From: theory of knowledge society discussion <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Alexis Kenny
Sent: Thursday, December 30, 2021 5:51 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: TOK UTOKing with Fanny Norlin

Rachel (and all),

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Thank you Alexis, those are interesting reflections, which are helping me chew on this more. 

 

I also wondered about the "missing piece" of menopausal women, who historically have been one of the most ignored categories of person, in my opinion. I am someone who was mentored in various ways by older women, including one self-described "old crone mentor," and I feel grateful for these experiences and their wisdom. I would love to hear more on this topic. 

 

Part of what I appreciated about this podcast episode was at the end, where the message was more like "be an informed version of yourself" instead of focusing exclusively on categorical differences. Gregg provided himself as an example of a person who doesn't "fit the mold."

 

Following on this theme, the transgender issue always hits close to home for me, because I am transgender. This fact, combined with my lack of scientific background, makes me reluctant to participate in what often feels like a debate about a core part of my identity. This feeling, I recognize, is partly based on past insults and threats to my livelihood.  I fear that I will overreact in these more congenial situations, and be too biased to contribute. On the other hand,  I do have "insider knowledge," or "perspectival knowing," as John Vervaeke would put it, so I often feel compelled to speak. 

 

Whether or not there are a significant number of "trans-trenders" is unknown to me. However, this recent blog post by Steven Novella at Science-Based Medicine is a long and detailed rebuttal of the "social contagion" hypothesis regarding transgender youth, concluding with: "Abigail Shrier’s [social contagion] narrative and, unfortunately, Dr. Hall’s review [retracted from Science-Based Medicine] grossly misrepresent the science and the standard of care, muddying the waters for any meaningful discussion of a science-based approach to transgender care. They mainly rely on anecdotes, outliers, political discussions, and cherry-picked science to make their case, but that case is not valid." What precedes this conclusion is a claim that the number of people transitioning in a masculine (transmasculine) direction is indeed increasing, but only approaching parity, as historically there have been more people transitioning in a feminine direction. 

 

What strikes me about this is that if the denigration of women and the feminine were the main driver of the current phenomenon of increasing transmasculine occurrence, then we should expect to have seen this decades ago, when women had fewer rights and respected roles in society. Instead we see the opposite. And if it were true that more women were feeling more mentally and financially empowered to become men in the last decade, I would expect that this very empowerment would also reduce the incentive to do so.

 

Importantly, Novella's conclusion also says that at this admittedly early stage there is "copious evidence supporting the conclusion that the benefits of gender affirming interventions outweigh the risks," which indicates a danger in too much downplaying of the legitimacy of this issue. 

 

I agree that transgender people often continue to have mental health trouble after transitioning, which is undoubtedly partly due to continued lack of acceptance, as Novella also argues. However, I argued on John Vervaeke's YouTube that there is also a misconstrual of what it means to be transgender from within the transgender community itself. This lack of a more complete model for gender transition, I propose, causes people to ignore the "inner" aspects of transition, related to Henriques' Private Self.  What we wind up with is basically a decadent Romantic approach that projects some imagined "true self" onto the world, without doing the real work of transformational self-examination. Gender transition should be handled in the same way Agnes Callard described any aspiration, as a vulnerable and somewhat blind journey toward the normative standards of one's future self. 

 

Well, that was a lot of response to an off-hand musing! Please take it as due to my inherent passion about this topic. I do appreciate the opportunity for discussion. 

 

Best,

Rachel

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Wed, Dec 29, 2021 at 10:33 PM Alexis Kenny <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

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All,

 

Rachel - thanks for your reflections on this episode. It prompted me to watch it...half of it anyways! Time, time, time! 

 

Here are some random thoughts that came up as I listened to the discussion:

 

- "Life-death, life-death, return to the same" = not sure if I agree with this frame, particularly in relation to women's menstrual cyles, as there are major shifts that can occur here (i.e., pregnancies, menopause, and a variety of "unnatural" disruptions). I think such shifts can alter a woman's experience of her embodied cycle...sometimes temporarily and sometimes forever. 

 

- I like the note about how each gender fears one's dependence on the other...though this is the very dynamic we are called to engage in. Reminds me of what John Gottman, PhD, says about the defining feature of a healthy marriage - growth. 

 

- Female sexuality is linked to being able to stand in the void...would love to hear more about this! 

 

- Men should look to develop the more "receptive masculine" rather than the more generally feminine.

 

- Indigenous season perspective is different from what was proposed here. From my understanding, the Dakota / Lakota / Ojibwe view the seasons (in relation to age) in the following manner: spring = baby, summer = youth, autumn = adult, and winter = elder. 

 

- Gregg, thanks for reminding me about Parental Investment Theory. Crucial and interesting! 

 

- Far out thought....I wonder if part of the transgender crisis regarding women transitioning to men is representative of the negation of the feminine / cyclical or the extreme fear / hate of it for X amount of reasons (i.e., coping with sexaul abuse inflicted by males, the buying into of the broad devauling of the feminine in various places, etc.). 

 

Hope you all are ending this year well!

 

Warmly,

 

Ali

 

 

 

El mié, 22 dic 2021 a la(s) 14:03, Rachel Hayden ([log in to unmask]) escribió:

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Thank you Gregg, that was a really great discussion and I felt very liberated by the end! 

 

The discussion on grieving and femininity in particular brought up a few things for me:

 

• I remember reading about how Socrates shoo'd away his weeping wife as he was about to be executed, because her grief was weakness. Also, how he held a sense of hope for an afterlife because it comforted him. I would never judge someone about to die for their comforting beliefs, but I believe there was a far stronger power on display with the full-throated grieving of his wife, looking directly at death without consoling hope. Grieving as true and final love, a midwifing into the Void. 
• In this essay, Christina Rawls writes about how, although Plato did not hold flute-girls in high regard in his writing (as in the Symposium) because their music was not up to his standards, at the moment of his death it was just those comforting sounds that he requested.
• I also read about how many people cry for their mamas at the moment of their death. At first I was horrified and a bit embarrassed to know this. But now it seems sweet and true - in some way, to borrow from LeGuin, we are "always coming home." Or like LeGuin's inspiration Lao Tzu said, "Yielding is the movement of the Dao/Returning is the movement of the Dao. 

 

Best to all,

R

 

On Mon, Dec 20, 2021 at 12:50 PM Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Hi TOK Folks,

Here is this week’s UTOKing episode. If you have an interest in the feminine in relation to the masculine, please check it out as I think we get into some interesting stuff here.

G

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2p9-G5GOW0

Episode 40: UTOKing with Fanny Norlin December 20, 2021

Title: Gracefully Syncing Feminine and Masculine Energies

In Episode 40, Gregg welcomes Fanny Norlin. She is a leading coach and business consultant who specializes in feminine leadership, strategy, grasping complexity, scaling ideas and systems thinking, and the relationship between the feminine and masculine energies. This conversation explores the Fanny's perspective, narrative, and history in developing her evolving perspective on feminine leadership, and then lines it up with UTOK's frame for understanding the Living, Mental and Cultural dimensions, as well as the kind of healthy, productive dance that can emerge between the masculine and feminine when they are positioned in right relationship to each other.

Here is the episode on Podbean. Here is Fanny's page on Linked In.

 

 

___________________________________________

Gregg Henriques, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Graduate Psychology
216 Johnston Hall
MSC 7401
James Madison University
Harrisonburg, VA 22807
(540) 568-7857 (phone)
(540) 568-4747 (fax)

Be that which enhances dignity and well-being with integrity.

Check out the Unified Theory Of Knowledge homepage at:

https://www.unifiedtheoryofknowledge.org/

 

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--

Alexis (Ali) Kenny, PsyD, LP

Staff Psychologist

LeaderWise

email: [log in to unmask]

phone: 406.540.3411

site: alexisckenny.wix.com/marriedinmission

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