OH OH Good @ChaosEngine says there should be strong oversight. Well while we're wishing for that how about we wish for a whole host of other things to happen that never fucking will.

YIPPIE Wishing is fun! Everyone get's a wish boys and girls. If you wish for your parents to stop raping you nightly I'm afraid we angels love watching it far too much to put a stop to it. LAH DEE DAH!

*related=http://videosift.com/video/The-Best-Potty-Training-Tips-for-Boys-and-Girls

The Best Potty Training Tips for Boys and Girls has been added as a related post - related requested by chicchorea.

This promote coming from a teacher who has observed boys and girls for years means a lot to me.

Thank you.

Dysphoria goes way beyond that. I still enjoy boy things. If you want to call them boy things. That's one issue there: we gender activities and clothing needlessly.

Instead, it's a matter of your body being completely and utterly wrong. To the point where looking in the mirror is a nightmare to be avoided. Absolutely no pictures. For the longest time I couldn't even recognize myself in a photo without trying. It didn't come naturally for me like it did with other people. That picture just *wasn't* me. It was *wrong*.

So yeah, in his case, being a tomboy and being transgender are completely different places on the spectrum. A tomboy doesn't feel pain over their appearance the way a transgender would. I remember first finding out that boys and girls actually had different parts. I wished every night that it would fix itself, until finally, at age 11, I resolved to remove it myself. I didn't succeed, but the scars still exist.

Additionally, the "he" and "she" parts are painful. It's the same as if someone picked a mean nickname for you and refused to ever acknowledge your real name, but insisted on calling you by the offending one instead. It's our identity. It's part of the core of who we are, and by ignoring that, you ignore us. You ignore one of the most fundamental things that makes us who we are.

You'd be surprised just how much kids ages 3-4 understand gender identity and roles. I mean, most of our childhood is learning societal roles we play, and kids really pick up on that. So when a transgender kid sees other girls being treated one way, and they're being treated like the boys, or vice versa in this boys case, it's demoralizing beyond understanding as a 4 year old.



I don't mean to rant at you, but I hope that helps you understand why it's different for us. Oh, and I also didn't go into the science of it. But strictly speaking, our brains are different. Chemically, and even physically, we exhibit the sex characteristics of the gender we identify with. Even the hormones our body produces naturally due to our natal sex causes great discomfort and pain until they are eliminated. Even minor doses can go a long way to eliminating the physical pain we feel.

The big difference I saw between boys and girls here is that if we tried this with a guy he most likely would have been beaten to death within the first half dozen attempts.

To say we haven't hyper masculinized our culture is just plain ignorant. If you look throughout history, you can see the gradual progression towards an ungodly amount of "manliness". Same goes for women too. A lot simply comes down to advertising and commercialization, the segmentation of the have's and have not's and so forth.

You want to have respect? Be a man! Want money? Be a man! But what IS being a man? Is it punching some dude in the face for "disrespecting" you? Or if it laughing it off knowing the other guy is just a loser?

In reality, it comes down to money. To people who are poor, violence is usually the solution. There is no question about that; statistically speaking poorer men are more likely to lash out violently than those with more. Mostly because the poor man only has his respect. The rich man, well, he could get sued, lose his job, get hurt, lose his house and fancy car etc.

Knowing this, how do you advertise to the male with little? You tell him if he wants to be anything, he needs to be a man! Like James Bond or something. 6-pack abs (despite a long history of that not being the ideal form, i.e. early black and white movies or dress makers changing the sizes of their clothes from a size 12 being "average" to a size 6.)

I know we love to say men are being feminized and turning into "wussies." Fox news loves talking about how the NFL is worried about brain injuries (despite all the evidence showing clearly there is a ton of it) and Christian groups claiming bullying is GOOD for society because it weeds out the gays. For a "man" to, I have no idea actually, whatever it is the Fox News thinks men should be . . . Are "men" supposed to always be violent? They should always resort to shooting each other over trivial things?

What exactly is "being a man" all about anyway? Not being gay? Not being like a woman? And why is being a woman, or gay, so terrible? Why is it that high heels and make up were originally a "man" thing? Or frilly clothes . . . Why is it that 100 years ago, little boys and girls wore the same clothes, which were usually dresses? Hell, Ernest Hemmingway (a man's man) wore a dress as a child. There are plenty of pictures of him in it, and it's even on display at his house in Key West. So is he less of a man now?

And if wearing a skirt is so not manly, why are Scot's so manly then? Or is it manly to say fuck society, I'll do what I want? Is it manly to go against the flow? Stand up for what you believe? For instance, the story of the father who wore dresses because his son wanted to wear a dress, and the father didn't want his son to feel ashamed for being who he is? I'm pretty sure that father, as some say, has some pretty big brass balls. Would you do that for your kid? Or would you bow to societal pressure instead?

A worthy topic of discussion . . . I mean, right after ending the pointless wars and stopping the NSA from finding out whether or not you wear your wife's panties . . .

Mythbusters recently did a scientific analysis on the difference in throwing posture between boys and girls. It's always been obvious that females tend to look much different than boys when throwing, but I never realized until seeing that episode that the specific reason is girls stay almost vertical throughout the throw and boys tend to go almost horizontal. Part of the reason for that seems to be the physiology of the pelvis.

I found that to be rather fascinating. Call me maybe.

WTF! she "lives as a girl". She hasn't changed her gender at all. There is no set way for a boy or girl to behave that is exclusive to that gender. How you dress or act doesn't make you a girl or a boy. You won't find two people to agree on what it means to "live as a girl" so how about we just ignore this non-issue and let kids be kids. If you think I am wrong maybe you should take a look at yourself and think about why you think boys and girls are so different.

I'm personally going to see to it that this goes viral. This is gonna be everywhere, boys and girls.

Soviet toys is best toy.


That the 'for boys and girls' graphic featured expressionless blankly staring cartoon faces was absolutely perfect.

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and just assume you just forgot to check the sarcasm box.

First of all, it's not discrimination because it's open to both genders. The video states that 60% of participants are female, which means the other 40% are male.

I assume you're referring to the fact that no boys were ever shown in the video, which instead focused on 'girl power.' The point isn't to discriminate against boys, but instead to show the ascent of girls out of the horrible gender based discrimination that has plagued Afghanistan ever since the Taliban took over. Most homes were forced to blacken their windows so that women and girls could not be seen from someone walking by on the street. Schools for girls still have their water wells poisoned for providing girls education. Little girls have acid thrown in their face just for going to school.

But under the Taliban, boys never lost any freedom. They can wear what they want, go where they want, do what they want. They always could and still can. Most importantly, they never lost educational rights. Rape wasn't even considered that bad for a boy to commit if a girl was "asking for it" by what she wore.

So I don't think this video is meant to demean or discriminate against boys. The institution (or whatever it is) caters to both boys and girls. But the point of this video is to show that a place like this exists which is helping to undo discrimination. Boys aren't the focus because they don't need to be. Boys aren't being put down, girls are being brought up.

@gorillaman -- all good points.

Except... except... except.... we do live in a sexist society. Are we the MOST sexist society? Absolutely not.

But in the CONTEXT of a sexist society, IF the words man and boy are NOT interchangeable, then we need an understanding why it is okay for women and girl to be completely interchangeable.

The number of syllables doesn't cut it for me. Not given the CONTEXT of the sexist nature of our society.

Which gets us back to the use of "boy" for a black man.

You are too young to know this, but it was absolutely the norm to call a black man "boy". It wasn't until the men said no more, do not denigrate me like that, got mad about it, invoked Black Power and Black is Beautiful that it became not okay to call a black man a boy.

Some women got mad back in the 70s and 80s, and it changed some. It is waaaay better than it used to be.

We agree. Context is everything. You seem to have missed my acknowledgement that I personally use the word boy and girl for adults in some circumstances. However, as much as you are asking me to see your context, which I have acknowledged in general, I don't see much movement on your part to allow that maybe, just maybe, I have a valid point of view. Black and white thinking isn't the path to new understanding on anyone's part.

There is no absolute right and wrong. I am not wrong. Neither are you absolutely right, although yes, there is a generational thing. There was no grrrl power in the 70s and 80s. That word has been reclaimed to a certain extent.

You mentioned popular music and how prevalent the word "girl" is. So are the words bitches, hos, and a whole slew of words you would never use to describe your girlfriend or your mother.

I guess we have come to an end to this experiment. Although I do encourage you to keep this experiment on the back burner of your mind. And continue to ask yourself -- why is okay to call an adult woman a girl with great regularity but we don't do that to adult men.

I guarantee you it isn't the presence of an extra syllable. Sometimes that is true. But for the pervasiveness of it, that just rationally, scientifically and socially doesn't cover the situation.

Thanks for playing! It has been way fun!

Even the most profligate girl-labeller would use 'grown woman' to refer to the other kind of guy in that scenario.

This is actually the key to our disagreement.

Are you unwilling to allow that the same words can suggest completely different meanings in different contexts?
I'm not talking about 'bear' and 'bear'. I'm not even talking about 'boy - a five year old male' and 'boy - a forty year old black guy'. I'm talking about 'boy - a forty year old black guy' and 'boy - a forty year old black guy'.

We're both aware 'boy' and 'girl' can be used in denigrating ways, so can, say, 'liberal', 'geek' and 'yankee'; and all of these have neutral and positive applications.

In fact no word has a meaning independent of the context in which it's used, this is literally true - words depend entirely on interaction with each other and on the circumstances of their transmission to impart information; rhetoricians call this 'interinanimation', dictionary writers call this 'damned annoying'. It's also true that no communication is possible where words have meaning only to their speaker. Consequently, language is an ongoing negotiation.

So, my position isn't that these words are literally interchangeable, in every context, but that they are interchangeable in a lot more contexts than you will admit. You have to look to the attitude of the speaker; to do that you have to examine what they're saying contextually. Monitoring individual word usage is a cheap, futile shortcut to understanding where a person is coming from.

>> ^bareboards2:
I still think it is mostly about power, though, and your example of "grown man" kind of proves it to me. Why couldn't you say "grown boy"? If boy is the same as man, just as girl is the same as woman? A grown boy is indeed a man, yes? It actually is more accurate than "grown man."

Wow. That is PRECISE, boys and girls