What does it mean when a man says that they are a woman trapped in a male body? Or a woman says that they are a man trapped in a woman's body?
This is a talk for a 'MOPS' group, a collection of psychiatrists who meet together for the purposes of peer review. Some of us have been meeting once a month for the last 29 years.
This talk was triggered by reading the article cited below about the psychic epidemic of teen transgenderism.
'The sclerosis of objectivity is the annihilation of existence’. Karl Jaspers (Psychiatrist and philosopher).
This is a talk for a 'MOPS' group, a collection of psychiatrists who meet together for the purposes of peer review. Some of us have been meeting once a month for the last 29 years.
This talk was triggered by reading the article cited below about the psychic epidemic of teen transgenderism.
The Sclerosis of Objectivity
'The sclerosis of objectivity is the annihilation of existence’. Karl Jaspers (Psychiatrist and philosopher).
There were two Gods on Mount Olympus who have remained relatively undiscussed by Greek scholars. They are called ‘Objectivity’ and ‘Subjectivity’.
When at the Temple of Delphi, a subject asked these gods: ‘Who am I, Oh Lord?', they gave very different answers.
Objectivity sees the interface between the world and the person from the outside, looking in. He said, lengthily and pedantically, because as a male god, he had more or less invented ‘mansplaining’:
‘About 13.8 billion years ago the universe came into being with a Big Bang, from which arose about two trillion galaxies, containing an estimated 700 sextillion (1021) stars, with 100–400 billions of them in the spiral galaxy called the Milky Way.
An artist’s impression of the Milky Way galaxy
Our sun is one of the stars in a minor arm of the Milky Way.
It has a solar system of eight planets, with the Earth being the third from the sun. It is 4.5 billion years old.
3.5 billion years ago primitive life evolved, with mammals appearing 65 million years ago.
From 2 million years ago, several different types of humans emerged, in particular Homo Neanderthalensis (500,000 years ago) and Homo Sapiens (200,000 years ago.)
According to Yuval Noah Harari, in his book ‘Sapiens’, the Cognitive Revolution occurred from 70,000 years ago, with the development of fictive language. This gave Sapiens an advantage over Neanderthals, who became extinct about 30,000 years ago. Without fictive language, humans could only collaborate in relatively small groups. With it they have been able to organize in much larger groups of millions, but they have also been prone to believe in abstractions and things that might not actually exist.
Moving along, you are one of about 7.7 billion (and counting) Homo Sapiens, and you were born a few decades ago. You are a bundle of chemicals organized by DNA from your parents, and modified by experiences both affirming and traumatic.
The levels of causality are categorized into biological, psychological and social, or bio-psycho-social, for short.
Although you have the illusion of ‘Free-will’, in fact your choices are determined, with retrospective modification of memory to make you think you made the choice yourself. (Sapolsky) This is disputed here, and here. A Famous Argument Against Free Will Has Been Debunked.
Others will apply labels to you, which are usually nouns describing you as being an ’X’, Y’ or ‘Z’. If you deviate significantly from average, you may even acquire a DSM 5 diagnosis.
In a few years or decades, you will die.
In due course, the Earth will be swallowed up by the sun as it turns into a red giant, and in about 3.75 billion years, the Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxy will collide.’
‘That is who you are, and your place in the large scheme of things,’ said Objectivity.
‘Wow!’ said our subject. ‘That makes me sound very small and insignificant. I don’t like the idea that I have no free will, and that everything is determined by scientific causes.’
So our subject then approached the goddess Subjectivity and asked her: ‘Who am I?’
‘Wow!’ said our subject. ‘That makes me sound very small and insignificant. I don’t like the idea that I have no free will, and that everything is determined by scientific causes.’
So our subject then approached the goddess Subjectivity and asked her: ‘Who am I?’
Subjectivity sees the interface between the world and the person from the inside, looking out. She is much less verbal than Objectivity, and a bit on the shy side. She likes metaphors, dreams and music, things of which Objectivity is distinctly suspicious.
She answered: ‘You, my love, are the central protagonist in the movie which is your life. The movie began at the time of your birth, although there was some theme music quietly audible before that from some time after your conception. You might have been aware of a dark red glow, and the sound of your mother’s heartbeat, but the real action began after you were born.
The whole world is seen through your very own eyes, and heard through your own ears. You developed likes and dislikes, and learned how to communicate them. You had hurts and joys, which you felt and continue to feel. Maybe you fell in love with someone. Maybe you felt attracted to people of the opposite sex, or the same sex, or both. You did things, and some of them worked out and some didn’t.
If you were surrounded by people who channelled Objectivity, you were told that your feelings, wishes, experiences, and jobs defined who you are.
And, if you were prone to the psychological process ‘introjection’, you believed them.
Instead of feeling attracted to people of the same sex, you were told that you were ‘A Gay’. If you identified with indigenous culture, you were told that you were ‘An Indigenous Person’. If you had dark skin, you were told that you were ‘A Black’. And if you studied and passed exams in psychiatry and got employed, you were told that you were ‘A Psychiatrist’, (rather than that psychiatry was your job).
With adolescence, as well as being the central protagonist in your movie, like Clint Eastwood, you began to also tilt at becoming the director. If your plans for your movie differed significantly from your parents, there may well have been some conflict.
Adolescents commonly choose specific battle-grounds to differentiate themselves from their parents. Different battle-grounds carry radically different risks for the adolescent. Hair-length, piercings and taste in music have relatively few long-term consequences. Tattoos, drugs, sexual risk-taking, motor-bikes, etc carry greater risks.
If you choose to battle your parents by having a sex-change operation, you might come to regret it. Cari Stella is a YouTube blogger who describes this well.
If you choose to battle your parents by having a sex-change operation, you might come to regret it. Cari Stella is a YouTube blogger who describes this well.
Discussion
Although radically different, both Objective and Subjective perspectives are valid. To argue for only one of them is like arguing that this image is either a vase, or two faces, but not both.
Although radically different, both Objective and Subjective perspectives are valid. To argue for only one of them is like arguing that this image is either a vase, or two faces, but not both.
Karl Jaspers made a similar distinction between Dasein (The world of objectivity), and Existenz (The world of subjectivity and authenticity).
It is my contention that extreme activities in the pursuit of identity arise because of a confusion about the nature of identity. People who have a secure sense of identity subjectively are less prone to pursuing identity objectively. Identity belongs in the zone covered by the goddess Subjectivity, not that managed by Objectivity.
It is my contention that extreme activities in the pursuit of identity arise because of a confusion about the nature of identity. People who have a secure sense of identity subjectively are less prone to pursuing identity objectively. Identity belongs in the zone covered by the goddess Subjectivity, not that managed by Objectivity.
As we have all seen many times in our practices, problems are more likely to become ‘wicked’ when they are addressed in the wrong domain. Physical illnesses which have defied diagnosis by exasperated physical doctors get referred to psychiatrists, leaving the patient in considerable danger from their original, undiagnosed, physical illness.
As noted above, according to Harari, Homo Sapiens benefitted from the Cognitive Revolution in the centuries after about 70,000 years ago. A key element was the development of fictive language and the capacity to believe in myths, around which large groups of strangers could cooperate.
Neanderthals would never have responded to Henry Vth shouting: 'Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry "God for Harry, England, and Saint George!"
(Henry V, Act 3 Scene 1)
Neanderthals would have responded:
‘Who is God?
Who is Harry?
What is England? and
WTF is Saint George?'
But with the language operating system update installed in Homo Sapiens 70,000 years ago, such quibbles became moot, and sinews were stiffened, blood was summoned up, and the breach was attacked once more. Sapiens beat Neanderthals.
So what else do we believe as a result of this particular operating system quirk?
One way of testing is to try the phrase 'I don't believe in X' for suspect concepts.
One way of testing is to try the phrase 'I don't believe in X' for suspect concepts.
God is a concept
By which we measure
Our pain
I don't believe in magic
I don't believe in i-ching
I don't believe in bible
I don't believe in tarot
I don't believe in hitler
I don't believe in jesus
I don't believe in kennedy
I don't believe in buddha
I don't believe in mantra
I don't believe in gita
I don't believe in yoga
I don't believe in kings
I don't believe in elvis
I don't believe in zimmerman
I don't believe in beatles
I just believe in me
Yoko and me
And that's reality
‘Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.’ Philip K. Dick.
Without stretching the analogy, I submit that there are some similarities between the differences between the Objective and Subjective domains, and the functions of the dominant and non-dominant cerebral hemispheres.
The Dominant handles language and linear thinking.
The Non-dominant handles music, dreams, and pattern thinking.
The Dominant is dominant, and periodically asserts itself in areas in which it is not actually as competent as the non-dominant, such as block-design.
See the video of two hands squabbling in one of Michael Gazzaniga’s Split-Brain experiments. The subject is a man who has had his corpus callosum cut, thus separating the two sides of his brain.
By analogy, the Dominant hemisphere is ill-equipped to understand a sense of self and identity, at which the Non-dominant hemisphere is much more competent. But the pushy Dominant hemisphere barges in clumsily, using its strength in language, complicated by its tendency to believe myths (installed with Language 2.01).
It argues with the help of the God Objectivity, distributing nouns liberally to simplify complex processes which would be better handled by adjectives and descriptors.
Jung said: 'Of course we all have an understandable desire for crystal clarity, but we are apt to forget that in psychic matters we are dealing with processes of experience, that is, with transformations which should never be given hard and fast names if their living movement is not to petrify into something static.'
Jung said: 'Of course we all have an understandable desire for crystal clarity, but we are apt to forget that in psychic matters we are dealing with processes of experience, that is, with transformations which should never be given hard and fast names if their living movement is not to petrify into something static.'
Another polarity with some resonance both with objectivity/subjectivity and cerebral laterality is that described by Martin Buber. His lovely little book 'I and Thou' is a poem to the mode of being in which a Self encounters another as a You. Buber's language is a bit giddy. Here are two samples:
‘The world is twofold for man according with his twofold attitude. The attitude of man is twofold in accordance with the two basic words he can speak. The basic words are not single words but word pairs. One basic pair is the word pair I-You. The other basic word is the word pair I-It; but this basic word is not changed when He or She takes the place of It. Thus the I of man is also twofold. For the I of the basic word I-You is different from that in the basic word I-It.’
and
‘As long as the firmament of the You is spread over me, the tempests of causality cower at my heels, and the whirl of doom congeals.’
The distinction he makes is not dissimilar to the distinction between the Objective and Subjective domains discussed above. 'The tempests of causality' are the deterministic forces which so dominate the 'Objective' perspective.
Gender transition
It is claimed that there is currently a psychic epidemic of teens and tweens pursuing transition to another gender.
Outbreak: On Transgender Teens and Psychic Epidemics. Lisa Marchiano (2017).
Psychological Perspectives, 60:3, 345-366.
Marchiano persuasively documents the hazards associated with this.
Gender transitioning teens are translating gender and identity uncertainty into concrete and permanent endocrinological and surgical change, which many will come to regret. She compares the epidemic to the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin.
'In recent years, there has been a sharp jump in the number of children and young people coming to identify as transgender. London’s Tavistock and Portman clinic has seen referrals for trans patients under the age of 18 increase dramatically (Harvey & Smedley, 2015). Fourfold and fivefold increases of trans-identifying kids and teens are being reported in gender clinics in the United States and other countries (www.cbsnews.com/news/sex-change-treatment-for-kids-on-the-rise/). The first transgender youth clinic in the United States opened in Boston in 2007. Since then, 40 other clinics have opened that cater exclusively to children, with new clinic openings being announced frequently.' (Marchiano)
There is in particular a sudden increase in young women presenting to clinics for gender reassignment.
'In recent years, there has been a sharp jump in the number of children and young people coming to identify as transgender. London’s Tavistock and Portman clinic has seen referrals for trans patients under the age of 18 increase dramatically (Harvey & Smedley, 2015). Fourfold and fivefold increases of trans-identifying kids and teens are being reported in gender clinics in the United States and other countries (www.cbsnews.com/news/sex-change-treatment-for-kids-on-the-rise/). The first transgender youth clinic in the United States opened in Boston in 2007. Since then, 40 other clinics have opened that cater exclusively to children, with new clinic openings being announced frequently.' (Marchiano)
'Many in the gay and lesbian community are upset about the rush to transition children who are gender nonconforming. There is a wealth of replicated research that tells us that 80–95% of children who experience a cross-sex identification in childhood will eventually desist and come to identify with their natal sex as adults (Singal, 2016). Most of those who desist will come to be lesbian or gay. Lesbians are particularly worried about the teen trans trend, as most girls coming out as transgender are same-sex attracted (Kreher, 2016). Many in the lesbian community are distraught to notice that butch lesbians are quickly disappearing.' (Marchiano)
Female detransition and reidentification: Survey results and interpretation
Long-Term Follow-Up of Transsexual Persons Undergoing Sex Reassignment Surgery: Cohort Study in Sweden. Dhejne C, et al (2011) PLoS ONE 6(2): e16885.
Lisa Marchiano is a Jungian analyst. Jung described the animus as the unconscious masculine side of a woman, and the anima as the unconscious feminine side of a man. From this point of view, if Objectivity gets hold of these unconscious awarenesses, it may experience them in concrete terms, such as are used by gender transitioning people. A woman who is feeling masculine, like a butch lesbian, for example, might say that they are ‘really a man’. Transitioning is a way of becoming their ‘true self’.
Detransition, Desistance, and Disinformation: A Guide for Understanding Transgender Children Debates by Julia Serano.
A video-blog reply to this article by Cari Stella.
A healthy mental life contains a balance between the objective and the subjective perspectives of the world. If the Objective side is excessively dominant, people are liable to fall for all-encompassing systems, such as religions, scientific determinism or binary all-or-nothing states rather than continua.
Existentialists object to all-encompassing systems, and argue the importance of the individual experience and free choice.
Karl Jaspers was born in 1883 and trained and worked as a psychiatrist before becoming a philosopher. He was seen by some as belonging to the existentialist movement.
'The sclerosis of objectivity is the annihilation of existence’, is a quote of his which reflects his concern that unless space is left for the subjective, people will be reduced to being deterministically ruled robots.
Under the binary gender code which is favoured by the objective side of the polarity, a woman feeling masculine might feel that she has to switch or transition to the other gender by hormonal or surgical means, rather than fluidly behave on a continuum that suited her subjectively.
Lisa Marchiano sums up: 'How can we do a better job of assessing and treating young people who are exploring a transgender identity? We can support and accept gender-nonconforming young people. We can do what we can to reduce bullying and social stigma to those who don’t conform to sex role stereotypes.'
'We can present young people with a full range of options to deal with dysphoria, including treatment options in addition to transition. We can offer role models for living as a femme man or a butch lesbian. We can offer trauma-competent care and a thorough differential diagnosis that identifies cases where dissociation or other PTSD symptoms may be contributing to dysphoria. We can offer medical transition for adults, but ensure thorough and accurate information about side effects and risks of medical treatment, as well as potential downsides of transitioning.'
'With the best of intentions, the modern psychiatric and medical establishments have contributed to a situation in which minor children have been supported in believing that they are the opposite sex, and must alter their bodies drastically to ameliorate this situation. The mainstream media has quickly validated this line of thinking, and those who have doubts are reticent to express them for fear of being viewed as bigoted or being on the receiving end of career-altering attacks.'
Long-Term Follow-Up of Transsexual Persons Undergoing Sex Reassignment Surgery: Cohort Study in Sweden. Dhejne C, et al (2011) PLoS ONE 6(2): e16885.
Lisa Marchiano is a Jungian analyst. Jung described the animus as the unconscious masculine side of a woman, and the anima as the unconscious feminine side of a man. From this point of view, if Objectivity gets hold of these unconscious awarenesses, it may experience them in concrete terms, such as are used by gender transitioning people. A woman who is feeling masculine, like a butch lesbian, for example, might say that they are ‘really a man’. Transitioning is a way of becoming their ‘true self’.
Detransition, Desistance, and Disinformation: A Guide for Understanding Transgender Children Debates by Julia Serano.
A video-blog reply to this article by Cari Stella.
When Children Say They’re Trans. Hormones? Surgery? The choices are fraught — and there are no easy answers. Thoughtful article in The Atlantic.
Existentialists object to all-encompassing systems, and argue the importance of the individual experience and free choice.
Karl Jaspers was born in 1883 and trained and worked as a psychiatrist before becoming a philosopher. He was seen by some as belonging to the existentialist movement.
'The sclerosis of objectivity is the annihilation of existence’, is a quote of his which reflects his concern that unless space is left for the subjective, people will be reduced to being deterministically ruled robots.
Under the binary gender code which is favoured by the objective side of the polarity, a woman feeling masculine might feel that she has to switch or transition to the other gender by hormonal or surgical means, rather than fluidly behave on a continuum that suited her subjectively.
Lisa Marchiano sums up: 'How can we do a better job of assessing and treating young people who are exploring a transgender identity? We can support and accept gender-nonconforming young people. We can do what we can to reduce bullying and social stigma to those who don’t conform to sex role stereotypes.'
'We can present young people with a full range of options to deal with dysphoria, including treatment options in addition to transition. We can offer role models for living as a femme man or a butch lesbian. We can offer trauma-competent care and a thorough differential diagnosis that identifies cases where dissociation or other PTSD symptoms may be contributing to dysphoria. We can offer medical transition for adults, but ensure thorough and accurate information about side effects and risks of medical treatment, as well as potential downsides of transitioning.'
'With the best of intentions, the modern psychiatric and medical establishments have contributed to a situation in which minor children have been supported in believing that they are the opposite sex, and must alter their bodies drastically to ameliorate this situation. The mainstream media has quickly validated this line of thinking, and those who have doubts are reticent to express them for fear of being viewed as bigoted or being on the receiving end of career-altering attacks.'
The controversy over gender transition surgery continued after this blog entry was originally posted. Here is one article from 2021.
The Gender Affirmative Treatment Model for Youth with Gender Dysphoria: A Medical Advance or Dangerous Medicine? Alison Clayton. Archives of Sexual Behavior (2021)
The mental health establishment is failing trans kids. Washington Post. 24th Nov 2021.
Transgender Wars. A later blog on a related topic.
