? But you would probably counter with either 'It's just not NATURAL', or my fave 'If God would have wanted you to have a vagina, he would have given you one'. No, it is NOT natural, but I sit here typing on a computer, something most definitely unnatural equipment, and if God would have wanted you to have straight teeth or 20/20 vision, he would have given you those too! Hey, no one bitched when I said I was going to have my wisdom teeth removed!

>>Or, frankly, needs to put in a hard week's work fifty times a year so that he stops concocting neurotic
>>nightmares and gets on with leading a meaningful life.

Yeah! More power to ya! ...No, wait.... >I< work 50 weeks a year, being a productive member of society. I spent six years active duty Air Force, am officially a veteran of a foriegn war, and was discharged honorably while still gender dysphoric. I work a forty hour week, indirectly for the Air Force still, supporting software for Air Mobility Command. THAT sounds like a respectable and legitimate job. Now, ask yourself this: Will I KEEP this position if I decide to transition to living as a female? If I'm every bit as competent and productive, will I be treated the same? No. No-one will take me seriously, or their religious
beliefs will intervene, or their homophobic chest-puffing will place me as the target of all the office ridicule. Move over hefty Wanda, bald Ben, and Flatulent Frank, there's a new office freak for us to ridicule, so we can feel less pathetic at the end of the day. Oh, and it's just great sport unless you happen to be in the receiving end, then it ain't so funny no more is it? What if you were being cast out of society? How would YOU feel for being rejected because you didn't meet up with everyone's expectations?

>>Many of us indulged in fantasies at some time or another, usually when we were very young.
>>Then we matured and put away childish things.

Yeah, I was just telling that to Walt Disney, Jim Henson, and George Lucas. Gyger is next, but his work creeps me out...so YOU get to tell HIM!

>>I, for example, always wanted to be a great soccer player, but I simply wasn't good enough. Surgery
>>would have done nothing to alter that condition and surgery will do nothing to turn a man into a woman.
>>These poor wretches will merely become monstrous results of weird science, walking examples of the
>>triumph of technology over common sense.

It...IS.....ALIVE!!!! Give me a break! Far from 'wretches', my friends with atypical gender are interesting, intelligent, literate, compassionate, humorous, caring, strong, and very giving of their time. Do these apply to you? Some of these 'monsterous results of weird science' make a living as models (AND talk-show hosts!). You might have even gotten erect staring at one and not known it, but now, THERE is the problem...not with us, but in your own mind. You fear mistaking one of us for a 'real' female or male, becoming emotionally attached, and then discovering the truth. You'd feel duped, lied to, played the fool, instead of realizing it's the same beautiful person it was the moment before discovery. So, in your mind, we cannot exist, because we'd force you to reevaluate your own sexual interests, and analyze what caring REALLY meant. Thinking is really TOO much to ask for. Education is right out of the question.

>>I pity them, but I also oppose them. What they demand is wrong, dangerous and unnatural. That they
>>also want public funding for such gruesome exercises, which they had until very recently, is beyond
>>belief. Next time I meet an unemployed nurse, a child counting the days until life-and-death treatment
>>or an old man on an MRI waiting list, I'll assure them that they have to be more understanding.

Oh, hey! There's that 'unnatural' line! <giggle> Now can we go for how we're abberations in the eyes of 'Gawd'? Come on, you're on a roll! About public funding, didn't you say it was for 'greater public education on the subject of transsexuals'? Well, if they don't inform people, who will? Jerry Springer? Did the government put out documentation on understanding homosexuality? Would that piss you off too?

>>The handful of men and women I have met who are convinced that they were born in the wrong bodies
>>have been profoundly messed up and have had a legion of painful issues with which to deal.
>>The debate over which bathroom to use was in some cases the least of their problems. "Have
>>whatever you want, it'll all be fine." We should not be encouraging them.

Profoundly messed up, because we KNOW what we are, and that we must change. We know what the consequences of that change will be. We will be humiliated, beaten, and killed for our convictions. Knowing that, we still need this enough to bear the pains the world will cast at us, like stones from a righteous man. We ARE messed up. We alone MUST change, bare the truth of ourselves for public ridicule to become what we know we are. We KNOW that our 'friends' and family will abandon us. THAT is a 'legion of painful issues' in and of itself. Add to that the additional problems in MANY people's lives, things 'real' people deal with; Anxiety, depression, job stress, parental responsibility, problems of addiction, physical illness, a host of woes which break many people. Add to THAT this great load of Gender Dysphoria, and ask yourself if YOU'D be strong enough.

You don't need to encourage us. We have never before been encouraged. Far from it, I have been trained to hide much of the truth of who I am. For whose benefit? Yours? You don't care about me, why should I give a rat's ass what YOU think! Who the hell appointed YOU God? Go find the plank in YOUR eye! I do not start crap or publicly state my views about groups and organizations I don't like. I respect your right to express your opinion, but you are not knowledgable on the matter, so what's the moral duty you feel to criticize something about which you are totally ignorant? You don't hear me giving my opinion on how to improve the flight characteristics of aircraft do you?

>>No wonder a sorry bunch of men want to dress up as women, take hormones to remove body hair,
>>grow breasts and insist on being called Brittany when their real name is George.

Um, the hormones don't remove the hair...or change the voice. Electrolosis is used for hair removal. And either surgery or voice therapy is employed for modifying speech patterns. Sorry to say, you really ARE poorly informed, and would probably benefit from the low amount you'd pay in tax for the government information. Per cent, it's really probably the best deal you'll find on education, and from what you've said, I think you NEED it.

>>This would all be very funny if it wasn't so very sad. For the people involved, for their families, for the
>>taxpayer and for the greater society that doesn't know what is hitting it and why it is happening.

NOONE knows why it happens. Wouldn't it be nice to KNOW?? There are well supported theories, but no one wants to PAY to find out what causes transsexuality. You also make it sound like transsexuality is a new thing. It's not. There have been transsexuals (and homosexuals also) recorded throughout history. They're not new, you're just running out of the unknown, and our time has come to be understood. Unless you think the Giant Squid is more worthy of being understood than we are.

>>Genuine love sometimes means saying, in a loud
>>and clear voice, no, no and never.

But the questions to those three answers are:
'Can't you TRY to understand me?',
'Don't you even CARE?',
and 'When can I come see you mom?'

My name is Lynn, regardless of what my birth certificate says. I am female, regardless of what my chromosomes say. And I will strive for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, regardless of what all of society says. Against the loss of all my social attachments, I will find peace with myself. I am more than willing to share with you any information on the topic you may wish to read, but then, we're somehow beneath you, less than human in your eyes, aren't we?

I do not want trouble with anyone. I want to live a peaceful existance. I am in a state of inner turmoil. You, being provy to this, feel a need to cast me out? That's cruel. What you wrote was cruel and hateful. I'm sorry that transsexuals occupy so much of your mind that you feel a need to spew forth venom at them. I would like to have you over, make dinner for you, and discuss it like two adults, but I think your mind is already made up, your ideals are already immutable. In general, it would take too much effort to teach you the truth. Now that I've spent some time venting, I will spend some time chatting pleasantly with friends.

Care for a rematch?