Ask the Transsexual Woman

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
621

About two years ago my son who was then 8 or almost 9 wandered into the women’s washroom at a pub, (close-ish to the university, and the beach and does have regular specials during major sporting events) by accident. He came back to the table outraged and ranting!*
“Fortunately, I am still little and it’s cute, not embarrassing but I went into the women’s washroom! The women’s washroom smells like flowers, and nice things, while the men’s just stinks of piss and old burps! Frankly I’m a little annoyed. And jealous.”

:smiley:

*I should mention that my son has a very, very, acute and descriptive sense of smell. Honestly Proust’s madeleines have nothing on my boy opening a pencil box and describing a school he went to for a year and a half. When he was 5… Based on smell retained in a box.

622

Something else this thread has done for me, besides informing more about the issues and struggles, is that I have quit feeling bad about one small thing. My son was born with a natural circumcision, as in much less foreskin than usual, but obviously not as “clean cut” as a surgical procedure. He also has a very slight hypospadias… his urethra is slightly toward the base of his glans… he had a number of medical issues right at birth and my focus was on those, and then …well we never got him surgically “corrected” and my thought now is that approaching puberty is not the time to go messing with the plumbing. After reading this thread, and other linked articles, I am thinking his body is just fine the way it is, and I am glad he never had surgery imposed by me or others to “correct” this. I do worry about possible infection under the foreskin… he used to get these a couple of times a year, but not so much as he gets older. Any changes he wishes to pursue will be up to him, not me or a doctor deciding for an infant. Also the last time, he had one he marched up to me and said “I need to speak to Mona Lisa the nurse”, then showed me the problem, I gave him some Polysporin ointment, showed him how to apply it and how to wash himself better. After this he said “okay, you can be my mom now… get out of here while I get dressed.” I absolutely loved that.

623

I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying here.

I wasn’t talking about IQ, but in differences in brain functioning. See e.g. http://www.webmd.com/balance/features/how-male-female-brains-differ

624

Then I don’t believe I understood what you were asking?

Yes, there are studies showing differences in tasks such as mental rotation and spatial awareness - some studies showing small differences between transgender persons and their cisgender genetic population before hormones, and others showing changes after hormones. If you search on “mental rotation” and “transgender” or “transsexual” on Google Scholar you can find some starting points.

625

[QUOTE=Una Persson]
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.
[/QUOTE]

This story has been haunting me since you first posted it, and I’ve been trying to compose a reply for months…anyway, here goes.

I remember being a young girl, crying in the women’s changing room, because I was convinced I would be thrown out, ridiculed and harassed…because those spaces were for real women, not ugly little girls like me. I remember struggling so hard to just claim any sort of space in the world, because there is no ready-made space for you if you are a girl.

I remember being terrified to enter a pub at 19, because how dare I? I’m a silly girl, there is no space for me. I remember passing stores in tears, I remember hiding to avoid having to talk to people, I remember sitting in cafés wishing so hard my mother would be quiet because people would see me, and I not supposed to be here and…

Ok, I’m not really explaining this well, but do you think it will help your friend if you told her that a small part of what she is feeling sounds very much like a cisgirls journey to womanhood? That her experience might, in part, be a common female experience, not necessarily purely a trans one? That her fundamental problem is, well, the one we all face, being women?

I mean, it sounds like she has the equivalent of my entire adolescence compressed and experienced in one terrible blast but…might her burden be easier to bear if she knew it was one of degree? That almost every woman and young girl will be able to identify with her, at least a little?

I’m sorry if I’ve managed to offend. I just couldn’t stop thinking about it. How is she doing?

626

Thank you very much for replying. Not having a cisgender woman’s girlhood I cannot really relate directly, but I learned quite a lot from your story, and I will keep it in mind as something to use as an example to help other girls in the future. Thank you for relating your story, it may really help me out.

I’m very glad you asked. This is a success story. As time went on she evolved slowly, and was suffering quite a lot at work. Primarily, we figured out her main terror in life was something getting back to her job and losing her job.

So what did I do? I used my connections to get her an interview at a company which has a Human Rights Campaign score of 100%, and I personally spoke to the VP in charge of HR at the company, and they told me they would welcome with open arms any transsexual woman who applied.

So my friend applied, showing up for her interview dressed and acting as female, and she won the job! This reaction filled her with so much self-confidence that suddenly, it was like this new woman emerged in the course of a couple of days.

But then when she told her old company she was quitting, they counter-offered with the same salary. She then informed them she was a transsexual woman and would have to have a guaranteed safe place to transition, and her old company said they would promise her that. Since there were some advantages to staying with her old company, she took the raise, transitioned on the job (with a lot of help and guidance from myself and others), and she is happy and fully socially and legally transitioned, waiting on surgery.

She is filled with confidence wherever she goes, she goes out in public, talks to waiters and shop assistants, goes and comes and interacts like a slightly shy ordinary woman. Her life is full of hope and life, and this poor woman who was cringing within her own skin, shaking, and crying at Starbucks, now routinely goes out to parties with her wife - who stuck with her - and has fun and lives life. Each week she gets even better, and she smiles all the time. :slight_smile:

She’s a glowing success story, and I and others are very proud of her.

627

Oh, that makes me so happy, I’ve been so worried for her.

628

I have thought for awhile now that some aspects of transitioning for transwomen resembles a highly compressed version of cisgirl adolescence. Which can be hell to go through at the normal pace, much less compressed in time. While one has to be careful not to overdo the analogies there are some.

629

It’s not just adolescence unfortunately. Society tells women they are objects too often, that they have to be tougher than guys to make it at the top of the business world (or even in the middle), that overweight women aren’t worth that much, and so much more. If it were possible, men transitioning to women should take a few courses in how women are really seen and treated in American society before transitioning. A lot of their fears about fitting in probably wouldn’t be so great if they saw that many ciswomen have trouble fitting in. Things have gotten better over the last few decades since I’ve been alive, but much progress still needs to be done.

630

Those are good points, and ones which I use in my lectures. Despite calling ourselves girls and women, we would be delusional to believe that we have had the same experience as a cisgender girl or woman. Whether growing up, in puberty, hanging out and having a circle of girlfriends, being pushed aside and demeaned for being female, competing with other women to look good, worrying about boys, entering the workplace and being underemployed.

I know and admit that I had male privilege growing up, as did many of my sisters. Yet we often find some women will demean transwomen because we took advantage of the systemic male privilege. But what can we do? We can’t un-do our pasts. I would trade in a minute being a “real girl” growing up for any and all male privilege which I had. As would any of my sisters.

When women tell us “yeah, you all want to be girls until you think about menstrual cramps”, they’re wrong. I and my sisters would LOVE to be real enough to have menstrual cramps, accidents in white slacks, etc. You just can’t understand the longing. Or they say “yeah, well the first time you’re sexually harassed, assaulted, or raped, your tune will change.” First off, I was raped and sexually assaulted, as a “boy”, so don’t think it’s a unique affliction of girls. Second, I’ve been sexually harassed on the job, thrice now, and believe me thinking “oh, wailly wailly wailly, why did I become a woman!” was the furthest thing from my mind.

And my experiences are by no means unique on those points. I’ve referred in the past to a party I was at, which was entirely transgender women and lesbian cisgender women, and as we sat around a huge table our hostess had, someone asked “how many of you have been raped?” Every single hand in the room went up - every transwoman, every ciswoman. It was followed by lots of tears and lots of hugs, and some long-term friendships were made that day - a lesbian cisgender woman who had been very aloof to me because I wasn’t “real” hugged me warmly and held me, and I her, and we have been close friends for two years now.

631

Una, in no way do I mean that transwomen should feel like they don’t belong or don’t deserve to belong because they started out as men. I’m talking more about the fears they have of not fitting in among ciswomen. Many ciswomen don’t feel like they have it altogether or really fit in. There are plenty who might feel in some way they aren’t a “real woman” if they don’t have kids or can’t do it all or aren’t thin enough, etc. We women have way more fears and insecurities than I think men will ever realize, so it’s likely quite a few fears of transwomen in transition aren’t really that different from ciswomen. Of course, there’s the added fear and discrimination of being trans (or lesbian for that matter), so I also don’t want to dismiss that.

632

True…I’m sort of expounding/editorializing on what I feel is a related point.

633

Of course, there’s also the added burden as well of the trans person feeling like they don’t belong as their supposed (perceived?) born sex and probably being made to feel they aren’t “man enough” if a man or “woman enough” if a woman. Life in general isn’t necessarily a peach for a lot of people unfortunately, including those who are seen as “normal”

634

Reading your previous post, there’s a lot more commonality among people than I think most people realize.

635

In regards to rape and molestation, in my view, “normal men” don’t have to worry about those issues too much. But it appears it’s not just women in general who worry about it and struggle wit it, but also men who others might view as a “weirdo” or “weak”. It certainly seems to be a shared problem between women in general and at least some minorities

636

Before transition many transgender women try to do exceedingly “manly” things to “prove” they are a man, and not some sort of “freak.” One of the most common examples is military service - there have even been technical papers written on the large number of transgender women who have had military service, and EVERY one I’ve spoken to has told me the same thing - they did it because they thought the military would “make a man out of them.” In my circle of friends perhaps 1/3 are veterans, which is statistically a very high number.

637

[ul]
[li]Which hormones?[/li][li]How do these hormones influence mental health including depression?[/li][li]Is this imbalance referring to the hormones produced by the body, or ones that they’re taking?[/li][li]What is an “intersex hormone issue” that people like you have (but not others)?[/li][li]What are the “physical/body effects”?[/li][/ul]
Thanks.

OK, but I’m wondering where they would fit on the cisman/ciswoman spectrum (on average).

638

  1. The sex hormones, estradiol and testosterone.

  2. Symptomatically, in transsexual women estradiol creates a wide array of potential effects, which is baffling in its spread. However, the vast majority of transwomen report calmness, a sense of well-being, decrease or elimination of depression, greater mental energy but slightly lesser physical energy, reduced outbreaks of anger and reduced severity of anger, increased levels of crying (but not inconsolable crying, more very light crying, which is actually refreshing when over as opposed to making you feel miserable), etc. Senses change, which also change perceptions. Most of us experience changes in smell - the sense of smell, or the perception of smell, is greatly increases. Taste changes, not in that it becomes finer but that significant perceptions in tastes change. Favorite foods now become “meh” and foods you used to not be able to stand become delicious.

  3. It can be both, because transwomen take antiandrogens and transmen take pills which fight estrogen production. And there are a greater than normal number of intersex women among transwomen, such as people like myself who have mild intersex hormone conditions.

  4. My issue was explained in this thread several times, but to summarize, I never made enough testosterone to have male puberty fully, and I made high levels of estradiol throughout my life, to the point where physicians were quite alarmed.

  5. Incredibly numerous. Really, I’d recommend reading WPATH 6 or WPATH 7, which is freely available online and which can describe in detail the physical and mental changes.

Which studies have you reviewed?

639

Waking up this sleeping thread to post this article from the Washington Post Magazine about an amazing person, who happens to be trans. She’s made of AWESOME! Martine Rothblatt: She founded SiriusXM, a religion and a biotech. For starters.

640

Thank you for the link, Typo Knig.

There are several notable ones of us, but I hate to make lists because it looks like a Facebook meme thing (“Did you know that these Hawaiian cytotechnologists did this?”). :slight_smile: