It might help here to point out that the term ‘born a man’ is nonsense. Nobody is ‘born a man’. People are born as babies.
Now that’s not just a pointless nitpick - consider - people are born a baby, and develop into men or women - that development has multiple facets - including development of physical form and including development of internal mental states/identity etc.
Is it not therefore possible that this development does not always align? And in cases where it doesn’t, why would the physical form trump the identity? Identity is what makes you ‘you’.
Most of us do hold, by and large, that gender roles are social constructs. Girls wear pink, boys wear blue: pure contingency of history. Most progressives seek to break through social behavioral barriers. We want women to be CEOs of major corporations – and men to be stay-at-home homemakers.
So, yeah, there is something slightly “politically incorrect” when talking about innate behavioral sex differences. But, that said, even most feminists will acknowledge that there are such differences. They’re quite obvious in childhood: little boys are just plain different from little girls. It isn’t whether they play with toy guns or Barbie dolls, but in how they play.
The fallacy is extending the ideal of gender equality (equality under the law) to absolute total equality in all ways – and that isn’t possible, let alone desirable (to most of us.)
Obviously, as society progresses, reducing the social boundaries that limit opportunity, the differences between men and women will continue to be reduced. But we will still have a core element of personal inward “man-ness” and “woman-ness” that relies on instinctive behaviors.
I want to see women have more access to combat roles in the military. But, by and large, even women combat infantrymen won’t partake of quite as much of the “warrior” ethos as men will.
We aren’t trying to create the “New Soviet Man” here, or compel everyone to war Mao jackets. Most of us are working for expanded opportunity for personal self-expression.
I don’t think it is completely independent at all. Socially, it definitely isn’t.
How often have you heard people be insulted by being compared to another gender? A girl that is too skinny is likened to a “12 year old boy.” God forbid a woman have “hands like a man” or a little hair on her upper lip. Likewise, men are encouraged not to be girly or effeminate. Man boobs or soft hips are a setup for ridicule. We get these messages a hundred times a day, everwhere.
For whatever reason, we put enormous social value on the way our gender is physically presented. Transgender people aren’t exempt from that. They want to fit in. Could you imagine how much it would suck to be a girl with a mostache, a flat chest, and a penis? Or a man with boobs and a high pitched voice and an actual vagina? How are people going to treat you? Who is going to date you?
Nobody wants that. People want to look like and be treated like what they are. The specifics of that may vary from place to place. Maybe in some kind of post-gender society it won’t matter much at all. But we are in 2015 USA, and these things do matter.
The overarching answer is because we want our legal, social, and physical selves to be in alignment with our gender. Brain gender is the most powerful, driving force of all. Speaking as one who has lived through it.
A more practical answer is because if we want to have a heterosexual relationship with a human male or female, we must have bodies which are as close to the sex which aligns with our gender. It’s amazing, I know, just how many men do not want a woman with a penis, and yet here we are.
I’m certain a little thought and research will reveal many other reasons for you.
The way it’s been explained to me is that cisgender folks get very focused on things like surgery but transgender people focus on the social role. In other words, for a transsexual it’s more important to hear the proper pronouns and be regarded as the target gender than it is to have matching genitals.
Not all transsexuals get surgery, even when money isn’t an obstacle. It’s not required, even if it’s an option many take advantage of. I have personally known several transsexuals who opted for “feminization” surgery on their face years before they got genitals surgery.
That, too, is indicative of genuine transsexuality - less a concern about genitalia and more about passing socially.
ETA: of course, for many transsexuals the genital surgery is important - as always, individuals differ.
I might be wrong, but I thought transsexuals by definition had to undergo some sort of physical transition (whether that be hormones or surgery or whatever else). Transgender people do not necessarily (I think transgender people are a superset of transsexual people?). That’s not to say what a transsexual vs a transgender person is most concerned about, but I thought that was the technical distinction between the terms.
Smapti, why did you not make a thread in IMHO or MPS along the lines of “Can someone explain transgender issues to me?” instead of hijacking this thread and turning it from a debate to you asking very basic questions like what is gender?
I’m guessing your next question will be along the lines of well if someone born a man already thinks they are female, why do they need reassignment surgery?
Most transgender individuals are painfully aware their physical body does not match how they feel inside, they aren’t under any delusion about what chromosomes they have or what genitals they have. This strawman is ridiculous, I don’t know why people feel like their rights are being violated by social pressure to call someone by the pronoun they prefer and present as. I don’t know why the bathroom thing keeps being trotted out, so a heterosexual male is going to socially transition to a woman and dress as a woman just so he can trick his way into using the female restroom.
And honestly why should any adult have to justify to society why they want to transition, socially or surgically?
Would you in all honesty if you were introduced to a woman who you suspected was transgender and told “Oh Smapti have you met Sheila?” say that is a he, and his birth name probably wasn’t Sheila, tell me your real name sir? I bet you wouldn’t, and I don’t know why it is apparently tormenting you. If you would…man.
Sorry, I didn’t see this thread earlier. I managed to sleep through Saturday and half of Sunday.
I don’t have much to add that hasn’t been said in six pages. However-
Re The Parents
The article I read on Facebook had mom responding to the suicide with ‘Josh was a good boy. This morning he went for a walk. He is in heaven now.’ So, she’s in denial about having a trans daughter and in denial about that daughter’s suicide ?
She didn’t have a daughter. She had a son. She never heard the name “Leelah” until she saw his suicide note. She loved him and is mourning the person she knew and you’re in no position to tell her how to grieve.
Woah there, let’s not trot out the “if she had actually loved her” stuff. People are complicated, it’s entirely possible to love someone and have a worldview that makes things between people difficult or bad or any number of things. Sometimes people do bad things for good reasons, and everything points to the parents doing extremely wrong things, but almost certainly not out of a lack of care for their child.
Love is an emotion, we can discuss whether the parents did what was best (they didn’t) or if they were bigoted and anti-trans (they were), but making assertions about whether or not they “really” loved someone isn’t something I think we can judge or reasonably ascertain.
I think this is much more a fear of MEN than of women - we had a thread on this forum about that very topic. Apparently, something like 80-90% of the women just don’t care, maybe even more than that. I don’t know what men think goes on in the woman’s toilet, but it’s not what actually happens.
It’s confusing because you’re incorrect on Una’s birth state. Since it’s no secret here and Una probably gets tired of repeating herself: Una was born with an intersex condition, assigned the gender of “male”, never had a normal male puberty, and felt she was female all her life, despite trying to live as a man in our society. She transitioned and is now legally a female as well as presenting one.
While still legally male, Una married her wife Fierra. That marriage still stands, So what started as a heterosexual marriage is now a same-sex marriage. I’m not sure exactly how you’d classify the sexual orientation thing, but frankly, I don’t care and since I’m not involved with any of the parties it’s really none of my business what they do or don’t do in the privacy of their own home. I think people get way too hung up on the whole sexual orientation thing anyway, but that’s another topic.