Among all of the garbage written about Caitlyn Jenner, there is a piece that is not worthless. Strangely, it has been published in the NYTimes. Fell free to read the article in question here but I just want to comment on the closing paragraph:
Bruce Jenner told Ms. Sawyer that what he looked forward to most in his transition was the chance to wear nail polish, not for a furtive, fugitive instant, but until it chips off. I want that for Bruce, now Caitlyn, too. But I also want her to remember: Nail polish does not a woman make.
That’s precisely the thing: there is no there there. There is no uniform experience that all women share and that all men don’t. Searching for such an experience leads people in the crazy direction of equating womanhood with nail polish.
In reality, there is no gender experience that cannot be turned around completely by age, social class, financial status, culture, religion, profession, intellect, and a million other factors. Jenner’s vision of womanhood is that of a very rich, pampered, and frankly stupid person. And that’s precisely the perfect test of how far one is ready to go in defending the right to self-determination. It’s easy to defend the rights of the smart, profound, interesting, or truly victimized. But the rich, brain-dead airheads are human, too, and as onerous as it is to stand up for them, we should remember that the hard work of respecting the basic humanity of others has to be done even when the others do everything to avoid evoking respect.
Clarissa's Blog 
when a man wants to become a woman and a woman wants to become a man, it’s the polarisation change of the planet, cross dressing seems a whole lot easier, perhaps it’s also a form of wisdom, men need to become more like women, sensitive to the needs of others
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Who are those women who are sensitive to the needs of others? I’d love to meet some. 🙂
I’m kidding, I’m kidding, I totally know one woman like that. She is extremely emotionally gifted. But she’s an exception in more ways than one. I’m from a culture of women who will mow you down like armored vehicles and are incapable of demonstrating any emotion other than anger.
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it’s time to leave the zoo, joking of course, but if your stuck in traffic everyday, human traffic and have to push sometimes, it rubs off. as for poor old bruce, it must have been a prison sentence being surrounded by all those gals and not allowed to use their make up or borrow their eye liner!
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Yes, what a tragedy, not being able to borrow make up.
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going shopping like it’s an addiction, what was he thinking…!
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I’m from a culture of women who will mow you down like armored vehicles and are incapable of demonstrating any emotion other than anger.
LOL — sounds like the culture I was born in (not FSU) .
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I’m glad we are not alone. 🙂
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So Catilyn Jenner’s vision of womanhood is
Man I Feel Like A Woman?
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Every stereotype of a stupid rich athlete has been embodied in Ms. Jenner.
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I agree, that is a really excellent piece, the first time I’ve seen something really intelligent on the subject.
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Loved this piece, although the crap about privilege almost ruined it.
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Once upon a time, my foot was caught in a door, leaving the big toe a bit mangled looking (and the rest of the foot a bit unstable, even to this day) …
My girlfriend at the time decided that she’d rather look at a painted toenail than my horribly black, brown, and red toenail, so she painted my toenail. While I could have gone for black or perhaps some other sedate colour, my girlfriend decided she really, really liked painting my gnarly-looking toe a shade of pink.
I did not suddenly say, “OH GOOD, NOW I CAN DRESS UP LIKE ED WOOD”, at that particular point in time. Instead, I kept my toe properly concealed in black socks like any reasonable person might. 🙂
[… and could someone get Bruce Jenner’s head out of the door, it’s blocking the way and I don’t think he’s going to make it through …]
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Let me see if I understand this. When Jenner says he’s a woman, you are ready to believe it on his sayso. But when Duggars say they are Christians you don’t take them at their word. I don’t get this sort of logic. Don’t you see there is a double standard here?
I’m not trying to be aggressive or contrary an here. All I want is understand your logic.
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The logic is simple. The suicide stats among the transgender people are enormously high. As for Christians who are told they are not really Christian, there is no evidence that this causes any suicidal tendencies among them.
And that’s an enormous difference between the two groups.
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Are suicide stats for transgendered people differ by the direction of trans-ing?
The general suicide rate is about 4 times higher for men than women.
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That’s a very interesting question. I have absolutely no idea.
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IIRC WtM transgendered people have violence levels (as measured by crime statistics) equivalent to those of non-trans men while MtW transgendered do not see any decrease in violence. It seems reasonable that this would also apply to violence against oneself.
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“It seems reasonable that this would also apply to violence against oneself.”
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I find the whole Jenner thing kind of tedious and stupid and Emperor’s new clothes-ish.
The best theories I’ve found for these very masculine guys who decide late in life to become women was at the (virulently homophobic but otherwise interesting) Dusk in Autumn blog.
Partly it’s fear of death (being reborn is meant to keep the reaper away) and partly it’s generational – yet another way that boomers are trying to stay in the spotlight – by reinventing themselves.
I also think the choice of name “Caitlyn” is interesting – it’s not a name for a 65 year old American woman (Cathleen would be the age appropriate version) , it’s a millenial name in the US and a way to try to reclaim youth.
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It’s also a great opportunity to expand one’s shopping choices. And what else do such very rich people do but shop?
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And right on cue:
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/01/16/not-white-in-the-head-the-tumblr-teens-convinced-they-were-born-the-wrong-species-sex-and-even-race/
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\ NOT WHITE IN THE HEAD: THE TUMBLR TEENS CONVINCED THEY WERE BORN THE WRONG SPECIES, SEX AND EVEN RACE
As a non-USA citizen, I was amused by the choice to put the word “even” before race. One would think that being born the wrong species would be much more extreme. 🙂
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” I was amused by the choice to put the word “even” before race”
Especially since we’re not supposed to think that race even exists anymore….
And the writer in question is a Brit (though I don’t know if he wrote the headline which I also thought was weird)
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Yes, it’s a very telling sentence structure.
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The market will happily accommodate such people because the first thing they do when they try on the new identity is shop. So now they are shopping for 2 identities. And how profitable is that? 🙂
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The hits, they just keep a coming:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/claudiakoerner/a-civil-rights-leader-has-disguised-herself-as-black-for-yea#.yn2y26kjJ1
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Unless one has done a DNA test, claiming to know one’s racial makeup is sheer idiocy. These parents are being as weird as the daughter. Maybe the whole family is mentally unbalanced.
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