Ms Freeman raises some valid points about the current most famous/notorious transgender person.
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/mar/19/caitlyn-...
One query I have about her and one or two other wealthy 'celebrity' gender swappers is have they had SRS as well as all the other surgeries? In which case the real life test/ Harry Benjamin rules don't seem to apply if you're wealthy enough.
Comments
Caitlin
I don't understand why people want to take shots at Caitlin.
Does she display a large amount of arrested development? Absolutely, but in her realm of deified athletes she's about par for the course.
And, to extend the sports metaphor, I laughed when the Guardian writer said Caitlin had long since "sailed over that hurdle". I wonder if the writer realized that sailing over hurdles was part of grind of winning the decathlon (110m hurdles)?
The prosecutor was correct in not pursuing the case. Unless there was extreme negligence it's extremely hard to prove a criminal vehicular homicide case. ALL Americans drive faster than the posted speed limit. Most think it is their legal right to exceed the posted limit up to nine MPH. If you drive the legal limit you become a traffic hazard. We already have far too many people in our jails and don't need to start going down the road of seeking jail time for traffic accidents. The civil case should have happened and there was a settlement, but the standards are much different.
The basic theme to this article is that she has been given an "Advanced to Go" card not having to jump through all the hoops facing most TG women. Do you really believe that? Google "Bruce Jenner" and take a look at the shoulders that allowed him to be a world class athlete and Wheaties box icon. How much personal anguish do you think she went through to decide that she could present as a woman. How many of us who are plus-sized have simply decided the task is insurmountable.
Donald Trump is an ass. I'm embarrassed by his popularity, which isn't based in his attributes, but is as indication of the overall dissatisfaction in the United States over politicians in general. Perhaps Jenner is just as dissatisfied with the status quo and is expressing that through her statement about Trump. I'm from Minnesota and went through these logical gymnastics quite some time ago when we rejected two career politicians and voted in Jesse Ventura (a professional wrestler) as our governor. It was a disaster.
It's absolutely no one's business other than Caitlin's what surgeries she's had or hasn't had. But I'm sure you feel that way as much as I do. The point is . . . are real life tests demanded of women in the sixties? If they are, why? Don't you think they've had time to think things through? Why demand some arbitrary cooling off period when a well-known person who has demonstrated her ability to make rational decisions in public view for years, decides to transition?
Is Caitlin perfect? No. No more than any other mortal.
Has she done a lot for TG awareness? There's no doubt.
She also has a long-standing reputation as a person with amazing determination and has made a living as a spokesperson because she is so sincere.
She was named the Associated Press Male Athlete of the Year in an era that featured Terry Bradshaw, Pete Rose, Jack Nicklaus, and Jimmy Connor. It's hard to wrap your mind around how much she personified maleness.
Another sports icon of that era (John Wooden) said, "Never let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do." We should heed his words and celebrate what Caitlin has done rather than tear at her very human frailties.
Is the Guardian the newspaper that is the poster child for yellow journalism?
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
The Guardian ...
... is far from being the poster child for so-called yellow journalism, moreover Hadley Freeman is an American though she's lived over here for some time I believe. She's normally a fashion journalist though so worth reading and funny that even I regularly read her articles.
I find it horrifying that people habitually drive 9 mph over the legal limit in the US and even more that anyone actually obeying then law should be considered a 'traffic hazard'. Don't carry that view if you ever drive in the UK where exceeding the posted limit by even 2 mph will get you booked. As a frequent non-motorised road user (walking or cycling) I expect people in cars etc to obey the law.
btw I'd never heard of Bruce Jenner until he became Caitlyn. I suspect US sports icons are just that it most cases.
Robi
The reason
The reason people feel they can (have the right to) drive up to nine miles per hour over the posted limit is because the police have decided that anything up to that point is simply a temporary lapse and as soon as the driver realizes it, they will slow down, and therefore don't ticket until it's ten or more over.
I'm not sure about the nine number. I know that most people I know, my brother included, feel that five over is the speed they should drive. I, however, have a CDL (commercial drivers license) and, since I make my living with it, tend to protect it by driving the speed limit or less if conditions warrant. In Oregon, where I live, if a driver gets 4 tickets in 2 years, they get a 30 day suspension of driving privileges. They then can apply for a hardship permit which would allow them to drive back and forth to work, church and the grocery story on designated roads. A CDL driver, in addition to the 30 day suspension of privileges, gets a six months suspension of CDL privileges. That's half a year with no income. There's no hardship permit available for the CDL, and what good is it to be able to drive to work when you can't do your job (drive a big rig) when you get there?
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin ein femininer Mann
I once was between Edinburgh and...
... York... There were those 20 or 30 miles of new fresh motorway. There were probably 3 cars there going under 85 mph and most were going 90+. Couple of guys (one of them in motorway maintenance van) were doing over 110 when I lost them from view...
:-) So, British drivers are not much better in obeying speed limits :-)
Rules Scmules
In 2007 when I went to Thailand, I found out that there are ways to circumvent American Harry Benjamin standards. Depending upon one's money and capacity for dealing with nonsense, one could then simply fly to Bangkok, and go see a Psychiatrist. For $200 he will write you a letter saying you should have SRS. You can find a surgeon at almost any point. SRS is what they do in Thailand. It is not a complex surgery like Coronary Bypass or something else.
Of course, you would want to do your research at some point to find one that has a good reputation. I used Kamol in Bangkok, the surgery was OK, but they still lied to me, and deceived me, thinking that they could get more money. They told me that they needed to do further surgery for another $3000 Dollars so i would have Labial Lips, but the Urologist here in America said everything looked wonderful. So, why, really did they want me to stay in Bangkok? Well, when I got back to America I was not feeling well, so went to the Doctor. As it turned out, I had a roaring e-coli infection that was resistant to American Antibiotics.
I spent the next month on a portable PICC line, injecting myself with very strong Antibiotics. So, was I needing more surgery or were they simply trying to keep me there until they cured the e-coli that they knew about and did not tell me?
So, having had your surgery, and gotten into Thailand on an American Male passport, one could simply fly home and sort the sex change business out when you get there. The government of Thailand gives you notarized documents that say you had SRS. Of course there is the matter of having to visit the American Consulate in Thailand to have them verify the Thai documents.
So, the whole matter could be sorted after the deed, thus depriving Counselors and Drug companies of most of their ill gotten loot.
I am sure that for whatever reason recipients of SRS feel they need the surgery; I am just pissed off that so many people get to feed on our misfortune as we run the gauntlet to get their "permission".
Personally, with the conditions in America at the time, had I not taken the SRS path, I would have starved and died homeless, though I did not know it at the time. The drugs made me suggestible enough to follow the advice of the counselors, and using the then DSM 4, GID was a disorder and qualified me to get SSI. The reason I was even on the drugs, in my opinion, was not due to GID, but I'd suffered such horrendous abuse in childhood and in my married life that I was having a raging breakdown. In retrospect, had the path been open, I could have been successful as an effeminate male and avoided the loss of contact with my family and the loss of my career path. Another aspect of the story is that I was so disabled from my employment that the Doctor said if I did not stop my work immediately, I would need surgery, harrington rods in my back and be in a wheelchair. So, for all the wrong reasons, SRS was basically the only viable path open to me, though I did not know it at the time.
And, I must admit that being a woman now suits me greatly.
Another exception
You wrote: "In which case the real life test/ Harry Benjamin rules don't seem to apply if you're wealthy enough."
Being truly wealthy isn't the only way to be excused from the Henry Benjamin standards. All that is necessary is having enough credit rating to afford a trip to Thailand and pay for the surgery there. I'm not sure if every SRS clinic there will do the surgery without an RLT, but I personally knew a transwoman whose RLT was all of about a month before she jetted off to Thailand for her surgery and came back complete.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin ein femininer Mann
Speeding
This has nothing to do with Caitlyn. I drive 30,000 or so miles a year for business purposes. Once out of city traffic, I set my cruise control at or below the posted speed limit. I regularly piss other drivers off and I could give a shit. Unfortunately, people do not learn how to drive. They learn, sometimes marginally, how to operate a motor vehicle. Bed driving habits are inherited. Drivers learn from their parents who, of course, are bad drivers.
It irritates the daylights out of me when the local radio stations broadcast where the police have set up radar monitoring (They are not speed traps!). We do not want to warn speeders, we want them stopped and ticketed. I regularly do insurance surveys on businesses with fleets. Trucks are generally not a problem because the companies govern them; however, it frequently comes out that the 'executives' and sales persons drive well over the speed limit. I ask why? It's illegal, and what sort of example are they setting.
I was presented with a question by a philosophy student, Would you rather have a leader who was honest in all his/her dealings, but wasn't the most brilliant, or would you rather have a leader who was very competent but sometimes dishonest in his dealings. The answer is obvious, but not. Someone is either honest or not honest. The truly honest are probably unable to function in society. I guess we can break it down to various functions. Habitual speeders i.e. regularly drive at nine MPH over the speed limit are crooks, pure and simple - regardless of whether or not they have a magnetic fish attached to the trunk of their car. They need to be stopped and fined. I guess after that we can go after the bankers.
Portia
Weird Laws
In an odd attempt to stop municipalities from the tendency to finance a small town through inactment of laws and zoning designed to bleed any individual from out-of-state, the rules for operating speed traps have been tightened up. Through costly litigation speed traps and DUI checkpoints have to be publicized. For awhile vehicle safety checkpoints became all the rage, until somebody rammed a bill through the state legislature doing away with the requirement the cars and trucks actually had to meet minimum safety standards before being allowed to operate on the highways and byways.
The end result was a series of compromises that allow DUI compliance checkpoints, BUT the time and place where they are set up has to be publicized in advance. One medium-sized city actually extended the city limits creating a corridor one mile wide & six miles out to take in a section of one of the major Interstates. So what we ended up with is a posting in all the legally-required places stating an enforecement checkpoint will be set up the following weekend at location X. So these notices (in about .25 typeface) are put in such public places as the Post Office, the city bulletin board ( in city hall) and buried deep within the legal notices in the newspaper. Order has been restored, the ACLU and the legal leechs are happy, and the revenue stream is back in business.
Just remember one thing: none of the above applies to I-40 running through Tenn. There, the coining of money comes from "civil asset forfeiture" wherein a taskforce (quite often a private company that is granted legal power by some agency) stops "Suspicious Individuals" are stopped and relieved of their cash and sometimes their vehicles. Are you aware that most of the U.S. currency will test positive for meth, cocaine and heroin? The beauty of "civil asset forfeiture" is that no actual charges have to be filed. It is almost impossible to get your money back once it has been seized. The most persistent people may get part of their money back, after five years or so of costly litigation.
The end result? The coffers are full, the politicians make sure that no locals are stopped, the citizens are happy and you are screwed.
I went outside once. The graphics weren' that great.
There are only two types of speed limits.
1. Minority. Can be identified by being coupled with "dangerous road", "sharp bend", "school" or some other sign. Are actually to warn that you need to slow down and be very careful.
2. Majority. Excuse for institutionalized money extortion.
Germany has no speed limits on many autobahns. And the fact that many drivers are exceeding 200 km/h, the accident rates and mortality rates are not higher than in US with 98 km/h speed limit. And German autobahns are actually not of a better quality then US interstates or UK motorways.
There was a statistics in UK. Some places introduced "zero tolerance policy". If you are 0.00001 mph over the limit - you got fined. It greatly increased flow of money into "government" coffers. But also caused huge increase in traffic accidents and mortality rate. People stopped looking where are they going. People started to concentrate fully on speedometer not to violate the limit...
So if you want to stop and fine everybody "speeding" - be prepared that you will be responsible for thousands of deaths every year.
What will actually make the roads safer - is enforced _minimal_ speed limit. Almost nothing is more dangerous than car going 50 where posted speed limit is 100...
Speed limits
Portia is so right ,if you exceed the speed limit you are breaking the law and leave yourself open to prosecution .Out here in Australia ,we find that if the radar is manually operated they will give a bit of leeway and a warning ,but the fixed radar just plugs you for whatever speed you are going and there is no argument.As for Dr.Benjamin ,his ideas are as old fashioned as hooped skirts .I was put on oestrogen at age 78 to stop me from doing away with myself ,transition was something I never knew that I could do and certainly never thought I would .Now I will be 83 next Friday and am a very happy and serene woman ,far too old for surgery and not worried about that
as life is too exciting being the person I have been all my life.My best friend ,known to a lot of you readers ,had surgery at age 69 after nearly destroying herself and is now a very happy and content female with a support group of cis gender females who mother her .Last Thursday I responded to a call from a nephew of mine ,a doctor ,who had just treated a person who attempted suicide at the age of 27 because of GID problems .I gave him as much information as possible and and contact phone numbers for a Gender Clinic in his area.
Contact with other doctors there resulted in the patient being put on blockers and a low dose of oestrogen immediately .My nephew tells me that "mother and new daughter are doing well ' and he has a clinical psychologist attending .Incidentally,she has no facial hair and girls she went to school with are visiting and telling her "about time" and the nurses are spoiling her rotten .Sorry Dr.Benjamin !
ALISON
Speed limit in the US
9 mph over, my ass! Speed limit on a highway is usually 55 or 65 miles per hour. Most people for at least 75, and many go 80 to 85. And that is in the Baltimore / Washington area. In the mid Western US, where roads are long and straight, it's not unusual for people to drive up to 90mph.
It was scary once...
Was in US on business some 10 years ago, in Massachusetts and Rhode Island...
So on Route 95 going from Boston to Providence was scared out of the left lane by huge concrete mixer that was doing more than 100 mph... And the majority of traffic was doing 80 to 90...
:-)
In US severe speed limits on interstates were introduced not for the sake of safety. Only reason was oil crysis and that majority of cars had 5+ litre engines. Now, when contemporary cars consume under 10 liters of fuel per 100 km while going 200 km/h that reason from the 70's is void. But now everybody is too used to the flow of cash from speeding tickets :-(
breaking the law
I don't drive over the speed limit...that's child play.
Law's I break:
Driving on the wrong side of the road.
Not stopping at stop signs.
Making u-turns where ever I please.
Making turns that don't exist.
Driving on the shoulder.
Driving the wrong way down a one way street.
Driving without my seatbelt on
Ah, I break them all and it's all quite legal too. That really upsets cops. For some reason delivering papers gives me the same rights as those that deliver the mail and we get our own set of rules. I can't technically run through red lights, but I've been given a pass on that.
P.S. this message was written in part by Hobbes the kitten who won't leave me alone.
Katie Leone (Katie-Leone.com)
Writing is what you do when you put pen to paper, being an author is what you do when you bring words to life