Ask the Transsexual Woman

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
601

Myself and many of my friends watched it, and our reaction afterwards was “her story isn’t that much different from any of ours. Why did she get highlighted? Because she’s pretty and passes, and we don’t. … the Gender Proud organization she’s touting seems useful, but there are already a large number of miscellaneous organizations and foundations and groups doing similar things. Balkanization is hurting our community because too many resources are being spent in too many different directions.”

And I was thinking “My those grapes certainly must be sour, mustn’t they?” But I’m used to it.

602

Hey Una, I just wanted to say hi and let you know how much I’ve enjoyed reading this thread. I know I’m not around much and haven’t been for awhile, but I remember the conversations we used to have (like, ten plus years ago, yikes). I remember when you told me you were trans, and I’m pretty sure at the time I didn’t handle the knowledge particularly well. I’m so happy to hear that you’re doing well these days and that Fierra is also well. I’ve subsequently had a number of friends come out as trans, and I wanted to thank you for those talks and opening up my brain a bit.

603

I remember you very well, and it has been maybe 6 years since we last interacted. I’m so glad to see you stop by, and thank you!

I’ve come a long way, much further than I thought I ever would. I could conceptualize before what it would be like to be a fully transitioned woman living as a woman every single minute of the day, but my conceptualization was far from reality. I also could not have imagined how the relief of the gender dysphoria, let alone the etradiol effects on my brain, would change me, as in who I am mentally, socially, spiritually, and in every other way. How could I have known that the terrified and self-destructive person I was would turn into someone who loves just being themselves and existing?

I never thought at 45 I’d be giving lectures in front of hundreds of people about the transgender experience, still kicking butt at work and being so accepted that the other women ask me for fashion advice, dancing until dawn, having sexual adventures only read in books, being brave enough to model clothes, and have so many local friends that I have to turn down offers of fun things to do daily. And still have my wonderful, awesome Fierra.

604

Someone said to me once “you just don’t understand how scared women are of having transgender men[sic] come into our dressing rooms. Just how scary that is. I mean they have male ‘stuff’, or used to!”

This last weekend I was shopping with Fierra and a cisgender woman at the mall, and we were having a blast - going through the discount racks and cracking jokes like “these slacks look like the Bee Gees, put into a wood chipper!” And generally just shopping and hanging out. After 3 hours shopping, I got a text message from a new transgender woman I’ve been meeting with and helping get started.

“Help. Can you give me a reason to go on?”

Me: “What’s going on? Where are you?”

Her: “I’m in the dressing room at the Limited. Too scared to come out. Can’t do it.”

It turns out she was at the same mall we were at, just a few minutes walk away.

Me: “Do you need me to come there? I’ll come get you.”

Her: “No, wife got me. Crying so much.”

Me: “Come down to [store I was at]. Just down the way. I’ve got Fierra and a friend. We’ll take care of you.”

About 5 minutes later a profoundly unhappy cisgender woman (her wife) showed up, leading a terrified transwoman who was almost collapsing inside herself from terror. I gave both of them hugs and tried to talk to the transwoman, who was almost catatonic with terror. After several minutes of trying to act in high spirits, along with Fierra and our friend welcoming them and bantering along about clothes, basically she blurted out:

Her: “I just can’t invade women’s spaces like this. I’m in their changing room. I don’t want any of them to be afraid of me or hate me or hurt me. What if one of them started screaming or attacked me? What if they called the cops and I went to jail? I just wanted to try on some jeans and a new top! All the women knew I was trans and they wanted me out of there! They knew I was trans!” [Actually, that was untrue; her wife who was with her said not one person did anything other than smile politely, until she broke down]

She was so afraid of not just inconveniencing the other women in there, but she was actually afraid of being attacked! Sadder still, she passes pretty doggone well, even her voice! I’d love to have her voice, in fact.

Later we went to a Starbucks, the five of us, and again she was withdrawn and almost collapsed into herself, while her wife was holding her hand and rubbing her back (her wife truly supports her and loves her.) And as I was talking about transition in public spaces and shopping and giving some guidance, the new transwoman was terrified. She whispered to me “I think people can hear you.”

And I looked around the Starbucks, at a table with 4 high school kids to the right, and a few tables with singles or couples talking or reading, and I said loudly “someone might figure out I’m a transsexual woman and not cisgender like the rest of you?[a little lie] Hey, that’s That’s cool!” A couple of the kids looked over, no expression on their face, and they went back to talking. One woman looked over, I made eye contact and smiled, and she smiled politely back, and went back to reading.

“See, no one cares.” I said. “Know your place and time - it’s Starbucks, in the middle of the day, at an upscale mall, and you’re surrounded by friends. Relax. It’s cool. You’re safe. Let’s have fun!”

But it didn’t work. It was a gamble, I admit. So we invited everyone back to our house for wine and conversation, and the new girl opened up and had fun. A couple of friends in the community dropped by too, and we had an impromptu little party.

Three days afterwards, the same new girl ordered a pizza from a local carry-out, drove to the parking lot, and was too afraid to get out of her car to pick it up. So she sat in her car and sobbed, then paid for the pizza by credit card over the phone, and let it sit and get cold at the store until her wife could eventually come by after work and get it.

She has a very long way to go, mentally, before she is ready.

What does this anecdote intended to illustrate? That some of us are far, far more afraid of you than you are of us.

605

That is really eye opening Una. I think you’ve said it indirectly or hinted at it a time or two before, but this story is really profound and a viewpoint I never considered before

606

The anecdote also illustrates that I can make atrocious typographical and grammar errors when I try making a post that long from my mobile phone…

607

A cartoon about transsexuality that has a lot of uncomfortable truth.

608

It also shows that you’re a good friend and you have the guts to back it up, if you don’t mind my saying so. I don’t know if you would even remember me from years past on the boards, but I am happy that you can share yourself - with your friends and also here.

609

Is it true that women’s restrooms often have a couch or chairs? I’ve heard rumors of that at several jobs I’ve had in the past but can never verify. I can’t tell if the women who tell me these things are joking or not

610

Chairs or a sofa are very common, both at work and in malls. Even my workplace has a little chair, a bookcase (with magazines and other items), and a scale.

I’ve also had the misfortune of entering a men’s room at work (safety inspection). The only time I’ve ever encountered a ladies’ room so covered in pee and filth was at an aging state-run rest stop.

611

Many do, in the upscale places I sometimes visit there is actually a little side lounge with makeup mirrors and seats. Sometimes there’s a table and magazines, so I can honestly go into this little lounge area away from the loud crowds and sit and relax and catch up on mail or Facebook if I want to.

Women’s bathrooms, equalizing for the locale, just plain smell so much better than the men’s. One might think that maybe it’s a matter of volume (number of customers, not…ugh, the other) but in malls and restaurants I hardly think that can be true. It has led me to speculate in the years I’ve been using the women’s rooms that perhaps the digestion of men is really significantly different, such that women produce less gas, or the same amount but with different chemical compounds.

[QUOTE=Jeep’s Phoenix]
I’ve also had the misfortune of entering a men’s room at work (safety inspection). The only time I’ve ever encountered a ladies’ room so covered in pee and filth was at an aging state-run rest stop.
[/QUOTE]

True. Although some women will say they once saw a women’s room that was terrible, or they think women’s rooms are terrible in general…ladies, believe me. Scores of locations using both restrooms has shown me that either the cleaners give special attention to our room, or else we ladies take care of our places.

612

I always understood the couch-in-the-restroom “lobby” area as being a quiet semi-private place for breastfeeding/pumping mothers. No?

613

Una, thank you so much for this thread. I have been reading it all week… plus the linked articles, etc. I am currently on page ten and just felt the need to finally comment in some way. * Reading this thread is probably the most important thing I can do this year. *Seriously.

I will have so much more to ask. comment upon, etc when I finish this thread, but in the meantime, thank you for your frankness, your willingness to open up your personal life to scrutiny, your cogent summary of facts, and perhaps most overlooked, the time you have put into responding to all our questions and comments. And your support and advocacy for others.

In another thread, I commented that my partner’s son is a transman and has just started hormone therapy. I want to respect his privacy and not claim ownership of his story, partly because I do want to show him this thread eventually, and maybe he will want to become a Doper. When he contacted us in August to tell us, (after almost two years of no contact due to… a rather unfortunate parting of ways for which I had never forgiven myself) my first reaction was “Umm, ok… cool” and a bit of wondering if this was an extreme reaction for just being a tomboy. I grew up in the 1970s and 198os and had without realizing absorbed an opinion that transgendered people were mainly at odds with societal gender norms, and if people would just stop pushing dolls at girls and toy guns at boys we would all be better for this change. (ok, this is oversimplified, but it gives you a rough idea of my starting point.) I accepted that sometimes a person feels a need to be reinvent him or herself, and supported their right to do so, but it was more of a “logical” stand, consistent with support for various minorities, but admittedly it comes from a place of enormous privilege, being an educated cisgendered able bodied woman who lives in a country with universal health care, a social safety net, and wonderful parents.

That day in August has changed everything. Previously I would have described myself as accepting but not overly informed. The more I read, and do inform myself about transgender issues the greater is my pride … a fierce mama-bear pride in this amazing person, who looks like his father, but has his own quirky and unique personality. The fact that he is doing this in his small, isolated northern Ontario town (far less than 7000 in population) just absolutely floors me. My “stepson” has an inner strength far greater than I can imagine. This thread is the missing link in all my reading… it is putting everything in a human, emotional context. (What can I say, Ia a cisgendered woman, empathetic, emotional, and a sucker for a great story)

Thank you Una, more than you can ever know.

614

Wow, thank you for such high praise. :slight_smile:

There were a couple of reasons I decided to be so open. The first was it was part of living an authentic life, online and off. But the most important reason is, I had so many advantages most of my people do not. Most importantly, I had a loving spouse in Fierra who supported me and encouraged me and protected me from day 1. I had money, resources, a family which mostly accepted me, and some friends who rallied around me. Now that I know hundreds and hundreds of transwomen locally, I see that I’m not just in the 1%, my situation is pretty unique. Since this thread was last updated I’ve been working even harder, getting involved in local politics with a vengeance, and was successful in getting a local city to enact a comprehensive anti-discrimination ordinance for transgender persons.

I’ve been continuing to support my community via lectures and meetings with schools, universities, local groups, churches, etc. I joined the board of directors of a local charity which is working to get prostitutes help - and one of the reasons I joined was the shocking information from our caseworkers that 1 in 3 of the nearly 500 prostitutes working the city streets are transwomen. We make up 1 in 5,000 or so of the general population, yet we make up a third of the prostitutes. When the caseworkers told me this I felt this cold fury build in me, fury towards the system, the families, the friends, all of whom had failed these women, my sisters, and I said out loud “By God, I will do something about that.” Yes the other women on the streets need help just as much, but I had that personal connection with the transwomen which lit a fire under me.

I’ve been increasingly doing fundraising, and have been helping with charity balls, I personally paid for the first semester of college for a local transgirl, and have been working increasingly with the new ones in the community to mainstream them. I’ve done three more radio programmes, and have been on TV twice (although once was a very small bit part).

Apropos of nothing in particular, recently a Doper who is trans (but not out) came to town, and I she and I went out to dinner and a nightclub with Fierra and my best friend (a translady attorney), and I even got her to dance a little with me. Then the next day she came over and lounged around with us at home and with another dear translady friend of ours. We all had a great time. :slight_smile:

That is really great to read, Mona Lisa. I’m highly encouraged by what you have written, and I hope if you have questions you will feel free to ask me. :slight_smile:

615

Question: Are there any studies indicating whether trans people have a higher or lower incidence of mental illnesses than cis people?

(Apologies if this has been asked and answered in this thread.)

616

Yes there are, and although I’m at work and shouldn’t really speak without references or citations handy, they generally show there are high levels of coincident mental illness. Somewhat more than 60% of transgender people suffer from depression, although debate is fierce about how much of that is due to discrimination, self-repression, and hormonal effects. While the numbers decrease significantly after transition, they are still higher than the general population. Surgery and hormones won’t fix a workplace which discriminates, friends who leave you, family which ostracizes you, and lack of romantic relationships. As a friend puts it during her lectures, “surgery won’t fix a fucked-up life.”

Some other mental illnesses do appear with higher frequency than normal, but not nearly as disproportionately as depression. Again, there is debate over to what extent the causes are social and hormonal, and most studies I’ve seen show dramatic reductions in rates after transition, in some cases returning to the level of the cisgender population.

Normally it is difficult for clinicians (so they tell me; I work with and assist many) to effectively diagnose until after transition, because the gender dysphoria/gender identity issue and depression are so overwhelming that they mask other symptoms. I’ve known transgender women who were diagnosed as being schizophrenic, depressed, manic-depressed, sociopathic, etc. who after transition suddenly became normal, happy, wonderful people who led awesome lives. I have to say in my direct experience, I’ve only met a few transgender women post-transition who I wonder about. For most of us, transition fixes so many problems.

617

Can you elaborate a bit more on what you mean by “hormonal effects”? (Which hormones, and whether this is in reference to hormones produced by their bodies or that they’re taking.)

Also, another question: in addition to gender differences in feelings there are also documented differences in mental abilities (on average) between the genders, in that men tend to be better at certain types of mental tasks and women at others. How to trans people tend to stack up in WRT these?

618

I mean mostly with respect to not receiving the correct hormones which align with their mental gender. However, for individuals like myself who have an intersex hormone issue, I mean physical/body effects.

I’ve been trying to research that for some time, but the population numbers and studies are too limited to draw conclusions. It appears to me (meaning I am not making a scientific assertion) from the handful of studies which I have read that IQ appears to be a flatter bell curve. In other words, there appears to be fatter tails in the normal distribution on both ends. That being said, the validity of IQ tests on those who are clinically depressed is the subject of much debate, let alone afflicted by gender dysphoria. I do recall one small study which performed IQ tests on 11 transsexual women both before hormone therapy and afterwards, and found at least one standard deviation of increase in tested ability at 6 months after hormone therapy. The same study examined (I believe it was) 12 transmen and found much lesser effects, an increase which did not have a low enough p-value.

619

I’m interested in your thoughts about terminology, in particular the word “transsexual” itself. It seems to have fallen out of favor; have you received any significant amount feedback that it is an inappropriate word / suggestions or pressure to switch terms and use “transgender” instead?

Transgender seems to be much more of an umbrella term, but I think if I were a person who had been born one sex and felt that it was the wrong one for my gender and wanted to transition, I would find it useful to have a term that applied to me and did not also apply to each and every permutation of atypical gender identity. As a person with a peculiar gender ID myself, I definitely find it useful to refer to transsexuality as a starting point in explaining my own situation, and “transgender” is less adequate for that precisely because it’s less specific. What’s the deal on attitudes towards the term within the trans communities? Is it only a tiny vocal minority who don’t like folks to use the word “transsexual” or is this a serious “thing”? And as far as your choice of the word for your thread title, are you dissenting with them or don’t /haven’t run into that kind of attitude, or something else entirely?

620

I’ve not had anyone indicate that they would prefer transgender. Most of the medically treated women in my community prefer to be called transsexual, or just be called women. But note there are regional differences in this which can be profound.

There is a growing movement and divide between transsexual persons and crossdressers/genderqueer/drag performers, who typically refer to themselves as transgender. And by many definitions of the word, they are under that umbrella. But a backlash is growing, which has been fueled by a war of words between RuPaul et al and outspoken crossdressers who have made transphobic and community-deprecating statements. Nonetheless, most transgender persons do use the word transgender over transsexual, largely to remove the “sex” from the word.