# Transsexual Question **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 27, 2003, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transsexual-question/164565 "2003-03-27T18:14:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 17
**Author:** ![DeVena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dec6dc/32.png) [@DeVena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeVena)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2003, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transsexual-question/164565/321 "2003-04-03T17:37:32Z")
I’m a Christian - but please read the rest of my post… I love my husband very much. He is truly the best thing that ever happened to me. While we were dating MrVena told me that he had a a genetic deformity and would probably never be able to father a child but he’d never had it checked out. It was always the “family secret”. He had VERY small testicles. When we married, he was in the military. I started fertility treatments pretty soon. And he had a testicular biopsy. The results really made the military get nervous. My husband does not have testicles. There is a scrotum and nerve bundles but that’s it. No other tissue. The military doctors then forced him to have a DNA screening. They were seeing if he was genetically male. If he turned out to be a “malformed” female, they would kick him out of the service. While waiting the several days for the results to come back, MrVena was VERY depressed. And I decided that Male or Female, I loved the person I married. It didn’t matter what other people thought. Love is never wrong - but genetics can be. I love a person, not a gender. (The tests came back XY, by the way.) But I would have stayed with him either way. That’s what Love does. ---
**Author:** ![lee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lee/32/7455_2.png) [@lee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lee)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2003, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transsexual-question/164565/322 "2003-04-03T17:42:24Z")
Continued is a bit of a misnomer. It was not something we did for nearly 2 years of making love together, and is not anywhere near the primary way we make love. She had been away for a bit on a trip. We missed each other a bunch, we felt adventurous, and things got kinky. _shrug_ We got really lucky. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2003, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transsexual-question/164565/323 "2003-04-03T18:01:22Z")
Oh, and I would NEVER quick out a spouse I loved dearly because of a genetics test. (Unless I found out he was a close relative or something! LOL) When I said a marriage might fall apart, I meant a deliberate ruse to hide something from another person, rather than trusting them. If someone was a “malformed” male or female or whatever, it’s what they spent their life as. ---
**Author:** ![CrazyCatLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@CrazyCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrazyCatLady)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2003, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transsexual-question/164565/324 "2003-04-03T18:04:32Z")
Yeah, I understand that it’s not the primary form of lovemaking for most pre-ops. I guess I’m assuming that it’s not the first time she’d ever taken Mr. Happy for a test drive, if not with you then with someone else. Of course, I guess that further assumes that you weren’t her first partner, and we all know what happens when you assume. As a natal woman, it just seems like it would feel really strange, and kind of wrong, to be using an “outie” rather than an “innie” and vice versa. I just wondered if TG people have the same sort of perceptions on the subject. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Lao](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/2bfe46/32.png) [@Dr.Lao](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Lao)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2003, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transsexual-question/164565/325 "2003-04-03T18:08:01Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by DeVena \* > \*\*My husband does not have testicles. There is a scrotum and nerve bundles but that’s it. No other tissue. \*\* How could he have any secondary sexual characteristics if he doesn’t have testicles? ---
**Author:** ![BleizDu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@BleizDu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BleizDu)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2003, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transsexual-question/164565/326 "2003-04-03T18:12:46Z")
um no Guinastasia, it wouldn’t make you a “bad” person, we do weird out some people, that I can understand, but if it’s simply because of the general idea we are transsexual/were born female, then I would say that maybe working on it to go past that uneasyness would be a good idea in the specific case you would be attracted to an ftm and wouldn’t date him solely because of that general idea, the “oh my god he has a XX caryotype!” effect. If it’s more a matter of body parts, like not wanting to be subjected to the outside view of a vagina in bed, or the way ftm’s genitals look, then it’s different and I can understand that reason. But I admit I only wish people who say that they wouldn’t date ftms wouldn’t throw the “ftms don’t have penises” line that often, because otherwise I would expect them to be a little more coherent and not date a non-trans guy if they found out he has a micropenis, otherwise I fail to see how the “only a penis can satisfy me, ftms don’t have one, so I wouldn’t date a ftm” stuff could hold water. Well a good point for dating an ftm is that at least if a girl date me, no fear for her of unwanted pregnancy. ---
**Author:** ![blahedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a4c791/32.png) [@blahedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blahedo)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2003, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transsexual-question/164565/327 "2003-04-03T18:27:48Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Quoth **catsix** : \* > > > [@](#): > > > > **blahedo** said: > > IF you proceed from the axiom that “true psychological gender” and “birth-genitalia gender” (aka “sex”) always are the same. Is that a fair characterisation of your view, catsix? > > Well, I’ve been the one who doesn’t see much psychological about gender since the beginning because I don’t think minds and personalties are ‘man’ or ‘woman’, just ‘people’, so no, that’s not a fair characterization of my view. OH! Now I see. Not so much “psych gender” and “birth-genitalia gender” being the same, as that “psych gender” doesn’t exist. That brings a lot of your other comments into focus, then; they do make sense in that context. And that seems on the face of it to be a not-unreasonable view (though I don’t share it); but then how do you explain the evidence of hypothalamal differences that correspond less to genitalia-gender and more to psychological gender? > [@](#): > > I think the entire concepts of ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ are basically a bunch of BS. I think a lot of people agree with you, **catsix**. When feminism started kicking into high gear in the sixties and seventies, a top priority was breaking down gender stereotypes so that the women who wanted to do non-traditional things like be doctors or construction workers or whatever _could do so_. Under the extreme view, kids of either gender should be raised with no bias at all, and should not be given toys thought specific to one gender (or rather, they should be given toys specific to both genders). They would then be free of preconceived gender roles, yadda yadda yadda. Problem is, this seems to have developed into a belief—now fairly widely held—that ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’ are totally artificial social constructs. It seems more likely that A) we have conflated a few different things into those words, some of which may exist and some of which may not, and that B) at best they are sort of cluster points on a grand continuum (or more likely a plane, or an n-space), such that most men cluster around the “masculine” point and most women around the “feminine” point, but with considerable variation. The conflation causes the following problem: we don’t want there to be some sort of “masculine jobs” and “feminine jobs”; that’s dumb. But if we totally reject the idea of anything other than biological gender, we get into the situation of trying to tell people like **Eve** and **KellyM** and **Lazz** that they can be anything they want to be and do anything they want to do while officially remaining their birth gender, why should they need to go through such an invasive and irreversible process? And yet, there is one thing they _can’t_ do without going through the process: _be_ the other gender. “It shouldn’t matter,” say the opponents… but the fact that they even care, well, that sort of gives away the game. If it shouldn’t matter, why do they care? In acknowledging that it does matter, they answer their own questions. > [@](#): > > If a boy ‘does things like his sisters’, that’s just the kind of person he is, and it doesn’t mean he really should have a vagina instead of a penis. True, if the boy merely ‘does things like his sisters’. But if the boy actually feels more like a girl, then “the kind of person he is” doesn’t _have_ a penis, or shouldn’t. ---
**Author:** ![dorkusmalorkusmafia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dorkusmalorkusmafia/32/7266_2.png) [@dorkusmalorkusmafia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorkusmalorkusmafia)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2003, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transsexual-question/164565/328 "2003-04-03T18:31:31Z")
> [@](#): > > How could he have any secondary sexual characteristics if he doesn’t have testicles? Very easily. The testes are the primary source of testosterone int he body but not the only source. It is the same reason that some women can grow beards. For what it is worth, men produce estrogen also, but just not as much as women. ---
**Author:** ![KellyM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/57b2e6/32.png) [@KellyM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KellyM)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2003, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transsexual-question/164565/329 "2003-04-03T18:33:25Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CrazyCatLady \* > \*\*Out of curiosity, though, I’ve got some questions about the logistics being a pre-op transsexual, mainly regarding sex. I know that **Kelly** at least has continued to have vaginal intercourse during the pre-operative phase. Is this common? Does it feel weird to be using the genitals of the “wrong” sex? If it doesn’t feel strange, wouldn’t it be as easy (and cheaper) to just cross-dress? \*\* It’s not particularly common, but it’s also not unheard of. It’s not my preferred way of having sex, by any means. I do it because **lee** enjoys it (she is bisexual) and I want to make her happy, and because I can tolerate it. Sometimes I even enjoy it (more often than not, actually), although it can be very difficult for me, especially after orgasm when I am very sensitive and not very much aroused. Also, **lee** really wanted to have a child and her husband is sterile, and this seemed a better way to accomplish that goal than sex with strangers or the use of banked sperm. It does feel strange, and it’s more a matter of “making do with what you have at the time” than “this is how I prefer it”. If I wasn’t losing my job in September (and my insurance coverage with it), I’d already be on the waiting list at Dr. Brassard’s. And, yes, you’re right, simply crossdressing would be cheaper and simpler. I tried that; it did not work. I need the hormone levels that go with hormone replacement for my peace of mind. I think my brain is geared to have high levels of estrogen and low levels of testosterone or it’s just not happy, and there’s not much, short of medication, that I can do about that. I have two children by a prior marriage (who I have only minimal contact with, as we separated on very poor terms), so, no, I had a sex life as a man. A rather unsatisfying sex life, to be sure (toward the end, even trying to have sex would induce a panic attack), but I was not a virgin when I met **lee**. Oh, and **Dr. Lao** , the adrenals do produce some testosterone in an XY individual; this might be enough to create at least some male secondary sex characteristics. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2003, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transsexual-question/164565/330 "2003-04-03T18:33:37Z")
Oh no no no no!!! I don’t mean at ALL that you’re weird or anything! Nor that you don’t have a penis. Hmmmm, how do I put it… It’s possibly about looks. (Of course, if I found out if Goran Visnjic was FtM, I wouldn’t care, perhaps! So maybe I’m just saying this now-who knows?) > [@](#): > > If it’s more a matter of body parts, like not wanting to be subjected to the outside view of a vagina in bed, or the way ftm’s genitals look, then it’s different and I can understand that reason. Maybe. Or maybe I don’t feel I understand enough yet. It’s confusing. (I will say I do find female genitalia pretty gross looking. And I’m female. It’s not that I think it’s icky or shameful, just asthetically unpleasant). Although I usually tell people that I know that I’m obsessive compulsive, which they might not want to deal with. I have a lot of issues of my own, so it might be very stressful? So I tend to start freaking out and have all these weird ideas of my own. ---
**Author:** ![CrazyCatLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@CrazyCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrazyCatLady)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2003, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transsexual-question/164565/331 "2003-04-03T18:34:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lazz \* > \*\*Well a good point for dating an ftm is that at least if a girl date me, no fear for her of unwanted pregnancy. \*\* Between this tidbit and the fact that you no longer have periods or cramps, I must say that I’m intrigued by your viewpoint and would like to subscribe to your newsletter. 😃 Oh, and **Kelly** , if you really want a uterus, you’re more than welcome to mine. You don’t need one to have a chid of your own, though. You already have a child that’s your own, both emotionally and biologically. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Lao](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/2bfe46/32.png) [@Dr.Lao](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Lao)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2003, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transsexual-question/164565/332 "2003-04-03T19:11:38Z")
I realize that the adrenals produce some testosterone. But without testicles, a man should not go through puburty. ---
**Author:** ![Oy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Oy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oy)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2003, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transsexual-question/164565/333 "2003-04-03T19:29:28Z")
I am not a transgendered person. But I was married to a man who decided (and I am not using that word loosely) to become a woman after we had been married some years. I say decided because, unlike some transgendered folks, my husband was not inclined toward suicide or self-mutilation; he truly decided that he PREFERRED to be a woman to a man. He was extremely fortunate in that his build and features lent themselves to this extremely well, despite having neither an XXY chromosome nor a deficiency of testosterone. I loved my husband, and I didn’t stop doing so before or after his operation. I think, under the circumstances, we can take it as a given that I neither hate nor fear transgendered folks. But I didn’t and don’t view him as a woman. To me, the operation simply took the costume deeper than wearing make-up and women’s clothing (in which he looked absolutely fantastic, I might add, at least once I taught him to dress!). And that was a key factor in splitting us up (the other being that I truly felt he hadn’t gone through all of that to remain married to me - and while he loved me, I think he was relieved. He wanted to experience dating as a woman.). He couldn’t accept my continuing to regard him as the man I married, and I not only couldn’t, but wouldn’t have chosen to view him any other way. He was the man I’d married, for heaven’s sake! I was perfectly willing to help him make OTHER people believe he was a woman if that’s what he wanted, but, sorry, nothing would or could make ME believe it in any deep way. One of the points I’m trying to make here is that an inability to believe that someone who has had surgery is now the sex that their body resembles does NOT mean that that person either hates or fears the transgendered. Joe\_Cool was being aggressive and even rather obnoxious, but to assume he fears TSs is contrary to any evidence I saw and rather facile, IMO. One can have views on this point without them being informed by either hatred or fear. To assume otherwise is to apply a stereotype which I can assure you from personal experience is not valid. The other thing I wanted to mention was my particular theory on why MTFs tend, particularly at first, to be very dressy, and often not in very good taste at that. And this one will almost certainly piss some of you off, for which I apologize; it is not my intent. While there are some exceptions, I don’t believe that most men who choose to follow this path have been raised as girls. Regardless of how they may feel internally, the fact is that they are viewing being a female in their society from the outside. Sorry, but this is utterly inevitable; if you are a boy on the outside in this (and I would imagine most, if not all, other societies), your experiences are going to be those of a boy. Our society treats boys and girls differently long before puberty, and of course the divergence increases enormously with age. What I’m driving at here is that I suspect most men who start trying to live as women ( before surgery, since a reputable surgeon requires this) are pretty clueless. They dress and often behave as they PERCEIVE women doing, from the OUTSIDE. Also, (although I think this is more common for TVs than TSs), I think many men feel much freer to be flamboyant as women than as men, and thus dress in a flashy fashion that they wouldn’t consider when dressed as a man. This is OPINION; I have no cites, nor have I looked for any. It is based solely on my personal experience and observation, so if I’m wrong, I’m wrong. It won’t be the first time or the last! Just my two cents… ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2003, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transsexual-question/164565/334 "2003-04-03T19:42:03Z")
Well, just because someone isn’t exactly suicidal and/or self-mutilating doesn’t mean they weren’t transgendered. Of course, I am sorry that your marriage ended. ---
**Author:** ![BleizDu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@BleizDu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BleizDu)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2003, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transsexual-question/164565/335 "2003-04-03T20:14:44Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Guinastasia \* > Oh no no no no!!! > > I don’t mean at ALL that you’re weird or anything! It’s okay, it’s me! I mean, I call myself weird all the time, even if you remove the trans thing, my personality seems weird to a fair part of people, I’ve been called like that for years, so I tend to apply it to me in a kind of a reclaming way, or so I tell myself. 🙂 I don’t see that word as negative when applied to me, it’s like, you know, strange, odd. ---
**Author:** ![DeVena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dec6dc/32.png) [@DeVena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeVena)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2003, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transsexual-question/164565/336 "2003-04-03T20:23:30Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Dr. Lao \* > \*\*How could he have any secondary sexual characteristics if he doesn’t have testicles? \*\* Sorry to hijack - The term that was used was “stunted puberty” - his body had just enough testosterone to start puberty but never finished. Now he’s on Hormone Replacement Therapy - testosterone injections. He’s physically filled out in the last ten years, and his jaw is more square now. And he refuses to shave his beard because he was never able to grow one before. And FTR, he’s fully functional, as long as he has his shots. Just doens’t produce sperm. end hijack ---
**Author:** ![dorkusmalorkusmafia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dorkusmalorkusmafia/32/7266_2.png) [@dorkusmalorkusmafia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorkusmalorkusmafia)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2003, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transsexual-question/164565/337 "2003-04-03T20:43:35Z")
> [@](#): > > I realize that the adrenals produce some testosterone. But without testicles, a man should not go through puburty. That still isn’t exactly true. It does indeed work in some individuals that way but when castrati were still en vogue it was seen that it didn’t always work in preventing puberty and secondary sexual characteristics (namely the voice deepening). ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Lao](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/2bfe46/32.png) [@Dr.Lao](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Lao)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2003, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transsexual-question/164565/338 "2003-04-03T22:30:46Z")
OK, I see now. ---
**Author:** ![vanilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f19dbf/32.png) [@vanilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vanilla)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2003, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transsexual-question/164565/339 "2003-04-03T23:01:05Z")
When you have the surgery, are you then legally considered the intended sex? Also, do you have to change your I.D. or anything like that? ---
**Author:** ![catsix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e19b73/32.png) [@catsix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/catsix)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2003, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transsexual-question/164565/340 "2003-04-04T03:37:58Z")
> [@](#): > > **Goo** said: > Catsix, I feel much the same as you concerning having a female brain. If that’s the impression you got, that you think I ‘feel’ I have a ‘female brain’, then you misunderstood me. My brain’s not female, my body is. My brain’s not what makes me a woman, having been born with a uterus did that. > [@](#): > > The only thing we can do is try to understand, and be tolerant. The problem is that to some people, their definition of ‘accept my beliefs about this’ means ‘believe what I believe about this.’ I have been told more than once that my belief about what made me a woman is wrong, and it’s even been suggested in this thread that I have some kind of unresolved issue myself that I should get professional help for. Accepting that other people believe differently than me is not a problem. The problem comes in when someone doesn’t want me to accept _that_ they believe, instead they want me to accept _what_ they believe. Asking me to accept and hold the belief that gender is in the mind because my belief about myself is that it’s just a matter of how the reproductive organ dice were rolled is not tolerant of my right to believe what I do. I hope this is beginning to make sense, because I don’t really know how else to explain it. It’s like how I am with religious people. I don’t believe any kind of god exists, but I can accept _that they believe it_. It’s when someone says ‘No, you’re wrong in your beliefs even though they are personal and only apply to you. Believe my way.’ that I have a problem. > [@](#): > > haven’t you ever wondered why you were “born” childfree ? Nope, I’ve never wondered why. I don’t care why, finding out why doesn’t interest me. I am how I am. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transsexual-question/164565.md?page=16) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transsexual-question/164565.md?page=18)