Hi, Donovan. Thank you for your articles and hard work! I didn't read far into this article though, where you said "Beyond the statistical impossibility of having a homosexual majority among nonconforming females, if not the obvious impracticality..." I wondered, Did you have evidence of that as a statistic? I think these days, in the case of ROGD and other GNC girls who want to live as boys, especially to the point of wanting to transition (in contrast to girls who become anorexic, which is a different kettle of fish imo), that despite the small number of lesbians in the overall population, it makes sense to me that a large proportion of GNC girls would naturally be young lesbians who have come to interpret their attraction to other girls/women as meaning they must be "boys/men," considering the current social climate in relation to the influence of trans ideology? Just a thought. Anyway, I'll continue to read, conceding that I may have misinterpreted your take on this, and because I admire the way you write and find the things you write about so worthwhile and thought provoking. Best wishes!
Thank you so much, Mildred! It always means so much to me to have supportive and engaged readers like you. Plus, the questions help me think about the pieces I am working on.
Part of what has concerned me, which I approach through referencing Simone de Beauvoir’s earlier discussions in ‘The Second Sex’ (1949), is a kind of cultural association of female nonconformity, or the female refusal to be feminine, with necessarily being lesbian or bisexual. With Beauvoir, I hold that it seems fair enough to conclude that many “tomboys”—though I find the term insufficient, like the more derogatory use of “sissies”—are heterosexual. Young lesbians, basically like the one in the old case history I cite, would be part of the demographic of younger female patients at the clinics. (To add, I am a bit skeptical with many clinical figures, because there is so much use of “gender identity” in place of sex, as we know, that it causes misreadings in the otherwise limited data that we have.)
A point that I will be making in a followup piece, if I can get it done soon—after the next littler one—will have to do with the relatively lesser-known early work on anorexia nervosa afflicting primarily female teenagers, mostly heterosexual ones. Within this population, there would likely be lesbian and bisexual female youth represented proportionately—difficult to know with numerical certainty, though. What I have noticed, however, is the sameness of metaphor in these cases: girls wishing to live as boys do. For instance, in her 1978 book ‘The Golden Cage: The Enigma of Anorexia Nervosa,’ Hilde Bruch notes a desire among her young female patients to cast aside their female bodies for boyhood. Here is Bruch writing about her patients from the 1970s:
- - - - -
“In other girls, reaching puberty may be the end of a secret dream of growing up to be a boy. Only a few admit frankly that they would have preferred to be a boy. Some will talk about it when they start to express their disgust with the female body. Joyce had played with a boy in the neighborhood before she went to school. Though vague about the details, she had a feeling that her dissatisfaction with the female body went back to that time, that he was more boisterous, could do things better, was much more independent. Now she feels that her slenderness makes her look more like a man, and she wants to be equal to men, in particular to prove that she has the same stamina. Though she knows that she is not as strong as a man, she pushes herself to do as much as any man can do, but she does not like the company of strong and efficient women because it is too painful to admit her inferiority.“ (p. 69)
- - - - -
A patient under the name Bianca, among the composite studies in Bruch’s work, expresses having “always felt that being born a girl had put her at a disadvantage with her parents, particularly her father” (p. 52). In this girl’s case, as for others expressing similar distress, one may wonder: If only there were a way to get rid of girlhood—and, to some extent, tragically, a horrific method has been put into practice. Though she did not include numerical breakdowns on heterosexuality, homosexuality, and bisexuality, most girls whom Bruch treated as teens were heterosexual—likely with some minority being lesbian. While there were more “conventionally” feminine ones, there were ones resisting the restrictions of femininity in their attempts to escape the narrowness of the artifice that binds their human lives. In particular, I do think significant numbers of younger children of either sex may grow up to be homosexual, as many have documented (as does the older research), but the larger teenage patient demographic today at the clinics, those in their adolescence, certainly into adulthood, would reasonably have a high number of heterosexual females and, certainly, heterosexual males represented.
Hi, Donovan. Thank you for your articles and hard work! I didn't read far into this article though, where you said "Beyond the statistical impossibility of having a homosexual majority among nonconforming females, if not the obvious impracticality..." I wondered, Did you have evidence of that as a statistic? I think these days, in the case of ROGD and other GNC girls who want to live as boys, especially to the point of wanting to transition (in contrast to girls who become anorexic, which is a different kettle of fish imo), that despite the small number of lesbians in the overall population, it makes sense to me that a large proportion of GNC girls would naturally be young lesbians who have come to interpret their attraction to other girls/women as meaning they must be "boys/men," considering the current social climate in relation to the influence of trans ideology? Just a thought. Anyway, I'll continue to read, conceding that I may have misinterpreted your take on this, and because I admire the way you write and find the things you write about so worthwhile and thought provoking. Best wishes!
Thank you so much, Mildred! It always means so much to me to have supportive and engaged readers like you. Plus, the questions help me think about the pieces I am working on.
Part of what has concerned me, which I approach through referencing Simone de Beauvoir’s earlier discussions in ‘The Second Sex’ (1949), is a kind of cultural association of female nonconformity, or the female refusal to be feminine, with necessarily being lesbian or bisexual. With Beauvoir, I hold that it seems fair enough to conclude that many “tomboys”—though I find the term insufficient, like the more derogatory use of “sissies”—are heterosexual. Young lesbians, basically like the one in the old case history I cite, would be part of the demographic of younger female patients at the clinics. (To add, I am a bit skeptical with many clinical figures, because there is so much use of “gender identity” in place of sex, as we know, that it causes misreadings in the otherwise limited data that we have.)
A point that I will be making in a followup piece, if I can get it done soon—after the next littler one—will have to do with the relatively lesser-known early work on anorexia nervosa afflicting primarily female teenagers, mostly heterosexual ones. Within this population, there would likely be lesbian and bisexual female youth represented proportionately—difficult to know with numerical certainty, though. What I have noticed, however, is the sameness of metaphor in these cases: girls wishing to live as boys do. For instance, in her 1978 book ‘The Golden Cage: The Enigma of Anorexia Nervosa,’ Hilde Bruch notes a desire among her young female patients to cast aside their female bodies for boyhood. Here is Bruch writing about her patients from the 1970s:
- - - - -
“In other girls, reaching puberty may be the end of a secret dream of growing up to be a boy. Only a few admit frankly that they would have preferred to be a boy. Some will talk about it when they start to express their disgust with the female body. Joyce had played with a boy in the neighborhood before she went to school. Though vague about the details, she had a feeling that her dissatisfaction with the female body went back to that time, that he was more boisterous, could do things better, was much more independent. Now she feels that her slenderness makes her look more like a man, and she wants to be equal to men, in particular to prove that she has the same stamina. Though she knows that she is not as strong as a man, she pushes herself to do as much as any man can do, but she does not like the company of strong and efficient women because it is too painful to admit her inferiority.“ (p. 69)
- - - - -
A patient under the name Bianca, among the composite studies in Bruch’s work, expresses having “always felt that being born a girl had put her at a disadvantage with her parents, particularly her father” (p. 52). In this girl’s case, as for others expressing similar distress, one may wonder: If only there were a way to get rid of girlhood—and, to some extent, tragically, a horrific method has been put into practice. Though she did not include numerical breakdowns on heterosexuality, homosexuality, and bisexuality, most girls whom Bruch treated as teens were heterosexual—likely with some minority being lesbian. While there were more “conventionally” feminine ones, there were ones resisting the restrictions of femininity in their attempts to escape the narrowness of the artifice that binds their human lives. In particular, I do think significant numbers of younger children of either sex may grow up to be homosexual, as many have documented (as does the older research), but the larger teenage patient demographic today at the clinics, those in their adolescence, certainly into adulthood, would reasonably have a high number of heterosexual females and, certainly, heterosexual males represented.