BIOCONSERVATORI VS TRANSUMANISTI

Riccardo Mariani

5 min · 

BIOCONSERVATORI VS TRANSUMANISTI

E’ lecito progettare in laboratorio i bambini ancora in utero in modo da “potenziarli” e renderli "migliori"? Per il transumanista sì, per il bioconservatore no. No perché secondo lui l’unica medicina lecita è quella “terapeutica”, quella che cura; l’altra, quella che aumenta artificiosamente le nostre capacità di base, è eticamente sospetta. Ma qui cominciano i problemi, non è facile distinguere tra le due.

1) Come dobbiamo considerare le cure palliative? E la medicina preventiva? E quella dello sport? E la chirurgia plastica? E le cure per la fertilità? E la cosmesi odontoiatrica? Non sembrano interventi strettamente terapeutici, eppure sono comunemente accettati. Anche l’impiegato migliora le sue capacità assumendo caffé ma nessuno oserebbe levare la sua condanna. Ci sono poi gli esercizi fisici, la meditazione… tutte pratiche con cui ci potenziamo nel corpo e nell’umore.

2) Come considerare poi le vaccinazioni? Sono interventi su individui perfettamente sani finalizzati a rinforzare il loro sistema immunitario. Anche i trattamenti per rallentare la vecchiaia generano dubbi classificatori.

3) Per distinguere tra “cura” e “miglioramento” dobbiamo definire lo stato normale di salute, impresa tutt’altro che semplice. Per esempio, una persona puo’ essere affetta da disturbi che diminuiscono le sue capacità cognitive. Un intervento che ripristini lo stato originale è “cura” o “miglioramento” qualora la capacità deteriorata restasse comunque sopra la media? O ancora: la presenza nel 20% della popolazione di un gene che si correla negativamente con l’intelligenza puo’ essere considerata una patologia?

4) Le nostre capacità variano continuamente non solo a livello di popolazione ma anche nel corso della nostra vita. Un intervento che consenta a un ottantenne di riacquistare la vista e i tempi di reazione di vent’anni prima deve considerarsi terapeutico o migliorativo?

5) Bisogna anche stabilire quanto invasivo deve essere un trattamento per essere considerato “medico”: se non ci vedo posso risolvere il mio problema con il laser, oppure con le lenti, oppure con gli occhiali, oppure con lo zoom dell’e-book. Dove inizia e dove finisce la medicina? In etica bisogna essere precisi.

Conclusione: mentre il bioconservatore ha queste cinque gatte da pelare il transumanista puo’ permettersi di passare oltre sereno. Ecco il suo vantaggio.

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HL CHAPTER 9 Men Trapped in Men's Bodies

Note: Tassonomia: trans-omo, trans-etero, travestiti Autoginefilo: uomo che si innamora di donne che riproduce in se stesso (man trapped in man body) Edit

CHAPTER 9 Men Trapped in Men's BodiesRead more at location 2773

Note: 9@@@@@@@@@@@ Edit

sex researchRead more at location 2777

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When Ray Blanchard began studying and treating transsexuals during the early 1980s, the field was rife with different confusing diagnostic typologies,Read more at location 2799

Note: TANTI TIPI DI TRANS. I 5 FONDAMENTALI Edit

First was the kind of transsexual that most of us think of when we hear “transsexual,” the classic, homosexual type, like Terese. From soon after birth, these males behaved like, and desired to be, female.Read more at location 2801

Note: TRANS OMO Edit

Of all transsexual types, this was the one that most seemed to consist of “women trapped in men's bodies.”Read more at location 2803

Note: INTRAPPOLATO Edit

Another type of transsexual that specialists recognized, but which is less familiar and comprehensible to most people, was the heterosexual transsexual.Read more at location 2805

Note: ETRO TRANS Edit

These males frequently came to treatment as married men who claimed to have had hidden or suppressed longstanding wishes to be female that they could no longer deny. The clinical picture of this type was much different than the homosexual transsexual.Read more at location 2806

Note: IL CLASSICO MARITO Edit

secretly wore women's clothing such as lingerie, became sexually aroused, and masturbated. Cher has a history that is characteristic of many heterosexual transsexuals.Read more at location 2809

Note: PRATICAMENTE UN TRAVESTITO Edit

However, she has had sexual fantasies about both men and women, and has had sex with both. She is bisexual.Read more at location 2810

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There was at least one other type of transsexual that experts wrote about, one that presented a much fuzzier picture. This was a transsexual type whose sexuality was either unclear or absent. These transsexuals claimed to be attracted to neither women nor men, and some of them claimed to have no sexual feelings at all. Some called this type “asexual.”Read more at location 2812

Note: TRANS ASEX Edit

To make matters more complicated, there were at least two other types of men who cross-dressed, but who did not want sex changes.Read more at location 2815

Note: TRAVESTITO Edit

Drag queens were gay men who cross-dressed in public,Read more at location 2816

Note: DRAG QUEEN Edit

The other group of men who cross-dressed were called transvestites. These were heterosexual men, typically married,Read more at location 2818

Note: TRAVESTITI Edit

Like heterosexual transsexuals, they frequently acknowledged an erotic component to their cross-dressing, at least during adolescence.Read more at location 2820

Note: COMPONENTE EROTICA Edit

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM III-R) called heterosexual transvestism “transvestic fetishism,”Read more at location 2821

Note: DSE Edit

transvestites are motivated by an erotic connection to women's clothing. Heterosexual transvestites are an important part of this story, and they are probably far more common than transsexuals (no one knows for sure).Read more at location 2823

Note: LA CHIAVE Edit

Diagnosis can advance by either splitting or lumping.Read more at location 2851

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Lumping occurs when two or more apparently different conditions are found to be different forms of the same, underlying pathology.Read more at location 2855

Note: SCOPERTE VIA LUMPING Edit

Blanchard noticed some similarities between some of the subtypes that made him suspect that they were fundamentally similar. In particular, the homosexual subtype seemed different from all the others, who seemed similar in important respects.Read more at location 2863

Note: TRANS NON OMO Edit

For one, the nonhomosexual types were older when they came to the Clarke Institute for treatment.Read more at location 2867

Note: VECCHI Edit

many of them had postponed their gender concerns to raise families.Read more at location 2867

Note: FAMIGLIA Edit

The nonhomosexual types also gave somewhat different childhood histories than the homosexual type, who universally acknowledged marked and noticeable femininity from early on. In contrast, many of the nonhomosexual types said that they were unremarkably masculine boys,Read more at location 2869

Note: NON EFFEMMINATI Edit

The most noteworthy difference between the homosexual and nonhomosexual transsexuals concerned cross-dressing. Homosexual transsexuals recalled that they cross-dressed from early on, but few of them reported that cross-dressing provoked a sexual response. Most nonhomosexual transsexuals admitted sexual arousal to cross-dressing,Read more at location 2872

Note: ECCITAZIONE Edit

Blanchard made a good case that “heterosexual,” “bisexual,” and “asexual” transsexuals were more like each other than like homosexual transsexuals,Read more at location 2876

Note: TRANS COME NOI Edit

what Philip had in common with most nonhomosexual transsexuals, as well as cross-dressers for that matter, was sexual arousal at the idea of himself as a woman. This strange sexual desire—for oneself to be transformed into a woman—seemed to be the fundamental motivation for nonhomosexual transsexualism. Blanchard called it “autogynephilia” (pronounced Otto-guy-nuh-feel-ee-ya). “Gynephilia” means attraction to women, and “auto” means self.Read more at location 2889

Note: AUTOGINEFILIA Edit

fantasies are quite unlike the homosexual fantasies of gay men and homosexual transsexuals. They do not focus on characteristics of the male partner, but on the transsexual's female self interacting with the male.Read more at location 2902

Note: FANTASIE DELL AUTOGINEFILO OMO Edit

Even in more explicitly sexual fantasies, the male usually has no face,Read more at location 2908

Note: NO FACCIA Edit

How are we to think of autogynephilic men? Are they more like gay men, or like heterosexual men? Do they really have a woman hidden inside them?Read more at location 2929

Note: PIÙ NORMALI O PIÙ GAY? Edit

even heterosexual people can understand homosexuality by thinking, more or less accurately, “It's just as if I were attracted to my own sex instead of the other sex.” Autogynephiles are more difficult to fathom.Read more at location 2934

Note: UNA VIA X L ETERO DI IMMAGINARE L OMO Edit

Blanchard believes that autogynephilia is best conceived as misdirected heterosexuality.Read more at location 2936

Note: ETEROSESSUALITÀ DEVIATA Edit

the erotic target (a woman) gets located on the inside (the self)Read more at location 2937

Note: TARGET Edit

The fact is that despite their obsession with becoming women, auto-gynephilic transsexuals are not especially feminine.Read more at location 2945

Note: TIPI POCO FEMMINILI Edit

Nor are autogynephiles especially feminine adults. After all, most have been married, and to most observers, appear to be conventional husbands.Read more at location 2957

Note: MARITI CONVENZIONALI Edit

Technological and scientific careers seem to me to be over-represented among autogynephiles. (Ray Blanchard remarked to me that he saw a seemingly close relation between autogynephilia and computer nerdiness.)Read more at location 2959

Note: NERDINESS Edit

autogynephilia is not associated with stereotypically feminine interests.Read more at location 2961

Note: NO INTERESSI FEMMINILI Edit

Finally, autogynephiles do not typically look or act very feminine, especially in comparison with homosexual transsexuals.Read more at location 2962

Add a note

(Anne Lawrence, a physician and sex researcher who is herself a postoperative transsexual, has called them “men trapped in men's bodies.”)Read more at location 2966

Note: MEN TRAPPED N MAN Edit

The female self is a man-made creation.Read more at location 2969

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We do not have even the beginnings of a respectable theory of the causes of autogynephilia. This differs from sexual orientation, in which we have a reasonably well articulated if unproven theory. Recall from Chapters 3 and 6 that femininity in boys and homosexuality in men are probably caused by incomplete masculinization of the brain during sexual differentiation.Read more at location 2976

Note: OMO: ABBIAMO UNA TEORIA. AUTO: NO Edit

Regarding the fundamental question of whether autogynephiles are born or made, my intuitions are with “born.”Read more at location 2991

Note: BORN OR MADE Edit

As far as anyone can tell, there is nothing unusual about the environments of these boys, and certainly nothing in their environments obviously contributes to their unusual preoccupation.Read more at location 2993

Note: AMBIENTE NORMALE Edit

Highly relevant to the nature-nurture question is whether autogynephilia has occurred in most cultures and times. In fact, there is only very limited evidence about its occurrence prior to Magnus Hirschfeld's classic work, Die Transvestiten, published in 1910.Read more at location 3009

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Highly relevant to the nature-nurture question is whether autogynephilia has occurred in most cultures and times.Read more at location 3010

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prior to Magnus Hirschfeld's classic work, Die Transvestiten, published in 1910.Read more at location 3012

Note: PRESENZA NEL TEMPO E NELLO SPAZIO? Edit

In order to progress scientifically toward the causes of autogynephilia, it will be useful to keep in mind that autogynephilia seems to be a type of paraphilia. Paraphilias comprise a set of unusual sexual preferences that include autogynephilia, masochism, sadism, exhibitionismRead more at location 3021

Note: FETICISMI Edit

First, all paraphilias occur exclusively (or nearly exclusively) in men. Second, paraphilias tend to go together.Read more at location 3026

Note: UOMINI. PACCHETTO Edit

“Most gender patients lie,” says Maxine Petersen, the ace gender clinician at the Clarke. One common lie among autogynephiles, according to Petersen, is that they are homosexual rather than heterosexual. The motivation for that lie is probably the fear that a gender clinic will deny them a sex changeRead more at location 3041

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“Most gender patients lie,”Read more at location 3041

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fear that a gender clinic will deny them a sex changeRead more at location 3044

Note: BUGIE Edit

Other common lies, according to Petersen and others, include an exaggeration of early femininity.Read more at location 3047

Add a note

The most common way that autogynephiles mislead others is by denying the erotic component of their gender bending.Read more at location 3048

Note: NEGARE Edit

Why do some autogynephiles deny the sexual component of their condition? One reason, again, is the real or imagined treatment implications.Read more at location 3059

Note: PERCHÈ MENTIRE Edit

Perhaps the major reason is shame and assumed social reaction.Read more at location 3063

Note: CULTURA Edit

I imagine most men would be humiliated to admit that dressing in women's clothing is a sexual kick, and even more humiliated to admit that doing so, or fantasizing doing so, is obligatory for climax some or all of the time.Read more at location 3070

Note: UMILIAZIONE Edit

On the other hand, to attribute one's cross-dressing to a desire to express one's “feminine side” is much more acceptable.Read more at location 3078

Note: PER OL TRAVESTITO L OMO È PIÙ ACCETTABILE