The focus of this website against sexual exploitation of children makes it a good place to rebut the recent clamour holding that merely being socially supportive of LGBT young people is a ‘grooming’ process aimed at exploitation.
A few years ago, I published what I consider to be the most comprehensive scenario explaining the origins of sexual orientations and life-long transgender identifications. I did this using a literary format, a dialogue among three teenagers in a sci-fi novel, partly because that made the ideas as easy as possible for everyone to read and understand. The ideas also connect to other themes in the book.
Since I’m a PhD in a field very different from psychology, I didn’t try to make this look like a professional academic document, out of courtesy. Nonetheless, I think the ideas should be interesting to people in this field, and have made some comments below the dialogue about how the ideas intersect with existing ideas in the field.
The TL;DR is that “imprinted this way” should replace “born this way” if we’re trying to be accurate. But there’s much more to it than that.
Above, I was careful to specify lifelong self-perceived transgendered people because some people who appear established in their assigned-at-birth genders in prepubescence become engaged in transitioning in their teen years. Of course, that may be a matter of timing of self-disclosure, but psychologists like James Cantor suggest that some of these later transitioners are in their own category. If they are, my ideas above don’t account for them. Cantor tweeted today:
"Teen transitions don’t generally come from an inner sense, they come from an inner FEAR.
They don’t feel like the other sex, they fear being a failure at their own biological sex.
That’s why terms like “non-binary” and “fluid” outnumber actual opposite-sex identities."
I’ve queried him for clarification about what a “fear of being a failure at their own biological sex” might consist of, since the stage-play social standards of dominant male vs. submissive woman that were the norm in my youth seem to be much diminished today.
I’ll try to read this later, it sounds quite intriguing – but wow, I really like the sound of “imprinted this way”.
While this might not go for other trans people, I honestly think the idea that most people WOULDN’T try being “a different gender” for some period of time in their lives… silly? If we lived in a world so advanced you could change your appearance at a whim, there is no way that the majority of us would stay our AGAB forever. None. Sure, for most, it likely wouldn’t be a forever shift; just a brief one while you’re discovering yourself. (Hell, VR Chat backs me up on this, from what I’ve heard.)
Honestly, I think some form of “gender fuckery” would be the norm w/o a cultural demand for a Clear, Sharp Binary – I think the same goes for “bisexuality” & “polyamory”, too.
True! I once told a colleague at work who was trying to sort men and women for a photo that I didn’t mind filling in on the women’s side, which had lower numbers than the men, because “I have no particular loyalty to being male.” She (a closet lesbian at the time) laughed this off and stuck me with the guys, but that was my moment of wobble.
For a long while I have suggested that we could elect to have a “sex-change” cubicle in our future houses where: when rising in the morning, it could be our choice to decide whether to spend the day as male or female.
It may sound silly to some, but things like this start out as science-fiction, and if then some entrepreneurial type sees a market, well, who knows?
I can only speak of what I’ve seen. I watched a 3-hour undercover video of a journalist going to a number of gay bars and casually asking about how these men became gay. The overwhelming majority were raped as young boys by another man. Many of them engage in the same activity. Looking for young ‘virgin’ boys (like 8yo) they can have sex with whether with or without consent.
One guy openly spoke how he still has gay sex and relationships and hates himself because he was raped as a boy. He may have been drunk, which takes off the filter, so the rage about him being abused was obvious.
In another true story. Look up the name Clark Fredericks to see what can happen when someone in a position of authority abuses a child’s trust. It ain’t pretty. Thankfully Clark has turned his life around and speaks publicly about his experience. I went to HS with him. He was always very polite and quiet.
I can understand wanting to give trans teenagers a fair shake, Protecting their right to choose if they grow into it themselves. It should never be something they’re coerced into doing. And that’s my beef. I’ve seen trans schoolteachers who are not the sex ed teacher, pushing their views on their students and that’s wrong.
That’s what I see is being done in our society. Planting the seeds of self-doubt in them instead of openly talking with them about the differences between straight, gay, lesbian, and trans. Especially the consequences of stopping puberty with drugs, nevermind the irreversable surgeries. Which as far as I’ve heard, not only results in serious health problems later on, but a 60% suicide rate.
I read and watch interviews with really intelligent people on a variety of topics, so I’m not going to take the time to go back and find the source. I put it in the memory bank when I see it.
You’ve been misled. I’ve known thousands of gay men, having led gay organizations and worked as a journalist in the gay press. I’ve also read many hundreds of personal autobiographic anecdotes that people wrote about their coming out experiences. These are all still available in repositories like the Arquives https://arquives.ca/. Not a single one ever reported being turned gay by being raped by a man. That’s an evil and malicious fabrication on behalf of whomever put it out, or whomever had deceptive actors staging it or cherrypicked rare events. What’s rare is not that there is sexual abuse of boys by older males, but that anyone would claim to have been ‘turned gay’ by such an event. There’s one or two takers for every preposterous story, but in general, I’m calling bullshit on the scenario you describe.
Well if I ever feel so inclined to put the time in to find the undercover video again of these men openly admitting to a guy in a bar, telling how they were abused and became abusers I’ll gladly share it. Until then, feel free to search it out for yourself.
There is a differenece in being gay and being an abuser. I think that is a given, right? Your comment sounds like “Only pedophiles are able to commit CSA” which is false as well.
It is much more likely for these men to have suffered a trauma followed by a mental disorder. The majority of rapists and CSA Offenders suffer from a form of personality disorder. We can assume it is not them being turned gay, pedophile, or straight but rather suffering a trauma which lead to mental instability and thus a higher likelyhood of committing a crime if not receiving mental health support.
" Your comment sounds like “Only pedophiles are able to commit CSA”…"
If that’s what you THINK it says, and it doesn’t actually say that, then that’s your opinion. Don’t change my words. I’m not perfect. I make mistakes and misjudgments. Like anyone, I can only speak from what I’ve witnessed, or been told. Even though I do my best to embrace other points of view. That’s how we learn.
“There is a differenece in being gay and being an abuser.”
Same as there’s a difference between a pedophile, a person who’s atracted to preschoolers; versus a chid molester, who IS an abuser.