Because when I saw them, I thought ‘I have these parts, therefore I am a girl.’ My gender identity is defined entirely by what parts I saw.
They are to me, and this is the perfect example of what I find insulting about the view that’s presented here. Telling me that I’m wrong to have defined my gender based on the things I did.
If everyone can define their gender based on their own criteria, why are mine wrong?
You’re right, you’re not my psychologist. I don’t have a psychologist because I am quite happy with myself and the fact that I am a woman because those are the parts I was born with. It works for me, so why bother to insult me by telling me that what works for me is wrong?
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.
I think the entire concepts of ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ are basically a bunch of BS. 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.
Joe_Cool, as far as I can tell, your primary argument is the orangutan analogy. It’s evocative enough when it comes to making your point, but it seems a bit flimsy to rest an entire argument on. For one thing, believing that you’re a completely different species than the one written into the DNA of both male and female humans (and yeah, I know, human DNA isn’t that different from orangutan DNA, but my point stands) is not necessarily equivalent to believing that you’re not the sex everyone else sees you as.
You also haven’t offered any evidence (as far as I can recall; please correct me if I’m wrong), anecdotal or scientific, that gender dysphoria/transsexualism is a psychological disorder rather than a physiological one. The opposite viewpoint has had some reasonable-sounding scientific possibilities offered and a lot of strong anecdotal evidence.
Here’s one citation for that viewpoint, easily found through Google:
Can you cite me evidence that gender dysphoric individuals have been cured (and by “cured” I mean turned permanently into reasonably content, functional members of society rather than suicidal, self-loathing depressives) by means other than hormone therapy and/or SRS, i.e. by being convinced that they were actually deluded?
I think the main problem here is taking your experiences and then thinking that everyone must just be like you(which is done by both sides).
I believe that some minds can be male, some can be female, and some can be neither or a little of both. I think that this thread bears that reasoning out.
Thanks for the feedback, Joe. I think we both understand the other’s positions.
Yes, if I was single and (mentally) attracted to them, and their trans status was based on their honest inner them (and they were not some of the crazy people we’ve seen mentioned in this thread, like those with the money to change back and forth; nor being a transexual for the purpose of niche prostitution).
However, in terms of a long-term relationship, or anything…physical whatsoever, they could not ever act or appear “male” to me under any circumstances; that is, they would have to have SRS. That may seem picky too, but I have valid reasons for feeling like I do - at least they’re valid to me.
But with those qualifiers, yes, sure, I would have no objections to a long-term or more physical relationship. They would be female to me.
Finding all of this absolutely fascinating, and trying to figure out a question that people haven’t asked before…
This is extremely interesting to me… I’m thinking of three hypothetical situations. In one, someone is born XY, androgen insensitive, with genitals that always appear just like the genitals of a normal XX female. This individual undergoes fairly normal development at puberty, save for the lack of menstruation. However, due to financial circumstances, fear of doctors, or the like, the condition is not diagnosed, and the individual continues to live happily as a female until marriage and subsequent investigation of the possibilities of bearing a child, when the condition is discovered.
Situation two: Someone is born XX, with normal ovaries and external genetalia, but with a uterus that does not properly develop. This individual undergoes fairly normal development at puberty, save for the lack of menstruation. However, due to financial circumstances, fear of doctors, or the like, the condition is not diagnosed, and the individual continues to live happily as a female until marriage and subsequent investigation of the possibilities of bearing a child, when the condition is discovered.
Situation three: Someone is born with the XO chromosomal abnormality, in which there is only one X chromosome and no Y chromosome. This individual undergoes fairly normal development at puberty, save for the lack of menstruation. However, due to financial circumstances, fear of doctors, or the like, the condition is not diagnosed, and the individual continues to live happily as a female until marriage and subsequent investigation of the possibilities of bearing a child, when the condition is discovered.
To anyone interested - how are these situations different to you? Which of these people is a woman? Are any of them women? If any of these happened to someone you’d selected as YOUR life partner, what would you do?
…ack, I just realized that my post was a bit hijack-y. But I do think it relates to what it means to be a “real” member of a certain gender, which is certainly germane to the topic.
Nobody’s saying that you can’t define your gender based on your own criteria. They’re just suggesting that it need not threaten your gender identity to accept that different criteria can apply to different people. All right, so you are a woman because of your anatomy and because of your physical experiences with it. Nothing wrong with that. Eve and KellyM are women because they have felt this way in the very core of their selves for as long as they can remember. You aren’t Eve or KellyM, so why feel that their criteria threaten you?
Catsix, I feel much the same as you concerning having a female brain. Note, I said I feel. That’s because of my brain make-up and my life experiences. My feelings don’t apply to others, simply because they have different brains and different experiences in life.
You and I are both very strongly childfree. I expect you feel the same as I, in that unlike some, neither of us made a choice to not have children, just the mere thought of being a parent is, at best unappealing. We are in that small group of people who were born childfree. It is part of who we are, not some ‘lifestyle choice’. I have noticed a fairly large number of “born” childfree women don’t seem to have a strong sense of being a woman. They are women, but not strongly so. My sense of gender or orientation isn’t strong at all. I feel like ‘me’ not ‘me, a woman’. I’m attracted to males, generally, but also feel attracted to some females. I was in a committed relationship too young for me to find out if these feelings extended the whole way to full bisexualism, but I do know if my husband told me tomorrow that he honestly thinks he is a woman, that I would take it in stride. I love him, the person, not his chromosomes or genitals (though they are quite good, too;) ) Yes, I would think lots of talking, counselling, testing, yada, yada, would be called for, but I trust that he knows himself better than anyone. I trust that he knows who he is, just as much as I know who I am.
Now put yourself in a position where you know without a shadow of a doubt that you are childfree. Imagine that nobody believes you, thinks it’s just a phase, and you constantly have it pointed out to you that “all women love babies” (this really shouldn’t be too hard to imagine ). Now picture yourself as pregnant. It’s unnatural, it’s not right, you want it fixed immediately. You know this is not the way your body should be. It doesn’t matter how many people tell you that “it’s different when it’s your own” or “you’ll make such a good mother” or whatever. You know yourself and you know that pregnant, or caring for children is not what your body should be doing. How do you know this ? It’s embedded in your mind. It’s part of your brain, the part that makes you ‘you’. It just is.
Now transfer that situation to the transexuals in this thread. While it probably isn’t the same thing, unless we find a childfree transexual, I doubt we’ll know, and even then that’s only one individual’s feelings. It’s close enough for some empathy and understanding anyway, I think. How many times have you tried to explain being CF to someone who just doesn’t get it ? How often have you heard the same tired phrases ? Probably as often as I have. And probably a tenth of what KellyM and Eve have heard. They may not fully understand what being childfree is like, just as I’ll never truly understand what being a transexual is like, but I believe they know themselves, just as I know myself, and I wouldn’t dream of telling them differently, or of trying to make my experiences or feelings match theirs somehow.
Don’t be one of those same people who insist that you’ll love children because you are a woman and that you’ll change your mind one day, simply because you are a woman. Be one of the people who say “Oh. I never thought about that. Good for you for leading your life the way you know it’s meant to be. Let’s go have a beer.”
Your feelings and experiences won’t translate to others fully, just as theirs won’t translate to you fully. The only thing we can do is try to understand, and be tolerant. Try reading those links, the scientific side of it is fascinating… haven’t you ever wondered why you were “born” childfree ? I’d love to know if there was a chemical lacking in utero that failed to switch on the maternal gene… or if a certain hormone affected the part of my brain that contains reproductive urges.
Anyway, this is way too long, and largely off-topic, I just thought if it was phrased in a familiar way, you might see a different approach to the topic. At least you and I can thank Og for contraceptives and abortion, it’s much easier for us to stay true to who we are than it is for transexuals.
Elfbabe
[sub]nitpick[/sub]OTOMH, AI and Turner’s syndrome women do not undergo puberty without taking hormones. [sub]/nitpick[/sub]
However I still consider them women.
Joe Cool
I would date an mtf. Being who I am, ;j , Guinastasia’s Catholicism is a far greater obstacle to romance than what box is checked on Eve’s birth certificate.
I agree with other posters that the line between honesty and cruelty has been crossed.
Hmm, sites I saw on Turner’s said that they undergo little development of secondary sex characteristics without estrogen, but that they have small breasts and sparse pubic hair, which implies some (if minimal) development. Could be wrong, but it always seems to be phrased that way.
More on Turner’s: I found this at http://infertility.about.com/library/ifctr/blturner.htm . It’s attributed to Linda Marie Randolph, M.D. Medical Director, Genetic Resources Medical Group, Inc. and states “Some girls and women with Turner syndrome may have no other obvious feature besides short stature, so there is quite a bit of variability in the condition.” Of course, the article also includes other chromosomal abnormalities under the category of Turner’s Syndrome, (damaged X instead of just missing X) and doesn’t state whether missing X people can also end up with reduced outward signs.
Elfbabe, who is not a physician OR pre-med, but who seems to have been affected by 18 years living with Qadgop the Mercotan. Wonder how THAT happened.
Why should that make any difference? In both cases here, we’re talking about a chemical reaction in the body that doesn’t occur the way it should occur. (That’s what the brain is, after all–a bunch of chemical reactions that we don’t understand. We understand the reactions involved in AIS much better, but I don’t see why that matters.)
Why do you think that when this reaction occurs in the gonads, it is “out of their control”, but when it occurs in the brain, it isn’t?
Do you think people with AIS could get those testosterone receptors to work if they’d just put their mind to it/pray about it/suck it up/whatever it is you propose transgendered folks do to overcome their difficulty?
Are you sure? All the AIS women I’ve heard of developed as normal looking adolescents and eventually grown women without hormone treatments, although of course they never began menstruating because they don’t have uteruses.
I just checked the ISNA site, and it says that the estrogen produced by the testes of an AIS woman is sufficient for puberty. But I guess AIS women who are diagnosed in infancy and have their testes removed before puberty would have to take hormones.
I have to ask-am I a bad person because I wouldn’t be interested in dating a FtM? I don’t know…it’s just…I think I would be uncomfortable, at least. Now I feel bad.
(I guess if I KNEW the person, it would be different, but it’s weird…)
Of course, like Una said, it would be after surgery.
Guinastasia, no, no more than I am a bad person because I wouldn’t be interested in dating a man. Everyone has their personal tastes and preferences, and those preferences are rarely rationally explicable.
I have to say that I don’t really understand a lot of the opinions that have been expressed here, but the one I really, really don’t get is tossing your spouse out on his/her ass because of genetics. If Dr.J were to suddenly tell me he was a MtF, I’d want to know why he’d never brought it up in the last 8 years, to be sure. I don’t think it would make a real difference at this point, though.
He’d still be the person who holds me when I’m worried or upset, the person who cooks and packs me a lunch while I’m showering before work (even though he works longer hours than I do), the person who brings me Peeps (the pink ones, not the icky yellow ones) just because they had some at the store. Who he is is a kind, generous, intellectually stimulating, passionate person who’d go to the wall for anyone he cared about. What he is is a doctor, a cook, a magician, and someone with a penis. I know which set of characteristics means more to me.
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?
). Now picture yourself as pregnant. It’s unnatural, it’s not right, you want it fixed immediately. You know this is not the way your body should be. It doesn’t matter how many people tell you that “it’s different when it’s your own” or “you’ll make such a good mother” or whatever. You know yourself and you know that pregnant, or caring for children is not what your body should be doing. How do you know this ? It’s embedded in your mind. It’s part of your brain, the part that makes you ‘you’. It just is.
At least you and I can thank Og for contraceptives and abortion, it’s much easier for us to stay true to who we are than it is for transexuals.