And you've undoubtedly seen a lot of warnings about how taking exogenous hormones (like steroids, or estrogen) will wreak havoc on your body.
By all accounts, Caitlyn Jenner should be the ultimate cautionary tale. As Bruce, he was widely thought to have taken steroids prior to his Olympic decathlon victory in 1976. More recently, he has taken female hormones, and was in the news recently for having had the final surgery to transform himself into a woman.
So if anyone should be suffering from ill health, it should be Jenner. Yet here she was in January, at 67, looking as healthy as a horse:
I certainly wouldn't mess with her (in either sense of that phrase).
Given the massive amounts of hormones of both varieties she's infused her body with over the years, shouldn't she be dead by now? (Keep in mind, 67 is an age at which most people are starting to slide into decrepitude anyway.)
It's hard not to wonder if all those warnings aren't a bit exaggerated.
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It seems to be a combination of genetics and dosage. Plenty of rock n roll musicians are still alive way past the point most believed they would be. (I'm not even thinking specifically about Keith Richards.) Of course you also have athletes dying young which kinda blows the theory of healthy lifestyles being the key to a long life. Luck maybe?
-Arthur
Arthur --
I've actually heard that a lot of the old time rock musicians would try to cultivate the image of hard partiers when in fact they weren't doing nearly as much drugs as advertised. (I have no idea whether that's true or not, but it's certainly easy to imagine.)
I have to admit, even though it conflicts with the point of the sport, a lot of those athletes who die young do seem to have been steroid abusers. Kimbo Slice is one of the more recent casualties, he died last year at 42 of a heart attack, and he looked like a juicer to me. And whenever they show a list of the pro wrestlers who've died, most of them sure look as if they were juicing (I realize it's debatable as to whether they could be called "athletes").
No question, luck is involved in every major aspect of life.
Sheen has HIV, Limbaugh is deaf, and Jenner has severe gender dysphoria. They're not dead, but I wouldn't say they're in good health.
Mike --
True enough abut Sheen and Limbaugh, although those particular maladies aren't from their drug use. And yes, Jenner has a mental illness, but he seems to be physically healthy enough given all the hormones he's taken.
Are you sure about what caused Limbaugh's hearing problems? Also, Sheen's drug problem could have indirectly caused his HIV. I am generally impressed with the appearance of various performers I see at the Rock and Roll induction ceremonies. Pearl Jam looked good this year. People compare some of these folks to their glory days, so the comparison is tough.
Forget about what the SJWs or the religious right say, the greatest oppressor is neither the westerner nor satan. It's mother nature. Nature is cruel, you get a broken leg 10,000 years ago you were condemned to a slow painful death. Toothache? Your jaw would slowly rot away from infection and gangrene.
Go ahead and play God, just because you were born deaf, go ahead and get the implants. Just because you were born with the wrong gender setting in your brain, get your surgery. Have a huge underbite and don't like it? Go ahead and have it corrected. Have a missing arm? Get a bionic one when it comes out. I am not saying we should plant our brains into robot bodies willy nilly (unless your body has cancer and its the only way to survive, but boy it would suck to not be able to eat regular food anymore!)
Can you believe that after a scientist found a way to remove the extra chromosome from a cell culture simulating down syndrome, that tumblrinas complained? It could prevent down syndrome without abortion and possibly while not curing them, improve the lives of living patients, who knows, they could live to normal old age with slightly higher IQs.
When I express I hate having autism, some say "Why do you hate yourself/this part of you?". They assume because it exists, it must serve a purpose....that's not how evolution works. But transgendered people are entitled to wanting to transition (which I do not oppose, but it is a strange double standard from these tumblrinas).
-Ga
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/nov/05/ozzy-osbourne-genes-sequenced-genome
About rockstars. Ozzy Osbourne has exceptional genes.
-Ga
Mark --
I just looked it up; I was wrong, it turns out that Limbaugh's hearing loss MAY have been due to his opioid addiction, but the doctor didn't want to test for that for fear it would exacerbate his hearing loss. (My apologies to Mike, above.)
As far as Sheen, he is supposed to have engaged in homosexual sex, so that's apparently the cause. Would he have done that if he hadn't been hopped up? I'm guessing yes, if he was inclined that way.
Ga --
Mother Nature can be cruel, no doubt about it. And even if you're in perfect health, at the end you have to get old and then die anyway.
Couldn't agree more about the tumblrinas. Add to the hypocrisy of the Left that they celebrate transsexualism but not Rachel Dolezal-style transracialism. To me, if one is acceptable, the other should be, too. Men who have an operation to switch their sex will always have XY chromosomes no matter what, so are they really "changing" their sex? Not really, even if the outward manifestations change. Likewise, if someone like Michael Jackson -- who essentially seemed to want to be white -- changes his outward appearance, his basic genetics don't change. So what's the difference?
BTW, you know who else had great genetics? Marlon Brando. He had to have weighed over 300 pounds towards the end there, but he lived till 80.
About transgendered people. Yeah the still have their original chromosomes, they wont really be their sex after surgery. I think though they are not doing it for attention, their is evidence of abnormal brain waves not correct for birth genderand hormonal differences. I would refer to them by their desired gender if one was my friend. I dont care. its a free country, do whatever the hell you want!
I think jackson bleached his skin to hide vitiligo which his autopsy confirmed. If he were just open about it, maybe he would get sympathy. Go ahead, its your body your life!
And genetic editing or bionic implants in the next century, go ahead! People worry it will be abused to create mindless drones with no individuality by North Korea. We have already done that in mankind for ages!
-Ga
Ga --
I agree, transgendered people are not doing it for the attention at all they're doing it because they don't feel right in their own skin. I sympathize, I"m just pointing out that surgery doesn't actually make them the new sex, and in theory transracialism might as well be regarded the same way
I knew bot Jackson's vitiligo, and that may have had something to do with the bleaching, but it went far beyond that. Jackson straightened his hair, had his nose narrowed to an extreme degree, and put a little cleft in his chin, all of which served to make him look more Caucasian -- sorta.
What if he was actually transracial? Did they test his IQ and measure his hormone levels? Where they not in line with an african american? Did his brain display caucasoid abnormalities? Did a distant white ancestor's genes resurface and mess with his anatomy?
(Half joking, but if this were true, which is not physical impossible, I would go, "hmmmmmmmm interesting".
-Ga
Ga --
Michael Jackson was a black person in whiteface, nothing more.
Hi John-After much reflection about trans people over the years I now believe that it's mostly some form of mental illness that such a person would actually mutilate themselves over. And of course, after cutting off one's penis they have no regrets for what they did-what good would it do to complain now that it's too late to do anything about it. So they become depressed and commit suicide. Not a popular concept but cutting of one's dick is probably not such a great idea after all. Brian
Brian,
I both agree and disagree with what you are saying. I do believe it is a mental disorder, but it's not a mental disorder where a person deludes themselves into thinking they are the opposite gender. There is evidence of hormone and brain wave differences in line with the gender they wish to transition into. Basically if people can be born with arms missing, I can imagine people can be born with a brain that has developed abnormally in a direction not correct for their biological gender, God makes plenty of mistakes, or let's plenty of mistakes happen, he is God! (Or mother nature, whatever you call it).
As for cutting of your dick or breasts, it sounds off putting. I have no clue what I would choose to do if I were born with a brain that hasn't developed properly according to my birth gender. Maybe I would wait and see if they can invent a way to medicate it to make me feel like my birth gender. What I think is going ahead and getting the surgery is up to anyone over the age of 18, screw Gaia. But if they come out with a new drug that removes the needs for surgery, I would discourage surgery. But with identity politics now in a craze, people would refuse that saying God/Gaia made them that way. Let's throw out insulin and put diabetics back on starvation diets then! People attach themselves to a formed identity over some illness, ethnicity, religion, or disorder instead of being who they are, their true unique individuality.
-Ga
John:
the explanation is simple - these drug warnings are deliberately exaggerated to discourage people from taking them without medical supervision. Hormone replacement therapy is perfectly safe, and patients on it do have to have annual blood tests to make sure. Even the dangers of illegal drugs are exaggerated. When I was at school, the police came in to talk to us about drug abuse and made it out as though people could get addicted from their first heroin shot. I recently read the autobiography of an ex-heroin-addict who said that it actually takes a long time on heroin to become physically addicted to it. Likewise with smoking - teachers at school made it out as though a couple of cigarettes could get someone addicted, but I know from my own experience as an ex-smoker that that's grossly exaggerated. No doubt they'd be saying "don't drink beer - you can become an alcoholic from your first sip!" if they could get away with it.
RE the trans stuff - you're right that transsexuals aren't genetically changing sex, but it's still not comparable to 'transracial' because transsexuals do have genetic abnormalities in the first place (neurological & chromosomal), causing their condition. 'Transracial' is just a euphemism for blackface. 'Transracials' have no objective need to do what they do, not like gender dysphoria that can lead to suicide if left untreated. AIUI, 'transracials' really are attention-seekers.
Brian:
"cutting off one's penis" (which doesn't actually happen; it gets inverted into a neovagina) is a terrible idea for someone not suffering from gender dysphoria. For gender dysphorics, though, genital reassignment has been proven to work. It sounds an odd thing to do, but the evidence supports it. 99% of people who undergo the surgery do *not* regret it (James Barrett, 2007), making it one of the surgeries with the greatest satisfaction rates of all. In contrast, only very poor response has been shown to psychotherapy, which is why it is now typically only offered as a side-treatment. This is because, as Ga said, a biological basis for gender dysphoria exists - like for autism, Tourette's syndrome, schizophrenia, etc - and biological conditions don't tend to respond to psychotherapy, at least not long-term.
Ga:
lots of transsexuals would *love* it if there were a magic gender-dysphoria-curing pill they could take instead of going through the hassle of lifelong HRT, expensive surgeries, coming out to friends & family and risk being estranged, transphobic abuse & discrimination in public, degrading and constant questions about genital status, having to change one's name and all documents, etc, etc. You can believe me on this. People transition because of a lack of alternative way to relieve gender dysphoria, not just because of identity politics (which many transsexuals are utterly sick of too).
- Gethin
Gethin --
That's interesting about how the medical community exaggerates; I guess that makes sense. I was reading somewhere recently, forget where, that steroids in moderation are actually good for your health. I can see how that might be, especially in later age. And I know lots of people who've taken cocaine but never got addicted to it.
"'Transracial' is just euphemism for blackface.'" True enough. And Rachel Dolezal did seem seem like an attention-seeker.
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