"The cumulative evidence of our study ... is consistent with the view
that gender dysphoria is a disorder of the sense of self as has been
proposed by Beitel (1985) or PfÑfflin (1993). The central problem in
our patients is about identity and the self in general and the
transsexual wish seems to be an attempt at reassuring and stabilizing
the self-coherence which in turn can lead to a further destabilization
if the self is already too fragile. In this view the body is
instrumentalized to create a sense of identity and the splitting
symbolized in the hiatus between the rejected body-self and other parts
of the self is more between good and bad objects than between masculine
and feminine."
Freud, Kraft-Ebbing, and Fliess suggested that we are all bisexual to a
certain degree. As early as 1910, Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld argued, in
Berlin, that absolute genders are "abstractions, invented extremes".
The consensus today is that one's sexuality is, mostly, a psychological
construct which reflects gender role orientation.
Joanne Meyerowitz, a professor of history at Indiana University and the
editor of The Journal of American History observes, in her recently
published tome, "How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality in the
United States", that the very meaning of masculinity and femininity is
in constant flux.
Transgender activists, says Meyerowitz, insist that gender and
sexuality represent "distinct analytical categories". The New York
Times wrote in its review of the book: "Some male-to-female
transsexuals have sex with men and call themselves homosexuals. Some
female-to-male transsexuals have sex with women and call themselves
lesbians. Some transsexuals call themselves asexual."
So, it is all in the mind, you see.
This would be taking it too far. A large body of scientific evidence
points to the genetic and biological underpinnings of sexual behavior
and preferences.
The German science magazine, "Geo", reported recently that the males of
the fruit fly "drosophila melanogaster" switched from heterosexuality
to homosexuality as the temperature in the lab was increased from 19 to
30 degrees Celsius. They reverted to chasing females as it was lowered.
The brain structures of homosexual sheep are different to those of
straight sheep, a study conducted recently by the Oregon Health &
Science University and the U.S. Department of Agriculture Sheep
Experiment Station in Dubois, Idaho, revealed. Similar differences were
found between gay men and straight ones in 1995 in Holland and
elsewhere. The preoptic area of the hypothalamus was larger in
heterosexual men than in both homosexual men and straight women.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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