LGBT NPCs in APs

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Seerow
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Post by Seerow »

Schleiermacher wrote:
[s wrote:Occluded Sun[/s] maglag] In addition, it tries to force-feed you SJW propaganda (one of those three NPC is a transsexual, married to a girl. Whatever, but not what I expect or want from an AP that is sold as "High fantasy war against demons.")
I've never read or played Rise of the Runelords, but I'm really curious to hear how the existence of transsexual people constitutes "SJW propaganda".
Let's not and say we did.
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Post by Count Arioch the 28th »

Anytime someone mentions "SJW Propaganda" you can ignore the rest of their points as they're idiots.

I'm sure whatsisface will probably prattle on about "cultural marxism" and "hypergamy" and whatever else he copied from Paul Elam and Roosh V.
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Post by DSMatticus »

Note: that's malak, not maglag.
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Post by Schleiermacher »

Oops. Thanks for the catch.
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Post by malak »

Count Arioch the 28th wrote:Anytime someone mentions "SJW Propaganda" you can ignore the rest of their points as they're idiots.
So you actually think that constant reminders of NPC sexual preferences belong into a high fantasy adventure path about the war against demons?

Well, I disagree.

Especially if they are written this badly. If the character has an interesting backstory that contains a sexual reference, ok, but simply having the backstory be: "Oooh, look, I'm a transsexual" is just shit.
Count Arioch the 28th wrote:I'm sure whatsisface will probably prattle on about "cultural marxism" and "hypergamy" and whatever else he copied from Paul Elam and Roosh V.
I am not sure who those guys are, but after quick googling it looks like they are idiots.

But.. how are these guys are related to the AP at hand?
Last edited by malak on Wed May 27, 2015 11:42 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Silent Wayfarer »

Do they push the non-heteronormativity angle hard? Because it doesn't bother me that people like that exist, it bothers me when they smear their tits into my face to gain approval for thrmselves.
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Post by malak »

TiaC wrote:
deaddmwalking wrote:All the APs feature a bunch of dungeon crawls, so mounted combat is probably not going to work terribly well. If you want to play with animals, you're best off with a summoner. That way you don't have to explain how you brought your mount up the side of a mountain.
Taking the Narrow Frame on your mount helps a lot.

@Malak: Yes, how dare they add a memorable trait to a NPC. It is after all propaganda to acknowledge the existence of trans people.
I read multiple pathfinder APs, and played some. This is the only one I can remember that not only includes such specific NPC sexual references, but harps about them multiple times.

Anevia can be whatever, but

http://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Anevia_Tirabade

there is no sentence in the history part that does not focus on the gender transformation.

Compare to the other annoying npc:

http://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Aravashnial

No mention of sexual preferences or history at all.


That's why it's propaganda and not just a part of the AP history. It seems forced, and the way it's put into the foreground does detract from the story, which is not concerned really with NPC sexuality but with the war against a demon intrusion. At least that's what it says on the cover...
Last edited by malak on Wed May 27, 2015 11:41 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Post by malak »

Ice9 wrote:* Edit: Oh look, like this time. Yeah, those 1-2 sentences of backstory for a single NPC, which isn't something the PCs would even necessarily hear, are really dominating that multi-book AP. Yup.
Whatever. Stir the flames, I don't care. The first part of this adventure path is shit for many reasons. It has shitty writing, shitty characters and that it(as said in the original comment, in addition) tries to push an agenda makes it even worse.

I mean come on:

- two groups of essentially identical 'futurama sewer mutants' where one group is arbitrarily evil. Who are are cast out of the crusader city, despite being the original heirs and children of earlier crusaders in a place where the crusade is the main uniting ideological foundation of that nation. Makes total sense, right?

- The adventure actually expects the party to suck up to the three annoying npcs. The direction pushes them to earn brownie points, reminiscent of dragon age romances. Because that's what heroes do, suck up to shitty NPCs.

- And there are horrible evil templars occupying the bad mutant's place. Where they cannot easily get into the city. Great plotting how to take over the city. Especially when the plan is: get huge demon into city, kill white dragon. Turns out those templars in the sewer away from the actions were crucial to the plot, that's why they have vital evidence.

Oh no, wait, the story is just a mess and makes no sense at all.
Last edited by malak on Thu May 28, 2015 12:08 am, edited 4 times in total.
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Post by Schleiermacher »

That's why it's propaganda and not just a part of the AP history. It seems forced, and the way it's put into the foreground does detract from the story, which is not concerned really with NPC sexuality but with the war against a demon intrusion. At least that's what it says on the cover...
This is not in any way forced or in-your-face? It's an article about a very minor character, so it is unsurprisingly short and focused on the most notable details about that character.

If you read "dragon" instead of "woman" throughout that article, like so:
The wyrm was born Anvenn, a boy in a outlawed guild of thieves, then disguised itself as a dragon while running away from law and felt that being a dragon suited it best. Then the change was completed after it drank an elixir that completed the draconic transformation.


You would never in a million years say that this was forced and in-your-face otherkin propaganda. The fact that dragonkin dysphoria is not a significant real-world issue and gender dysphoria is, does not make this any less appropriate subject matter for an RPG, rather the opposite. Sorry, but you're being ridiculously unreasonable and you should stop while you have some face left to save.
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Post by malak »

Schleiermacher wrote: This is not in any way forced or in-your-face? It's an article about a very minor character, so it is unsurprisingly short and focused on the most notable details about that character.
Yeah, but that part about very minor is wrong.
Wrath of the Righteous AP1 wrote:During the rest of this Adventure Path, these and other NPC allies will have insights, comments, or actions that can be triggered by certain encounters. When these occur, they appear near the end of each of the encounters under the heading NPC Reactions.
A major part of the first book is how the party needs to be friends with those NPCs.

As in, the actual adventure starts with 2 pages of background story and then one-and-a-half pages about these three npcs and about how sucking up to them
Wrath of the Righteous AP1 wrote:result in them forging lasting friendships and alliances that have repercussions throughout the Wrath of the Righteous Adventure Path.
Also lots of XP is handed out related to these three NPCs.

Look at the first encounter, A1.

1/8 page cavern description.
1/8 page creature description.
1/8 page treasure description.
1/2 page NPC interaction description.

Each NPCs section alone (on this specific encounter/room) is as long as the cavern and creature stuff together.


It's like a DMPC and a mary sue got together and had three babies (well two, one of the 3 NPCs also has an 'arbitrarily evil' tag).
Last edited by malak on Thu May 28, 2015 12:30 am, edited 9 times in total.
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Post by DSMatticus »

The first mention of Anevia Tirabade in WotR:
Anevia begins this adventure with the PCs, trapped below Kenabres. If she survives, she can aid the remaining crusaders in fallen Kenabres against the demons, allowing her wife Irabeth to join the PCs in their final mission of the adventure.
The second mention of Anevia Tirablade in WotR:
Anevia is a semi-retired adventurer who settled in Kenabres after falling in love with a crusader named Irabeth. Her rogue abilities include certain skills the PCs may need to escape the caverns alive.
The third mention of Anevia Tirablade is her opinion of the other NPC's. The fourth mention of Anevia Tirablade is her condition (broken leg) and her combat tactics. Neither features her gender or sexuality in anyway. The fifth mention of Anevia Tirablade is about her worrying about what's happened to her wife since the demon invasion began. Then some other dude is a dick about something unrelated and they have an argument and the PC's have to play negotiator. Then there's a bunch more shit that also has absolutely nothing to do with her gender or sexuality at all, until finally the PC's make it to free roam mode and have to decide where to go next and Anevia wants to go look for Irabeth at their home (and other NPC's want to go elsewhere).

So, let's recap. Kenabres has been overrun by demons, and a semi-retired adventurer has been separated from their paladin spouse. This semi-retired adventurer is worried about their paladin spouse, and their driving motivation for this segment of the story is to be reunited with them. That's a pretty reasonable fucking motivation, and both semi-retired adventurers and paladins are the sorts of people who are relevant in demon invasions, so the PC's are incentivized to give a shit above and beyond simple NPC side quest bullshit.

If the semi-retired adventurer had a dick and the paladin spouse had tits (or vice versa), Malak obviously would not be bitching about how "a man worrying about his wife" or "a woman worrying about her husband" offended him. But because Malak is a bigoted asshole and both have tits, he finds having the exact same situation laid out before him so uncomfortable he's decrying it on the internet as dirty, dirty propaganda of the LGBT agenda.

Malak is one of those shitstains who is comfortable acknowledging equality in the abstract, but the instant things get concrete and they have to see a homosexual couple hold hands or kiss or do any other thing ordinary couples do all the fucking time in entertainment everywhere they get super fucking offended. Because Malak actually fucking hates those people, and doesn't want to have to acknowledge them, and is only interested in extending equality so far as he never has to see them exercise it.
Last edited by DSMatticus on Thu May 28, 2015 1:44 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by RadiantPhoenix »

I often feel uncomfortable seeing couples kiss and cuddle in movies, and it's mostly straight couples.
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Post by Whipstitch »

I've played that AP and the gender politics aren't even a thing. The other players didn't care for the aforementioned NPCs very much, but in my experience players talking mad shit about tag along NPCs is just the natural order of things. "Can we pawn the paladin?" was a running joke with my old group well before this particular AP was ever drafted.
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Post by malak »

DSMatticus wrote:Malak is one of those shitstains who is comfortable acknowledging equality in the abstract, but the instant things get concrete and they have to see a homosexual couple hold hands or kiss or do any other thing ordinary couples do all the fucking time in entertainment everywhere they get super fucking offended. Because Malak actually fucking hates those people, and doesn't want to have to acknowledge them, and is only interested in extending equality so far as he never has to see them exercise it.
You could not be more wrong. One of the players in my campaign is gay, and he's a good friend for years. So yeah. Fuck you.


I do feel it's wrong that people a specific type of body integrity identity disorder are exploited by selling them operations instead of drugs, and that their illness is not treated like all the others. People whose type of BIID makes them want to cut off their feet or hands are treated by psychiatrists. But not so trans people. People like you ask me to accept their mental illness as expression of identity while helping an industry to exploit them, despite them having higher suicide rates post-op than pre-op, and despite studies showing that treating Gender Identity Disorder as a mental illness is far more successful than treating it with operations.

Fuck you for caring more about political correctness than the suffering of sick people. And fuck you for misrepresenting my views.


But back to the topic: And in this fucked situation, unless a AP is specifically marketed as being concerned with mental illness, that stuff does not belong in there.
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Post by momothefiddler »

Coming up at 9: malak not racist; has black friend.
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Post by malak »

momothefiddler wrote:Coming up at 9: malak not racist; has black friend.
Just because I dislike the trans propaganda in that AP does not mean I have a problem with gay people. One is a natural sexual preference, the other a mental illness that makes people want to cut off their body parts.


And all these attacks against me don't change the fact that even ignoring the agenda, Wrath of the Righteous is a horrible AP. Maybe the writer should have focused more on the fantasy adventure part than the inclusion of social justice bullshit.
Last edited by malak on Thu May 28, 2015 7:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Windjammer »

Paizo's adventure paths regularly feature information about NPCs' sexual orientation because every AP is supposed to come with a sufficient stock of romantic interests for PCs of all walks of life, and that information is crucial for that side of campaigning.

Liza Stevens and James Jacobs are on record for that on the Paizo boards; as is their admission years ago that initially too many of the NPCs included in that category (or written up so as to possibly make it into the category, should a DM and PC so desire) were straight females. They then expended from there. It has nothing to do with inclusiveness for its own sake, or blown out of proportion (if such is possible); it's a simple business decision to accomodate as wide a readership (and prospective players of their adventure paths) as possible.

Rise of Runelords featuring a gay, black sheriff (at the starting location that retains a strong role across the campaign) is a case in point of breaking two stereotypes at once. (I always hear the chorus 'A black sheriff?' from Men in Tights when I read his NPC entry.)

I'm personally not keen on reading about NPCs' sexual orientation because, if and where the PCs of my players develop love interests, I play it by ear and take it from there. I think it's a legacy of Dragonlance that romance (or romantic potential) is foregrounded among NPCs in campaign material, and one I don't particulary care for.
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Post by rasmuswagner »

malak wrote:
You could not be more wrong. One of the players in my campaign is gay, and he's a good friend for years. So yeah. Fuck you. Fuck you for caring more about political correctness than the suffering of sick people. And fuck you for misrepresenting my views.
Fuck yourself for misrepresenting your own views is more like it. You were, and are, after all the person who considered one paragraph about someone being trans to be "in your face SJW agenda shitting all over everything".

Also, your concern for sick people is touching. So classy. Much human, vow.
malak wrote: I do feel it's wrong that people a specific type of body integrity identity disorder are exploited by selling them operations instead of drugs, and that their illness is not treated like all the others. People whose type of BIID makes them want to cut off their feet or hands are treated by psychiatrists. But not so trans people. People like you ask me to accept their mental illness as expression of identity while helping an industry to exploit them, despite them having higher suicide rates post-op than pre-op, and despite studies showing that treating Gender Identity Disorder as a mental illness is far more successful than treating it with operations.
Source? I ask because IME, people who use "SJW" as a legit label tend to get their info from sources about as trustworthy as Fox News.
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Post by fbmf »

(I always hear the chorus 'A black sheriff?' from Men in Tights when I read his NPC entry.)
Men in Tights? Have none of you younger generation seen Blazing Saddles?!

Game On,
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Post by DSMatticus »

rasmuswagner wrote:Source? I ask because IME, people who use "SJW" as a legit label tend to get their info from sources about as trustworthy as Fox News.
Spoiler: He's full of shit. We don't have any good studies comparing transexuals who have underwent SRS and transexuals who haven't. But there is a study that gets commonly cited by bigoted shitstains like Malak that shows transexuals who have underwent SRS have a higher risk of suicide than the general population, which is a completely unsurprising result. Transexuals who haven't undergone SRS also have a higher risk of suicide than the general population, as do homosexuals. Social stigma drives people to suicide; news at eleven.

Malak's claims that there are successful ways to "cure" transexuality deserves exactly as much respect as climate change denial. Conversion therapy is both monstrous and ineffective. There is no debate among the scientific community on this point, there's just a bunch of assholes swearing off science in order to push their agenda of torturing homosexuals and transexuals until they start pretending to be "normal" (or kill themselves).
Last edited by DSMatticus on Thu May 28, 2015 11:34 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by ishy »

malak wrote:I do feel it's wrong that people a specific type of body integrity identity disorder are exploited by selling them operations instead of drugs, and that their illness is not treated like all the others. People whose type of BIID makes them want to cut off their feet or hands are treated by psychiatrists. But not so trans people. People like you ask me to accept their mental illness as expression of identity while helping an industry to exploit them, despite them having higher suicide rates post-op than pre-op, and despite studies showing that treating Gender Identity Disorder as a mental illness is far more successful than treating it with operations.
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Post by malak »

DSMatticus wrote:Spoiler: He's full of shit. We don't have any good studies comparing transexuals who have underwent SRS and transexuals who haven't.
You are right. The best studies we have are all flawed because of patients disappearing outright, mostly due to to death caused by suicide, aids or substance abuse, and dropping of the map. Maybe not so surprising given the fact that they have severe mental problems. I mean, come on - even from the guardian, who is SJW and leftist to a fault admits that

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2004 ... ntalhealth
guardian wrote:no robust scientific evidence that gender reassignment surgery is clinically effective
Of course, as expected from the guardian, the rest of the article is trying to explain the result away.

If the operations would work, there would be a large amount of patients who would be more than happy to scientifically prove what helped them helps others.

Another starting point might be

http://www.sexchangeregret.com

or

http://sexnotgender.com/2013/10/16/long ... surements/
DSMatticus wrote:Malak's claims that there are successful ways to "cure" transexuality deserves exactly as much respect as climate change denial. Conversion therapy is both monstrous and ineffective. There is no debate among the scientific community on this point, there's just a bunch of assholes swearing off science in order to push their agenda of torturing homosexuals and transexuals until they start pretending to be "normal" (or kill themselves).
Please quote me where I mentioned cures. I said they would be better treated with drugs (and therapy). As with most mental illnesses, you can't really _cure_ them. But you can get to a point where the patient can live in relative happiness for longer periods of time. And that is much, much harder post-op.

I never said conversion therapy is the answer. Rather, I personally believe it's working on acceptance of that their body is not what they want it to be. An operation will not make them full members of the opposite sex (and with the current state of technology, will not do so for many years to come) - instead, they will be condemned to be half-beings. The operation does not solve their depression, and they will be isolated and socially ostracised even more. They are not normal, and most of them will never be, with or without operation. Again, they suffer from a severe mental illness that cannot be cured by surgical means.


I am telling you this because a good friend of an ex of mine is a transsexual, and he was and is suffering. I think it's criminal to let so obviously mentally ill people decide to take on such drastic measures, but at the same time they would not be legally allowed to sign a euthanasia declaration because of the mental condition. Really, don't get all your info online - talk to actual post-op transsexuals a few years after the op...


But oh, the outrage. People who question the political correct version that surgery is a panacea are viciously attacked, because so many desperate transsexuals base all their hopes and dreams of happiness on the surgery. But in the end - there are incentives for surgeons to report positive outcomes, incentives for clinics to fund studies that show positive outcomes, and incentives for transsexuals to report positive outcomes (who wants to face the fact that they mutilated themselves for nothing?). And despite all this, there is no clear scientific evidence that it works but lots of evidence that shows that the mental problems do not go away with surgery.

And on a final note - if you accept that the correct treatment for gender identity disorder is surgery, what about people with other body identity disorders? Should they be allowed to have their legs amputated?
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Post by Irish »

Jesus Christ Malak, either shut up about this garbage or post in your own thread. I asked for opinions on various APs, not a dissertation on why a crazy person thinks transgender people are disgusting and also mentally ill, thereby implying all mentally ill people are disgusting.
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Post by Prak »

malak wrote:
momothefiddler wrote:Coming up at 9: malak not racist; has black friend.
Just because I dislike the trans propaganda in that AP does not mean I have a problem with gay people. One is a natural sexual preference, the other a mental illness that makes people want to cut off their body parts.
Wow. I was going to skim through this thread and make a post about how transgenderism is actually a genuinely interesting thing to explore in a fantasy setting because of the existence of shapechanging magic, but instead I'm just going to say-
FUCK.

YOU.
Being transgendered is not a mental illness you cisnormative weeping cyst on a neocon's prolapsed rectum. It is not a compulsion to cut off body parts. If it were, then hospitals and morgues would be full of young teens who had sliced off parts of their bodies with kitchen knives. Instead, transgendered teens, by in large, seek proper medical treatment for their dysphoria- hormone therapy. They seek this over years as the medical industry dicks them around and refuses to give them the medical aid they seek because by in large the medical profession is full of cisnormative shitheels. If they were compelled to cut off body parts, they would just do that at home where it's cheaper and comparatively few people can stop them. I am transgendered. If I had a compulsion to cut off body parts and had my knife on me, I could go into the Starbucks restroom right now and fucking cut my dick off. It's really easy.

However, I'm not doing that, and if you want the panty clad proof, I'll send you fucking pics.

Instead, I'm trying to slim down and looking into how one gets the whole hormone replacement therapy ball rolling and other than that, waiting for medical/genetic knowledge to give me a way to add a vagina rather than trade for one. Because transgenderism isn't just "I want to cut off my bits" it's "I identify as a sex other than the one my bits would indicate," and for me that sex is hermaphrodite. Cutting bits off would be rather counter productive to that, now WOULDN'T IT YOU SHITHEEL.

If you want more proof that transgenderism isn't a mental illness where one is compelled to cut off body parts, I refer you to my 350+lb-edness. When you're 150 lbs overweight, and want to be around 200 lbs lighter, that whole "intrusive thoughts/imp of the perverse" thing gives you thoughts like "I could take a knife, and some gauze and be done with this bullshit." Which, fuck, I'll tell you, for a person who is depressed and xenophilic, is a really fucking hard thought to shove aside. If transgenderism was a compulsion to cut off body parts, I'd have carved out my fat and probably a good deal of muscle and likely died a long fucking time ago.

So fuck you. I am transgendered. I have no compulsion to mutilate myself, and the suggestion that I do pisses me the fuck off. I know tons of people who are transgendered and have undertaken hormone therapy and not had anything cut off. Some of us are lucky and not particularly dysphoric about our non-matching parts (or are *tHerm). Some are unlucky and cannot get the bullshit outside permission to have the surgery they want, or can't afford it. But there is no fucking compulsion to cut off body parts.
Last edited by Prak on Fri May 29, 2015 1:04 am, edited 1 time in total.
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.
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Post by DSMatticus »

Malak wrote:The best studies we have are all flawed because of patients disappearing outright, mostly due to to death caused by suicide, aids or substance abuse, and dropping of the map. Maybe not so surprising given the fact that they have severe mental problems.
Every single fucking thing you are saying - every single one - is also true of transexuals who have not undergone SRS and homosexuals. Transexuals who choose not to undergo SRS are more likely to kill themselves, more likely to contract HIV, more likely to have depression-related substance abuse, and more likely to drop off the map because their birth family and pre-coming out friends think they are deviant freaks. Homosexuals are more likely to kill themselves, more likely to contract HIV, more likely to have depression-related substance abuse problems, and more likely to drop off the map because their birth family and pre-coming out friends think they are deviant freaks.

You are not saying anything about sex reassignment surgery. You are not even saying anything about transexuals. All you are actually saying is that social stigma ruins lives. Thank you for this profound observation, and thank you for contributing to the deaths of real human beings in a real and tangible way by perpetuating that stigma, you disgusting shitbag. Now go tell your "I'm totally not a bigot; I have a homosexual friend" buddy that the reason they're more likely to kill themself than the average person is because they have a severe mental illness. No? Then shut the fuck up.

Also, for future reference, the plural of anecdote is not data. I know this one family who got their child vaccinated and then the child - you won't believe this - developed autism! Vaccines cause autism! Look, here's a whole BLOG of people saying the same thing! Doctors might lie, but you can always trust a blog, right? And I totally know this one transexual whose family talked them out of undergoing SRS and then they killed themself. Gasp! This must turn your entire world upside down! Oh, of course it doesn't, because you're an inconsistent little shit and you're only interested in hearing about things that support your "boys in skirts? That's a disease!" bullshit. The only thing the evidence suggests is that SRS isn't a magical elixir that will let transexuals live the lives they want to live. No shit. Want some other shocking revelations? People being treated for depression are still more likely to kill themselves than people who have not been diagnosed with depression. Oh, here's another one; people being treated for ebola are still more likely to die of ebola than people who don't fucking have ebola.
malak wrote:And on a final note - if you accept that the correct treatment for gender identity disorder is surgery, what about people with other body identity disorders? Should they be allowed to have their legs amputated?
I don't think you have any idea what the fuck you're talking about. If you go to a credible psychiatrist specializing in these issues to tell them about how you feel like you were born with the wrong sex, they aren't going to immediately ship you off to a surgeon for massive surgery. They're going to talk to you a bunch; about depression, your family, your friends. They're going to talk about transitioning socially, hormone replacement therapy, and sex reassignment surgery; what they can do, what they can't. They're going to try to help you decide which you want to go through, if any. Neither the APA nor the AMA recommends SRS in all cases. Fuck, last year the AMA issued a statement that the requirement for patients to undergo SRS before having a legal sex change (such as modifying their birth certificate) was over-burdensome and invasive. You don't appear to actually know what transexual means. It does not mean "someone who has had or plans to have sex reassignment surgery."

But specifically, SRS is a difficult choice with real drawbacks, but it is still nothing like having your leg amputated. Unsurprisingly, we don't have the technology to completely resculpt someone's external characteristics and completely rewire their sexual anatomy, and a lot of people hoping SRS will be some magical perfect transition find themselves disappointed. And even when it goes well, SRS does nothing to erase a lifetime of feeling isolated and stigmatized, and it sure as fuck won't do anything to help you restore your relationships with family and friends who've shunned you. A lot of reported regrets boil down to "my family wants nothing to do with me," or "it's difficult to find romantic partners," and are less complaints about the effects of the procedure and more complaints about the failure of the procedure to solve the problems transexuals already face. But medically, the procedure works more often than it doesn't (at least the male-to-female one; the female-to-male one is absolutely abysmal). Not by much, granted - the risk of short- and long-term complications (particularly atrophy of the vagina) is substantial, but a significant number of patients walk away from the procedure with genitals that will be functional for decades and who remain capable of orgasm.

There are patients for whom that gamble is appropriate, and there are patients for whom it isn't. There are patients for whom the gamble will pay off, and there are patients for whom it won't. There are cancer patients who should take chemo/radiation treatment, and there are cancer patients who should accept their almost inevitable death and not spend their final months bald, vomiting, and in agony. There are patients who will buy decades of extra life through aggressive cancer treatment, and there are patients who won't make any progress at all and die worse than if they hadn't sought treatment at all because cancer treatment is a fucking nightmare. Making these decisions is hard and there are genuine trade-offs, but "there are downsides and risks" does not mean all bad all the time.
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