Bruce Jenner and the "Transgender"

a reply to: AreUKiddingMe

You know, most psychodynamically educated therapists would probably role their eyes, at least, would be tempted to.

Just today I was rereading a chapter by a leading traumatologist - Bessel Van Der Kolk - on the multiplicity of the self. In one area, he says (to paraphrase) "people when they experience certain feelings allow themselves to become defined by their feelings". That is, the feeling being experienced will sometimes lead to exclamations like "I hate you!", when, of course, when people say this they don't really mean it. What they really mean is a part of me hates you.

This goes to the point. I would be willing to bet that Bruce Jenner has other parts of him that feel quite fine being a man; but for whatever complex reason, he has "jumped on the bandwagon" and come to believe that he has only one feeling, and HAS ONLY EVER HAD one feeling: "I'm a woman".

Do you have any clue how often therapists encounter these types of beliefs from people who, put frankly, simply do not understand their own minds? They shift from self state to self state without any cross-communication; of course, its not to the extreme of DID (dissociative identity disorder) where a literal amnesia blocks awareness between states, but its global enough that when they make assertions form a particular state (which themselves are generated from a particular affective 'milieu') they do not seem to remember the times when they felt differently.

What Jenner is evidencing is a type of late-life crises where feelings he has had in the past (perhaps an identification with the womanly aspects of himself) have now completely uprooted, dissociated and denied the masculine parts of himself.

While I can respect anyones choice to change their sex - if they really want to - please, do not try to sell me the pseudoscience of you having a "female brain" or "the soul of a woman". The science indicates that what the person is experiencing is a deep existential conflict relating to strong identifications with one sex and a strong repudiation of the other.

originally posted by: Answer
The sad part of all this is how obsessed the media and a large portion of people in the world have become with this one person's story.

Honestly, who gives a sh1t?

He's a guy who wants to be a woman... it happens all the time but the whole world doesn't lose their damn mind over it. If the Kardashian family weren't such die-hard attention whores, this wouldn't be news. If there weren't so many braindead morons that want to know every single move that nightmare family makes, this would never see the light of day. A fairly popular movie director, Larry Wachowski, had full gender reassignment surgery and kept it totally secret until the day came that he finally had to appear in public and the world didn't go nuts.

I can't visit a single news website without headlines popping up about "Kylie Jenner brushed her teeth!!" "Kim Kardashian ate an apple!!" "Khloe Kardashian hooked up with another rapper!!" "Kris Jenner bought some ice cream!!"

What the hell is wrong with people?

Blame it on Kris. Kris was media savvy from the get go. Look at what she did for Bruce getting him all the endorcements he did. (After the Wheaties and whatnot.) Now Kris is trying to claim Bruce lied to her for years and she had no clue he wanted to be a woman. Kind of hard to lie when you marry a man who has 36c boobs, don't you think? She's managed to turn Bruce's transition into HER story. But now that Bruce has finally told his side, people are finally seeing her for the manipulative wench she truly is. Maybe eventually the ratings of the show will go down enough that the show will be forced to cancel. Doubtful, but who knows.

originally posted by: Anyafaj

originally posted by: Answer
The sad part of all this is how obsessed the media and a large portion of people in the world have become with this one person's story.

Honestly, who gives a sh1t?

He's a guy who wants to be a woman... it happens all the time but the whole world doesn't lose their damn mind over it. If the Kardashian family weren't such die-hard attention whores, this wouldn't be news. If there weren't so many braindead morons that want to know every single move that nightmare family makes, this would never see the light of day. A fairly popular movie director, Larry Wachowski, had full gender reassignment surgery and kept it totally secret until the day came that he finally had to appear in public and the world didn't go nuts.

I can't visit a single news website without headlines popping up about "Kylie Jenner brushed her teeth!!" "Kim Kardashian ate an apple!!" "Khloe Kardashian hooked up with another rapper!!" "Kris Jenner bought some ice cream!!"

What the hell is wrong with people?

Blame it on Kris. Kris was media savvy from the get go. Look at what she did for Bruce getting him all the endorcements he did. (After the Wheaties and whatnot.) Now Kris is trying to claim Bruce lied to her for years and she had no clue he wanted to be a woman. Kind of hard to lie when you marry a man who has 36c boobs, don't you think? She's managed to turn Bruce's transition into HER story. But now that Bruce has finally told his side, people are finally seeing her for the manipulative wench she truly is. Maybe eventually the ratings of the show will go down enough that the show will be forced to cancel. Doubtful, but who knows.

I blame the people that watch the circus. Kris is savvy but without loads of ignoramuses wanting to know every detail about their lives, the whole family would have remained relatively unknown.

originally posted by: Answer

I blame the people that watch the circus. Kris is savvy but without loads of ignoramuses wanting to know every detail about their lives, the whole family would have remained relatively unknown.

Ok how about enough blame to go all around. Deal?

originally posted by: Anyafaj
originally posted by: Answer

I blame the people that watch the circus. Kris is savvy but without loads of ignoramuses wanting to know every detail about their lives, the whole family would have remained relatively unknown.

Ok how about enough blame to go all around. Deal?

I also blame Canada.

Ok, now I'm done.

well my theory is that that household is so full of manipulative b's, he figured if you can't beat them join them.
i don't know how he lasted as long as he did.

originally posted by: Answer


I also blame Canada.

Ok, now I'm done.

You better not have tooted while you said that.

a reply to: Anyafaj

There was a study done in 1995 that learned that some children as young as 3 know something is wrong with their body

To my mind, the best evidence comes from the clinical sphere, and again and again, people who have contemplated "sex-change" have changed their minds after considering the conflicts they've internalized in their early life relationships.

Imagine for a second what kind of results can be generated from studies that do not take into account the RELATIONAL events of these children in question? The therapeutic literature strongly suggests that the idea of being "in the wrong body" is born of early object relational meanings.

How this element is ignored and not considered - when it is the bread and butter of psychological development - will always lead to naive and false conclusions about development.

I can see you're knowledgeable of this subject, so I suggest you read Adrienne Harris "Gender As Soft Assembly".

Thus far, while research does seem to indicate that there are gender differences in the anterior hypothalamus, in interstitial area 3, this area has more to do with sexual arousal than with 'identification'.

But this, again, is not quite the issue. The issue, at least as it is understood today, is how the Mind-Brain is plastic, both early on and throughout the lifespan (to a lesser extent). The biological rationale of this argument is simple: the organism needs to be PLASTIC in order to adjust itself to the environment. Unlike in plants, where there is no germ/soma divide, animals have 'nervous systems' that allow for the same type of behavioral plasticity demonstrated by plants.

Any person who has practiced mindfulness meditation can attest to the plasticity of their phenomenological experience, and thus, the plasticity of their biological brain.

Harris doesn't seem to be for or against sex-change operations - but as a feminist psychoanalyst, she is interested in deconstructing the idea of "gendered minds", and so, is interested in helping the person understand why they feel they were born into the wrong sex. Oftentimes, or I would argue, in most, if not all cases, the object-relation system of the mind has built some strong positive associations with one sex, and, conversely, negative associations with the other.

The result, overtime, is a person who almost feels "sick" living as the 'wrong' sex.

Now we can deny this all we want, but it's nature. It happens. Could this be because of outside influences, it doesn't say. Anything is truly possible. Another article I found interesting was In Womb Development of the Transsexual Brain.

Of course, for someone not accustomed to neuroscientific studies, it could seem like the issue is settled. It isn't. We haven't even been able to consistently identify emotional-experiences with specific neurological profiles, let alone, associate something as vague as psychological 'masculinity' and 'femininity' with global brain states.

At the most, as far as I know, the best research into male-female differences into the brain comes from Simon Levays study of the hypothalmus and its association with homosexuality.

I saw that as please, don't put so much focus on me, but let's focus on helping others like me.

Again, there is a difference between respecting his needs as a person to live a meaningful life, and his claims that transgender people are in the same category as homosexuals. But are they in the same category? Is it the same? In a sense, it is, but in another sense, it isn't.

Before I argued that all human experience is plastic, including sexual experience. This would mean that the epigenetic-genetic events subtending homosexual/heterosexual/bi-sexual feelings are themselves "plastic". But who speaks of this? LOL. Although this is an acceptable inference for those interested in the phenomena of neuroplasticity, present-day political-correctness wont allow a scientific exploration of this question.

Nevertheless, as mentioned earlier, the psychotherapeutic literature strongly suggests that this issue with 'gender identity' IS NOT BIOLOGICAL - as in, being generated by an irreversible genetic situation - but is as any other neurosis: built over a lifetime.

Take people deathly afraid of germs, who then "somaticize" the feeling of bugs crawling under their skin. Is this "real"? No. The brain-body connection via the vagus allows the brain to "manifest", at least at a sensorial level, what the mind is frenetically anxious about.

Gender, and, in particular, if one has felt oneself to be more naturally inclined to one 'sex', needn't mean that you are in actuality that sex. I myself, for example, have many feminine attributes. And I also believe, if my life history had occurred differently, that I could have been led to the conclusion that I too have a "female brain".

Fortunately, my education has spared me from coming to that fallacious conclusion.

a reply to: Astrocyte
I think that a Sex Change Operation Should Be Mandatory
for Rapist,Child Molesters And EX Presidents.

Well at least a PARTIAL Operation.

LOL

a reply to: Anyafaj

This issue is, it is Bruce's truth and Bruce's reality, not our own.

Yikes! You want to turn this into an epistemological debate?

While I agree each person has a right to find their own meanings in life, the incontrovertible, psychoanalytic fact, is that experiences SHAPE the dynamics of our psychological experiences. This gives experience a very "sequential logic" to it. What we experience NOW, is related to what we experienced BEFORE.

The problem with your claim is your reification of psychological experiences into ontological facts about self. The first problem is the non-existence of any ontological "self"; the second problem is the influence cognition has upon its experiences of itself.

Oftentimes, I encounter people who say "I hate myself". And they'll then say "I am pathetic". When they mean this, they don't mean it as "At this moment, I feel pathetic". No, the unenlightened human mind goes from experience straight to ontology: I am FUNDAMENTALLY, unlikeable, detestable.

The purpose of therapy is to help the person realize the temporality of these sorts of experiences. They stand for just the moment: they do not represent the 'self' in any sense.

It's only when you LOOSEN these identifications, that neuroplastic processes can work their magic. CHANGE DOESN'T HAPPEN under distress. The anxious brain prevents the neurochemical processes that allow psychological (phenomenological) change.

If He is not harming anyone, who are We to judge?

Why do you keep saying this? In a free society anyone can do what they want so long as it doesn't hurt other people (even though I feel these sorts of things have an inimical psychological impact).

Whats harmful is that what Jenner is claiming is simply not true.

a reply to: Anyafaj

Greetings- Do You mean "Momager Kris" the 'Mother' who shopped Her own daughter's sex tape? You mean that one? I once saw an episode where Kris' hairdresser, the one She wrote about having an affair with, that looks remarkably like Khloe, odd.. Then I saw a bit of an episode where they were in a public diner and Khloe wouldn't let Kris out of the booth they were sitting in, Kris ended up soiling Herself and all the group laughed/giggled. A couple of shows later and Kris is seeing a Dr. for Her incontinence, then She tried to work Her "ailment" into an endorsement with Depend™ adult underwear, so is Bruce's 'issue' for real or for reality t.v.?

Riddle Me this?, .... What will be 'The Grand Finale' of sex tape #2? Every time I see the show somebody is either getting peed on, they're peeing their own pants or they want to get where the pee comes out switched around, could the KonASSian Cabal take a step "up" to #2? I'd bet more folks would tune in?

How far does Bruce take it? He already has shopping down, I saw Him blow $5,800.00 on a purse/handbag/backpack, this after the cozy little shop had to open the second door for Kim to get Her caboose through it...

Rhetorical if You want it to be: What if before each Self incarnated into our Body in order to better learn the lessons our 'sexless Souls' to learn? I stand to pee (mostly) but can identify with My Yin, from where I am. Haven't We poisoned Mother Nature enough already with pollution and feeding Her (female-like a ship) bodies killed by wars and dis-ease? Now let Us try and get a curve ball by Her.. I'd wager if Bruce really wanted to be a female He could the next "go around" but what do I know? nothing, I know nothing.

namaste

I'll put it pithily, the thought "I am not a man, but a woman trapped in a mans body", is just a thought.

Just another ridiculous identification born of a dysregulated nervous system.

I see no reason why anxiety about the body - such as in anorexia and bulimia - which effects how you PERCEIVE your body, should be any different from anxiety about your gender.

They're just different types of anxiety, born from different experiences, yet all related to the same core affect: anxiety/depression.

Any skewing of perception can occur if the brain gets caught up in depressive ruminations about some aspect of their experience, or their body.

Not to be overly reductionist but doesn’t it really boil down to some chemical hormonal anomaly in the nervous system?

…and can anyone trace the input of the soul into this phenomenology?


Seeing the casual input of the higher soul (spirit) into the lower psychic-physical-chemical (nervous-system) is one seeing son-a-bitch

As Above so Below in the flesh!

a reply to: Willtell

Not to be overly reductionist but doesn’t it really boil down to some chemical hormonal anomaly in the nervous system?

It's bi-directional. The body influences the mind and the mind influences the body.

A simple experiment will suffice: think about something that makes you scared.

Ok? You should be feeling an adrenaline rush, as fear induces the HPA axis.

This simple example shows that the mind, what it decides to think (or not think) about, can influence neurohormonal processes.

Also, in order to interrupt the process (the release of adrenaline/cortisol) pay attention to your breathing and concentrate on the exhalation. Inhalation induces a slight adrenaline release, while a concentration on a longer exhalation releases endorphins, which slows heart rate, relaxes muscle tension, and calms the mind.

Anyone who doubts the bi-directionality of the mind-body process is a true ignoramus.

originally posted by: Astrocyte
a reply to: Willtell

Not to be overly reductionist but doesn’t it really boil down to some chemical hormonal anomaly in the nervous system?

It's bi-directional. The body influences the mind and the mind influences the body.

A simple experiment will suffice: think about something that makes you scared.

Ok? You should be feeling an adrenaline rush, as fear induces the HPA axis.

This simple example shows that the mind, what it decides to think (or not think) about, can influence neurohormonal processes.

Also, in order to interrupt the process (the release of adrenaline/cortisol) pay attention to your breathing and concentrate on the exhalation. Inhalation induces a slight adrenaline release, while a concentration on a longer exhalation releases endorphins, which slows heart rate, relaxes muscle tension, and calms the mind.

Anyone who doubts the bi-directionality of the mind-body process is a true ignoramus.

No problem there at all but your analysis doesn’t cover the developmental aspect of this issue: the deep conditioning of reflexive phenomenology that outputs universal habits of nature: the bisexual, transsexual, uni-sexual, all encased by a bio-psychic-chemical response to create a deep seated universal habit as encased in the mind-body as anything imaginable: sexual nature

a reply to: boymonkey74

Who cares he aint harming anyone.
Live and let live.

What??, I was about to blame Obama, beezzer, cryptozoology and the Jews, but your stance seems much more reasonable and logical so I'll just go with that.

If you keep posting logic like this, someones gonna blow a clacka-valve.

Cheers spidermonkeyjessebetterwatchhisassmanboy74

I for one don't care what Jenner does, as long as he's not harming another person. If being a woman fulfills something in his life he feels is missing -- good for him.

We should all be allowed to seek out that which gives us peace and happiness, as long as we don't infringe upon that happiness and well being of others.

Where my boundaries end, yours begin. I stay in my own yard, and you should stay in yours. It's not my place to judge another when I have enough things in my own yard to take care of and tend to.

If it seems like transgender and homosexuals are "in your face" these days, it's probably due to the fact they just want to be accepted for who/what they are. If they were treated 100% identical to everyone else, they wouldn't be having marches and parades or whatnot. They want exposure to highlight the fact that they are discriminated against and not treated as other human beings.

I think in the decades to come, we will see the LGBT less "in your face" as the world's population comes to terms with the fact that these are people, not monsters. They want the same things out of life that all of us do.

If these people bother you so much, perhaps some quiet introspective reflection is in order to determine why these people bother you so much, when they aren't causing you any harm whatsoever. LGBT people aren't going to change your personal view of things like religion, politics or morality -- if they are capable of doing that, then your stances on these things were flimsy at best.

Why is it so horrifying to know the position of someone you dislike and fear?

a reply to: Willtell

You could have probably written that in a simpler and clearer way.

The middle part of what you wrote, I confess, I didn't understand. If you're applying systems thinking to the whole developmental process, I agree. The process begins in-utero with the mothers thoughts and feelings, as her thoughts and feelings - depending on the frequency and intensity - "fashions" the stress response system of the developing fetus' nervous system (through the leakage of cortisol into the placenta).

Here, the mothers 'input' leads to the 'output' of an epigenetic effect on the relevant genes dealing with the stress response.

Eventually, the child will be born, and, if the mother happens to be a stress-ball, her "input" will relate negatively with the child's already sensitized nervous system. The "output" is building a mind that is fixated around strife and defense against negative affect. At a certain point, the influence becomes bi-directional, as the infant/parent dyad mutually 'enforces' one anothers response. Though of course, its the responsibility of the parent to know what its doing and inhibit its habitual ways of responding.

The whole issue of development is not lost to me. What's lost to me is what trans-gender has to do with this.

a reply to: Astrocyte

How consumerism disturbs the mind? WTH?

The problem of our time - and the bane of capitalism - is in its "fixating" the developing mind upon external realities. This is precisely what capitalism does. From infancy upward, we are dazzled and enticed by the objects in the world around.

:-)

Finally, it is a complete myth of our modern day and age that each of us has an 'essential self', in the singular, simple or general sense.

Says you...can you prove it's a myth? If it is a myth - what's your beef with capitalism or consumerism?

If it's a myth - I say Jenner get's to pick his own version of reality - it's as legitimate as anything else

Now that "BJ" is changing, he will have to change his first name to "K" something wont he?

Kenner?, or Kruce? or Kutey? or what?

Cant be Brucey Kardasian anymore.