First of all, I did not “out” myself so all you lunatics would take this opportunity to ask me all the stupid questions you ever had about being transgendered. To be frank, one of the reasons I don’t care for being out is that people ask me all sorts of stupid questions about things that I really am not interested in discussing with random strangers. I am not interested in being an exhibit in a freak show. (You can hang up the phone, Jerry. I won’t be on your show next week.)
That aside, to answer your specific question, I think anyone who has anything in their life which impairs or reduces their quality of life should seek treatment for it. I won’t say what form of treatment that should be; there are lots of alternatives and what works for a given person will obviously vary. But it’s stupid to live a less than full life because of an unhandled problem.
Tzel, if YOU felt like and thought of yourself as a woman, but were born with a man’s body, wouldn’t you consider that a problem? Because I sure would.
Don’t you DARE indicate that I was being negative toward transgendered people. We all have problems. This one is just a “bit” more complicated than the general population experiences. I deal with people as people, not as genders, or sexual identities, or who they want to sleep with. If a person has a good heart, and tries to act on that as much as they can, I don’t care if they are transgendered, green goblins, the guy/girl next door, or martian.
And I don’t believe that we ever heard your answer to the question “Why do you care, anyway?” If you are, as you stated, merely trying to correct people’s
then why did you post it in the pit?
And BTW, please stop patronizing AudreyK. She is an intelligent person, who went to some trouble to do some research. Patronize me, if you want, because my views come from my heart, and I don’t feel the need to support them with science. But Audrey did some work to support her views with cites, and you are starting to annoy me.
Fair enough. But what, to you, is “a man,” and why are you not one? Are you a woman? That’s truly what I’m wondering, since all you have said is “I’m not a man,” which really does not address the question of whether or not you are a woman. Now, you went on to say that you don’t want people asking you all sorts of questions, so I don’t really expect you’ll answer mine, however, I’m quite interested in your perspective.
Call what self-deception? You have not yet identified yourself as a woman, which is what I am asserting is not within the range of possiblity. Like you said, it requires bodyswapping. So what exactly are you objecting to? It seems that within your post, you’ve made the same conclusion that I have.
Besides, I’ve never once known a woman to threaten to break my face.
Well certainly. However, I would have no basis to conclude that I actually am a woman. No matter how inappropriate a body may feel, that does not mean that there is an opposite sexed being lurking in there.
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Exactly. That’s precisely what I’m trying to promote. It is this rigid thinking of people as genders, sexual identities, etc. that leads to categorizing a transsexual as “woman in man’s body,” or vice-versa.
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This question is meaningless. Why does one care about anything? I care because I believe that the idea of “woman in man’s body,” is a product of an outdated system of thinking. Let me explain.
We, as a society, once believed that people come in two varieties: male and female. One or the other, all or nothing.
Now we realize that there are people who, while born psychically a member of one sex, are not satisfied with the sex of their body. So how do we explain this. Well, we just take the foolish A or B idea and split it into two parts. Well, now people have a physical sex and an identity. Each one of those is male or female. Well now we’ve solved it, haven’t we. People become easily categorizable. You can even place them on a nice four square graph if you want.
Bullshit. The range of human experience is not expressable in A or B terms.
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Probably because of it’s complanatory nature. Like it says in the forum description, “complaints.”
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I don’t believe I did.
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I made no attack on her intelligence, but I did feel that her research was faulty, and I explained why. If you disagree with that, take issue with that, but don’t turn things around to claim that I am patronizing or attacking her. I intended no such tone, and even if I did, it hardly matters. It’s the substance of my statements that matters, and I stand behind it.
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I appreciate her effort, but I believe her cites were weak. She attempted to use textbook definitions in conjunction with one another to “prove”: “How can a man be born with a woman’s gender identity? We don’t know. But obviously, it, and its opposite, happens.”
Now, if I analyze the same definitions she gave, I can conclude that the gender discrepancy in transsexuals only exists while they are adults, since the book claims that transsexualism is a “Gender identity disorder in adults.” The bottom line is that a textbook definition is no more a citable source of proof than a personal statement, because textbook definitions need their own proof to back them up.
Tzel, you are obviously a very confused person seeking for some rationalization for your own feelings. I feel sorry for you. You definitely failed to get any of the points I made.
Yes, the “woman trapped in a man’s body” phrase is inadequate to cover all possible expressions of gender, and perhaps it fails to cover your own situation nicely, but in my case it applies reasonably well (except I would say “male body” since “man’s body” suggests that the body belongs to a man, and as I have previously stated, I am not a man). (Pet peeve: “lesbian trapped in a man’s body.”)
Nor do I accept that it’s solely a social role thing. Yes, I felt trapped by a male social role, more than I could cope with by bending social boundaries. My mood changed dramatically (for the better) within a week of when I started taking estrogen. I can’t say for sure that it’s because of the effect of higher estrogen and lower testosterone on brain chemistry, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised. I do know that for the first time in the past 23 years of my life (I’m 31) I am not depressed. If it was just social roles, the hormones wouldn’t have had this effect. If it was just about being socially accepted as female, I wouldn’t need the hormones or the surgical reassignment. While social acceptance is important to me, it is not the most important thing. My desire to rid my body of its male characteristics (to the extent possible) is not motivated by my desire to be perceived as female by others but by my desire to have my body match how I feel inside.
In no way do I believe that I am any less of a woman because I have XY chromosomes or because I was born with a penis. I don’t know what it is that makes me a woman, but I do know, without any doubt whatsoever, that I am a woman. My lack of an explanation for this doesn’t change anything. You’re just looking for a simple explanation for something that is far too complex, apparently, for you to even begin to understand.
Maybe you’re not trying to attack transsexuals, but by stating the insensitive position that a post-op transsexual is still a member of the same gender as most others who were born with the same genitalia, you do exactly that. Your position, as expressed in your OP, leads to the conclusion that I’m a man. I consider being called a man simply because I was born with a penis to be a base insult. Not only is it entirely possible for me to be a woman, but it is in fact the case.
I hope you sort out your identity problems someday. In my experience “gender is all cultural roles and doesn’t exist medically” is nonsense created by people who are deeply conflicted about their own gender identity and are hoping to create a “reality” in which that conflict doesn’t really exist. This doesn’t work; I know, I tried.
I refuse to let my identity be defined by anyone but myself. You have no say in this matter.
(I apologize for the scrambled nature of this post. I am more than a bit incensed right now.)
Okay, KellyM, while I generally agree with what you’ve been saying, I have to take issue with this. Sexual preference isn’t necessarily a part of any predefined “gender role” - it may be more common for people of one gender to be atracted to those of the other, but it’s hardly exclusive.
Likewise, just because you have a self-image of one gender, doesn’t mean that you will (or had better) be atracted to any particular type of genitalia. Regardless of what matt_mcl said earlier, it’s always been clear to me that sexual orientation is a third axis, apart from physical sex and psychological gender.
Of course, if you just meant that you can’t stand men who use this as some sort of macho line, I have to agree.
Tzel: same deal. You are atracted to multiple sorts of person. However, regardless of what you think, this gives you very little in common with any transgendered individual, since it has nothing to do with gender. That doesn’t preclude you having an understanding: however, you have demonstrated that you do not. It’s one thing to believe, through ignorance that there is no psychological aspect to transgenderism. It’s quite another to hear such evidence (Hi again, KellyM :p) and attack it for not conforming to your worldview. In other words: you’re wrong. Accept it.
[sub][sup](No, I don’t suppose you actually will. sigh[/sup][/sub]
That’s the context in which I find it annoying. It’s a stupid line that is demeaning of both lesbians and especially of transsexual lesbians. As a transsexual lesbian, I take offense.
There was a tv programme on about this this week here in the UK. It said that the doctor that did this believed everyone was gender neutral at birth & published books & papers about the case & quietly failed to inform anyone of the problems that bruce/brenda/john went through at puberty (and teasing/bullying wise, even sooner).
He was unaware of this & as soon as he found out, he got in touch with scientists/press to set the record straight. But that doctor had let the record stand inaccurately for something like 20 years to preserve his reputation, despite the fact that other people would be treated (possibly inaccurately) on the strength of his evidence/opinion.
Re the male/female brain thing…
There has been a lot of research to determine whether the brain is inately male or female (ie gender dimorphic), initially with rats and they found that there was (there were areas of the brain that were twice as large in male rats as female ones and they called these sexually dimorphic nodes (SDN for short)). These nodes grew in male size if the rat embryos were given testosterone during development, even if genetically they were XX.
They then looked for this in humans & found 4. Later they found a fifth. This fifth one was twice as large in males as in females, except for in the brains of transgendered/transexual males, where it was female size in all the brains dissected. They believe that this node may be the seat (or one of the seats) of gender identity. I go the impression that the fifth node information was fairly new & may have been what triggered the making of the programme. So yes, a male could have a “female” brain & vice versa.
Actually, not, for two different reasons. First, the body automagically lowers testosterone production upon the introduction of oral estrogen; the body seeks to maintain a certain net level of overall sex hormone, and the process that does this regulation doesn’t distinguish between estrogen and testosterone. Second, antiandrogens are a standard part of the hormone replacement regimen, mainly to slow further damage from residual testosterone production (especially male pattern baldness).
Having read this thread carefully, all I can get is that Tzal thinks that the phrase:
They were really a woman born into a man’s body.
should be
** She felt like she was a woman, but born into a man’s body.**
Is that it? Metaphor vs. simile?
I don’t really get you argument about a “male brain” - what is that? In sex ed classes, when they talked about secondary sex characteristics like breasts, they never mentioned men growing a brain.
But really, as a one trick pony gay man, I don’t fall into the typically male “Men are from Mars, Women Read Self-Help Books” pattern that stand-up comedians base sub-par routines on. But I don’t feel like I should be a woman. However, some people do feel that, so who am I to tell them how they feel?
Kelly I apologize if I somehow offended you. I suppose it was a stupid question after all. I’ve just wondered why some people would be so vehemently opposed to someone seeking therapy for something that bothers them. Simply because it doesn’t further their agenda I guess.
