So, that’s statistically significant, yet remains somehow invisible, at least to me.
A friend of my daughter’s, who is now 16 years old, apparently has recently wanted to be referred to as a boy. This is the only real-life encounter I’ve ever had with transgendered people, and even this is at a great arm’s length.
I’m 51. Growing up, this was completely unheard of, and if we did hear of it I’m sure we would have found a way to be mocking and derisive. 
Would anyone be interested in a “ask the female wife of a straight male cross dresser” thread? I’m not as intelligent or scientific as Una is, but it might be interesting. Or not.
Una did I ask this already? What is your opinion of drag shows? Personally I have a good time but I can tell who has been taking hormones and somehow it seems like it should he a different show. Like it’s cheating. Lol.
Sure post it up, I do find you to be incredibly accommodating and unselfish with regards to your husbands needs. Can’t be much fun being the odd girl out. Thanks for chiming in with your experiences!
I’m in the UK, and that’s just the way things work here. A summary of NHS guidelines is in this PDF. The document doesn’t actually mention a period of six months living in the correct gender, but that seems to be their rule of thumb.
Nevertheless, I have an FTM friend who has lived as male for a couple of years, paid for a mastectomy privately and has been buying testosterone from dubious sources over the internet (yes, he’s fully aware of all the dangers, and no, I’m not happy about it.) He had his first appointment at the gender identity clinic a couple of months ago, and they’re not prepared to prescribe hormone therapy yet. The red tape is mind-boggling.
The waiting list is purely because of poor funding and lack of resources. It’s very frustrating – my GP sent the referral in November, and I still haven’t received a letter or anything.
I don’t know if a non-NHS route is available in this country, but even if there is, I certainly couldn’t afford it. It’s enough of a struggle to pay for my facial hair removal privately.
I just read recently on the Dutch news that demand for SRS is growing so fast that doctors simply cannot keep up and waiting lists are enormous. Very sad, but at the same time surely a result of the levels of acceptance rising in recent times, so perhaps we can also find a silver lining in this sorry state of affairs? Hopefully capacity & expertise will catch up soon.
Because I am an “out and proud” transwoman, I end up being a Mother Confessor to the most unusual and unexpected people. Many times over a lunch or sitting in a car someone will suddenly say “sometimes I look in the mirror and I don’t know what I am, male or female” or “when I was a little girl, I thought I was a boy for years, but pretended to be a girl so my sisters wouldn’t tease me. When I hit puberty it mostly went away, but sometimes…” I can easily believe mild gender dysphoria occurs fairly often, with the effects either being very mild, or short-lived. This is where the 1 in 200 to 1 in 1,000 statistic comes from.
I’ve also had people tell me “I always knew I was the wrong gender. Every day I wake up and I know I’m an old lady and not an old man, but I’ve buried it down deep. I have a wife and 4 kids and career and I’m, a church leader, and I can’t lose my life. I’ll never tell anyone and I’ll deny this conversation ever happened.” Or things like “I know I feel like a man, even though I’ve had 2 kids fercryingoutloud, but I know this feeling is something Satan is doing to tempt me, and I’ve fought him my whole life. God made me a woman not a man, and I don’t care how many times Satan tempts me I’ll never let him win and make me a man.”
I could post hundreds of confessionals, withholding identifiers of course. Just since this thread started I’ve been contacted by more than 20 Dopers who have told me they are secretly gender dysphoric, and a couple who were diagnosed transsexual but cannot do anything to help themselves. So I can believe the 1 in 200 number for having some gender identity problem or dysphoria.
Someone else asked - my personal opinion is they can be fun and interesting, but they can also be offensive. It depends on the portrayal and the humor. If the butt of the joke is based on sex and their genitals, that turns me off. The drag performers I like are the ones who are into the female persona completely - they don’t ever say or hint or joke about them being make. There’s one I know of locally who does a great Diana Ross, and she is all Diana Ross while performing. That’s good. Then there’s another I know of locally who keeps making crude sexual jokes about having a penis under her tube-top, and that’s not cool.
I’d be curious why they choose a rule of thumb which is in opposition to WPATH7, when I believe NHS agreed to follow WPATH7 guidelines.
And this is an example which should be used when people proclaim in debates that when the US goes to a national health care system there will be no waiting periods, no delays, no problem. Even someone destitute can be seen by our clinic in 24 hours if they need initial counseling. The red tape we have for hormones is one of our licensed therapists types up a letter and says “take this to one of these doctors who specialize in this,” and after checking liver function via bloodwork and going through the cautions and caveats, you can get your hormones the same day after the therapist decides you are ready. A month prescription at Wal-Mart is $10 without any insurance.
I know SRS is covered under the NHS, but the red tape and waiting lists are nightmares, so I am told by trans sisters living there, and the surgeon quality is…well, let’s put it this way, there’s a reason people around the world flood to Quebec, San Mateo, and Thailand, rather than England for their surgery.
Lest you think I’m being critical of you I am not, as a trans sister from afar you would not believe how much sympathy I have for you in your situation. 
It is slow, and Thailand is picking up the slack of the West. There are a growing cadre of “Tier-2” surgeons there who have worked under Suporn and others, who with experience will be “Tier-1” like Suporn. Thailand surgery is not what you would expect, the best surgeons equal US quality, and the pre and post-care is unparalleled. It becomes almost like a “destination surgery”, where most of your recovery is in a private modern apartment overlooking the beach, and the nurses come to you to check on you and change dressings every day, while you can recover out in the sun having drinks with little umbrellas. They organize cultural tours etc. for free, so the recovering ladies and men can go see an elephant sanctuary, or visit a monastery. Two friends of mine who were there this last fall described it as a spa, with daily massages, great food, yoga classes, etc.
Here in the US, you get your surgery, and then very often stay in a Marriott for a week near the hospital (out of pocket), and then fly your ass home. Some places have halfway houses for you to rest in, but the quality of those is highly variable and most women I know who have been to them are not happy with the service and care.
As I understand it, in the US you can go directly to any specialists you like. In the UK, absolutely everything (except emergency room) has to go through your GP, and all the various departments communicate via secretaries and snail mail.
There’s also some arcane system to do with funding. Services are funded on a regional level, and because I will have to travel from Liverpool to London, someone has to apply to the Powers That Be to get my treatment funded.
Well, as the NHS’s motto says, “We’re crap but at least we’re free.” Me being a student, I don’t have much of an alternative 
I actually think that it makes sense that cisgendered people might not have as strong a gender identity. For us, it’s something we can take for granted. We never even have to think about it. For a trans person, the hormones in their body are constantly at war with the gender of their brain. The struggle, I think, makes them acutely aware of their gender identity in a way that most cis gendered people will never experience.
Because, when I was a kid, I thought I was like you. Other than my attraction for women, I thought my gender didn’t really matter. But one time I took stock of why I was, and I realized how many stereotypically male traits I had. Even though I never really think about the fact that I am male, I can’t help but realize that I would be a completely different person if I were female.
Of course, this is just stuff I worked out for myself, and I am in a pretty sheltered part of the country, to say the least. I have no actual experience other than what I’ve read about. So maybe Una will set me straight, like she did about thinking gender dysphoria was all about gender roles.
Here’s an interesting articleabout a couple of trans teens who found romance with each other (I remember reading about them a few months back and thinking they made a cute couple–they’ve now broken up, but are still good friends with each other).
Una,
At one point you talked about “baggers” and “chasers” Along those same lines, have you ever run into… I don’t know what the term would be… Wannabes? People who just think it would be cool to be another gender or attempt to attach themselves to the transgender community for some reason or other? If so, are they very rare, reasonably common, or somewhere in-between?
I was just thinking about the “sex change operation” in pop culture. Anyone remember Soap?
It had the first self proclaimed gay character on TV. Which was a break through. However his bit friend was a football player and to make things “easier” for themselves one of them was going to have a sex change operation.
Of course this was a comedy but I remember even watching it as a child I knew that was just not realistic.
It’s made the news several times lately, transwoman/transman couples. They are rare, very rare, and I think that’s one reason they’re noteworthy. The story of this couple from Oklahoma for some reason exploded across China, and helped lead to some actual positive news articles in the state-run media about transgender persons. As of now, however, the true prevalence and extent of transgender persons in China is not well known.
I’ll wait to start my own thread so it doesn’t take attention from this one.
Yes, they are becoming increasingly common. In some cases they are cisgender people trying to hang out with us, for reasons I’m not really certain of. Sometimes chasers will come to meetings and claim they feel transgender, read things almost off a script which goes “Hi, I’m Bob, I mean Barbara, I’m uh, yeah, trans and shit. Yeah, on on hormones. Which ones? Um, all of them? Yeah, so anyhow…any of you girls wanna date?” They stand out like a sore thumb, and sometimes one of the more vindictive ones of us will fuck around with them.
If they start making passes at the young ones, I or someone else gets involved. Typically they don’t take it well at all.
There’s another well-known condition among some crossdressers called “the pink fog,” where a crossdresser sort of gets caught up in the clothing and makeup and nails and all the other shit which is only a small part of being a woman in society, and thinks that they’ll “try out” hormones so “maybe I’ll grow boobs and my dresses will fit better.” They will call themselves “transgender” or even “transsexual” in groups, but when you start to make small talk, you find out they’re a guy who likes to dress. I am sorry to say a friend of mine, a crossdresser, is going through the “pink fog” and is convincing herself that she is a transsexual. She and I are having a bit of a clash, as I am telling her “Cindy, you need to get a grip. You say you’re a guy, that means you’re not ready for hormones or anything else. I love you but no, you need to stop.”
I’ve also had crossdressers tell their wives, when their staff of clothes and accessories are found (and crossdressers out there? The wives ALWAYS find your stash. Plan for it.) that "oh, it’s because I’m transgender and going to transition. One started coming to trans meetings mainly for that reason, so their wife would possibly be more accepting.(1)(2)
(1) No, she wasn’t, actually. IME wives would MUCH more likely have a crossdressing husband than risk the thought that one day their spouse would have different genitals. This is a deal-breaker for maybe 75% of marriages.
(2) It reminds me of the old joke - a firefighter is in the locker room changing, when he notices his buddy is wearing frilly pink satin panties. “Hey Mac,” he asks his buddy, “how long have you been wearing those?” and his panty-clad friend answers “ever since my wife found them under the car seat.”
Thanks. That makes sense, in a painful way.
I’m in Ireland, not England, but we also have a national health care system, and just to clarify: it’s not that that’s your only option. Whatever it is that you need, you can either go through the free public system - which is underfunded and horribly organised, and has looooong waiting lists - or you can pay to go private, where you’ll get looked after by the same doctors but without the wait or the red tape.
What? Um no, I told my husband if he transitions we are going to have a very different relationship. I’m not attracted to women so we wouldn’t have a sexual relationship.
Why would they think their wife would accept it more?
I have seen the pink fog in action, thanks for putting that into words. I used to be on a support board for partners and it seemed a lot of the partners were just taking hormones or talking about it just because they could.
But I never want to judge any one. It’s not my place. I think it’s something that needs to be said by trans people because there are a lot of very confused people out there.
IME Some cis folks have a strong gender identity. Some don’t. I have no clue why this is.
RE Two And A Half Men
I saw the episode in which the transwoman was introduced. IMO They got some details wrong. But, overall it was a positive portrayal. Rather than a freak, or a surgically altered man, she was portrayed as a woman with some baggage.
Una Persson
Thanks for this thread!