Non TS/TV males who post as women on WP, testimonials wanted, enquire within Options

[the fieryangel]

In the project that I'm currently working on with Peter, Greg, and Eric, I'm writing the chapter on Users. In the section discussing the systemic bias, I'm going to try to go into detail as to the gender gap and possible reasons why this exists.

It's obvious why TS/TV individuals post as women, so that's pretty self-explanatory (dare I say "normal"?) However, it would seem that a great many non-TS/TV males contribute to WP as females, either via sock puppets (à la Kristen Erikson) and also as their main personae. I'm looking for people who would be willing to discuss how posting as females changes the experience on WP. I would also be interested in women who post as males and why they do that. (I know of at least one experience of this happening and I'm sure that there are more....)

Just send me a private message here and we'll discuss it.

[Ceoil]

Dude you post under the guise of a cat?

This post has been edited by Ceoil: Mon 7th November 2011, 3:03am

[Ottava]

Most of the "TS/TV" identify as males irl and just say that online because they were caught pretending to be female. It is all nonsense. They just want attention and demand to have their fantasies indulged or are trying to justify/hide that they were pretending to be female to manipulate others. I love when the furries demand to be addressed as their imaginary characters on IRC too.

[carbuncle]

Most of the "TS/TV" identify as males irl and just say that online because they were caught pretending to be female. It is all nonsense. They just want attention and demand to have their fantasies indulged or are trying to justify/hide that they were pretending to be female to manipulate others. I love when the furries demand to be addressed as their imaginary characters on IRC too.

There may be more than one reason why someone would pretend to be something online that they are not in real life. I think this was a request for people to come forward and contact the fieryangel, not an inducement to start a discussion on the topic.

[Peter Damian]

There was an interesting study http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mind_the_Gap linked to in another thread, which suggested (using gender-identifying words) that many editors on Wikipedia who identify as female, may actually be male.

[thekohser]

...may actually be male.

Or skew male-like, or have adapted to Wikipedia's male culture by "fitting in" with male-like output.

[Ottava]

Most of the "TS/TV" identify as males irl and just say that online because they were caught pretending to be female. It is all nonsense. They just want attention and demand to have their fantasies indulged or are trying to justify/hide that they were pretending to be female to manipulate others. I love when the furries demand to be addressed as their imaginary characters on IRC too.

There may be more than one reason why someone would pretend to be something online that they are not in real life. I think this was a request for people to come forward and contact the fieryangel, not an inducement to start a discussion on the topic.

Yet not everyone is able to actually send private messages, and it is posted publicly and not locked. So....



By the way, I saw at least 2 males who are known to merely have been pretending to be females before (and both came out as TV to hide from censure) be given the "survey" for women. Wonderful stuff.

This post has been edited by Ottava: Mon 7th November 2011, 3:17pm

[carbuncle]

By the way, I saw at least 2 males who are known to merely have been pretending to be females before (and both came out as TV to hide from censure) be given the "survey" for women. Wonderful stuff.

Perhaps they are "TS/TV", which is why they would say that they were so and why they might adopt an online female identity? It seems odd to me that someone would admit to being something that opens them up to ridicule, misunderstanding, and abuse rather than admit to lying about their gender. I'm not discounting that trolls are going to, well, troll, but I don't understand why you assume that their claims are false. Is it simply that transgendered people are an impossibility in your worldview?

[Ottava]

By the way, I saw at least 2 males who are known to merely have been pretending to be females before (and both came out as TV to hide from censure) be given the "survey" for women. Wonderful stuff.

Perhaps they are "TS/TV", which is why they would say that they were so and why they might adopt an online female identity? It seems odd to me that someone would admit to being something that opens them up to ridicule, misunderstanding, and abuse rather than admit to lying about their gender. I'm not discounting that trolls are going to, well, troll, but I don't understand why you assume that their claims are false. Is it simply that transgendered people are an impossibility in your worldview?

They walk around as males irl.

Furthermore, the whole TS/TV thing is bs. Merely putting on an outfit or an identity does not make you such, or there are a lot of Hamlets out there.

[that one guy]

By the way, I saw at least 2 males who are known to merely have been pretending to be females before (and both came out as TV to hide from censure) be given the "survey" for women. Wonderful stuff.

Perhaps they are "TS/TV", which is why they would say that they were so and why they might adopt an online female identity? It seems odd to me that someone would admit to being something that opens them up to ridicule, misunderstanding, and abuse rather than admit to lying about their gender. I'm not discounting that trolls are going to, well, troll, but I don't understand why you assume that their claims are false. Is it simply that transgendered people are an impossibility in your worldview?

They walk around as males irl.

Furthermore, the whole TS/TV thing is bs. Merely putting on an outfit or an identity does not make you such, or there are a lot of Hamlets out there.

{{fact}}

edit: a mod may want to split the thread if it keeps going this way, just a thought

This post has been edited by that one guy: Mon 7th November 2011, 6:21pm

[carbuncle]

Furthermore, the whole TS/TV thing is bs. Merely putting on an outfit or an identity does not make you such, or there are a lot of Hamlets out there.

I'm going to assume that by "such" you mean "the gender normally associated with such clothing". What if a biological male dresses and acts like a female at all times, takes female hormones, gets breast implants, and has their penis reconstructed into a simulated vagina? Does that count? Just curious.

This post has been edited by carbuncle: Mon 7th November 2011, 7:33pm

[EricBarbour]

Non-judgmentally: Peter, it will be very difficult to develop some kind of even-half-reliable statistics
on this, because of the inherent manchild wargaming culture of WP. I've tried already, with the admins.

By definition, women are not welcome, and it encourages men to pose as women (Poetlister and
many more) to score "points" or to manipulate others. WP's culture is inherently hostile, which is why
the "Mind the Gap" business is a joke. Wikipedians are hostile to actual experts, they are hostile to
outsiders, they are hostile to paid editing (good or bad), they are hostile to critics. They are hostile to
people who want to balance the editorial content away from the sports-gaming-military-comic book bias
it already shows, and in a more "encyclopedic" direction.

Of course they'll be hostile to women who want to bring new female editors in.

Judgmentally: Jeff, please spare us the Catholic "social engineering". It obviously won't work on WP,
and it adds nothing to the conversation here. We're supposed to be studying a dysfunctional social
system, not editorializing about it.

[Ottava]

Furthermore, the whole TS/TV thing is bs. Merely putting on an outfit or an identity does not make you such, or there are a lot of Hamlets out there.

I'm going to assume that by "such" you mean "the gender normally associated with such clothing". What if a biological male dresses and acts like a female at all times, takes female hormones, gets breast implants, and has their penis reconstructed into a simulated vagina? Does that count? Just curious.

Look at it this way:

The guy who inked his skin blue, put in metal and bone implants into his body, and cut up his ears to make himself look like some kind of freakish cat person is still human.

There is less genetic difference between a male chimp and a male human than there is between a male human and a female human. You cannot change your genetic code because you cut your body apart, used chemicals, etc.

Johns Hopkins stopped sex changes because they determined that it was a mental disease. You can read about it here. Note, they were the ones that pioneered the sex change operations, and the guy who started it all was the one to realize that it was really, really problematic. The people need psychological counseling in the same way furries do and anyone else who needs to play pretend.

Thinking you are the wrong gender is no different from thinking you are the wrong race, species, etc. It is all about self-loathing. It takes a lot of insanity to think "maybe if I chop up my sexual organs that will make me better". It is related to body dysmorphia and other major illnesses.

And this is assuming the people aren't just doing it for attention, which 99.9% of the people on Wikipedia do it for (and many, like Poetlister, abuse that attention to try and gain power, trust, etc).



Eric:

By definition, women are not welcome, and it encourages men to pose as women (Poetlister and
many more) to score "points" or to manipulate others. WP's culture is inherently hostile, which is why
the "Mind the Gap" business is a joke.

You are forgetting one thing: the old idea that "only a man knows how to please a man" (the theme from M Butterfly) - i.e. men pose as women and then manipulate other men in ways women would not.

Judgmentally: Jeff, please spare us the Catholic "social engineering".

It has nothing to do with religion and all to do with psychology. Read the Johns Hopkins report. They stopped sex change surgeries because they determined that it was a horrible mistake in indulging these people who need psychological treatment instead.

This post has been edited by Ottava: Mon 7th November 2011, 11:05pm

[SB_Johnny]

You are forgetting one thing: the old idea that "only a man knows how to please a man" (the theme from M Butterfly) - i.e. men pose as women and then manipulate other men in ways women would not.

Ottava, if you ever go on a date with a real girl, you should bring along a guy buddy with more experience than you as a chaperone. Hell, bring Horsey... even he might no more about girls than you.

[that one guy]

Really Ottava, you're going to use NARTH as a resource. That alone is just wrong.

[Somey]

Really Ottava, you're going to use NARTH as a resource. That alone is just wrong.

And on top of that, the article doesn't even say what he apparently wants us to believe it says. And this isn't the first time, either...

At the same time, I would agree that it's a very bad idea for physicians to agree to perform SRS operations if the person requesting them hasn't had a significant amount of psychological, if not actual psychiatric, counseling. Thankfully, I believe that's considered standard procedure in the USA, though there are probably surgeons who would do it without that, just for the money.

[Ottava]

Really Ottava, you're going to use NARTH as a resource. That alone is just wrong.

And on top of that, the article doesn't even say what he apparently wants us to believe it says. And this isn't the first time, either...

At the same time, I would agree that it's a very bad idea for physicians to agree to perform SRS operations if the person requesting them hasn't had a significant amount of psychological, if not actual psychiatric, counseling. Thankfully, I believe that's considered standard procedure in the USA, though there are probably surgeons who would do it without that, just for the money.

Really?

John Hopkins's press release on the matter.

They halted it 100%. Not "until major counseling".

"A second, smaller category of the sex unit’s patients suffers from serious “disorders,” like gender dysphoria—the technical diagnostic term for people who think they’re trapped in the body of the wrong sex—and paraphilias such as transvestitism and pedophilia. These people, according to Paul Costa, Ph.D., an expert in personality assessments, “are more problem-prone as well.” Besides their sexual conflicts, they have a tendency toward high levels of anxiety, hostility and neuroticism." - Johns Hopkins.

That isn't the commentary of a group who believes that these people are "normal" or "psychologically sound".

More:

Controversy over sex-change surgery at Hopkins raged, both in the media and inside the institution. “This was taking place at a very conservative place and in a highly charged atmosphere,” Schmidt recalls. “It’s pretty rough surgery; some people consider it mutilating. And, of course, the scientific side of it is pretty damn weak.”

Finally, in 1979, the unit’s then-director, Meyer, published a study questioning certain benefits of the surgery that helped convince the Hopkins hierarchy to eliminate its sex reassignment program entirely. But that early foray into gender reassignment here has maintained a long media shelf life. Before a recent case conference, Strand passed around a copy of a New Yorker essay containing a sex-change joke punctuated with a reference to Hopkins; it was published last May, nearly two decades after the Hospital last performed such surgery.

To psychiatrist Wise, who’s been with the sex unit since 1974, its strength lies in a set of practices poles away from the New Yorker portrayal. Not being “buffeted about” by all the societal changes of the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s on issues like gender dysphoria is one of the qualities that makes this group stand out, he says. Without looking beyond mainstream America, the unit’s been able to see thousands of men and women through deep sexual conflicts.

They even say that there was no science backing the surgery and their own people wanted it stopped back then.

Instead, they counsel people to accept themselves instead of helping them alter their bodies to match their psychological illness.



P.S. - Somey, the quotes from Paul McHugh in NARTH piece are damning and say 100% reason why the stuff is a psychological disorder and not something that we should indulge in others. You have not proven that the quotes are wrong. Hard to deny this quote from him: "I have witnessed a great deal of damage from sex-reassignment. The children transformed from their male constitution into female roles suffered prolonged distress and misery as they sensed their natural attitudes. ... We have wasted scientific and technical resources and damaged our professional credibility by collaborating with madness rather than trying to study, cure, and ultimately prevent it."

He published the quote in his book discussing the matter.

"As for the adults who came to us claiming to have discovered their 'true' sexual identity and to have heard about sex-change operations, we psychiatrists have been distracted from studying the causes and natures of their mental misdirections by preparing them for surgery and for a life in the other sex. We have wasted scientific and technical resources and damaged our professional credibility by collaborating with madness rather than trying to study, cure, and ultimately prevent it." p. 228 Dr. Paul McHugh, one of the few world experts on Sex Reassignment Surgery and has a background that few can compare.



By the way, Thekohser below -

Males have XY Chromosome while females have XX. That difference provides for more of a genetic difference than the humans and the chimps of the same gender. The point is to illustrate that even if a man "thinks" he is a woman, that Y is doing things that would not happen in an XX.

Here is a source. It is a very common statement. I'm surprised you haven't seen it before.

This post has been edited by Ottava: Tue 8th November 2011, 2:43am

[thekohser]

My bad.

This post has been edited by thekohser: Tue 8th November 2011, 3:03am

[Somey]

Really?

John Hopkins's press release on the matter.

They halted it 100%. Not "until major counseling".

Jeez, not only did you not read the article at the original link, not to mention what I actually posted, you didn't even read the article you linked to as a rebuttal. Has nothing changed since I went on vacation?

There's nothing in either of those articles that says they stopped doing SRS because they somehow "concluded" that the desire to obtain a sex-change represents a mental illness. It does say that they followed up on several such operations and found that rather few of the people who had been reassigned were "comfortable" with their new gender, but is that really so surprising? If you ask me, that's a bit like saying "we went back and checked with all the people whose arms we'd cut off, and found that rather few of them had gone on to become pitchers for the Baltimore Orioles."

Seriously, Ottava - it might, in some cases, be a sign of mental illness, I'll freely admit and agree with that. But it might also be a sign that the person has been messed up genetically from birth, can't get his/her shit together as the gender he/she was born as, and just wants to give it a shot in the hopes that he/she will be better off. And if Johns Hopkins didn't want to be a part of that, it doesn't mean they were making some sort of blanket pronouncement about the mental state of those people - it's far more likely to mean they're just a conservative, controversy-averse institution, just like the article says they are.

[Ottava]

Really?

John Hopkins's press release on the matter.

They halted it 100%. Not "until major counseling".

Jeez, not only did you not read the article at the original link, not to mention what I actually posted, you didn't even read the article you linked to as a rebuttal. Has nothing changed since I went on vacation?

There's nothing in either of those articles that says they stopped doing SRS because they somehow "concluded" that the desire to obtain a sex-change represents a mental illness. It does say that they followed up on several such operations and found that rather few of the people who had been reassigned were "comfortable" with their new gender, but is that really so surprising? If you ask me, that's a bit like saying "we went back and checked with all the people whose arms we'd cut off, and found that rather few of them had gone on to become pitchers for the Baltimore Orioles."

Seriously, Ottava - it might, in some cases, be a sign of mental illness, I'll freely admit and agree with that. But it might also be a sign that the person has been messed up genetically from birth, can't get his/her shit together as the gender he/she was born as, and just wants to give it a shot in the hopes that he/she will be better off. And if Johns Hopkins didn't want to be a part of that, it doesn't mean they were making some sort of blanket pronouncement about the mental state of those people - it's far more likely to mean they're just a conservative, controversy-averse institution, just like the article says they are.

You question my ability to read, but honestly, you haven't bothered to read.

"damaged our professional credibility by collaborating with madness rather than trying to study, cure, and ultimately prevent it" is really, really, really clear on the topic.

That is from the guy who stopped the program.

Both articles show that the program was closed because the people in charged believed that all desires for sex changes were a psychological illness and you do not treat a psychological illness by mutilating a body to indulge in fantasy.

That is indisputable. Merely covering your ears and going "la la la la, I don't hear you, anything you say is wrong because I magically declared it so" wont change that Somey.

it doesn't mean they were making some sort of blanket pronouncement about the mental state of those people - it's far more likely to mean they're just a conservative, controversy-averse institution, just like the article says they are

Which could be true if they weren't the developers of the procedure and pioneered the field before they got evidence 100% debunking the surgeries as a whole.

This post has been edited by Ottava: Tue 8th November 2011, 3:22am