Transgenders

The BBQ Pit
1

Now, I’m quite certain I’ll invite some flames against me for this post, but I think that most if not all will be based on a misinterpretation of what I’m actually saying, so just bear with me and pay attention. I’m not going to preface this post with any more of a disclaimer than I’ve already given. I will try to make my opinions clear in the post itself.

Now, what I object to is this: the tendency of people, when talking about post-op transsexuals to say something to the effect of, “They were really a woman born into a man’s body.” Bullshit. If you’re born into a man’s body, you’re a man. After surgery and hormone pills, one might identify that person as a member of the opposite sex, but that’s only using a fuzzy definition of a sex. After all, a M->F transsexual still has a prostate, right? Modern science can do some amazing things, but changing one sex into another is not yet one of them.

Now, of course, I have no problem whatsoever with transsexuals themselves. If a person identifies more with the opposite sex then with their own, more power to them in using any method, surgical or otherwise, to make themselves more like the opposite sex. But damnit, they were not a woman/man born into a man’s/woman’s body in some sort of wierd cosmic accident. That’s just grasping at PC straws. They don’t have to justify their transsexualism with this kind of nonsensical rhetoric. They have every right to take advantage of modern science to make themselves appear as a member of the opposite sex if they so desire. They were not mystically already a member of the opposite sex.

Now that person may have previously identified stronger with the opposite gender role, (as sex and gender are really two different things) but that does not change the fact that if you’re born with a penis, you’re male. If you’re born with a vagina, you’re female. (Excluding, of course, hermaphrodites, or as I’ve been told many of them prefer to be called, intersex.)

I hope I didn’t offend any of you. This isn’t an attack on transsexuals, but an attack on the foolish ideas conjured up to justify something that shouldn’t have to be justified.

2

Oh, and some quick fun facts about your OPoster:

I’m male.
I’m bisexual.
If I had a choice, I would have chosen to have been born female.
I’m not going to have any medical procedures to make that a reality.

That is all.

3

So, you’re upset about a question of grammar?

Medically, no, no way to change the genders. Psychologically? emotionally? culturally? Yup, the guy is a girl and the girl is a guy.

I don’t think this is something that can be thrown back based on a technicality. Transgender men are now women. Their licenses say women. They compete in women’s sports. They use the woman’s bathrooms. Heck, they do that an entire year before they become a woman!

Besides, I don’t understand your objection to the phrase “They were really a woman born into a man’s body.” They are. The person was a man, but felt like a woman inside. That medical science cannot change someone’s sex at this point in time does not invalidate the truth of the statement. If there was a way to make a transgendered woman MORE like a man than now, you can bet that he/she would go for it in a heartbeat.

4

If you wanted to know about transgender people and gender issues, you should have posted this to GQ or possibly GD. As it is, I will attempt to explain.

Queer theory distinguishes between sex and gender. Sex is a biological distinction between males and females, presented among other things by the internal and external primary and secondary sex characteristics, hormones, and chromosomes. Gender is a social phenomenon distinguishing between men and women, involving things such as dress, social titles, sex roles, and the like.

Transgendered people are those whose gender presentation does not accord in a societally-standard fashion to their sex. In other words, a person who acts, dresses, and conducts herself on a day-to-day basis as a woman, but is biologically male, is transgendered.

Transsexuals are people who have modified their body in some way to accord with their gender presentation. Non-operative transsexuals are people who may have done such things as taken hormones, but who have not had genital reassignment surgery.

Transgenders and transsexuals are “women in men’s bodies” or vice-versa in the sense that their gender identity does not accord with their bodies. Perhaps a more accurate statement would be that they are women in male bodies or vice-versa, since bodies have sex (as it were) but minds have gender.

5

That is a question of gender roles, purely cultural definitions that are imposed on people. I believe that true identity is something separate from cultural context. For example, some Native American tribes recognized a third gender role (Just studied this in an Anthropology course, wish I could remember the term that was used.) that was something of a mixture of male and female. These individuals were seen as being blessed by having characteristics of both sexes. Now I firmly believe that if I had been born into this culture, I would have fit into that third gender role. Would my personal identity be something different because I would fall into different categories in a different cultural context? Would I be a different person if fell into a different culturally defined “slot.” No, I believe my identity would be the same. I would just be categorized in the “male” gender role in our culture, and something different in another culture. A person’s identity may be closer to the opposite gender role of their particular culture, but that does not mean that they are a member of the opposite sex.

It’s not an accident of birth, it’s a shortfall of culture.

I’m not sure what you mean by this, and I don’t think I’m suggesting that anything be “thrown back.”

My license says I’m 5’10". I’m actually 6’. :slight_smile:

Those are cultural definitions. I think it’s fantastic that people are acting against the supposition that men must follow the male gender role and females the female gender role.

However, just because a person’s unique identity is contrary to their culturally defined gender role does not mean that that person is, in any sense, actually of the opposite sex.

How does that person know what a woman feels like inside? Especially since much of that is affected by physiological differences. Hormones and the like. Hook him up to a brain scan and he’ll listen with half his brain. He may feel like he’d rather be a woman, but they don’t feel like a woman. (Or, to phrase that in a way that really highlights the difference: They don’t feel as a woman does.)

Uhmmm, well, that’s obvious, but I don’t see what difference it makes.

6

I’m familiar with the distinctions you pointed out, but I would argue that a person with a man’s body has a mind fundamentally different from the mind of a person with a female body. Even if he fits female gender roles, that does not mean that he is inwardly female. Only a female can have a mind that operates as a female’s, and only a male can have a mind that operates as a male’s. Now, there is enough variation in the minds of males that some of them will fall into the culturally defined gender role of female, and vice versa, but those people’s minds are still not analagous to the minds of the opposite sex, because there is still fundamental difference. This is because culturally defined gender roles do not actually match the characteristics of all males and females.

7

Is it true that Johns Hopkins Hospital no longer performs sex change surgery, because their followup research found that the persons undergoing the surgery were no happier after than they were before?

Since gender is genetic, I don’t see how surgery of this sort is going to affect the XY chromosomes in every freaking cell in your body to convince it that you are now female.

One of those things that just creeps me out. Totally non-PC, but there you go.

8

So you wanna get a sex change?

I looked around a little, but I couldn’t find anything that said Johns Hopkins had stopped performing sex change operations, let alone for the reason given.

9

And just how do you know that? Certainly it doesn’t agree with the experience of all the transgendered people I know.

10

As I was at pains to explain, gender is not genetic. Gender is socially constructed. Sex is partially genetic. But what difference does it make? You can’t see someone’s chromosomes without a blood test. What’s essential to a person’s sense of self is what they can see.

11

I agree with matt_mcl I would sure like to see how you can back this up. How do you know that a woman trapped in a hideous, alien, and scary male-like body has a different mind than a woman who has a “complete” body? She has different life experiences, true. But a lot of non-transgendered persons have unusual and different life experiences w.r.t. their gender.

I guess I have to say I’m a little confused as to what the underlying purpose of opening a Pit thread on a subject like this is. Why does this bother you so much, and why should you care so much about this?

12

Actually, you have just proved that you are wrong. It appears to me that the whole problem that transgendered people have is that they HAVE a mind that operates as the opposite sex of the body they were born with. If your mind and heart feel female and your physical being happens to be male, how can you ever feel comfortable with being whoever your physical body forces you to be?

Well, now you have me all confused. If a person FEELS and THINKS like a female but happens to have male genitals, does this mean that he is just confused? If he thinks of himself as a woman, is more comfortable as a woman than a man, is he just ignorant? Or if he is physically a male who happens to have a personality and heart of a woman, but is really a male, does this mean he should just GET OVER IT?

Excuse me very much, but mind, heart and gender are not always culturally induced. Yes, it does happen. But, there are also many people who were just not born in the right body. Allow them the right to accept that, and not be forced into some box that says that mistakes are never made by genetics.

You appear to be saying, and correct me if I am not reading you right…that transgender people just decide that they would rather be the opposite sex than the one they were born with, their CORRECT gender.

I say to you that sometimes things are not so cut and dried. Sometimes mistakes happen. People should be allowed to be WHO THEY REALLY ARE without having to be PC about it. People should be dealt with as WHO they are, not what their physical body says they should be.

I am an entirely female woman, who was fortunate to have been born into a female body. I am only sexually attracted to men, and again that is easier to deal with. However, I am thinking about how I would feel if I had all the feelings I have, and the mindset that I have, and the longings that I have, and what my physical body said is that I was, unfortunately, physically a man.

You are wrong, I think, Tzel.

I generally avoid the pit like the plague, but this is something that I would feel wrong about avoiding. Many people are living with this conflict, and I want to say that it is wrong to cause them to question themselves because you question their difficulties.

Scotti

13

Well said, Scotti. Your Pit appearances may be rare, but they’re always right on.

Tzel, it sounds like you do have a problem with transsexuals. You mentioned that you don’t think it’s necessary that they “justify their transsexualism with this kind of nonsensical rhetoric.” They’re not justifying anything, so far as I can tell.

You keep re-emphasizing, “If you’re born into a man’s body, you’re a man.” It leads me to conclude that you don’t understand or accept what transsexualism is as much as you say or think you do.

I think your second post was to give us the idea that you think you can relate to wanting to be the opposite sex, just like transsexuals, to add weight to your OP. But being bisexual and wanting to be the opposite sex if given the chance does not put you as coming from the same P.O.V. as transsexuals; you are still just a bisexual man. For you to be transsexual, you would have to be uncomfortable with your man’s body. It’s not simply a matter of whether you’d change, given the choice. The desire to have a different body would always be there.

Also, I don’t see how you can speak for how another person’s mind works.

14

I’ll step up as another one who considers men to be those with Y chromosones, and women those without. This, as I see it, is a perfectly rational viewpoint. However, while I don’t personally accept it, I am perfectly willing to use the Queer Theory definitions for people who so desire. So, if you were born into a man’s body, you’ll always be a man in my mind. But if you call yourself a woman, I can call you a woman as well. It’s really no skin off my back either way.

15

waterj2: Well, as long as you are using the queer theory definition and use that to be hard-nosed and rational, I could modify your statement somewhat. If you have male sexual characteristics, you’re a male - but not necessarily a man. That’s what the trans* people are arguing.

My roommate’s friend Linda, for example - she has a woman’s voice, she looks like a woman, she has a woman’s name, she uses women’s honorific pronouns (not to mention the women’s washroom). To look at her you’d not know she was anything other than a woman unless I told you. She is a woman.

It’s just that she’s male.

16

Actually guys I found some disagreement on this subject recently. I haven’t read any textbooks or anything but on the internet I found a doctor that disagrees with the “born in another genders body” idea. He’s been treating gender disphoric individuals for over 30 years. (by the way can’t remember his name but I’ll look for him again if someone wants to know) Anyway he says that individuals who find themselves “trapped in a woman’s body” or vice versa always have one thing in common, lack of a father figure. There is either no father in the home or the father that is there is distant or cold and serves as no gender role model. I don’t know how much of this is true. It certainly does go against popular belief at the present time. He talked about how others in the psychiatric community have criticized him for continuing on with his work. But he maintains that as long as he has patients suffering who come to him for help he will continue to treat them.

Needs2know

17

Because it’s an inherent truth of human experience. A human being can only experience life from one perspective, their own. A person cannot say, “I feel more like a woman than a man,” unless that person has been both a woman and a man, thus having a basis for comparison. It’s a contradiction.

18

I was wondering how long it would take for someone to pull out this foundless accusation. Pity how people will assume anyone who doesn’t follow the prevailing doctrine has a “problem.”

That’s just you blindly accepting the premise that a man can be born into a female body, or vice versa, which is exactly what I’m challenging. You are simply claiming that I don’t “understand what transsexualism is,” just assuming that is a foregone conclusion that I am wrong. Tell me how a male can be born with the mind of a woman, and then we can talk reasonably.

No, that’s false. I believe I warned people not to draw unwarranted assumptions. I did not seek to add weight to anything, or that I am just like transsexuals. In fact, I’m clearly not just like transsexuals, because I clearly pointed out that I’m not going to change my body using medical science. Others do. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But it’s not what I’m going to do.

This point is moot, because I have already explained that that was not my intent.

Being uncomfortable with one’s body is not the same as having the mind of the opposite gender

Exactly! A person can never know how another’s mind works! applauds wildly And this is why no person can say they have the mind of the opposite gender, because they can never have a dual experience for comparison There’s no separating mind and body. The mind of a male body is a male mind. Whether that mind fits the masculine gender role or not is another issue.

19

Although, bear in mind that the chromosomal definition of a sex is a fuzzy one. Depending on the hormone balance during pregnancy, an XY can become female, and an XX can become male. Not to mention the combinations such as XXY XYY, and XXX. I believe there’s a thread where these combinations are discussed and explained. I’ll try to find it.

20

All respect, Needs, but the guy sounds a little like a kook to me. When you get a chance, could you please see if you can get his name, maybe something he’s published? Thanks.