Getting ahead in a society that hates you

Welcome back, Eve. :)

This is where I get confused. If you have suffered an injustice and seek to correct it, are you not acknowledging your victimhood yet fighting against the injustice?

"Justice" refers to "rights," and can only be rendered when a "right" is violated.

I'll be back...

Post 41

Wednesday, July 25, 2007 - 5:24am

Eve, I must admit that I might need a little education here. When you write of the need for medical attention and the lack of knowledge of transgendered people in the medical community, I can only ask, what sort of medical attention, other than gender 'reassignment', can a transgendered person possibly need?

If a man feels that he is really a woman that does not change his body. He will still need a prostate exam whether he desires to have one or not. Likewise, a woman will need a gynecologist whether she desires a penis instead of her ovaries.

If the physical body remains the same, what sort of 'different' or 'special' medical care does a transgendered person need?

Post 42

Wednesday, July 25, 2007 - 6:32am

Eve, are you speaking about sex change operations and the complications involved? I don't think an insurance company should have to pay for that, since it is a voluntary procedure, like a face lift, and not a necessary one medically. In fact, other than hermaphrodites or people with genetic abnormality, if the transgender simply "wants" to change sex, I don't think a doctor should do it because it is harmful and does not serve any valid medical purpose.

Also - Discrimination by government is not the same as by private individuals. The latter are just being idiots in your example, but the city, acting as a government, DOES have to have non-discrimination because it is acting as an agent of the people and not as a private individual.

(Edited by Kurt Eichert on 7/25, 6:34am)

Post 43

Wednesday, July 25, 2007 - 6:52am

Regarding "Victim Mentality" (Only)

Hello, Eve.

You asked:

On a completely unrelated matter addressed to everyone, I'm confused about this "victim mentality" thing. When one suffers an injustice (we'll keep it easy and say your neighbor stole your stereo), one is a victim of this injustice. But this is different from the "victim mentality", yes? Am I correct in thinking that a victim of injustice goes about correcting said injustice (by, say, going to the police in the stereo-theft case), but someone suffering from the victim mentality would...

In my post, I actually (initially) used the words "perpetual victim mentality", which may help explain what I'm describing: when the fact of your victimization becomes your whole identity, and everything you do with your life revolves around that fact...you have embraced the perpetual victim mentality. Also: people who do not actually share your experiences but have devoted themselves to your "fight" out of pity are guilty of encouraging the perpetual victim mentality. (Think of the wealthy guilty white liberal mind-set.)
Having my stereo stolen would indeed make me the victim of a crime, which would warrant a trip to the police station and a call to my insurance agent...but it would NOT compel me to devote the rest of my life and energies to seeking "justice" for this crime.

This is where I get confused. If you have suffered an injustice and seek to correct it, are you not acknowledging your victimhood yet fighting against the injustice? Is the implication, then, that one holding a victim mentality does not seek to correct the injustice, but only proclaims their victimhood and does nothing? If I have that much right, why is someone fighting for oppressed people embracing a victim mentality?

Of course, I mean for my definition to apply to those who consider themselves "oppressed" in this society, The United States of America, in 2007---(not the truly oppressed living in other, hellish countries around the world.) Also, liberals tend to blur the lines between injustices that occurred legally in the U.S. in centuries past, and what is now mainly just the manifestation of ignorance on the part of some people. (There are already criminal and civil legal remedies for the times when that ignorance spills over into actual crime.)

So we have some people acknowledging that racism and sexism and homophobia (tools of oppression) exist, but noting that the situation is much better than it was a generation ago � which is true. But those who don't consider the situation good enough are just stuck in a victim mentality?

I'll try to explain my view on this, but I don't know if we'll find common ground, Eve, because it really is up to an individual as to what he or she wants for their life.
You have already stated that

Worrying about others' and my own subjugation is living as I wish.

It's not living as I'd wish.

And it has nothing to do with thinking the situation is "good enough" or ideal...it has to do what you want to do with the time you have on this planet to be alive.

If you want to devote your life to "fighting" for others, no one will stop you (to paraphrase Barbara Branden.) Note: How, exactly, you plan to "fight" is probably what Teresa wants to get back to you about...hint: "rights" are a very, very important concept.

In short, I'm not a victim of anything but my own bad judgment sometimes...and I already spend a lot of time fighting that monster as it is. I haven't the time (nor inclination) to fight anyone else's.

I hope this post helps to explain my previous one, but if you still have questions, shoot.

Erica

(Edited by Erica Schulz on 7/25, 12:33pm)

Post 44

Wednesday, July 25, 2007 - 8:03am

Eve wrote,

The tiniest minority is the individual, yes, but even the most ardent and rugged individualists coalesce into groups of individualists (usually to battle other groups of individualists). Each individualist individual does not lose hir identity, just as a member of a social group retains hir individual identity. So if a group is made up of individuals, why does "group right" not mean "individual right for people in this group"? We do, after all, reserve the right to vote to individuals in the group "18+ years old", but the right to vote isn't considered a group right. Thoughts?

The right to vote, like the right to sign contracts, is age-dependent, because it is a right that does not apply to children, who, unlike adults, are not considered autonomous human beings. Parents have the right to make decisions for their children -- to control the activities of their children for their own good. Adults do not, properly, have that right vis-a-vis other adults. We often talk of the "paternalistic state," which treats its citizens like children, denying them their rights as autonomous adults.

Individual rights -- which imply the right to control one's life free from interference by others -- is a right that applies equally to every adult human being. "Group rights," in the sense I was using the term, pertains to different rights for different groups of adult human beings. In the past, whites had rights that blacks didn't have, and men had rights that women didn't have. These were "group rights" in the sense I was using it, and were illegitimate, because they did not recognize the equal rights of every person as an individual.

If you think of (adult) individuals as belonging to different groups within society and as having different rights as members of these groups, then you will fail to recognize that rights inhere only in individuals not in groups -- unless you want to say that every group has the same rights as every other group. But in that case, you should recognize that a group is not a moral agent that makes choices. It is only a collection of individual moral agents, each of whom makes "hir" own choices.

In our society, we tend to identify the locus of autonomy as inhering in the majority, which leads us to subject virtually every social issue to a vote, as if the majority -- or a collective -- of human beings were somehow the final arbiter in any disagreement among individuals. This view of decision making as being the prerogative of the group rather than of the individual is what prevents us from recognizing individual rights.

The principle of individual rights -- of individual autonomy -- says that no group, collective or majority has the right to negate the choices and actions of any individual. It says that a majority of whites has no right to enslave a minority of blacks, nor a majority of men to enslave a minority of women, because doing so would violate the rights of the individuals composing the minority -- not their group rights, not their rights as members of the minority, but their rights as individual human beings.

The recognition of human beings as individuals has all but been forgotten in our current obsession with group rights. Employment application and admission forms reflect this obsession in spades. I have in front of me a registration form which asks the applicant to identify his or her ethnic group, and lists 24 separate categories:

American Indian/Alaskan Native
African American/Black, Non-Hispanic
Mexican American, Mexican, Chicano
Central American
South American
Cuban
Puerto Rican
Other Latino/Spanish Origin/Hispanic
Chinese
Japanese
Filipino
Korean
Asian Indian
Other Asian
Laotian
Cambodian
Other Southeast Asian
Thai
Vietnamese
Guamanian
Hawaiian
Samoan
Other, Pacific Islander
White, Non-Hispanic

These are group rights run amuck. We have lost sight entirely of people as individuals. We are no longer even capable of thinking of them except as members of a collective, and the collectives have become so numerous, it difficult to keep track of them. What difference does it make which of these 24 separate ethnic groups one belongs to? And why should these matter for one's admission into university? Why should they confer some special status or rights on their members?

- Bill
(Edited by William Dwyer
on 7/25, 8:08am)

Post 45

Wednesday, July 25, 2007 - 8:19am

Erica and Bill,
It's posts like #43 and #44 that make me glad that RoR exists.
Thanks,
Glenn

Post 46

Wednesday, July 25, 2007 - 8:28am

Kurt, Steve,

What sort of non-specialized medical attention can a trangender person need? The same kind as everyone else, of course. Yet even that service is often denied to them for the reasons in my last post.

The question of the medical necessity of sex reassignment surgery (SRS) is a hot topic these days. However, it's impossible to talk generally about it because how necessary it is depends entirely on the individual. For those who do feel it's necessary, I think they should be treated as if they were receiving treatment for any other medical condition � i.e., covered under health insurance. I argue that it is medically necessary. The suicide rate for transsexuals is close to 50% for those under 30 years old. And this rate is only for those who either state it openly or when it can be deduced post-suicide. I consider this a strong indicator that transsexuality, when untreated, is life-threatening. Hormone therapy and SRS are part of that treatment.

Others,

Thanks for comments. I'll post again later.

Post 47

Wednesday, July 25, 2007 - 8:41am

First of all no one has a right to medical attention. If someone wants to be treated for a disease or ailment they may purchase that care or treatment if they wish. However, no one may claim to have a right to that treatment.

Second of all there are numerous other maladies which health insurance does not cover. Should an insurer be required (forced) to provide treatment in these cases also? And if so, at the cost of whom?

Third, is it possible that gender reassignment and hormone therapy are not the best options for the transsexual? I'll go out on a limb here and say what many might be thinking: do these people need psychological help rather than physical help?
(Edited by Steve
on 7/25, 8:42am)

Post 48

Wednesday, July 25, 2007 - 8:58am

Steve,

You're talking about the gender equivalent of curing homosexuality. People have certainly tried, and it doesn't work. So no, transsexual people do not need psychological help for transsexuality. The psychological treatment they do receive is often to repair the damage done by statements like the one you just made.

Post 49

Wednesday, July 25, 2007 - 9:14am

I'm not sure any of the statements or comments I've made have or will damage someone psychologically. (I did make a girl cry once, but that was in high school.) I am not asserting that a cure is available, only that it might be possible a transsexual is mentally mazed.

So, if you wish, set aside my third statement in the previous post and respond to the first and answer the second.

Post 50

Wednesday, July 25, 2007 - 11:27am

I have a friend that I went to High School with who is currently going through the sexual re-assignment process, so I am somewhat familiar with this topic, though surely not as much as Eve. I just have a few comments to make on the general course of this thread

Transgendered people develop psychological problems not only from misguided comments but also from the psychological contradiction of believing one is of one sex but physically being of the other sex. This, obviously, as Eve suggests, can lead to depression and eventually suicide. But this begs the question, why do they come to believe that they *ought* to be of the opposite sex? Do they have certain genes making them feel that way? Did they become enamored by things as a child of things of the opposite sex? Did they have so much trouble fitting in with society in their biological sex role that they need a large life change to restart? Or did they just really get enamored by the idea of being of the opposite sex? The rephrase this question, is the reason they believe they *ought* to be of the other sex a product of their genes (nature), social variables and conditioning (habit) or a product of their own involved volitional development (choice) ? The truth is, it is no doubt a very complicated interaction of all of these things. Would the transgendered person feel similarly �out of place� if they grew up on an island or never even knew an �opposite sex� existed? I doubt it�

If the source of this feeling is genetic, it is possible that gene therapy could �cure� it, if the source is habitual, it is possible that counseling could cure it, if the source is a choice, it is possible that they could change their mind (this is not to say that is an easy thing, choices like these are subtle and made thousands or millions of times over ones life and thus become deeply habitualized) But if the source is not one of these things, or a combination of them, what is it? Even behavior influenced by our genes is not absolute, and we can over-ride genetic tendencies if we so choose. Science empirically verifies this statement as well.

Just because someone *really* needs to have a sex change operation, does not mean that everyone else ought to pay for it. If they �need� it that bad, then they should work hard to earn the money to pay for someone to study a medicine for 12 years and to perform the operation (which is what my friend is doing) Feeling like you need something is not a justification, your feelings may not be accurate, and they certainly don�t necessarily reflect a objective need for something to materially sustain your existence. Little Millie Bush really *needed* braces or she would suffer psychological scars for life, so everyone else was forced to pay for it.

This "need" comes from the fact that transgendered people place, I think, too much of their personal identify value on their sex. Just as homosexuals often base their entire identify on the fact that they are homosexual (I don�t run around talking about how �proud� I am to be straight, and many homosexuals levy the same criticism toward other homosexuals, see the SOLO Passion site for some examples of that) transgendered people often place the value of their identify on their sex as well. It can easily become a recursive positive feedback loop. The feedback loop could start as a genetic influence, or some feeling of misplacement, or just as a small choice one made early on, and build and build through those various avenues. But no matter how important it becomes to a person to get a sex change, no matter how much they cry and plead and demand they need it, they *never* have *any* right to make *me* pay for it. I *need* things as well, things that are far more important to me and objectively to humanity than their individual need for a sex change. So sorry, it sucks that they need it so bad and it is hard for them, but you are going to have to deal with it or earn the money to pay for the change yourself. Psychologically dealing with being the �wrong� sex absolutely pales in comparison to the things the vast majority of humanity has had to suffer through and the things the vast majority of humanity still suffers through. Try telling this kid that your friend �needs� a sex change

A person who takes their own life because they are the wrong sex values their biological sexual status more than their own life. This is certainly not a healthy prioritization of values. Personally, I value over anything else the product of individual volitional choice, I place absolutely *no* value on things people did not choose. I don�t care what race you are, what ethnicity, or what sex, or even which of those *I* am, and if someone chooses to change any of those, more power to them! If you want to change your sex, your height, your hair color, whatever, go for it. It�s your�s to change and having been arbitrarily placed with a particular set of traits is of no particular value to me. Eventually, with genetic technology and stem cell technology, we may be able to change our sex at the biological level, and maybe even go back and forth every few decades and try out both, or even be two sexes simultaneously! Who cares! As long as you are a sentient, life loving entity, whatever package that comes in is irrelevant to me. Similarly, the singular most important thing to any sentient being ought to be it�s own existence (and implicitly a respect of the same granted to other sentient beings, which demanding a difficult and expensive surgery is not) and secondarily (generally) the things conducive to that existence.

Post 51

Wednesday, July 25, 2007 - 1:36pm

Michael:

That picture is truly the most heart-breaking one I have ever seen. It deserves a thread of its own and I'm not sure why you included it in your "trangendered" post.

I guess it goes with the times when there are so many scams being perpetrated that one has to wonder if this has been doctored or fabricated. It's sad to be jaded about something so horrible.

Sam

Post 52

Wednesday, July 25, 2007 - 1:37pm

This was just beautiful to read:

But no matter how important it becomes to a person to get a sex change, no matter how much they cry and plead and demand they need it, they *never* have *any* right to make *me* pay for it. I *need* things as well, things that are far more important to me..

I don't think I could've put it any more bluntly than that. What right does a transgendered person have to dictate to a health insurance company what procedures it ought to cover?

Post 53

Wednesday, July 25, 2007 - 2:48pm

What right does a transgendered person have to dictate to a health insurance company what procedures it ought to cover?

So, if there's a demand for something that's socially acceptable, it's the market at work. But if it's something unfamiliar and scary to you it's the Red Menace stealin' your money?

Post 54

Wednesday, July 25, 2007 - 2:59pm

William,

What difference does it make which of these 24 separate ethnic groups one belongs to? And why should these matter for one's admission into university? Why should they confer some special status or rights on their members?

And I ask, what difference does it make which gender one belongs to? And why does anyone give a damn how another dresses, identifies, or acts?

Post 55

Wednesday, July 25, 2007 - 3:46pm

Eve writes:

> So, if there's a demand for something that's socially acceptable, it's the market at work.
> But if it's something unfamiliar and scary to you it's the Red Menace stealin' your money?

Come on Eve, let's be serious. This is just a matter of market forces. Customers want the most health care coverage for the least amount of money. Insurance companies want the least coverage for the most money. In order to offer an insurance product the insurer must delimit the coverage in order to be able to set a price. If they offer too little coverage, customers will go elsewhere. if they price the policy too high, customers will go elsewhere. Insurance packages ultimately get defined with a broad enough level of coverage at a price point that is attractive to enough people. Most people are not interested in paying an increased premium for sex-change operations which they will not use, so this procedure is typically not included in most available packages. If there were enough demand for this service, I'm sure that some enterprising company would eventually offer a higher priced package that included this, but as the demand is so low in relation to the general population, it is simply not offered. This is all easy to explain with out resorting to accusations of "socially acceptable", "unfamiliar", "scary" or "bias against trans-gendered people".

You are unfortunately interested in a procedure for which there is very little demand. I'll bet many of us can identify some area of personal interest that is not covered by our insurance. For some people its access the the latest experimental treatment for some rare disease. For others it might be plastic surgery. It used to be true for birth control coverage and MRIs, but here are examples where things changed over time as prices fell and demand grew. My point here is that there are good economic reasons why there is no coverage for this procedure, so there is no need to go further and attempt to skirt those issues by raising charges of persecution and prejudice.

Regards,
--
Jeff

Post 56

Wednesday, July 25, 2007 - 3:50pm

"So, if there's a demand for something that's socially acceptable, it's the market at work. But if it's something unfamiliar and scary to you it's the Red Menace stealin' your money?"

This is a brain dead response. He is making no judgment about whether it is socially acceptable, he is rejecting your claim that other people are morally obliged provide you with the services you seem to claim as a right.

- Jason

Post 57

Wednesday, July 25, 2007 - 3:57pm

By the way, there was an excellent report done on 60 Minutes sometime within the past 3-6 months that covered trans-gendered individuals. It was very informative and I recommend watching it.

Here are links at YouTube:

Part #1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6zPh97qYd4

Part #2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_bfVvo3dd8&mode=related&search=

--
Jeff

Post 58

Wednesday, July 25, 2007 - 4:42pm

Eve wrote:

So, if there's a demand for something that's socially acceptable, it's the market at work. But if it's something unfamiliar and scary to you it's the Red Menace stealin' your money?

If you demand a sex change, who is denying you the freedom to go find a doctor willing to give you one? You know adult pornography isn't really socially acceptable by many, but that doesn't stop people from producing and consuming a product that other people find socially unacceptable. So do you propose people also get free pornography?

Post 59

Wednesday, July 25, 2007 - 4:55pm