Anonymous Swedish parents decide to raise their child genderless, or well, until the young thing decides for itself
A couple of Swedish parents have stirred up debate in the country by refusing to reveal whether their two-and-a-half-year-old child is a boy or a girl. [...]In an interview with newspaper Svenska Dagbladet in March, the parents were quoted saying their decision was rooted in the feminist philosophy that gender is a social construction.
“We want Pop to grow up more freely and avoid being forced into a specific gender mould from the outset,” Pop’s mother said. “It’s cruel to bring a child into the world with a blue or pink stamp on their forehead.”
Oh, more or less cruel then having unmarried parents? (I’m assuming here because the article studiously avoids giving the marital status of “the couple”.)
Unsurprising applause from Vagina Warriors
Some places, school districts, neighborhoods, relatives, co-parents, might make this choice a lot more difficult, fraught, or even dangerous. But part of why it’s so difficult, and turns into such a controversial choice, is that there are so few people raising their kids with freedom of gender.
Because, ya know, gender is just something you slip into each day like a pair of Levi jeans — the stonewashed 501’s or midrise 553’s?
Do you suppose, in that “feminist” Swedish shackup, dad puts on the cocktail dress occassionally so as to not impose any social constructs on little “Pop”? The article does mention, and gets wrong, the tragic tale of David Reimer
Both Nordenström and Pinker refer to a controversial case from 1967 when a circumcision left one of two twin brothers without a penis. Dr. John Money, who asserted that gender was learned rather than innate, convinced the parents to raise ‘David’ as ‘Brenda’ and the child had cosmetic genitalia reconstruction surgery.She was raised as a female, with girls’ clothes, games and codes of behaviour. The parents never told Brenda the secret until she was a teenager and rebelled against femininity. She then started receiving testosterone injections and underwent another genetic reconstruction process to become David again. David Reimer denounced the experiment as a crushing failure before committing suicide at the age of 38.
In actuality, David/Brenda started rebelling against his gender reassignment as a toddler.
The vast majority of parents want to do the best for their child and are attuned to a child’s interests. Loves playing outside? Bikes, rollerskates, etc. Creative? All manner of art supplies. This “blue box, pink box” OH STOP THE HORROR! is a cheap political construct.
So there’s the huge question — even if “Pop” right now is behaving in accordance with his/hers born sex, would these “feminist” parents accept it? Or are they amateur Dr. Moneys, ready to use their child to prove their dogma?
Comment by Bob Reed on 6/29 @ 8:24 am #
Answer: Amateur Dr. Moneys; and a just another example of how Sweden is at the center of the swirling vortex that is western civilization in Europe going down the tubes…
As much as the vagina warriors, and some radical LBGT types, wish it weren’t so gender in and of itself does carry default characteriswtics and behaviors that are driven by chemical processes in the body. And, while these urges and emotional responses can be controlled through mental will, they are not simply a phony construct superimposed by society…
Gender in and of itself is not like job discrimination; saying that men or women can’t do X simply becuase of who they are. That idea is now recognized as passe. But this ongoing need to legitimize and establish moral equivalence to heretofore deviant behaviour is an assault whose “front” is ever widening. It reveals some internal inferiority that these folks need to recieve affirmation from the rest of us…
And it is disgusting to see them use their childrens lives to underscore their own personal ideology. It deprives the child of their own individuality. And is just as base and exploitive as Jon and Kate profiting off of the blessing of their children…
How’s that for moral equivalence!
Comment by cranky-d on 6/29 @ 8:26 am #
Anyone who advocates this sort of “raising the child genderless” crap has never been around kids. The little monsters quickly assert who they want to be and what they want to do. The parent’s job is to keep them from killing themselves.
Comment by Techie on 6/29 @ 8:26 am #
{part of why it’s so difficult, and turns into such a controversial choice, is that there are so few people raising their kids with freedom of gender.}
Remember, sexual orientation is genetic, inate and unchangeable, even though we can’t find the gene. However, the switching out an entire chromosome’s worth of genes(X and Y) has no effect whatsoever on behavior or development choices.
The cognitive dissonance is staggering.
Comment by Techie on 6/29 @ 8:28 am #
FTR: Sexuality probably does have some sort of genetic component, I don’t think anyone knows really, but I’ve always wanted to hear how Leftists try to square the aforementioned circle.
Comment by Techie on 6/29 @ 8:32 am #
OF course, it could be worse. What happens if Parental Unit Alpha and Beta (“Mom” and “Pop” are such heteronormative shackles of society) think the kid makes the wrong choice? What if the kids a boy and decides he wants to rebel and start his own Little Rascals He-Man Woman Hater’s Club in the treehouse?
Do they go beyond making him a figurative eunuch? Could parents order sex-change surgery on their own child?
Comment by lee on 6/29 @ 8:33 am #
This is relevant I think.
This is a kinda long piece, but well worth it I think. Another tidbit:
As they say, read the whole thing.
Comment by Syd B. on 6/29 @ 8:33 am #
That poor kid’s future is scary. Regardless of gender, he/she will require a pair of brass balls to get through life.
Comment by Obstreperous Infidel on 6/29 @ 8:38 am #
Remember, to these people, David Reimer’s suicide probably was a feature not a bug. He no longer could rape Gaia anymore. These two groups are about as like minded as you can get.
I gave a ride home to a co worker of mine once and my wife and I were about to give birth to our second child. She asked how we decorated the room and I said neutral yellow as we didn’t know the sex of the child. She told me that was good anyhow as we didn’t want to assign a gender role to the child. I thought about kicking her out of the car and making her walk the rest of the way, but instead asked how many children she had, all the while knowing the answer was none. I told her that boys and girls are different. She just kind of nodded and shut up the rest of the way. It was a much more pleasant ride after that.
Comment by Carin on 6/29 @ 8:46 am #
I told her that boys and girls are different. She just kind of nodded and shut up the rest of the way.
It’s just outrageous that you had the audacity to make such a controversial statement.
Comment by sdferr on 6/29 @ 8:47 am #
David Thompson posted a lengthy tv documentary — “Angry Wimmin” –on the subject of sexual politics last week and his comments under the title Uprising. It’s great virtue is direct testimony from the political actors themselves touching on extreme sexual separationism, sexual eliminationism, all manner of sexual identity challenges, a grand boiling cauldron of newts and toadies. Like Ptolemaic celestial mechanics brought down to earth in sex politics — epicycles within epicycles within epicycles — it too, like Ptolemy’s astronomy, can’t end well. Have a look-see.
Comment by Joe on 6/29 @ 8:50 am #
Fortunately most kids are fairly resilient to such tinkering by idiotic parents. Sexual orientation and gender roles are dictated more by genetics and hormones than enviromental factors (leaving aside pre natal hormone exposures). I recall some statistical stuidies showing kids raised in gay parent homes (for example) have a higher than normal rate of homosexual behavior themselves, but not that much higher than the normal mean.
What does mess up kids is phyisical, emotional (deprevation of attention), and sexual abuse. But having two idiotic Swedish liberal parents(fortunately) can be over come.
Comment by Joe on 6/29 @ 8:54 am #
I recall a study where a little girls given trucks to play with started to spontaneously nurture the heavy equipment like a baby and have tea parties with them. Boys given anything will quickly figure out a way to weaponize it.
It’s all good.
Comment by Timstigator on 6/29 @ 8:56 am #
Enlightened socialist societies just gets crazier, and we should emulate them?
Comment by Joe on 6/29 @ 8:57 am #
I am more concerned with the feminization of boys in school. The result of it is burning resentment and (ironically) higher levels of violence in behavior.
Comment by N. O'Brain on 6/29 @ 9:11 am #
“…the parents were quoted saying their decision was rooted in the feminist philosophy that gender is a social construction.”
Which means that the parents are a pair of fucking morons.
Comment by Kevin B on 6/29 @ 9:11 am #
Being liberal Sweden, the first lesson in kindergarden is probably sex-ed.
So little Pop is going to look at the diagrams, search around in his unisex panties and say; “So that’s what I am!”
Then turn round and try to rape his nearest female neighbour.
(Odds on its a boy, since if it was a wimmyn there’s no way Ms Swedish bigot would have pulled this stunt.)
Comment by N. O'Brain on 6/29 @ 9:16 am #
Shouldn’t these morons be arrested for child abuse?
Comment by N. O'Brain on 6/29 @ 9:22 am #
OT, but interesting:
SCOTUS bitch slaps Sotomayor on ‘Ricci’
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/06/29/scotus-overrules-sotomayor-on-ricci/
I’m guessing that now the Dems will want to push her hearings back so people will forget this.
Comment by Ella on 6/29 @ 9:26 am #
What makes me happy is that the parents are sending the message to the kid that they love him unconditionally and just as he is.
/sarc
Comment by bigbooner on 6/29 @ 9:43 am #
If you really want to mess their heads up wait until they are old enough to understand and then tell them they are really Norwegian.
Comment by geoffb on 6/29 @ 9:49 am #
“A Boy Named Sue” was a humorous song. The Left, as we know, has no sense of humor and so never gets that they are the joke.
Comment by psycho... on 6/29 @ 9:53 am #
Right.
Everyone knows damn well it has a penis, or these crazy assholes wouldn’t inflict their sexual psychoses on it. He’ll know that, too, if he doesn’t already.
And he’ll make a fine virus-chasing ass-for-rent and/or serial killer, if he doesn’t kill himself before puberty.
Comment by cranky-d on 6/29 @ 9:53 am #
I’m the fourth child. My father used to say, “Every fourth child born is Chinese,” just to mess with my head. I was convinced I was Chinese, but didn’t have a problem with it since no one else did.
It sounds “mean” but I ended up being very good at picking out the truth of things. Now I like to mess with him.
Comment by Joe on 6/29 @ 9:55 am #
You are quite the subversive bigbooner. Danes and Norweigians would tell you that would be a blessing, but you can never get thw Swede out of them. You could call them Finns too, or better yet German. Scandinavians love that.
Comment by Joe on 6/29 @ 9:56 am #
The only way to raise animals genderless is by a small operation…
Boys, guess what eventually is coming! Secondary benefit, we will have lots of really good choirs (if you like your notes high).
Comment by cranky-d on 6/29 @ 9:57 am #
I’m with the people saying the kid has to be a boy, because no one would dare mess with a little girl’s head like that.
I was at a party and this guy was teasing his daughter, who was probably less than ten years old at the time. A woman I knew (crazy and hot) got really upset, saying loudly to all that the girl was a “woman” and shouldn’t be treated like that. The stunned silence from the others didn’t seem to get through to her. Go figure.
Comment by Ella on 6/29 @ 10:13 am #
My parents totally ruined me. My dad would say things like, “you’re a little princess, and princesses don’t hit their brothers on the head.” He also insisted that I was only allowed to wear pink or white (a rule that held true until I was five.)
My life would be so different if I’d been raised without gender…
Comment by Joe on 6/29 @ 10:27 am #
Ella, yeah, look at thor.
Comment by sdferr on 6/29 @ 10:30 am #
What gets to be nature under this thesis?
Is nature at work in the Swedish couple which makes the “decision” to play act with their child’s sexual character? Is nature ever not at work on anything and everything in the world as it falls on us, or is nature a whimsy, a now on and now off sort of thing, or is nature a nothing, a nothing other than whatever “phantom” people choose to make of it when the fancy strikes?
Is nature lurking somewhere beneath the shock of the onlooker at this story, frankly astounded that parents might believe that they do well by themselves and well by their child and well by their society to play act in this way and also lurking beneath the applause of the committed, disciplined sexual/political theorists we presume drive the ideas superficially cited by these parents? Or is there simply nothing identifiable as nature in these scenes?
Comment by McGehee on 6/29 @ 10:31 am #
As soon as that kid goes on play dates or has any exposure to other children, he’ll do what the young of all higher-order, sexually dimorphic species and begin to conform to the behavior of the other kids he feels most like.
The odds are better than good these parents will have their work cut out for them during the Terrible Twos, even more than sane parents would.
Comment by Curmudgeon on 6/29 @ 10:46 am #
You know, even the Muslims have more sense than this. Perhaps Sweden deserves to self-destruct.
Comment by Joe on 6/29 @ 10:56 am #
As embarassingly stupid these Sweedish parents are, there are people out there far worse.
How could anyone do something like this?
Comment by Pablo on 6/29 @ 11:03 am #
From the Feministe link:
Complicated choices about their bodies? What in the everloving fuck does that mean? Do your ears leave you in a quandary? Does your elbow have you stumped? Are you on the toes of a dlimemma?
Comment by cranky-d on 6/29 @ 11:03 am #
That Duke guy from the link in #32? Death penalty. Not because of deterrence, but because he’s got it coming.
Comment by cranky-d on 6/29 @ 11:05 am #
Luckily most of the wackos who have trouble deciding what “gender” they are spend way too much time being fucked-up nut-cases to have any kids. So, win-win.
Comment by B Moe on 6/29 @ 11:05 am #
Just posted about that in the Pub, Joe.
Comment by B Moe on 6/29 @ 11:12 am #
No such luck, cranky
Comment by Benedick on 6/29 @ 11:23 am #
Shouldn’t Lombard be praised for trying to provide a robust sexual education for his son? I think there’s a couple in Sweden that would think so.
Comment by Lyndsey on 6/29 @ 11:25 am #
Do the parents hide their gender from their child? If not, it’s kind of moot. If one is being called “Mother” and one is being called “Father”, then some sort of difference is assumed. If the kid sees either one in the nude and associates his/her own physical design with either one, then won’t that kind of give it away? Won’t the kid then tell? These people are morons.
Comment by Lyndsey on 6/29 @ 11:26 am #
“genders”..sorry
Comment by sdferr on 6/29 @ 11:28 am #
Using “gender” in place of “sex” is to have acceded to Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s sexual/political agenda. Don’t.
Comment by B Moe on 6/29 @ 11:32 am #
What the fuck does that even men? Having a distinct sexual identity or orientation is dehumanizing?
Comment by B Moe on 6/29 @ 11:33 am #
*mean instead of men, there. Have fun with that as you will.
Comment by Lyndsey on 6/29 @ 11:34 am #
I see what you are saying, but was only trying to match the language in the article. Should have used quotation marks?
Comment by B Moe on 6/29 @ 11:36 am #
So are we going to give the word gender to the left now?
Comment by Joe on 6/29 @ 11:37 am #
B Moe, I missed your pub post, but it is a story that should be gotten out there. Any surprise it is at Duke?
“… if you give them no gender they will be seen more as a human or not a stereotype as a boy or girl.”
Well that worked out so well for Michael Jackson. Rather than thinking of him as a freak, we should think of him as a nongender role model…
If this becomes widespread, our species deserves extinction.
Comment by Charles Johnson on 6/29 @ 11:43 am #
I am making a list of those humans to be saved from extinction. I am creating a breeding flock of Shamuttas and I will be the alpha stud. None of you are on it.
I intend to be the great role model for the spawn created by my flock. I will mold their minds to my vision.
It is the only hope for humanity.
Comment by Jim in KC on 6/29 @ 11:44 am #
So, leaving aside the nonsense implicit in this, it’s just creepy. But I guess experimenting on human subjects is bound to be…
Comment by B Moe on 6/29 @ 11:47 am #
No problem, your post was pretty much simultaneous.
Comment by sdferr on 6/29 @ 11:47 am #
Gender was a term of grammar, rarely if ever used as a substitute for sex. Ginsburg, for reasons she expressed at the time, sought a substitute for the word “sex” in a sexual discrimination case while working at the ACLU (as I remember the interview with her, I believe she confessed that in part it had somewhat to do with her own idiosyncratic tendency to flinch when using the word “sex” properly in context, a minor prudishness on her part, I think she said), so rather than “giving” I’d argue to the extent that gender is (and I do recognize that it is, I do it myself when I’m not being particularly careful about it) commonly used in place of sex proper, as sex for sex, we have already taken it from them, however unwittingly. It’s the unwittingly part I’d like to do away with.
Comment by Kresh on 6/29 @ 12:19 pm #
So, to state the obvious, if gender is a social construct… how the f*ck did we even get here? Our monkey ancestors merely decided which gender they were and it somehow worked? What society do marmosets have and how dies it decide who’s the male in the whole go around?
Do those idiots realize such statements are tantamount to admitting that evolution as we know it couldn’t have happened? If society sets the gender… who set the society? If it didn’t evolve… then it must have been created, no? *boggle* F*cking retards.
Comment by Pellegri on 6/29 @ 12:23 pm #
I think this deserves a hearty “ur doin it wrong” from my quarter.
I took a class on language and “gender” as a part of my GEs at UCSD. I am still laughing at it to this day. (But they let me get away with writing a paper on women in vidya gaems, which was pretty cool.)
Comment by B Moe on 6/29 @ 12:24 pm #
I prefer its use as a signifier of physical sex simply because it is a more precise term than the word sex, which has other meanings and can be confusing. The problem is the left using to mean things other than ones actual sexual gender.
Comment by happyfeet on 6/29 @ 12:41 pm #
I don’t get how you can have a right to freedom of gender but not a right to freedom of not having dirty socialist eurotrash parents what experiment on you like sexually perverted fascists.
Comment by gus on 6/29 @ 12:44 pm #
How did this child come to be???
Comment by Abe Froman on 6/29 @ 12:57 pm #
This sort of reminds me of all the vegans who’ve killed or endangered their children with their idiotic diets.
Comment by B Moe on 6/29 @ 12:57 pm #
You are about to get me in trouble for having too much fun at work, ‘feets.
Comment by Pellegri on 6/29 @ 1:01 pm #
Oh man, Abe, me too. I wish I could find links right now to some the articles concerning prosecution of said idiots.
Comment by Pellegri on 6/29 @ 1:16 pm #
Because if our hearts are pure and we want it bad enough, we can overcome or reverse the course of nature.
Not in that bad, harmful way with the dams and the blasting and the carbon dioxide. A gentler way. Like starvation.
Comment by N. O'Brain on 6/29 @ 1:40 pm #
“There are two ways of forming an opinion. One is the scientific method; the other, the scholastic. To the scientific mind, experimental proof is all-important, and theory is merely a convenience in description, to be junked when it no longer fits. To the academic mind, authority is everything, and facts are junked when they do not fit theory.”
-Robert A. Heinlein
Comment by Adriane on 6/29 @ 2:00 pm #
#23 cranky-d
Cantonese or Mandarin? : -)
I am a fifth child and my sister kept reading to me that every fifth child was Chinese. Ergo…
Comment by McGehee on 6/29 @ 2:08 pm #
There’s a lot of things that should never be used as a substitute for sex.
Or so I’ve read.
Comment by Grammatiknazi on 6/29 @ 2:32 pm #
“Conjugation” is also a term of grammar, as is “preposition” (not entirely unlike “proposition”, a term of logic).
Comment by Grammatiknazi on 6/29 @ 2:35 pm #
In German, the word for “girl” (Mädschen) is of neuter (grammatical) gender.
Comment by Joe on 6/29 @ 2:54 pm #
Love will find a way.
But getting a viable human sperm in contact with a viable human egg helps too. Even for Swedes.
Comment by Joe on 6/29 @ 2:59 pm #
Sorry to deviate, but…
AN INTERVIEW WITH JON VOIGHT. According to The Globe (the tabloid one, not the Boston one), he’s on Michelle Obama’s enemies’ list, along with Oprah, Hillary, and Rush Limbaugh.
Posted at 3:00 pm by Glenn Reynolds
Oprah?
Comment by dicentra on 6/29 @ 3:17 pm #
I luv how these Lefties deride the idiotic Christianists for not accepting evolution, and then turn around and deny that human males and females are essentially different, even though gender-specific behavior exists in all animal species — especially in mammals.
Sheez, even our parakeets could tell which sex a human belonged to: the males preferred my mom and the females preferred my dad.
Comment by Joe on 6/29 @ 3:36 pm #
You have to explain things to Swedes in a form they can understand.
Ask any Norweigian, Dane, or Finn.
Comment by Joe on 6/29 @ 3:39 pm #
Now this is just wrong, on so many levels.
Comment by Abe Froman on 6/29 @ 3:50 pm #
Sorry to deviate, but…
Oh, you’re not sorry.
Comment by Synova on 6/29 @ 3:53 pm #
I think that gender *is* a social construct… except for an extreme minority of people we’re born with a *sex*… and if we want to use the word gender for that, then great, but that’s not how it’s used by those who insist that gender and sex are separate things. We have a physical sex, male or female (very rare exceptions noted) but we’re told that gender is something different, it’s what we are inside and may or may not match our physical reality.
I think it’s the biggest bunch of hooie possible… and it’s the opposite of trying to raise children outside gender stereotypes, it’s putting those stereotypes on steroids. Rather than being unimportant they’re presented as the most important thing possible.
Yes, girls and boys are different. They have different parts, they will grow differently and they will have different hormone loads to deal with. Other than that it’s all generalities with exceptions… I never had much trouble getting my brother to play “house”, and often as not our pretend-play was Vikings or some sort of out-door adventure. But I almost never played “dolls” and only played “barbies” when my cousin was over. I take tests like a guy. I seem to be most comfortable in “guy” environments. As a child I dug “escape” tunnels in the woods and taxidermied a squirrel. As an adult I joined the military.
So am I “male” gendered? No. Not even close.
Even asking that question is confining and I don’t think that people in the gender-freedom movement see that. It doesn’t make people FREE to have created this thing called “gender” that defines who you are. Instead of just being ourselves with all of our differences we’re given these little templates to fit into… just *more* templates in case we don’t perfectly fit the “male” and “female” ones.
And who really fits? Female and male are so narrowly defined that people can’t fit. Is that a surprise? So all the new categories become necessary or how can people be sorted? It’s not *accepting*, it’s insidious.
When I was a kid we were rightly putting aside the idea that girls or boys should particularly want to do only certain things, girl things and boy things. For all the little girls that play mommy trucks and daddy trucks there are a few that have Barbie out in the back yard playing Commando Attack or Survival Island. They aren’t less a girl because of that.
I think we were right… people shouldn’t feel confined by their sex to particular interests… they should know that no individual perfectly matches generalities and it doesn’t make them less of a boy or less of a girl if their interests don’t line up right.
Except that the whole “gender” thing explicitly says that it *does* make you less of a boy or less of a girl. In fact, it makes you this *other* thing. Sex (or gender) doesn’t matter *less*, it matters *more*.
It’s a sad, messed up situation. I’ve heard someone say something like “the last 10 years there has been great new research on gender” and all I can think is that in the *next* 10 years we’ll see just how much they’ve screwed everyone up.
We’ll look back and shake our heads and talk about how the people in the ‘aughts were idiots.
Comment by Lyndsey on 6/29 @ 4:32 pm #
This has become really interesting..we’re back to the “words mean things” argument again, aren’t we? The assumption of the definitions of male or female are only narrowed by the progressives as an illustration of the fake constructs they’ve decided the words “male” and “female” mean to the “conservative” or “christian” as a way to illustrate their own bias.
That being said, I’m a wife and mom, but I was also raised to hunt, fish and provide, when needed…I had and have very few women friends. I get along best with men. I like boxing, horse racing and bourbon. As a kid I was my Dad’s hunting and fishing buddy, and never played with dolls. At the same time I appear extremely stereotypically feminine. We are who we are. That’s the beauty of humanity–we don’t each fit into a defined roll. So, in my mind, there’s no system to rebel against. These parents will prove nothing. In an attempt to be entirely “free” of stereotypes they are illustrating one.
Comment by cranky-d on 6/29 @ 4:34 pm #
We need a good name for this era. Dotty Aughties? Well, “dotty” as a synonym for “idiot” isn’t much used any more.
Someone smarter than I will figure something out. In the mean time, let’s have pie.
Comment by Lyndsey on 6/29 @ 4:39 pm #
or alcohol.
Comment by B Moe on 6/29 @ 4:45 pm #
The naughty naughties.
Comment by cranky-d on 6/29 @ 4:50 pm #
The “naught aughts” might work. As will booze.
Comment by dicentra on 6/29 @ 5:09 pm #
I was the oldest girl, and I was only mildly interested in dolls and stuff. I was happier with blocks, coloring books, crayons, and other stuff you could make things with. One year before Christmas when I was really young, my mom asked me what kind of doll I wanted that year. I didn’t understand the question, because I already HAD a doll from the year before. My mom didn’t understand my disinterest because SHE had wanted a new doll every year when she was a girl. But she didn’t push, and I never felt “guilty” or inadequate for not being a girly girl.
The next kid in line was my sister, and she was the girliest girl you ever saw. She was WAY into Barbies whereas I was only interested in building them houses with blocks. Then when she got older, she and the other two sibs invented ways to torture the Barbies, dismember them, and subject them to every humiliation.
I wasn’t into that either. As traditional as my upbringing was, nobody fit into any “gender” role they didn’t want to.
So. We’re born with our dispositions and preferences. Ask anyone with more than one kid.
Comment by lee on 6/29 @ 5:09 pm #
HF, did you read my link at #6?
Comment by Lyndsey on 6/29 @ 5:21 pm #
Hold a grudge much, thor?
Comment by Abe Froman on 6/29 @ 5:26 pm #
You deserve an occasional pass.
A stay of execution from a hapless cartoon character. No doubt, she’s breathing a sigh of relief, ankles safe from la chihuahua loca.
Comment by Dave M on 6/29 @ 5:34 pm #
“underwent another genetic reconstruction process”
Who wrote this, a journalist?
Comment by Joe on 6/29 @ 5:51 pm #
Okay, I am not. But Oprah on Michelle Obama’s enemy list? Schadenfreude.
Comment by ccoffer on 6/29 @ 5:55 pm #
Shoe size is also a social construct. If you find a pair you like on the clearance rack, don’t feel like they have to be a particular size. Its entirely up to you whether they are “your” size. Numbers are just an arbitrary (and oppressive) way to describe something as beautiful as a shoe…or a foot.
Comment by Kresh on 6/29 @ 5:57 pm #
Totally OT.
As a troll, Thor is a master. What else is there to say?
I still think Thor is Jeff’s sockpuppet. I mean really, Thor sounds like Jeff without rationality, kindness, or common sense. Like the old Star Trek (TOS!) episode “Mirror Mirror.” To paraphrase: it’s easy for good (or intelligent) men to pretend to be evil (or ‘tarded) but difficult for the evil (or ‘tarded) to appear good (or intelligent).
There’s no way Thor is his own man. He’s a caricature. He’s too consistently… well… trollish, for lack of a better term. He never deviates from the script. That’s why I always laugh at his posts. They’re like cartoons; always the same and never varying. Garishly-multicolored, overly-exposed, and always having the correct over-the-top quantity of bile and sarcastic smarmy cartoon behavior we expect from lefty trolls. I mean really. It’s so obvious.
I wonder who’s behind the curtain? Hmm.
Comment by cranky-d on 6/29 @ 5:58 pm #
Dress sizes in fancier stores are a bit more generous than standard, so the women with more to spend get to pretend they are smaller than they actually are. At least that’s what my sister told me.
Comment by B Moe on 6/29 @ 6:20 pm #
I don’t think so, Dan was friends with thor.
/duck
Comment by B Moe on 6/29 @ 6:22 pm #
Actually I have found that to be partially true. I never buy a pair without trying them on first, because sizes seem to be more a suggestion these days.
Comment by geoffb on 6/29 @ 6:35 pm #
There is a half serious joke between my wife and I that around here the “N” word is “Normal”. Normal is this little box that no one fits but everyone is supposed to pretend to be inside of, at least publicly.
The Left simply made several new, “improved” and much smaller Procrustean boxes. They intend to squash everyone until they fit. Reality be damned.
Comment by B Moe on 6/29 @ 6:35 pm #
Believe it or not, thor used to be a well respected member of the family here.
Before he went off his fucking nut about Russia with Karl.
Comment by Mjölnir Martell on 6/29 @ 6:36 pm #
And yet, you did.
Prick.
Comment by B Moe on 6/29 @ 6:43 pm #
Reminds me of a discussion I have had with some of my closest gay friends. As much as I sympathize with their desire to be treated as normal and natural, they aren’t. The thing is, there is nothing wrong with that. I am unmarried and childless old man, that isn’t natural or normal either. The normal and natural thing for humans to do is mate with a member of the opposite sex and raise a family.
The solution is not thinking that their is something inherently wrong with not being normal or natural, rather than trying to redefine normal and natural.
Comment by B Moe on 6/29 @ 6:44 pm #
*there*
Although that is still a pretty fucked up sentence. Damn.
Comment by dicentra on 6/29 @ 6:44 pm #
That’s the beauty of humanity –- we don’t each fit into a defined roll.
But I want to fit into a delicious crescent roll! Or a pan de queso. Those things are awesome!
Comment by geoffb on 6/29 @ 6:46 pm #
B Moe,
Your link goes to a post by Dan on May 29th 2007. At the top of that post is a link. Clicking it takes me right back to this June 29th, 2009 post. I find that amusing and confusing. PW time travel?
Comment by dicentra on 6/29 @ 6:48 pm #
There is a half serious joke between my wife and I that around here the “N” word is “Normal”.
My brother has a sign in his home (wife, four kids):
In This Family, Normal Is a Setting on the Dryer.
Comment by dicentra on 6/29 @ 6:51 pm #
PW time travel?
Oooh! Maybe there’s a Doctor in the house!
Comment by Pablo on 6/29 @ 7:02 pm #
I believe it was the migration from expression Engine to Word Press that farked all of the old links, so they all take you to the front page now. Change hurts.
Comment by happyfeet on 6/29 @ 7:03 pm #
PJTV is now handing the conch to David Frum.
Fags.
Comment by happyfeet on 6/29 @ 7:04 pm #
are you waiting for me to link cause I’m not gonna so don’t
Comment by geoffb on 6/29 @ 7:07 pm #
Must be a non-existent link which then resolves to the PW home page. Weirded me out at first.
Comment by geoffb on 6/29 @ 7:08 pm #
Thanks Pablo.
Comment by LTC John on 6/29 @ 7:09 pm #
hf, I shan’t wait. Neither shall I look at PJTV either.
Comment by happyfeet on 6/29 @ 7:14 pm #
That is very wise I think, LTC John. I don’t understand how hard it is to just cultivate a sensibility that doesn’t annoy me and stick with it. Nothing better ever happen to this place.
Comment by SBP on 6/29 @ 7:37 pm #
PJTV is now handing the conch to David Frum.
Per Jerry Pournelle, he should always be referred to as “the egregious Frum”.
Comment by Beth Elliott on 6/29 @ 7:53 pm #
#33 … Yes, intersexed children are in a quandary about their body parts. They’re called “intersexed” because they are born with ambiguous genitals, thanks to an anomalous in utero hormonal environment. It happens rarely, but it happens. It is still common for the obstetrician to counsel the parents of the newborn “what is it?” to have a surgeon make a decision what the baby’s physical sex should be based on what kind of surgical fix is the easiest.
It would indeed be a great kindness to let the intersexed kid get old enough to be aware of the possibilities and say what he or she is, then have a surgeon proceed with a correction on that basis. This is so very different from the case of the Swedish meatheads, who presumably have a kid who isn’t intersexed. In the (also very rare) event that kid had the prenatal hormonal influences on the brain that will make him or her transsexual, he or she is sure to be vocal about who he or she is. And a change of “social construct” won’t be nearly enough to keep that kid from getting suicidal at an early age.
As they say, “There’s an operation for that kind of thing,” and it’s called SEX reassignment surgery, despite the morons who want to call it gender reassignment surgery, because it’s done on the sex organs, not on the gender organs. Its greater availability has saved a lot of lives, even if it’s “empowered” a lot of “transgenders” to pull everybody’s chains.
Comment by ccoffer on 6/29 @ 8:03 pm #
Height is also a social construct. If I say I’m 7 feet tall then fuck all you naysayers! I’m 7 feet tall!
Its my body, dammit! I get to say how long it is. Disagree? Then you’re a goddam Klansman.
Comment by serr8d on 6/29 @ 8:24 pm #
Whaaaa? Oh so genteel with the descriptors you are!
Thor is a bastard. You’ve obviously not read the crap he’s written about Darleen, Carin &c.; things utterly vile and beyond expectations of forgiveness, stuff you’d expect from, oh, Hannibal Lecter just before he consumed a fresh solar plexus. Or, do you think he’s an excellent author – actor, posting in character, who gets occasionally carried away?
But he’s not Jeff, unless Jeff has learned how to post from Southern Florida using an at-home BellSouth account with a varying I.P. that I’ve seen several on a couple sites, including my own. No, whoever thor (Tom) is, he’s his own piece of flawed work what’s gone really, really bad since @92 2007.
Comment by Abe Froman on 6/29 @ 8:54 pm #
Whaaaa? Oh so genteel with the descriptors you are!
Thor is a bastard.
Way to ratchet up the invective!
Comment by serr8d on 6/29 @ 8:57 pm #
Just enough to make my point. Any more would be thoricide.
Comment by Joe on 6/29 @ 9:01 pm #
we are all sockpuppets in a way…
if Jeff had a sockpuppet it would be pdbuttons. pdbuttons has talent.
Comment by McGehee on 6/29 @ 9:11 pm #
He’s really not so much a troll as a baiter.
But I’ll agree with you on the second point.
Comment by pdbuttons on 6/29 @ 9:17 pm #
#113..
pdbuttons has just started drinking and does need
encouragement…
i apologize for past thread hikings cuz u people are way more funnier than me…
thank you joe
Comment by pdbuttons on 6/29 @ 9:18 pm #
does Not need encouragement…
i am a cheap date!
Comment by pdbuttons on 6/29 @ 9:21 pm #
robot children never grow up…
and you can shut them off
Comment by pdbuttons on 6/29 @ 9:29 pm #
why doe robot dogs bark in japanese?
Comment by pdbuttons on 6/29 @ 9:39 pm #
the best part of waking up
is the folgers that my robot peed in my cup…
okay…
i’m going to ‘red meat for happyfeet”
cuz i kinda own that…
and so say jolly good robots!
Comment by happyfeet on 6/29 @ 9:46 pm #
my internet is broken tonight – time warner cable – it really blows because infrequently it does not work and I keep checking to see if I can get fios but Los Angeles is sort of a lot like Mexico City as far as telecommunication goes so it’s unlikely to get better ever ever ever
Comment by happyfeet on 6/29 @ 9:47 pm #
oh
… I mean because *not* infrequently it does not work… tonight is a good example
Comment by geoffb on 6/29 @ 9:53 pm #
Term definition needed. My belief/knowledge is that the term troll comes from the fishing technique of towing a bait through the water to entice a fish to take the lure rather than natural food all around. Putting something flashy in front to draw them away from what is there.
By “baiter” do you mean he is throwing out chum by the ton to cause a frenzy away from the usual topic instead of using a carefully placed lure? If so I concur. A difference in volume and finesse.
Comment by geoffb on 6/29 @ 9:54 pm #
Oh god, I fell for your joke.
Comment by dicentra on 6/29 @ 9:56 pm #
Feets:
You could be like me and be stuck with the crappy reception you get with New And Improved Digital TV. The sound for DTV craps out at the slightest disruption (I live in the flight path for SLC International) and the picture pixillates with only a bit more disruption.
I got a Yagi-type directional antenna (passive), and it helped but not totally. I can almost spit on the broadcast antennas from my house, but I can’t get a good signal when the leaves on my neighbors trees are all a-tremble.
Jerks.
Comment by pdbuttons on 6/29 @ 10:09 pm #
my rabbit ears broke..
my abortion coathanger failed..
call turtle cable…
can i use this on red meat 4 happyfeet…
no worries…
Comment by Joe on 6/29 @ 11:01 pm #
dicentra, no cable or dish?
Comment by Zoe Brain on 6/30 @ 4:15 am #
“Title of Presentation: Brain Gender Identity (Presentation to American Psychiatric Assocn Annual Meeting by Dr Sidney Ecker MD)
Abstract:
Gender Identity is that innate sense of who you are in this world with reference to your sexuality and behavior, not necessarily corresponding to your genitalia and reproductive organs. Transgenders are atypical and “think” as the opposite gender. Certain areas of the brain have been shown to be sexually dimorphic. They are different in structure and numbers of neurons in males versus females. Protein Receptors for the sex hormones in different areas of the brain (limbic and anterior hypothalamic) must be present in sufficient numbers to receive those powerful hormones. There are androgen receptors (AR), Estrogen Receptors (ER), and Progesterone receptors (PRs). ARs or ERs are predominant at different times in different parts of the human brain. Hormone receptor genes have been identified in humans, which are responsible for sexually dimorphic brain differentiation in the hypothalamus. The groundwork in brain gender identity is gene-directed and takes place by forming male and female hormone receptors in the brain before the gonads and hormones can influence them. Multiple genes acting in concert determine our sexual identity. The human brain continues to make neurons and synaptic neuronal connections throughout life. This contributes to Gender Role Behaviors making individuals in the continuum of gender identity. Gender behaviors must be differentiated from gender identity (Hines). Gender Identity cannot be predicted from anatomy (Reiner). Brain gender identity is determined very early in fetal development, but gender expression, expressed as behaviors requires hormonal, environmental, social and cultural interactions, which evolve with time. One cannot deny the profound effects of Testosterone, Estradiol and other steroids on genital differentiation in-utero or their effects on behavior from birth or the physical and mental cross gender changes caused by exogenous hormones, but gender identity is determined before and persists in spite of these effects.”
If Pop’s a boy, that will usually be obvious, regardless of how he’s raised. If she’s a girl, that too will usually be obvious. My research has indicated that a minority of people are BiGendered though, and would be able to function (though usually without equal facility) in either gender role.
Oh by the way – I’m Intersexed. One of the more spectacular conditions too. Like 5ARD or 17BHDD, that also cause a “natural sex change” from the appearance at birth.
Comment by B Moe on 6/30 @ 5:06 am #
Precisely the point. Isn’t it possible the attempt by the parents to stress some genderless stereotype on the child could be just as wrong-headed as trying to force typical behavior from a child with a genetic complication?
Comment by McGehee on 6/30 @ 6:01 am #
:evil, maniacal cackle:
Comment by Zoe Brain on 6/30 @ 6:17 am #
Possible? Yes. Unlikely that it would be *as* harmful. But it could be somewhat harmful, yes. I really don’t like using children as experimental subjects – probably because that happens to Transsexual and Intersex children all the time. Call it “therapeutic”, and actions which would otherwise be called genital mutilation, sexual molestation, child abuse, and even torture are excused. Some of the methods of “aversion therapy” to coerce children into accepting an arbitrarily assigned gender are real Clockwork Orange stuff.
Then there’s this:
Some of the “successes” of this kind of treatment would not be considered successful in any other context:
Comment by Zoe Brain on 6/30 @ 6:31 am #
Of the 25 girls in Zucker’s experiment, only 15 met the diagnostic criteria for GID (Gender Identity Disorder) in childhood. Some were Intersexed. Many just engaged in cross-gendered play. 2 ended up having SRS, and another 3 were considering it.
That’s not quite true – when the rigorous criteria used by the Dutch gender clinics are used, they have a 100% diagnostic success rate so far. When the far broader criteria espoused by Zucker are used, it’s more like 30%.
About 2/3 of children exhibiting cross-gendered behaviour end up being Gay instead of TS. That’s regardless of therapeutic measures, or lack thereof.
I expect that one day, this whole situation will be exposed as a scandal, just the way the extent of pedophilia in the priesthood was. There were always hints and individual reports, but no-one put the pieces together. Fortunately – if you can say that – the number of children affected is comparatively small in this situation.
Comment by B Moe on 6/30 @ 6:32 am #
Can’t get anything past that one.
Comment by Kresh on 6/30 @ 12:25 pm #
Oh, I don’t laugh at his posts because they’re funny. I laugh because they never, ever, miss a single opportunity to off-handedly toss out the meme of the day. It’s the laughter of the “lefty gobbledegook in 3.. 2.. 1.. right on time!” variety.
Laughter at a telegraphed and weak-wristed love-tap that the deliverer believes is a devastating punch, so to speak.
Comment by lee on 6/30 @ 12:28 pm #
Zoe, that UCLA Feminine Boy Project thing was painful to read.
I take it the Hippocratic oath was not taken by the Mengela’s in that torture chamber.
Comment by B Moe on 6/30 @ 1:52 pm #
When did that shit happen? And is anything like that still going on?
Comment by Zoe Brain on 6/30 @ 10:16 pm #
The UCLA project was closed down a long time ago. Zucker’s CAMH is still going strong though, and Dr Zucker is now head of the APA’s revision team on Sexual Disorders for the new Diagnostic Standard Manual. Which has caused some controversy, protests, demonstrations outside the APA annual meeting etc. by both trans groups and medical professionals who are apalled at this situation.
So yes, this is still going on, and while such “reparative therapy” is prohibited for adults, as it’s both inhuman and doesn’t work, it’s still used on children. A lot. Today. Right now. It’s standard practice throughout North America, though resistance against it is growing. The far better outcomes that are now consistently being reported from overseas using more humane methods are now starting to be more widely known in the APA.
The report on the outcomes of Dr Zucker’s treatment was on NPR less than 12 months ago. This is happening today.
The thing is – there aren’t that many trans or intersexed people. And they’re not exactly flavor-of-the-month to many political or religious groups. For example, the same day the Democrat controlled NH senate OK’d Gay Marriage, they voted unanimously to deprive trans people of the same human rights gays have enjoyed in that state for 10 years.
Comment by B Moe on 7/1 @ 5:50 am #
Not to get on a soap box, but that is exactly why many here are proponents of individual first politics, identity group politics only works if your group is large enough to matter.
If you could supply some links you will probably find some support here.
Comment by Zoe Brain on 7/1 @ 6:58 am #
A meta link.
Pingback by Don’t they have Second Life in Sweden? : Pursuing Holiness on 7/1 @ 8:02 am #
[...] of how these people are raising their child, and unfortunately, the child is going to pay it if David Reimer’s experience is any guide. If the parents want a fantasy world where you can set every parameter as you like, [...]
Comment by The Monster on 7/1 @ 8:10 am #
So, in a discussion of the feminist idea that “gender” is a purely social construct, with no biological basis whatsoever, you make four lengthy comments about what you finally admit on the fifth comment is a small group of people, as if they were somehow relevant to the discussion.
The existence of a few individuals that are not easily classified according to some set of criteria does not invalidate the use of those criteria for classifying the vast majority for whom those criteria work well.
The original article says nothing about the child being “trans or intersexed”; just that the poor thing’s parents are barking moonbats.