To answer your questions specifically;

Yes, I am saying that all trans people are congenitally intersex, biologically intersex due to their unique path of sexual development. Their gender identity does not match their genitalia due to their development in utero or shortly thereafter, and it has nothing to do with any of the Freudian nonsense about psychosocial environmental stimuli such as distant fathers or clinging mothers. I am not saying anything about cross-dressers or drag queens, because no research has ever been done on those groups.

If the medical treatment for this condition, and it IS medical treatment managed under the aegis of the WPATH and its Standards of Care, happens to consist of social changes in addition to hormonal and surgical interventions, then, yes, that is all medical treatment. We treat diabetes and hypertension with changes in diet and exercise. Does that somehow not qualify as "medical" treatment? And how could hormone therapy and surgery not be considered medical treatment?

You say your "brain is silent." What in the world does that mean? Your mind is a function of your brain, and if your brain sex is male, your gender identity is male. We all have a brain sex and a gender identity, and just because that lines up with genital sex in 99% of people doesn't mean it does not in the other 1%. Even if you cannot comprehend it.

Thank you very much for your calm and very reasonable response. I very much appreciate it. This is exactly the type of response I would like to see more of.

And thank you for your acknowledgement of it. I'm glad you appreciated it!

Now, given what you say, that there is still theoretical research, is there any wonder why there is still much confusion and pushback from those of us who think that there are mental issues going on?

I'm not at all surprised by confusion, myths, and misunderstandings. But I'd hope that people would withhold judgment about what they don't know instead of penciling in 'here be dragons.'

How would we react if Oprah said she's a white woman trapped in a black woman's body and wanted to "turn" white? We'd say she's nuts and rather than enabling her delusion, we'd maybe try to help her psychologically.

I understand what you're trying to illustrate but I don't think ethnicity is the best comparison. I'm not sure there is one. What is more essential than gender? People don't in general identify with other ethnic groups, and depending on one's circumstances one might not even be aware of other ethnic groups for some years. But what's the first question people ask about babies? Whether it's a boy or a girl. And babies almost immediately begin to exhibit gendered behavior. Girls look at faces more than boys, for example. And parents immediately behave differently, dressing babies according to sex, giving gender-specific toys. Right from the start, gender is absolutely fundamental to who we are, and to how society directs us, so if one isn't in sync with that....

It seems to me that there are two separate questions here: whether transgenderism is a disorder and whether the surgery is the best way to deal with the condition (to use a value neutral term).

Based on the disorder model, the form of psychological help which a broad consensus of therapist, physicians, and academics have developed does, in fact, include the very surgery you oppose (none of us could have had it otherwise!) It's called triadic therapy: counseling, hormones, and, if necessary, surgery (since no form of counselling or medication has been demonstrated to "cure" trans people). The surgery is not undertaken lightly, but for those who go through it (after an elaborate screening process), as noted elsewhere in this thread, it has a phenomenal success rate. So to question what thousands of men and women have undergone and healthcare professionals have overseen is to discount an enormous amount of accumulated experience.

I have to say, I'm baffled as to why people who don't want the surgery themselves focus on it so much and can be so vehement about wanting to deny to it to those who do. OK, so it disgusts you. Several of my dear, dear friends are gay men. Would I condemn them or lose their friendship because what they do to express their love doesn't appeal to me? No way! I suspend my disbelief and have faith in their judgment that they're doing what fulfills them. I'd far rather have them as friends. I don't need to understand their every aspect. We meet on the common ground that we have.

I hope my thoughts are helpful to you and others on the other side of this particular argument. I really do think we're all in this together, if only because the same people beat us all up. We can be like the Big Three and go our separate ways after the war, but for the moment, establishing broad protection for those who are different rather than only for those who differ in this or that specific way is going to do a lot more to set a cultural tone in which discrimination seems beyond the pale.

peace ~

it's probably on the site in video later

You've been very calm and thoughtful. I haven't been to sleep before 3:00 am since this crisis broke, and I'm tired.

one is, that barney frank on C-SPAN? you've already read it in Aravosis' article but without the personal stuff. i like frank so it's a disappointment. i think ALL civil rights is eating off the Real Civil Rights (that is, to correct Civil Wrongs) which was due, exclusively to black people(slavery, jim crow, segregation). it has been used far more productively to further aims of women, gays and others (spanish speakers, asians et al). ok, that's all to the good (except for forgetting about black people) but the fighting over smaller and smaller crumbs is...what to say? *disfiguring* is the incorrect word that springs to mind.

she writes well and has others that want to hear her. i volunteered to collect a list of names for the next two weeks of those who would want to read her blog. my address is
dsugarman@juno.com
it's basically a spam collector so your letter, after forwarding to dana, will be deleted. she hopes to get a place at the table, and why not? there are no ulterior motives here - i'd encourage anyone who had others who liked his/her posts. we need MORE voices. and who knows? it might lead to SOMETHING, like Aravosis and Greenwald. to my mind, earning a living is its own reward - but to get to SPEAK for a living is practically heaven.