Jason Y writes:
One culture with a lot of transsexuals is the Philippines. They’re everywhere, and seeing them in public is just a normal part of life.
Of course, a lot of Filipino men pick on them, but, nonetheless, they don’t hide away from everyone. Seems like in the Philippines either the guys are hyper-masculine (smoking cigarettes, drinking, womanizing), or they become transsexuals.
See? There is no “biological transsexualism” that one would think would have a fairly constant rate across space and time. Historically, modern transsexualism is virtually unknown. This whole syndrome is a creation of modernity. As we can see from your example (and I would add Thailand too), in cultures that encourage or promote this sort of thing, many men will become transsexuals, possibly 1/300. In Thailand, I have heard it is ridiculously high. Men who teach school over there say that there is about one “ladyboy” per class. So that is more like 1/30.
In cultures that promote it, you will a lot of this craziness and in those that discourage it, while there will probably be some level of transsexualism, it will be likely much lower than in Thailand or Philippines.
You have a choice of what sort of society you want to have. You want a society where the transsexualism rate is ridiculously high or do you want a society where this sort of thing, while tolerated, is kept to a minimum?
