Scarlett to take a break from SC2 - Page 19

On April 24 2013 16:05 Befree wrote:
I feel bad doing this, I know I shouldn't play into this, I know I should stay on topic and this is probably against the rules, I know it's none of our business, but when I read some of these ignorant comments I feel an obligation to reply.

First, her trans status is none of your business, has no effect on you, and shouldn't need to disclosed to you nor explained to you.

Second, you have completely outdated ideas of sex and gender. You first off latch onto your false characteristics of what defines each sex, none of which actually do clearly define sex as science has come to discover. Then you act as if these false characteristics are also what define gender for you, even though likely 99.99% of your evaluations of someone's gender throughout your life were not based on attributes like testosterone/estrogen levels, chromosomes, genitalia, or reproductive systems.

Third, and I believe this is most important here, you have no idea what being trans even is. You think it's someone who decides they want to be the other sex, and so they pretend and everyone plays along. That is NOT at all the case.

In the womb, the fetal brain is pushed towards a male gender through the action of testosterone on nerve cells, or towards female by the absence of this testosterone. This is the process that develops our gender identity in our brain and it occurs during the second half of pregnancy. But it's during the first two months of pregnancy that the sexual differentiation of the genitals occurs. Both these processes can be influenced independently and in some extreme cases can result in trans-sexuality. The degree of the masculinization of the genitals does not necessarily reflect the masculinization of the brain. There's no indication that the social environment after birth affects gender identity (*). There are studies (**) that compare the female brain to a male-to-female trans woman's brain and they also show the same thing that the male-to-female trans brain is structurally similar to the genetically female brain.

They are essentially a brain with a mismatched body. This incongruence can be very disruptive to a their life and make them feel horrible because they never feel right in their gender identity and their body. These extreme cases of gender dysphoria have been found to be treated best by sex reassignment therapy and hormone therapy. It is not meant to be cosmetic, elective, or optional in any meaningful way (***).

After two years of hormone replacement therapy and sexual reassignment therapy, a male-to-female trans woman is essentially physically female. In 2003, the International Olympic Committee Medical Commission even recommended for sport that all male-to-female trans women be regarded as female for competition as there was no meaningful physical difference after sex reassignment and two years of HRT.

For our particular case of Scarlett, she was born partially female, the more meaningful and important part, the brain. And now also has essentially a female body. It is NOT political correctness to call her female, it is not polite, it is not for the sake of making her feel good, it is simply the truth. She is female. You can be rude and hateful and refer to trans people by their gender they don't identify as, but you're only making a fool of yourself because you're wrong. And science has explained exactly why you are wrong. So instead of trying to push your ignorant, emotion-based, unscientific line of reasoning, how about you just shut the fuck up and take a moment to actually educate yourself on the matter before blurting out such stupidity.

Here's what I cited:
(*) Sexual Hormones and the Brain: An Essential Alliance for Sexual Identity and Sexual Orientation Garcia-Falgueras A, Swaab DF Endocr Dev. 2010;17:22-35
(**) Zhou et al Nature (1995) 378:68–70.
and
Male–to–female transsexuals have female neuron numbers in a limbic nucleus. Kruiver et al J Clin Endocrinol Metab (2000) 85:2034–2041
(***) http://www.wpath.org/documents2/socv6.pdf
(****) http://www.olympic.org/Documents/Reports/EN/en_report_905.pdf


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I recognize it is bad to derail a thread with a comment like this, and maybe it's a warning or ban, but I just cannot stand reading these completely ignorant comments from people who think they know what they're talking about. There is so much ignorance on transgender people and so much transphobia everywhere that I feel it is necessary to respond to this ignorance with the truth. Because I really don't think the vast majority of people have any idea of the science or facts around it. I do apologize, though, to Scarlett, for continuing the conversation on her transgender status which I do not feel is any of our business. It would probably be more appropriate in a transgender topic than her injury announcement thread, but I only mean to help and educate others.

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I'm sorry to hear about Scarlett's injury. I've been a big fan since I remember first seeing her play at that MLG. We'll just have to be rooting extra hard for her in the WCS now then. Hopefully her break falls on the shorter side of the 2-6 month estimation, that's a really long time .