You should play a defense attorney on Law and Order with logic like that.
I said I don’t know how to use it in the case of someone who has the organs of both. It’s a far cry different from categorizing someone who merely has an abnormal hypothalamus.
The new rules for this debate. It is now up to the rest of you to prove that Stanton is a woman.
Thanks, but apparently I’m too busy playing a nurse on MAS*H.
Why? Why do you consider that having male gonads (testes) in a mostly-female body qualifies to make the person “not really a woman”, but having a male hypothalamus in a mostly-female body does not?
Both the gonads and the hypothalamus (and the chromosomes, and the external genitalia, and the hormones, etc. etc.) contribute to establishing the standard criteria of “what is a normal female and what is a normal male”. I don’t understand why you’re arbitrarily declaring that only some of those factors “really count” in determining who is male and who is female.
Even if it is purely from a psychological perspective, how does that make it an invalid treatment? Cosmetic surgery has an not-entirely-unearned association with vanity or fashion, but it also has legitimate theraputic uses. Some cosmetic surgeons spend their careers sucking the fat out of the asses of Hollywood celebrities. And some of them go to third world countries where they correct things like hairlips or severe burn scars, so their patients don’t have to spend their lives being outcasts because of their physical deformities. There was a case in the UK recently where cosmetic surgeons performed a face transplant, grafting skin and muscle from an organ donor onto a woman who had her face chewed off by a dog. That’s “cosmetic” surgery, to be sure, but it also means a difference in quality of life for the patient that far outstrips that of a lot of surgeries that improve physical capability.
How does that make it “not a treatment?” A treatment is not the same thing as a total cure.
Are you suicidally depressed over being fat? Is there no other way you can possibly not be fat, except through surgery? Is your conception of yourself as thin as central to your sense of identity as most people’s gender is to theirs?
I’d say those are all elements that are missing in your analogy. If I’m wrong about any of those, I’d say you deserved exactly the same consideration and support I’m advocating be shown to people who are transgendered.
Does your own personal comfort always trump the comfort of others, or are you occasionally willing to put yourself out so that others that you ostensibly care about might feel better about themselves?
“Hey, Stanton. Are you a man or a woman?”
“I’m a woman.”
Done.
At least you can’t complain about being typecast.
No, the above would be a woman with a male hypothalamus. I am simply saying that one part of the nervous system that isn’t wired to the female parts that it normally would be doesn’t make someone a woman. The surgery doesn’t change that. As I said before, the surgery doesn’t add anything, it only takes things away. I feel like the examples I’ve been asked to address have diverged from the subject a little too far. Hermaphrodites, CAIS’s and Infertile Women are irrelevant. These cases do not make a sex change turn someone from a man into a woman, because the sex change surgery other than the external hormone therapy and what it removes is purely cosmetic. A woman doesn’t lack a penis, she possesses a vagina. A transsexual lacks a penis. The vagina is a leather line hole. Anyone who’s ever touched a vagina knows that it’s not merely a flesh lined hole. If the sex change surgery added something, I might change my mind.
Despite all the digressions, we are specifically talking about the change caused by sex-change surgery.
I am going by the medical definitions. I am not the one cutting women into consituent parts, you are. I am arguing that a woman is a system made up of many parts. If the only way you can make an argument is abusing context then why are we talking at all? I mentioned examples of womanly attributes, I never said that any one of them alone defined what is a woman.
Miller I just got a sex-change, but only for you. For you I am now a woman. Unless I go through a reversion, you must treat me as a woman, refer to me with gender specific pronouns and such. I am woman, hear me roar! For everyone else, I am still a man.
Miss Manners would say:
Yes.
Acting like someone or something doesn’t disturb or distress you, even though they do, is called “being polite”. You’re not obligated, though, to spend any more time around them than work or family obligations require you to.
It really is just like how you’re not supposed to tell Great-Aunt Matilda that you think her tuna casserole, which she cooks for family reunions, looks and tastes like vomit, even if it does. You just don’t take any, or take a tiny bit and toy with it, and talk to her about topics other than whether or not you like her casserole, or spend most of your time talking to someone else. You could talk with your transgender co-worker about topics other than their recent sex change if talking about sex changes disturbs you. Like, I don’t know, the project you’re both working on, or the local sports teams. If your colleague really wants to know your opinion about their sex change, they will ask you.
Miss Manners has had at quite a few people for citing “honesty” as an excuse for rudeness. It is possible to be both honest and tactful. “Why’d you do that to yourself” is not tactful by any known definition of tactful.
The whole point of etiquette, indeed of acting like a civilized human being, is to put the comfort of others before your own personal comfort. When you live in a civilization with other humans, you don’t get to have everything your own way all the time. You have to think about what other people want, too, if only because you want them to think about what you want.
Incidentally, begbert2, I’d be quite offended if you refused to call me by the name of my choosing just because you think, applying some arbitrary criterion of your own, that it’s too silly. You don’t get to pick everyone else’s name for them, you know. Nor do you get to pick other people’s genders for them.
Just call people what they want to be called. It’s really not hard. And it spares you the awesome responsibility of deciding, for everyone else in the world, which names are acceptable, who’s a man, who’s a woman, and so on and so forth.
begbert2 While I like the arguments you have been making. I think you’ve done an admirable job of elucidating your perspective, and I appreciate it.
I must confess that I agree that you should call someone by whatever they tell you their name is. If you met a man named Bernadette how would you react toward him? What about a woman named William?
So you agree that it’s cosmetic surgery, then? It’s not a medical response to a medical problem. It’s a cosmetic response to a psychological problem.
My understanding of this is imperfect, but so far as I know we can’t build functioning genitalia. (Breasts I gather we can do.) So, if the result is not functional, and only cosmetic, then how is it a ‘cure’ at all to the actual problem?
(I repeat, I’m not fully up on this. Maybe we have a magic wand now that turns men into women and back. That would defuse me on this point right quick, which would leave us with the non-hermaphrodaic cases.)
The differences are a matter of degree, not of total difference; I can get some vague idea of what we’re talking about here. And I still think you’re putting undue blame on the medical condition and not enough on the abusive environment. Which, I would think, a sex change would do as much to exacerbate as help.
No. Does their own personal comfort always trump the comfort of others, or are they occasionally obligated to put themselves out so that others that they ostensibly care about might feel better about things?
By the way, I’m a god. I say so. Are you going to worship me? (I accept personal checks.)
Thank you! A lot of times around here I seem to do an absolutely terrible job of elucidating my perspective. It’s nice to hear that I’m being clear for a change.
As for the strange-name issue, I would be rather surprised upon hearing it, and try to hide that reaction. (Most likely poorly; I’m not much of an actor.) After that I would simply not refer to them by their name, because I’d react again each time to the strangeness of it, probably resulting in discomfort of the other person since I’m, as noted, not much of an actor and wouldn’t manage to pronounce it naturally.
It’s really not that hard to avoid using someone’s name when you’re talking to them face-to-face; after all a person doesn’t usually talk like “Hey mswas, how have you been doing mswas? Why, me too, mswas; thanks for asking.” You don’t yell for them when they’re in a crowd; but then that’s usually rude anyway. If they’re alone you can call “Hey, can you come over for a minute?” or some such; if they’re in a crowd you go over and tap them on the shoulder.
The only times problems really arise is if you’re talking about them to other people. But I’m not much for gossip, and the occasional time when you have to ask for them on the telephone or whatever you can fumblingly summon up the name. (At least in that case they won’t be able to see your face, and it’s not actually them anyway, so it’s not quite as bad.)
(All this assumes they haven’t provided you a more common nickname to use instead, of course.)
I wasn’t kidding when I said this is a skill you cultivate when you have a bad memory for names. I worked for a year sitting right next to a guy before memorizing that his last name was Sayko. It took another couple of years (six or so, I think) before I could remember “Daniel”. (It did not help that there was also a David in the office.) In all this time he never seemed to know that I didn’t know who the heck he was.
Eventually, after we’d gotten to be pretty close friends and had been for several years, he asked me why I always called him “Sayko”. By that point I actually knew his name, so I could honestly say that it was habit (and I thought it was sort of cool sounding). At his preference I switched over to calling him Daniel. Fine name, Daniel. For a dude anyway.
Yeah. They are obligated to not undress in front of you, not talk about their sex change around you if they know that makes you uncomfortable, and dress in the same professional manner that others of their new gender do in your office.
They are not, however, obligated to make major changes in their lives because the way they are currently makes you feel uncomfortable. You get to avoid them as much as possible, and they are obligated not to force themselves on you when it is clear to them that you would rather not spend time with them.
I think the genitals do function at least somewhat after sex-reassignment surgery. Even if they don’t, is genital function the main criterion of what gender one is? Was I a woman before I had ever had sex? Do people who don’t have sex have no gender? What was John Bobbitt between when Lorena cut his penis off and when it was surgically reattached? He certainly didn’t have functioning genitals then. And what about impotent men- they don’t have functioning genitals, are they not men? Men who have had vasectomies have genitals that are not performing all the functions that the genitals of men who have not had vasectomies do- are they men, or not? What, exactly, does a vagina have to do to function properly?
Do you actually check whether someone’s genitals are functioning, however you define that, before you address them as a man or a woman? My way of just taking their word for it is so much simpler.
If I call someone who is “actually” a man by some definition a woman, and that person is not offended by it, who is it hurting, anyway? I really don’t think it’s hurting anyone any more than my calling my co-worker “Bill” when I know his legal name is “William” is. Some of us believe there will be consequences some day for calling the wrong person or thing a god. There certainly could be consequences if you called someone who identifies as a man a woman- a lot of people would think it was understandable if he beat you up for that. What sort of consequences do you think there will be for calling someone who you think is “actually” a man by some definition of yours a woman?
Since when is cosmetic surgery not a medical procedure? Since when has psychology not been a medical field?
What do you mean by “functioning?” Fertility is beyond our grasp - we can’t create an artificial uterus or mechanical testes yet. If you mean urinary function, then yes, we have that. If you mean sexual function, it’s posisble but not guaranteed, and even then, it depends on what gender you’re aiming for. Vaginoplasty can result in a vagina that give the patient the full range of sexual sensation, but not always. As I understand it, phalloplasty is currently much less advanced, although I’m not as familiar with the details of the procedure.
As to how it’s a cure, you seem to have missed the entire point of transgenderism. The “actual problem” is not, “I don’t have functioning genitalia.” The problem is, “People do not perceive me to be of the gender I feel I should be perceived as.” The ability to orgasm plays only a minor role, if any, in that. Hell, the sex change procedure itself is not a necessary component. Many transexuals, particularly ftm, never intend to get the procedure at all.
It’s a reasonable assumption, but the problem with it is that the suicide rate is lower for people who have fully transitioned than it is for those who are closeted or semi-closeted. Obviously, the hostile enviroment still plays a role - otherwise, there’d be no reason to remain closeted. But a lot of transexuals are killing themselves not because they are being abused, but because they are afraid of being abused, and cannot bear to continue living as their birth gender.
Of course. Which is why transgendered people are also obligated to call you by the name you want to be called, use the pronoun you want to be used, and to not ask you to defend your masculinity because you don’t fit into their preconceived notions of what men should look like. I mean, fair’s fair, after all.
Just because you tell me you’re really a woman, doesn’t mean I have an obligation to fuck you.
<Inigo Montoya>You keep using those words. I do not think they mean what you think they mean.</IM>
Absolutely. I’ve never knowingly met a transgender IRL, so I can’t say for sure exactly what I’d do. I just ponder on it sometimes when reading these threads. To me, it’s an interesting hypothetical.
I’m fairly sure it wouldn’t bother me in most settings, because I really, truly don’t get why people find this so disturbing. So Sally used to be Saul - why would I care? I realize that other people do care, I just don’t understand why. So part of it is exploring where other people’s lines are, in an effort to find the ‘why’.
I can see some of the problems in adjusting to a sex-change in someone you already know - it’s difficult enough just to adjust when someone decides to go by a different name! But upset about something that happened before you ever met? Weird.
Four, by my count.
I came out in December 2004 and began therapy a few weeks later.
I began HRT in April 2006 and it has made vast improvements in my existence. I just saw the endocrinologist and he upped my estrogen dosage again, yay.
If I couldn’t transition and had been forced to remain male my whole life, I would rather be dead. I mean that literally. The pain would be unbearable. It’s pretty painful right now, but since my transition is slowly progressing, it comes as a huge relief. To punish anyone for taking care of their medical needs is inconceivably cruel. Imagine how you would feel if you’d been hiking your whole life with stones inside your shoes, then you finally get a chance to remove the stones… think how your feet would feel… well, that’s my whole existence. Gender issues go so deep to make people who they are, the determination cannot belong to anyone but the individual concerned.
Any proposal that therapy could persuade me to accept being a man–when I’m not a man–is a nonstarter. Shrinks tried that for years–talking, aversion treatment, electroshock, drugs–none of that has any effect on transsexualism. A woman is all I can be in society. I can either transition and be a healthy, well-adjusted woman, or I can be a corpse, but being a man is just not an option. When I’m functioning as a woman in a female gender role, I feel right at home, comfortable, happy. When I remember all the attempts to fit into a male role, it was hell. It just felt drastically wrong. I kept that up for too long, thinking there was nothing I could do–it damaged me inside, and transition is the only thing that will allow me to heal.
mswas, I can’t see any point to your thread other than to bash us for being different. First you start defending bigots as having a right to enforce their bigotry on a minority. That was simply vile, and you seem to have dropped that argument once it got through to you how ugly it was. Now you say you didn’t really mean it? So what was the point of arguing that anyway?
You’re still trying to deny my womanhood, deny who I am, based on a mystical definition of gender with poorly defined criteria discernable only to yourself. You have nothing resembling a coherent argument. All you’ve produced here is a slippery claim that you have the mystical ability, unknown to science, to determine other people’s genders. Now your denial of who I am means nothing between us as individuals. I just figure you’re ignorant and go on with my life, no big deal. But to the extent that your irrational denial of my gender is widespread in the population, though, my existence gets much harder. So ignorance like this has tro be fought. Thanks to intelligent, informed, compassionate people like Kimstu, Miller, Kalhoun, Bricker, my existence is a lot easier.
Are you saying that if one of your poker buddies came out as transgendered that you would dump him from your circle of friends?
A year ago, it was considered by Stanton to be female. Since when is your definition more important than hers?
Nothing changed it. Her body was simply realigned to match up with the “womanly” part of her that we cannot see.
I guess I’ll have to try harder next time.
I don’t consider blindly accepting any status quo as worthy of thinking beings. Your experience may vary on this, but as someone once said, “An unexamined life is not worth living.”
I started this thread asking a question. Mostly the response was aspersions on my character. Kind of ironic coming from the crowd that erroneously believes they are preaching tolerance, but it happens quite often.
The label of ‘bigot’ is pretty vile to begin with. I am happy that it’s working out for you and I applaud your right to assert your identity whatever trials and tribulations that may require, but it seems like you are expecting a greater level of compassion than you are willing to show.
This thread has an assumed notion of tolerance, and yet it is intolerant of certain people, it is just choosing sides. I took a side in the argument that was contrary to the status quo, and now I am getting assaulted by the bigots who are trying to support that status quo.
I learned as much from the irony of the people who think they are preaching compassion, as I have learned from their arguments.
Your assumptions of my character based upon my desire to explore ideas on an internet message board dedicated to exploring ideas are absolutely and totally irrelevant, not to mention factually incorrect.
The ‘point’ is to explore an idea and not just accept it blindly, to hear arguments, and see how people react. I guess for some people the internet is a forum for merely asserting and defending their ideology, for me it is a place to explore human psychology and sociology. I very, very rarely make assertions of ideology.
I wholly and completely support your personal sovereignty. I also wholly and completely support the personal sovereignty of those who choose not to accept your decision. Being willing to accept and try to understand both sides of the issue does not place me clearly on one side or the other. I am on both sides, and neither.
Other than matching the accepted medical definition, mine is not more important than hers. She is welcome to her opinion. I do not have to share it. Isn’t personal sovereignty wonderful? I mean that is what you people are advocating isn’t it?
Only cosmetically.
That’s because they’re only out of alignment cosmetically. There is no need to change anything about the inner woman. That’s the whole point.