Superb, and I’m grateful to the Gliske article. I have a set of notes on transsexualism (gender being a folkloric fiction) I’ve maintained for years, I wanted to share a tidbit, From a 50-point “transifesto”
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MATERIAL REALITY OF TRANSSEXUALISM
3. Human neural systems perform predictive coding (consciousness) to create and maintain models of reality. Perceptual systems are primed with the models. Prediction errors (entropy, surprise, free-energy) between actual sensations and the model trigger model adjustment or behaviors to change the environment to maintain homeostasis (Friston free energy). Models maintained include the body itself, which are prepared through evolution (arms, feet), embryogenesis (female genitals and wiring, male genitals) or through training (perceiving height, weight, hair patterns, age-related changes).
4. Changes in the physical body can trigger major problems in the predictive coding such as “phantom limb syndrome”, where staggering pain unrelieved by opiates is generated by the brain itself in response to the model / perception error (I’m missing an arm, but my brain thinks it’s still there). Coding / perception errors may cause clinical depression as well as great pain; at points of great change in the body (puberty, senescence) a key compensatory mechanism may simply be suicide.
5. At puberty, during hormonally accelerated nervous system maturation (synaptic pruning) mediated by C4a and other genes, and in-utero organized neuronal systems activated by testosterone, the process sometimes does not go smoothly. Under-pruning can produce a variety of issues including Autism, Social Isolation Behaviors, Facial Agnosia, an over-pruning can produce schizophrenia and psychoses. Sometimes certain evolutionary or gestation-developed cognitive models emerge which are not in sync with the physical body, and due to intrinsic factors (essential neural pathways) the model cannot be re-aligned to reality.
6. The perceptual differences between the physical body and predictive coding which cannot be reconciled can create distressing sensations, anxiety, and feelings of imminent death (inability to maintain homeostasis, body integrity). This is the underlying mechanism for many dysmorphia disorders, from cranio-facial (compulsive plastic surgery), full body size and weight perception (muscles too small, overweight, anorexia), feelings that a hand, leg, or even half a body is wrong (body integrity), feelings that a limb belongs to someone and possibly of a different sex, anxiety about senses (sight, hearing) - along with feelings that removal of body parts “makes me feel whole”. Importantly, this is also about sex - higher cortical models of the body’s primary and secondary sexual characteristics which mismatch the perceived sex in certain individuals.
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As I’ve read on dysmorphic dysphorias, almost 20 years ago I watched a group of transsexuals harshly cutoff a woman in their community who dared to state the observation that people with body integrity dysphoria “... speak about their problem in exactly the same language...” as transsexuals did, without any common experiences, without prompting. I’ve been waiting for confirmation by others of my hypothesis.
I spoke to Lynn Conway around 19 years ago, and that was the first time I heard the idea of pre-pubertal sex characteristic manipulation through puberty blockers. Unfortunately, in retrospect, Conway clearly never understood the physiology of puberty, so while being enthusiastic about it she didn’t seem to grasp that it has the effect of not only sterilizing a child but also removing sexual response. She maintains silence on the subject while waxing rhapsodic on children made eunuchs under the form of Hijra.
I wish that more gays spoke out with transsexuals too, because I predict exactly the same backlash as you state.
Gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transsexuals are real and based in material reality. All “gendered” individuals are based in fantasy/fetish worlds which, as you eloquently stated, are a sociopathic narcissism, to which i would add “malignant”.
Superb, and I’m grateful to the Gliske article. I have a set of notes on transsexualism (gender being a folkloric fiction) I’ve maintained for years, I wanted to share a tidbit, From a 50-point “transifesto”
===
...
MATERIAL REALITY OF TRANSSEXUALISM
3. Human neural systems perform predictive coding (consciousness) to create and maintain models of reality. Perceptual systems are primed with the models. Prediction errors (entropy, surprise, free-energy) between actual sensations and the model trigger model adjustment or behaviors to change the environment to maintain homeostasis (Friston free energy). Models maintained include the body itself, which are prepared through evolution (arms, feet), embryogenesis (female genitals and wiring, male genitals) or through training (perceiving height, weight, hair patterns, age-related changes).
4. Changes in the physical body can trigger major problems in the predictive coding such as “phantom limb syndrome”, where staggering pain unrelieved by opiates is generated by the brain itself in response to the model / perception error (I’m missing an arm, but my brain thinks it’s still there). Coding / perception errors may cause clinical depression as well as great pain; at points of great change in the body (puberty, senescence) a key compensatory mechanism may simply be suicide.
5. At puberty, during hormonally accelerated nervous system maturation (synaptic pruning) mediated by C4a and other genes, and in-utero organized neuronal systems activated by testosterone, the process sometimes does not go smoothly. Under-pruning can produce a variety of issues including Autism, Social Isolation Behaviors, Facial Agnosia, an over-pruning can produce schizophrenia and psychoses. Sometimes certain evolutionary or gestation-developed cognitive models emerge which are not in sync with the physical body, and due to intrinsic factors (essential neural pathways) the model cannot be re-aligned to reality.
6. The perceptual differences between the physical body and predictive coding which cannot be reconciled can create distressing sensations, anxiety, and feelings of imminent death (inability to maintain homeostasis, body integrity). This is the underlying mechanism for many dysmorphia disorders, from cranio-facial (compulsive plastic surgery), full body size and weight perception (muscles too small, overweight, anorexia), feelings that a hand, leg, or even half a body is wrong (body integrity), feelings that a limb belongs to someone and possibly of a different sex, anxiety about senses (sight, hearing) - along with feelings that removal of body parts “makes me feel whole”. Importantly, this is also about sex - higher cortical models of the body’s primary and secondary sexual characteristics which mismatch the perceived sex in certain individuals.
...
===
As I’ve read on dysmorphic dysphorias, almost 20 years ago I watched a group of transsexuals harshly cutoff a woman in their community who dared to state the observation that people with body integrity dysphoria “... speak about their problem in exactly the same language...” as transsexuals did, without any common experiences, without prompting. I’ve been waiting for confirmation by others of my hypothesis.
I spoke to Lynn Conway around 19 years ago, and that was the first time I heard the idea of pre-pubertal sex characteristic manipulation through puberty blockers. Unfortunately, in retrospect, Conway clearly never understood the physiology of puberty, so while being enthusiastic about it she didn’t seem to grasp that it has the effect of not only sterilizing a child but also removing sexual response. She maintains silence on the subject while waxing rhapsodic on children made eunuchs under the form of Hijra.
I wish that more gays spoke out with transsexuals too, because I predict exactly the same backlash as you state.
Gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transsexuals are real and based in material reality. All “gendered” individuals are based in fantasy/fetish worlds which, as you eloquently stated, are a sociopathic narcissism, to which i would add “malignant”.