Questions about Gender Dysphoria

[Benton]

(12-03-2015, 05:03 PM)PhilHos Wrote: Thanks for your input. 

I get what you're saying and agree with you. But, I'm thinking more in the lines of what our society as a whole (i.e the whole country) believes to be "right". For example, say there's a township that still doesn't let anyone but white people serve in public office. Well, if that became national news, pretty much everyone would be agreed that that's wrong.

Honestly, my thinking right now is that society is WRONG and that there ARE male- and female-specific emotional and psychological roles characteristics and by saying there aren't they are actually de-legitimizing gender dysphoria.

Understood. And I won't belabor the point, but I guess the issue for me is the whole country doesn't believe anything. That's not how we're made up, whether you're talking about political candidates, foreign vs domestic cars, etc. Look at gay marriage. According to Gallup, there's still only 58% that think gay marriages should have the same marriage rights. That's not an overwhelming majority.





I do tend to think you're correct, to a degree. A lot of our sexuality is learned behavior. My daughter used to love super heroes. Probably because I'm a nerd. Then she went to gymnastics one night and one of the other girls made fun of her Spiderman socks with "I didn't know they made those in girls." After that, she didn't want to read comics or watch superhero shows.

But there's some of it that's just naturally part of being male or female, mostly due to hormones. Testosterone (what gives you a stache and junk) makes you more aggressive. Estrogen has some significant, proven links to depression and emotions. A lot of male and female traits are really just byproducts of hormones.

Personally, I think that's one reason some people seem to have some major change when they're 40-60. That's when your hormones undergo some big changes. And it seems like that's when a lot of men and women decide to change their sexuality or take on some uncharacteristic behavior. I think a lot of that is hormonal. But I'm no scientist.