I have no idea how to respond to the "mapping" thing, but my body tells me I should have breasts and my chest feels empty without them.
I find this part interesting, and somewhat confusing, as nobody is born with developed breasts and I'm really not sure why your body would feel that way. I mean, developed breasts aren't really a major neurological thing, just redepositing of fat and shaping of tissue that's already there. I'm not saying I don't believe you, just that it sounds like a rather odd phenomenon, almost like your body telling you that your legs should be longer or something rather than having a part it doesn't. Again, I believe you, but I'm very curious how that works, and that's obviously something neither of us can answer and is probably too complex on a psychological and neurological level in a way that those fields don't understand yet.
The answer is closer than it is too far. Talk to anyone who has been forced to undergo a mastectomy (surgical removal of the breast, as in breast cancer). I get that I never [ahem] "had" them, but I have used false ones and I miss the extra weight on my chest. It's comforting to me when I do have them and while people have been utterly mean bastards while I've "been a woman" the best times of my entire life have occurred when I was able to be like that. Spending time with my best friends as "one of the girls," being with my boyfriend, having my best friend's mother say it was alright and that I had done nothing wrong. I just want what it costs everyone else nothing for me to have....
Yup basically ditto. Thank you for that .... All the same I'd happily take it. Anything is better than this....
On a personal note: I used to be less accepting of sexual reassignment, because I thought it just amounted to people wanting to change their physical sex, as if it were the same as someone feeling like they should be a different species or have a different skin color or number of limbs or something else arbitrary like that (there was a very stupid and heavy-handed South Park episode to that effect a long time ago). However, the more I learned about it, the more it seemed like something else entirely: That the people who felt they needed it didn't do so out of simple desire, but because there was a serious issue going on, probably regarding sexual development, that resulted in their bodies simply not feeling right no matter what. It's no surprise that this can happen, either. After all, we start out pretty much the same at one point in the womb and diverge from there, so it shouldn't be a great shock that sometimes, that process can go off-kilter or become inconsistent in some way or another.
[nod nod] I've always known I should've been a girl, even as a small child. I just denied it/insisted it wasn't true....
Your honesty and use of the past tense about not being accepting are entirely appreciated
. I'm very aware of that south park episode and the one where Garrison "changes back" to become male again. I take it with a grain of salt; they make fun of absolutely everyone where it hurts the most as a rule.
As for the rest, ditto and given the human mind is the most complex thing in existence, there is a lot that can easily go wrong. This may be one of them....
Your post just made me think of a documentary I saw about "wannabe amputees". One guy in the USA took his left leg off with a shotgun, because he always hated that particular leg, felt like it didn't belong, not sure why. He states he's much happier now. Maybe related to brain=>body mapping?? The doco kind of freaked me out.
Yeah, on Wikipedia you can look up "Body Integrity Identity Disorder", which is the name for that sort of thing. It's a rather controversial issue in terms of whether or not you allow surgeons to remove body parts for that reason, probably because it's an ill-understood condition.
I believe Supernumerary Phantom Limbs were mentioned in this thread, too, which is basically the opposite thing: Feeling the presence of a body part, such as an extra arm, that isn't actually there and never was.
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Yeah, I've actually read about the two conditions being compared long ago. I'm not sure how true this is, but it went something like, pointing out six differences and calling us both crazy but transsexuals less so: 1.) The transsexual has often felt this way the entirety or majority of their life and the delusion is incredibly persistent, 2.) the transsexual's "delusional plan" (I remember that phrase
) is more detailed and thought out, having an endpoint that replaces the parts with a surgically viable conclusion, 3.) the transsexual has no desire for pain but rather retains an aversion, 4.) the transsexual's desires (grumble grumble...) have been accepted by the medical community, 5.) beyond reproduction the transsexual loses no functionality of the body, 6.) While the [incredibly derogatory word for those with Body Integrity Identity Disorder] have no uniformity to their desire, the transsexuals are all in agreement exactly what their delusions desire the doctors to do. The medical article then went on to compare us to all sorts of things, in horrid ways as a rule. [sigh]
I have no idea why I haven't subscribed to this thread before.
well now I have.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the one and only, Japa who along with jonask84 and others is a driving force behind Stonesense. We're happy to have you sir.
[Stuff on Riots]
This is hearsay by definition but.... I talk to a nice young man in Britain on messenger. He said something about how they were promised the good life through university but that now they've gone and made that impossible by doubling or sometimes tripling the price of university. The sentiment seems to be "we're damned after all so screw it."
I'm not justifying their actions but one wonders if crafty thieves don't steer protests towards their targets as cover. That's part of exactly what I'd do in that situation from an operations PoV. Granted we're not talking about being right here, just being effective. Having a pissed off crowd that's willing to fight the police to get lost in is a smart thief's dream come true.
Question becomes, are the rioters in on or part of the scam or not. Who knows.