devi (imported) wrote: Wed Jan 06, 2010 10:06 am Thirteen would be a much better age to make this life long choice for those with extenuating circumstances such as xy-pais, xxy, and other circumstances, etc.

Fifteen for those xx persons who want to become male.

Seventeen for those xy persons who simply want to be female.

Why the difference in the age requirements?

Mac (imported) wrote: Wed Jan 06, 2010 5:57 pm Why the difference in the age requirements?

While I'm looking forward to hearing from Dev how he arrived at the various ages he suggests, there are definitely different ages appropriate for the various reasons. I'll be laying out some of my thinking in subsequent posts on this thread.

Since I'm trying to consider each word very carefully so that I can stand behind it in the future, it takes a long while to do each segment. The next one up will summarize some of what the members here have offered as ideas about BIID and then move into Gender Dysphoria in all its variety – MtF, FtM, and MtE (as well as others less well defined).

Richard and I have a very brief article on BIID that should see print in the Journal of Sexual Medicine later this month. I'll let everyone know when and will, again, send it to anyone who requests a copy. An article on the prevalence of MtE should be published in March or April in the Archives of Sexual Behavior.

JustAGuy (imported) wrote: Wed Jan 06, 2010 10:07 am Medical reasons for castrating a guy at a young age, well there's a few I suppose, torsion, cancer of the testes, or some type of major damage to them.

But, would you consider a guy having gender identity disorder as a medically viable reason for castration?

Psychological problems are just as serious as physical problems. In fact, probably more serious because they are minimized until they get way out of hand.

Watching "CRIMINAL MINDS" is pretty educational. People get ill psychologically and do the most heinous things. Listening to the facts spouted off when serial killers are being investigated is an eye opener.

Picture it this way. Remember the Japanese "Lotus foot"? Foot binding. Now, picture psychological stunting and what it does to a young mind and you will begin to see what I mean.

Reading the New Neighbor Boy series I see flashes of the "Stockholm Syndrome" in the main character when he is being physically and mentally abused. The character called "Canyon" is on the road to being as bad as his guardian. (Or abductor, whatever the case.) Who knows if the story of his emasculation is legitimate. What is the symbolism of the "cock cage" for a child or a "butt plug" for that matter? There are some very deep issues in the stories. (No pun intended.)

You see the old saying, "as the twig is bent, so grows the tree" is a bit of folk saying by somebody who had an understanding of human nature.

It is rare when nature deals us one who despite nurture is truly gender dysphoric unrelated to an event that may be classified as nurture. (i.e.ABUSE) And I am still unsure that the connection between gender dysphoria and Gayness is well understood, or of hetersexuality and gender dysphoria, for that matter. Somehow, something has made these individuals un-accepting of part of their body to the point where not only do they want pain in it, but they want to punish it and destroy it.

I believe that this phenomena has connections to sado-masochism in that the masochist has to have an urge to feel pain in an area of their body, and not every masochist wants to experience pain in the same area or in the same way. Likewise Sadists are the flip-side of the same coin. They seek to be gratified by inflicting the pain instead of receiving it. It is the same difference between a suicide or homicide being brought on by internal conflicts. As we saw in Columbine, the subjects were indeed homicidal but I believe their mental states were suicidal before they were homicidal. When one loses respect for their own life, it is hard to maintain respect for that of another.

It is a very interesting area and severe problems in this area when connected with insufficient coping mechanisms can easily lead to criminality.

The Id must be satisfied and it overpowers the Superego and hijacks the Ego and then WATCH OUT! That is when the danger starts and it can be turned inward toward the self or outward towards others, or BOTH.

A-1,

Please repost your comments on this TNNB story in the feedback thread for the story so we can discuss that there, and not drift off here.

Thanks.

The reason for the ages that I set is due to the fact that these are the very ages for which most kids are setting their career goals. When one has gender dysphoria to deal with they almost always inevitably are unable to deal with any future goals and therefore become doomed to drift about life aimlessly and lonely with no real goals in mind. Unless they have an inheritance they are doomed to be poor and pretty much will always be unsuccessful only doing menial labor throughout their lives. This is because by their twenties they will by then be considered to be "stupid" according to their work history. So therefore no matter what their ability or intelligence is they will be relagated to the very bottom of the work list as a menial laborer (and a weak one at that).

So because they have some life long choices to be made they need to get their number one hang-up dealt with immediately and not be made to have to walk about lost.

Wow, a lot of armchair theorizing here. Not like people are ever BORN gay or gender dysphoric or anything...must have been all that TV I watched as a kid or something, maybe it was the time I got spanked for bothering my sister. Yeah, that's it.

Look, I'm sure that there were some here who were abused as a kid or saw their 6th grade teacher naked (and you have my sympathy), but when a five-year old tucks his penis inside its skin and wants it to go away, or a thirteen-year-old tries to pull it off and only succeeds in damaging it, it isn't because of peer pressure or abuse. Hell, nurture couldn't even turn a boy into a girl who didn't want to be (the Reimer story).

The issue, I think, becomes what to do when someone is clearly in the wrong body of some sort. In my case I managed to do well in school and become a productive member of society because I knew that these things had nothing to do with wanting to be a eunuch. My coworkers don't have x-ray vision and can't see what's in my pants. But I partially agree with Dev in a simpler way; younger people who meet a VERY high standard of awareness should be able to do this because then they can spend their twenties as a person that they want to be.

JustAGuy (imported) wrote: Tue Dec 29, 2009 3:19 pm Okay, what do you all think the youngest a guy should be before he can be legally castrated for reasons other than medical reason? Like if he wants to be castrated at a young age do you think the boy should be allowed to have it done?

it is little off topic but

today I had interesting and futuristic thought. The earth is already over populated and we can not feed that mass of people without technological advances humankind has invented like fertilizers, pesticides, genetic modification, machinery, various technology etc. At the same time population is still growing and available resourses are more and more stretched. If something catastrophic will happen to fertile land or oil production then some of those people mostly in the third world are going to starve to death.

For example china used to have sterilisation programme to limit population growth. Perhaps they still have.

you can imagine, if starvation strikes then life wouldn't be that valuable anymore. Not speaking of testicles that are producing misery.

I don't believe that huge castration programmes will be initiated by western states in third world but sterilisation programmes for sure.

I know that is sounds inhumane etc. But if harsh reality is that you can not feed so many people on earth then you have to do something about it. Is miserable life and death better then? For example like china, one child policy or sterilisation programme.

So, for sterilisation those are most valuable who haven't had any children yet. There is no point to sterilise old guys who already have 5 children. So the decision must be made early in life. Either have children with miserable perspective, or receive benefits and get sterilized. I do not set any certain age here, but you understand my point.

It could be that culture of eunuchs will return then. Male to Eunuch transgenderism. It won't be massive of course, as the percentage of such people in the whole population is very small. Steriles and eunuchs are given rights to emigrate to west, as they won't have problematic offspring as we experience it in Europe, who riot and burn down cars on the streets.

here I stop my thinking. I hope I didn't say anything incorrect.

There are other ways aside from Eunuchism to halt reproduction. For instance when I was diagnosed as being low testosterone, my Endo put me on T. Within 6 months I went to 0 sperm count. Plus there is vasectomy, tube tying/hysterectomies...

I did hear, they were working on a T based shot as male birth control, but that was in 2001 and haven't heard anything more.

Batman

A-1 (imported) wrote: Wed Jan 06, 2010 9:27 pm Picture it this way. Remember the Japanese "Lotus foot"? Foot binding. Now, picture psychological stunting and what it does to a young mind and you will begin to see what I mean.

A bit of historical nit-picking. Foot binding was a purely Chinese, not Japanese practice. The Japanese banned it when they took over Taiwan in 1915.

Transward

I think GID or BID? Is a valid medical issue. And I think that if you have this issue your going to know about it pretty young. We talked before about how much better it is to transition earlier rather then later for the most easy and effective transition. So, I say age is not the important issue. Knowing "why" and working that out with a good doctor is the point. Then there maybe a worthwhile trade off such as doing a chemical castration until 18 for example. Then the final decision is done at a "legal" age of consent and you won't have to deal with all the difficulties with later age transition.