CALLING ALL NERDS!!!
We all struggle sometimes to explain to others who have never lived in our skins what it's like to be trans*, how we know we are trans*, and how we know that being trans* is a legitimate birth condition as opposed to a conditional disorder. We are not scientists, so we can't pull our own brains apart and demonstrate the reasons we are who we say we are to those who do not understand.
In a discussion with my mother -- or rather, a discussion that turned into an unfortunate argument -- she made the claim that she had read articles online explaining the illegitimacy of the transgender condition, articles that compared it to conditional disorders such as anorexia and other self-harming fixations. My mother may be a bit of a new-age hippie in denial, but she is still highly intelligent and, when I asked her if she would be willing to read peer-reviewed articles on the matter, written by actual psychologists, doctors, and so on, she told me to send her the links and she would be willing to give my position a fair chance.
Unfortunately, I can't find any articles online without running into several blockades, "pay-to-reads", and false promises. The search continues, but I need my fellow nerds to help out on this one!
I'm making this thread to request a systematic search for academic journal articles and peer-reviewed studies and papers on the topic of transgender physiology and psychology. My hope is that we can create a handy catalog for members to use in the Resources sticky-thread in the event of a need for citation or reliable support of their claim to being trans*.
WHAT I'M LOOKING FOR
Peer-reviewed articles published in academic journals that are available for the public to read. A good example of an academic journal would be the HHMI Bulletin or the American Behavioral Scientist. A good online source for peer-reviewed articles via PDF or webpage is SagePub.com. If you have access to another source, such as a college library or something similar, please make complete page-by-page scans of the article you found or, if it's on the computer, take a screen capture page-by-page by using the "End/PRTSC" button on your keyboard (if you're using anything that isn't a Mac or a foreign keyboard... if you're using a Mac or a foreign keyboard, I'm sure Google can tell you how to take a screen cap).
Articles must be peer-reviewed. Without peer reviews, no journal article can be considered any more reliable or accurate to reality than Buzzfeed or i09. If an article has been peer-reviewed, it will be noted in the article abstract.
Following this, all articles -must- be provided with an abstract. An abstract is a small paragraph-sized summary of the entire article which will tell you the premise, basic details and conclusion that the article presents. A peer-reviewed article is always accompanied by an abstract.
Articles must also be in APA format. I know, I know, we all hate college papers, theses and term papers, but we learn this stuff for a reason. Nearly all academic journal articles dealing in the physical sciences are written in APA formate. If you are unfamiliar with APA format, here is a handy link to explain it all.
WHAT I'M NOT LOOKING FOR
Bare abstracts, blog posts, news articles, videos, movies or somebody else's college final.
WHY THIS MATTERS
If you take a position, you must be prepared to present credible evidence that supports it. You and your personal experiences and feelings are not empirical evidence; you are merely one circumstance in a vast universe full of random circumstances. If you want anyone to take you seriously, you must have something with which to back your claim. If you want the world, including your friends and family, to respect who you are and understand your situation, you must be willing to give them a reason outside of mere sentiment.
Peer-reviewed journal articles are one of the best ways to receive relatively non-biased and reliable information about anything in the scientific world. Once we have a big enough list of these articles, imagine all the trans*people we could help by providing concise and balanced reading material instead of suppositions and guesses!
x
Yes, some of these articles, case studies and experiments may not present a conclusion you're satisfied with. Some of them may contain terminology you're uncomfortable with or blunt phrases you find offensive. This is when you pull on your big-boy britches and your big-girl panties and your big-person PJ's and start looking at the evidential whole.
To help build this archive you need to have dedication and integrity.
We all struggle sometimes to explain to others who have never lived in our skins what it's like to be trans*, how we know we are trans*, and how we know that being trans* is a legitimate birth condition as opposed to a conditional disorder. We are not scientists, so we can't pull our own brains apart and demonstrate the reasons we are who we say we are to those who do not understand.
In a discussion with my mother -- or rather, a discussion that turned into an unfortunate argument -- she made the claim that she had read articles online explaining the illegitimacy of the transgender condition, articles that compared it to conditional disorders such as anorexia and other self-harming fixations. My mother may be a bit of a new-age hippie in denial, but she is still highly intelligent and, when I asked her if she would be willing to read peer-reviewed articles on the matter, written by actual psychologists, doctors, and so on, she told me to send her the links and she would be willing to give my position a fair chance.
Unfortunately, I can't find any articles online without running into several blockades, "pay-to-reads", and false promises. The search continues, but I need my fellow nerds to help out on this one!
I'm making this thread to request a systematic search for academic journal articles and peer-reviewed studies and papers on the topic of transgender physiology and psychology. My hope is that we can create a handy catalog for members to use in the Resources sticky-thread in the event of a need for citation or reliable support of their claim to being trans*.
WHAT I'M LOOKING FOR
Peer-reviewed articles published in academic journals that are available for the public to read. A good example of an academic journal would be the HHMI Bulletin or the American Behavioral Scientist. A good online source for peer-reviewed articles via PDF or webpage is SagePub.com. If you have access to another source, such as a college library or something similar, please make complete page-by-page scans of the article you found or, if it's on the computer, take a screen capture page-by-page by using the "End/PRTSC" button on your keyboard (if you're using anything that isn't a Mac or a foreign keyboard... if you're using a Mac or a foreign keyboard, I'm sure Google can tell you how to take a screen cap).
Articles must be peer-reviewed. Without peer reviews, no journal article can be considered any more reliable or accurate to reality than Buzzfeed or i09. If an article has been peer-reviewed, it will be noted in the article abstract.
Following this, all articles -must- be provided with an abstract. An abstract is a small paragraph-sized summary of the entire article which will tell you the premise, basic details and conclusion that the article presents. A peer-reviewed article is always accompanied by an abstract.
Articles must also be in APA format. I know, I know, we all hate college papers, theses and term papers, but we learn this stuff for a reason. Nearly all academic journal articles dealing in the physical sciences are written in APA formate. If you are unfamiliar with APA format, here is a handy link to explain it all.
WHAT I'M NOT LOOKING FOR
Bare abstracts, blog posts, news articles, videos, movies or somebody else's college final.
WHY THIS MATTERS
If you take a position, you must be prepared to present credible evidence that supports it. You and your personal experiences and feelings are not empirical evidence; you are merely one circumstance in a vast universe full of random circumstances. If you want anyone to take you seriously, you must have something with which to back your claim. If you want the world, including your friends and family, to respect who you are and understand your situation, you must be willing to give them a reason outside of mere sentiment.
Peer-reviewed journal articles are one of the best ways to receive relatively non-biased and reliable information about anything in the scientific world. Once we have a big enough list of these articles, imagine all the trans*people we could help by providing concise and balanced reading material instead of suppositions and guesses!
x
Yes, some of these articles, case studies and experiments may not present a conclusion you're satisfied with. Some of them may contain terminology you're uncomfortable with or blunt phrases you find offensive. This is when you pull on your big-boy britches and your big-girl panties and your big-person PJ's and start looking at the evidential whole.
To help build this archive you need to have dedication and integrity.
