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Tickled to Death's avatar

Oh yes. I understand that there is a big difference. Mulvaney appears as a wannabe using the number-of-days-of "girlhood" bit as an attraction, a brand, striving to be this years Audrey Hepburn or whatever. Page seems to be more like running from some of the horror criminally perpetrated on young women who have arrived in International stardom.

I had read another review of the book that had more about the abusive movie bis environment dominated by men. Typical of the continual testimonies of women hit on and raped by these power men. That review mentioned the director of Hard Candy, a movie I had access to but didn't want to see (I haven't seen Juno, or really any of her other work except The East a movie that I love and think is really really great. I liked the idea of her because of The East. It's about eco-activists that take direct action. Please see it if you can.)

Anyway, more to your comment, I had a relationship about 15 years ago with a published poet woman who is now a trans-man. This was a sweet woman, then in mid-30s and really emotionally troubled. We met on Facebook. She was a child of the super rich, from Christian rightwing Texas. She lived then in her parent's spanking new tower off white apartment Park Ave in the W 50th area. It was her parent's New York pad, they lived in a Carolina or somewhere else. She brought me there and it was all impressive. Although in NYC for years I'm still a wide-eyed working class Ohio boy in the big city. She was connected to all this stuff I had heard about. She went to Naropa University, had had a significant relationship with a much older poet-musician, a Beat Generation figure who died about 20 years ago. He 30 years older than I and I think I'm about 20 years older than she is.

ANYWAY. . . . .

After we stopped sexual stuff which seemed not at all out of the ordinary, we remained Facebook friends. She was a big FB person and one could track her psychology via her posts. She was constantly searching for an identity. She would pingpong back and forth from a longing for a life in a monastery even going to one of those places over the years trying to fit. She would bounce from that strange Christian stuff to posting lots of photos of thin young gay boys and through her I had learned the term "twink". She adored the looks and style of twinks. So she would cycle through this for years. Monks, twinks, back to monks, back to twinks. Round and round.

She was also rather into fashion and need up blocking me when I kinda of questioned of something some sneakers she bought that had wings on the back. I ofended her because of not understanding her love of these shoes.

Eventually I saw that she had transitioned with the little beard, I hope it works out for them being a 50 year old twink.

I don't actually know what to make of this story but I've maybe it is somehow relevant to what we are talking about here.

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Lida H.'s avatar

That *is* an interesting anecdote! I do think that it's very likely to be relevant here.

While I have heard of a handful of instances of women above the age of thirty deciding to "transition", I have never known one of them personally or even at one degree of remove. On the other hand, I've known quite a number of teenage girls and women in their early twenties who have started to identify as "transmasc" and proceeded to transition medically. My impression has been that the women who pursue it later in life have been suffering from far worse mental health issues than the majority of the younger cohort, which was only reinforced by the experience you relayed.

In my opinion, these women are betrayed by the professions who have bowed to the demands of the gender activists. For example - where I live general medical practitioners have no legal choice but to unquestioningly "affirm" and supply exogenous hormones to any patient (adult or minor) who declares themselves "trans", at least while they await an appointment at a gender clinic. Psychologists and Psychiatrists must affirm too, no matter what comorbidities may be at play. That leaves some mighty big cracks for individuals rendered vulnerable by mental illness and a lack of real world support to fall through.

One can only hope that they continue to enjoy the permanent changes made to their physiology and are fortunate enough to avoid the worst of the deleterious effects that testosterone often has on the female body as they age.

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