Mrs. Jill Duggar-Dillard (Derick) 61: Now Showing Shoulders

[Someone Out There]

6 hours ago, Emeraldgreen8496 said:

I’m going to comment on the clothing choices of IFB, Fundie, Quiverfuls or whatever term they chose to be referred to as. 

I can’t remember where the verse is at in the Bible, but is basically says “Women are not to adorn men’s dress or vice versa.” Something along those lines, and women should dress modestly to avoid tempting men. 

Well I have always been of the thought of a man gets tempted by the sheer appearance of shoulder blade, upper arm and/or kneecap he may have a bigger issue at hand. I can accept their thought process of no tank tops or booty shorts. Personally when it’s a 163 degrees outside I’m putting on a tank and shorts, they are not booty shorts usually have 5inch inseam or longer. 

I just think a woman can wear jeans or shorts without a man being “tempted’. I wouldn’t survive 2 min in the Fundy world because I loath wearing skirts. I fell like I’m missing an article of clothing, plus I don’t have a thigh gap and will end up sitting very unlady lake to avoid friction between my thighs.  

Ultimately what is temptation versus not is defined by society and the human mind.  For example in Victorian era England an ankle may have been defined as erotic.  In other eras bathhouses had naked men and women intermingling however it was considered immodest if women were showing their hair.

If you grow up surrounded by naked people then that is not what is considered as temptation.

Personally I think think that women needing to be covered so as to not be a temptation to men indicates more that those men have a distinct lack of self control...

Edited addition:

I should also add that when men were moving from dresses/tunics to wearing pants in the middle ages, pants were considered unseemly then.  From a physical point of view I do think it makes more sense for women to wear pants and men to wear skirts/dresses anyway...

[Rachel333]

The countries where women are required to dress modestly still have the same problems with men behaving badly towards women as every other place. I don't think it's the way women dress that's the issue!

1 hour ago, Someone Out There said:

From a physical point of view I do think it makes more sense for women to wear pants and men to wear skirts/dresses anyway...

RIght? 

[SweetJuly]

2 hours ago, Someone Out There said:

From a physical point of view I do think it makes more sense for women to wear pants and men to wear skirts/dresses anyway...

Agreed!

However, skirts/dresses strike me as the only sensible clothing choice for both men and women when it's very warm. Also, I have to say that dresses are a godsend in pregnancy. No other garment allows you to be super-comfortable and at the same time well-dressed so easily

[SapphireSlytherin]

It's been so bloomin' hot here for the past two weeks that I've worn dresses almost every day. I did wear shorts, though, to ride my bike. lol

[seraaa]

On 6/30/2018 at 5:30 PM, formergothardite said:

I can understand the thinking behind saying no surgery on children, that they have to wait till they turn 18, but what other issues do they have that aren't transphobic? ' 

Surgery on children is not a thing. It's already not allowed.

[Kaylo]

Surgery on children is not a thing. It's already not allowed.

Isn’t Jazz 17? Did I misread that?

[Mama Mia]

12 minutes ago, seraaa said:

Surgery on children is not a thing. It's already not allowed.

Not true. What started this part of the conversation was Jazz Jennings having her Gender Confirmation Surgery - she is 17.

Another example is Oregon, where all services, including top and bottom surgery, can be provided, without parental consent, at 15.  ( 15 is the age of medical consent in Oregon ) . This would be rare, of course.

https://www.oregon.gov/OHA/HPA/CSI-HERC/FactSheets/Gender-dysphoria.pdf

In California there is no specific age, individual surgeons can decide. Here is one article about a 14 year old with a double mastectomy, just as an example.

http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-transgender-teen-20160414-story.html

 

 

 

[Jatalie1996]

It just occurred to me that Dwreck would probably be seething at how much Jazz is being discussed in his thread. 

[AnnEggBlandHer?]

So I have a question and I hope it doesn’t come off as offensive to any one in any way. I’ve been really learning a lot from this conversation and I hope to continue that. 

I’ve seen the statement a few times that gender dysphoria is a mental illness and seen it compared to body dysmorphia, where for example, a very thin person sees themselves as obese and thus severely restricts their eating to lose weight. The argument is that we don’t believe the person is obese just because they think they are obese, we look at their body and see that they are malnourished, and we treat them as such. The comparison then goes that if a person with male genitalia believes they are female, we shouldn’t believe them, but treat them until their belief matches their biological body. 

I know this is wrong. I don’t believe this argument...but I also don’t have the right words to contradict it. If I were to overhear someone spewing this nonsense, I’d tell them it’s not the same thing...but then I feel like I’m at a loss for explaining why not. I guess I just feel like I’d want to be prepared if the situation ever arose that I needed a counter argument. Can someone help me out please? 

[ViolaSebastian]

19 minutes ago, AnnEggBlandHer? said:

So I have a question and I hope it doesn’t come off as offensive to any one in any way. I’ve been really learning a lot from this conversation and I hope to continue that. 

I’ve seen the statement a few times that gender dysphoria is a mental illness and seen it compared to body dysmorphia, where for example, a very thin person sees themselves as obese and thus severely restricts their eating to lose weight. The argument is that we don’t believe the person is obese just because they think they are obese, we look at their body and see that they are malnourished, and we treat them as such. The comparison then goes that if a person with male genitalia believes they are female, we shouldn’t believe them, but treat them until their belief matches their biological body. 

I know this is wrong. I don’t believe this argument...but I also don’t have the right words to contradict it. If I were to overhear someone spewing this nonsense, I’d tell them it’s not the same thing...but then I feel like I’m at a loss for explaining why not. I guess I just feel like I’d want to be prepared if the situation ever arose that I needed a counter argument. Can someone help me out please? 

The reason that it's classified as a mental illness in the DSM (the big book of mental health diagnoses) is because the condition has to have a definition and an accompanying insurance code to be considered a condition which can be addressed by medical and mental health professionals. By making it a distinct, classifiable condition, it ensures that insurance companies will still cover therapy and gender confirmation surgery. Interestingly, when the new addition of the DSM came out, "gender identity disorder" became "gender dysmorphia" to try to remove some of the stigma associated with calling the condition a disorder. 

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/where-transgender-is-no-longer-a-diagnosis/

https://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-08/chelsea-manning-gender-dysphoria-and-dsm

[ViolaSebastian]

ETA: There are a lot of things in the DSM that aren't strictly traditional "mental illnesses" that are classified in the DSM because of insurance purposes. For example, if someone moves to a new town for a new job and is having trouble adjusting and seeks therapy, the therapist is required to give you a DSM diagnosis--so you'd most likely be given a "diagnosis" of an adjustment disorder. Is that really a mental illness? I don't believe so, but you have to code it as *something* to get reimbursed by the insurance company. 

[Rachel333]

16 minutes ago, ViolaSebastian said:

"gender dysmorphia"

Just a small correction: it's gender dysphoria. It's confusing since body dysmorphia is also a diagnosis.

[ViolaSebastian]

3 minutes ago, Rachel333 said:

Just a small correction: it's gender dysphoria. It's confusing since body dysmorphia is also a diagnosis.

Thank you--I typed too quickly and didn't proofread well enough. 

[seraaa]

9 hours ago, Mama Mia said:

Not true. What started this part of the conversation was Jazz Jennings having her Gender Confirmation Surgery - she is 17.

Another example is Oregon, where all services, including top and bottom surgery, can be provided, without parental consent, at 15.  ( 15 is the age of medical consent in Oregon ) . This would be rare, of course.

https://www.oregon.gov/OHA/HPA/CSI-HERC/FactSheets/Gender-dysphoria.pdf

In California there is no specific age, individual surgeons can decide. Here is one article about a 14 year old with a double mastectomy, just as an example.

http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-transgender-teen-20160414-story.html

 

 

 

Ah, ok. I'm more familiar with the UK context

[Mama Mia]

44 minutes ago, seraaa said:

Ah, ok. I'm more familiar with the UK context

Yea, like a very large portion of US laws, these vary greatly by state.  For example, many US states don’t allow medical treatment of minors ( usually under age 18 ) - for anything without a parent’s consent. Other’s, like Oregon, at 15, have a separate age for medical consent . While California has a sort of hybrid. Under 18 needs adult consent - unless it’s for a sexual, substance abuse or mental health treatment - in those cases it’s 14.

 Not that applies often - but a minor can be emancipated and treated legally as an adult in certain circumstances - marriage, joining the military, estranged from parents and able to prove they are competently living independently. 

Looking around the laws also vary greatly on issues like changing gender designation on a drivers license. From needing proof of complete sexual reassignment surgery in Alabama, to self-identification with an option for non-binary in California starting next year.

 

[WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo?]

7 hours ago, Mama Mia said:

...to self-identification with an option for non-binary in California starting next year

Which is why I'm so thankful my transgender sibling was born when my parents still lived in California. If he had been born here he would have had to wait for the law to change to be able to change his gender on his driver's license, and wouldn't be allowed to change his birth certificate. He's the only one of the 4 of us born there. Very fortunate. I hope we can get more states to change their laws.

[VelociRapture]

3 hours ago, WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo? said:

Which is why I'm so thankful my transgender sibling was born when my parents still lived in California. If he had been born here he would have had to wait for the law to change to be able to change his gender on his driver's license, and wouldn't be allowed to change his birth certificate. He's the only one of the 4 of us born there. Very fortunate. I hope we can get more states to change their laws.

Connecticut here! My brother was able to update his birth certificate when he publicly transitioned a few years ago. My mom actually drove up to the applicable office in Hartford and waited to be sure it got down when he needed it to be because there was some sort of hold up (I don’t think there was any sort of malicious intent, but my mom is a Momma Bear and wasn’t about to take any chances. Lol!)

And I absolutely agree. Changing his birth certificate has made his life so much easier in a lot of ways. I’m obviously very much a novice in Trans rights, but updating birth certificates is one of the things I really want to be possible throughout the country. I don’t think it’s going to happen anytime soon, but I hope it happens in the next few decades. 

[laPapessaGiovanna]

On 7/4/2018 at 8:16 PM, PainfullyAware said:

On the left we have “feminine” and on the right we have “masculine,” the two expressive terms related to “woman” and “man.”  In the middle, we have a new term “androgynous,” which describes an ambiguous or mixed form of expressing gender.

Only to note that androgynous is hardly a new term. It is well documented in Greek literature, its most famous usage being in Plato's Symposium, where Aristophanes narrates the myth of the Androgyne. Below you'll find the first part of the original text (the word androgynous is used in paragraph 189e) and the translation of the myth (translation is very old, if you're interested you may want to look into a more recent one).

You will see that this discussion about gender identities and sexual attraction has been going on for millennia. 

For those not familiar with Plato, he was a Greek philosopher from the V century BC. He was Socrates pupil and together with his teacher and Aristoteles is the most famous and admired through history among the Greek philosophers. You cannot understate the importance of his work on European cultures up to nowadays. It is important to underline this as to underline that his philosophy didn't represent a fringe aspect of Greek culture, on the contrary it was was of its highest points. Most of his work is structured as dialogues and he often employed the narration of myths to make his points as in this case. 

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

 

[Frumper]

On 7/4/2018 at 9:28 PM, Emeraldgreen8496 said:

Well I have always been of the thought of a man gets tempted by the sheer appearance of shoulder blade, upper arm and/or kneecap he may have a bigger issue at hand.

I don't really agree with this.  I am pretty tempted by the upper arm of a muscular man and I don't think it means I have any kind of issues, it's just an attractive area to me.  And I am sure men are tempted by all kinds of body parts too.  IMO the issue isn't whether a man is somehow weird for being tempted by a shoulder blade (I don't think he is).  Rather, it's what that man does about that feeling of attraction, and whether the burden should be on women to shroud themselves with clothing so that a man never has to deal with his temptation.

[Drala]

@AnnEggBlandHer? wrote:  "The argument is that we don’t believe the person is obese just because they think they are obese, we look at their body and see that they are malnourished, and we treat them as such. The comparison then goes that if a person with male genitalia believes they are female, we shouldn’t believe them, but treat them until their belief matches their biological body."

I'm not sure that the responses re: the DSM-V existing for insurance/billing purposes really addressed your concern.   My response (as a former clinician) to the argument you've cited is pragmatic and evidence-based.  I would not support a malnourished person's belief that s/he is obese because acting on that belief is potentially lethal. Malnourishment is a fact supported by biomarkers; it is not a belief.  Gender dysphoria is also potentially lethal (suicide), but much of the suicide risk is mitigated by social acceptance and interpersonal affirmation.  It is also a belief and not a fact that sex chromosomes are the sole determinants of gender identity.  There is no evidence that convincing someone with gender dysphoria to adopt this alternate (albeit historically accepted) belief about themselves is any more effective in reducing suicide risk than sexual reassignment surgery or widespread changes in societal attitudes toward gender nonconformity.  

[laPapessaGiovanna]

14 hours ago, AnnEggBlandHer? said:

So I have a question and I hope it doesn’t come off as offensive to any one in any way. I’ve been really learning a lot from this conversation and I hope to continue that. 

I’ve seen the statement a few times that gender dysphoria is a mental illness and seen it compared to body dysmorphia, where for example, a very thin person sees themselves as obese and thus severely restricts their eating to lose weight. The argument is that we don’t believe the person is obese just because they think they are obese, we look at their body and see that they are malnourished, and we treat them as such. The comparison then goes that if a person with male genitalia believes they are female, we shouldn’t believe them, but treat them until their belief matches their biological body. 

I know this is wrong. I don’t believe this argument...but I also don’t have the right words to contradict it. If I were to overhear someone spewing this nonsense, I’d tell them it’s not the same thing...but then I feel like I’m at a loss for explaining why not. I guess I just feel like I’d want to be prepared if the situation ever arose that I needed a counter argument. Can someone help me out please? 

This happens because ignorant people read two similar Greek words and make the false equivalence between dysMORPHia and dysPHORia.

The two words do not mean the same thing at all. Dysmorphia means the a person cannot (for many reasons) correctly assess their body shape (MORPHe means form/shape in Greek and dys- being a negation prefix)).

Dys-phoria is the contrary of eu-phoria, so where an euphoric person feels GREAT, a disphoric person feel shittily, uneasy, depressed, possibly suicidal (dys- being the negation prefix and -PHOR- coming from Greek verb fero that is mostly translated as to bear/to carry/to bring but it's a verb whose meaning adapts to context).

If you really want to make a comparison gender dysphoria should be better compared to depression. But where depression is mostly caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain, gender dysphoria is caused by living in a body that expresses a gender that's at odds with what the brain reads as the person's gender. So while you cure depression intervening on the brain chemics, you cure gender dysphoria reassigning the body's gender to match the gender as it is perceived by the brain. You don't wait for a depressed person to become suicidal befor believing them so you shouldn't wait for a dysphoric person to self harm or become suicidal before believing them.

Gender dysphoria is listed in the DSM because causing symptoms very similar to depression, people affected with it need therapeutical support to avoid harm while they come to term with their identity, choose what to do and eventually undergo transition.

ETA that DSM previously listed Gender Dysphoria as Gender Identity Disorder, it has been changed into the current definition to underline that the pathological elements resides not in the gender identity but in the dysphoria.

ETA2 As @Drala already said evidence clearly shows that Gender Dysphoria cannot be cured trying to convince the person that their apparent gender is the right one. It is very well documented that with this sort of approach the dysphoric symptoms will persist.

[Rachel333]

I can see why people make the anorexia comparison, but I think they don't realize how terrible the treatment outcomes for anorexia are. It's considered to have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness and even of those who don't survive a really high percentage never make a full recovery and have body issues for life. The immediate problem is less that they're wrong about being fat (and actually a lot of anorexia sufferers do realize how thin they appear, and even when they do have body dysmorphia it's a lot different than the stereotypical image of an emaciated woman looking in the mirror and seeing an obese reflection) and more that it's incredibly unhealthy to be very underweight. If that weren't true then I think letting patients stay at a low weight to reduce distress probably would be an option. As it is a lot of treatment providers do let patients stay at the very low end of a healthy weight range even though recovery outcomes are better if patients reach at least the middle of the healthy weight range. It's an incredibly difficult illness to live with or treat.

[laPapessaGiovanna]

17 minutes ago, Rachel333 said:

I can see why people make the anorexia comparison, but I think they don't realize how terrible the treatment outcomes for anorexia are. It's considered to have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness and even of those who don't survive a really high percentage never make a full recovery and have body issues for life. The immediate problem is less that they're wrong about being fat (and actually a lot of anorexia sufferers do realize how thin they appear, and even when they do have body dysmorphia it's a lot different than the stereotypical image of an emaciated woman looking in the mirror and seeing an obese reflection) and more that it's incredibly unhealthy to be very underweight. If that weren't true then I think letting patients stay at a low weight to reduce distress probably would be an option. As it is a lot of treatment providers do let patients stay at the very low end of a healthy weight range even though recovery outcomes are better if patients reach at least the middle of the healthy weight range. It's an incredibly difficult illness to live with or treat.

Another thing that many people often get wrong is the anorexia = body dysmorphia when many many times it isn't the case at all. As you say people suffering with eating disorders often have an accurate idea of their appearance. Eating disorders are much more about control than about self image. The need to feel in control is a much more important driving force behind eating disorders.

It's easier to find Body Dysmorphia among those people that seem to have an insane addiction to plastic surgery as Body Dysmorphia refers to the general shape of the body but also to the shape of singular parts of the body.

[PainfullyAware]

16 hours ago, laPapessaGiovanna said:

Only to note that androgynous is hardly a new term

Yes that was a strange aspect of the section I quoted. I took it to mean adopting the term as a gender identity label rather than a description ("I identify as non-binary" whereas 'I identify as androgynous"). Although I haven't actually heard anyone ever do that?

[Fjrocks]

 I think we are making progress despite people like Derick.

   On our FB group for our upcoming high school reunion later this year, a fellow classmate posted a gentle notice to let us know he had transitioned several years ago, indeed it has been some time since he has encounter people to whom he hasn’t always  been  “Jack.”

   I have been startled at all the comments from our very Christian, very Republican hometown.   Everyone has been absolutely lovely,  using correct pronouns, names and no prying questions. Just expressing lots of fond memories and excitement to see an old friend, his wife and family very soon.