No mention of the Momus $22 million lawsuit
Settled for 30,000, mind.
Wendy Carlos: The brilliant but lonely life of an electronic music pioneer
151–160 of 196 posts
Re: Wendy Carlos: The brilliant but lonely life of an electronic music pioneer
#152I grew up in a very religiously conservative household and was raised to not think "well" of trans people. Simultaneously one of my favorite soundtracks of all time was the music to the original 1982 Tron. I had never heard anything quite like it compositionally, or sonically. Sweeping orchestras blended in with synthetic beeps, and bold vistas. It fit the aesthetic of the movie perfectly and was such a daring film p…
I've been a fan of Wendy Carlos for a few years now and had no idea she was trans until reading your comment just now.
Re: Wendy Carlos: The brilliant but lonely life of an electronic music pioneer
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't have a right to determine how you use and/or modify your body and you don't have that right over me. That's called bodily autonomy, and is about as clear cut a human right as you'll be able to articulate. The social context has nothing to do with it, that's just a way to say that if enough people say that you can't do to yourself what you want to that that makes them right, which has historically led to all k…
That is your opinion, but consider another topic: elective disablement. Some people are very insistent on having their spinal cord surgically severed or getting their arms and legs chopped off or being permanently blinded, or similar. If you naively consider the topic only from a bodily autonomy perspective, then the answer is deceptively simple: get the blades out and start slicing. But this ignores the wider medica…
My existence hasn't been a burden on anyone. I worked hard to make sure that I put as little stress on my parents and grandparents that I could through everything and took out loans to pay for everything and paid the loans off. I've had surgeries but I'm not disabled. I work and pay taxes and have friends and a husband and participate in a large social circle. Forcing me to live as a gay man with gender dysphoria would have limited the possibilities in my life with no discernible benefit to society.
The only joy I found in life before I transitioned fully was in doing drugs and hooking up with guys. I could have maybe started a career and settled down with a man while living as a gay man but I doubt it. My misery was all consuming. My goodness, when I was 5 or 6 I remember bargaining with God to make me a girl and vowing to hold my breath until he would. I passed out many nights doing that in bed when I was alone with my thoughts and my sadness about not being a girl hit the hardest.
As a teenager I could barely function and nearly died from an eating disorder. I hated every masculine thing about my body and with testosterone pumping through me the only thing I could do to feel less masculine was starve myself, to try to be smaller.... In short I wasn't functional and I was physically withering away to the point where pneumonia nearly killed me because my body was so weak.
After I transitioned I stopped living in survival mode and started building an actual life.... I also gained a few pounds and got fit instead of being a shambling skeleton. I doubt my story is unique among gender dysphorics.
So whatever. You can debate the ethics of whether or not society was better off with me being a starving depressed twink versus a trans woman I guess but if you think it's bad for society that I was able to look how I want and start a family and feel happy I think you've got weird ideas about how the world works.
Re: Wendy Carlos: The brilliant but lonely life of an electronic music pioneer
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
Quoted post unavailable.
Your understanding does not match the scientific evidence. One of the reasons being trans is not a mental illness is that cis people experience gender dysphoria all the time as well, like cis men when they're called girls, cis women with facial hair, or the revulsion many cis people experience when they even so much as think about the idea of taking hormones that don't align with their gender. To the extent that this…
[deleted]
Re: Wendy Carlos: The brilliant but lonely life of an electronic music pioneer
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
Quoted post unavailable.
Your understanding does not match the scientific evidence. One of the reasons being trans is not a mental illness is that cis people experience gender dysphoria all the time as well, like cis men when they're called girls, cis women with facial hair, or the revulsion many cis people experience when they even so much as think about the idea of taking hormones that don't align with their gender. To the extent that this…
No post body was provided.
Re: Wendy Carlos: The brilliant but lonely life of an electronic music pioneer
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's pretty simple actually: if it's not your body then it is none of your business.
That's a narrowly individualistic view of the role of medicine in society. Medicine has a social context as well. This relatively recent idea that someone can become more female or more male through drugs and surgery is one that has repercussions on how we as a society view the two sexes, what constitutes a woman or a man, and what is an acceptable expression of one's masculinity or femininity. Maybe it's the right i…
> This relatively recent idea that someone can become more female or more male through drugs and surgery
The Hijra community (Indian trans/non-binary) has been around for thousands of years, and surgical castration has been one traditional way for them to achieve their identity during that period. It's not relatively recent.
https://rpl.hds.harvard.edu/religion-context/case-studies/ge...
In any event, I think in a free society we must start with the premise that all things are permitted and only with valid reason restrict that freedom. There are many valid reasons, but merely being critical of someone else's means of existence is not what I would regard as sufficient reason to restrict their personal freedom. At a minimum, potentially cognizable harm should be shown. And to be clear, I don't think there's any potentially cognizable harm to be found in someone conforming to their own gender identity.
Re: Wendy Carlos: The brilliant but lonely life of an electronic music pioneer
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't have a right to determine how you use and/or modify your body and you don't have that right over me. That's called bodily autonomy, and is about as clear cut a human right as you'll be able to articulate. The social context has nothing to do with it, that's just a way to say that if enough people say that you can't do to yourself what you want to that that makes them right, which has historically led to all k…
That is your opinion, but consider another topic: elective disablement. Some people are very insistent on having their spinal cord surgically severed or getting their arms and legs chopped off or being permanently blinded, or similar. If you naively consider the topic only from a bodily autonomy perspective, then the answer is deceptively simple: get the blades out and start slicing. But this ignores the wider medica…
This is apples and oranges. Let's agree for the sake of argument that people do not have the right to turn themselves into burdens on society. Mutilatory spinal cord surgery falls under that category, but gender corrective surgery does not.
Re: Wendy Carlos: The brilliant but lonely life of an electronic music pioneer
#158`Wendy Carlos demonstrates her Moog Synthesizer in 1970`
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SBDH5uhs4Q
I'm going to have to dig into Wendy Carlos more and will thanks to this thread and comments. When I came across the above I must have gotten sidetracked with Laurie Spiegel.
Re: Wendy Carlos: The brilliant but lonely life of an electronic music pioneer
#159great read and history thanks for sharing OP
Re: Wendy Carlos: The brilliant but lonely life of an electronic music pioneer
#160[deleted]