I think you meant to direct that to Joe_Cool. I’m on your side.
I was put on anti-estrogen, then testosterone was added on top of that, so from the first month I was on anti-estrogen I never got again my period. I’ll be on T alone after my hysto.
I don’t miss bleeding a bit 
Transexual frogs-sounds like a good name for…dare I say it?
gobear, I meant them as parenthetical comments to what you had to say, without implying that you disagreed with me. I apologize for the confusion.
I found this page about transgendered people in the military, I wish I would find an “official” site though:
http://www.sldn.org/templates/get/record.html?section=19&record=726
http://www.sss.gov/instructions.html
(selective service system)
on their “request for status information letter”, they plainly ask you if you are transsexual, and what was your gender at birth.
If you were born female, you are exempted, from what I’ve gathered from net discussions on ftm circles, they can give you a special letter for that, as proof of why you didn’t do the selective service if you have “male” on your id.
It’s possible for a ftm to have had top, bottom and hysto surgery and not have scars, or barely visible ones, so with the effects of testosterone, it would be therorically possible for a ftm with a very very successful transition for no one to say if they were born female. I have seen perfect chests, and near perfect meta surgery, but I have yet to see the two on a same guy.
But yeah, it might be possible.
But unless lying about previous surgeries and one’s transsexual status, it’s not possible to hide it to the military I think.
And maybe the military can reform you for having a small penis anyway, I don’t know under how many inches it would be seen as a difformity.
Something I forgot to post earlier, Online Alchemy (pics from the Body Alchemy book) and Man Tool have “nice” pics of ftm srs surgery, they are two, three clicks away from the main page.
http://www.lorencameron.com
Loren Cameron is a photographier and ftm himself.
Everything I have found supports what you posted, Lazz.
I could not get any information on an offical website, though.
A friend of mine is pretty high up in the USAF, I will ask him later, and let you know.
I went through a physical for the USAF when I was 17. This is when I thought I wanted to enlist, but at the very last minute, I changed my mind.
The physical was very in depth. It was almost like going to my OB/GYN doctor. (very thorough) with lots of questions.
I have a feeling that they can tell even if you don’t.
I will also ask a doctor about that at my work.
Are you saying (and I’ve been out of school way too long to remember hypothalamus’s ), that your hormones and brain are born female, but the testes and such also showed up?
Does a doctor diagnose this?
If so, I do see where you are coming from.
I used to hang with drag queens(my former husband was one) and knew men who had had surgery.
They screen you quite well beforehand.
(Image the problem-oops_i changed ym mind!ha!)
I didn’t mean to say you were "pretending " to be a woman, like the queens were.’
I read a great book called Vive La Difference by a couple named Walsh and it explains all the problems with fetuss which receive the “wrong” hormone bath early on in the womb.
ANyway, carry on (and stay outta the mens room)
vanilla, current medical theory is that the transsexual brain develops “female” because of a transient exposure to a feminizing agent from whatever source. For some reason, presumably a hormone level that is not as it should be, the pathways in the developing fetal brain develop as they should for a female fetus instead of as they should for a male fetus.
My current hormone levels are more '“female” than “male” because I take oral and transdermal hormone supplements and an antiandrogen. My natural hormone levels, before I started hormone replacement, were right smack dab in the middle of the male range.
There is currently no way to test brain structure without dissecting the brain, which generally is inconvenient for whoever is using it at the time. Perhaps as radiologic imaging techniques improve there will be a straightforward scan that could detect the “transsexual formation” reliably, but I’m not holding my breath on that one.
Drag queens are (generally) not transsexuals. Please don’t base your understanding of transsexuals on your experiences with drag queens as the two groups have very little in common.
Vanilla, unlike some people I could mention, I am glad you are open to information and willing to learn–even if you don’t agree with us, you are polite and inquisitive, both of which are appreciated.
This may sound way out there, but like, with the possibilities of cloning, would it ever be possible to build a totally new body?
Or have I been watching one too many movies?
Guinastasia, even if there were, how would you get your mind into the new body?
I dunno, if brain transfers were ever possible. I mean, it wouldn’t be for generations, I’m sure. Just something that popped int o my head. Don’t jump on me for it.
Heh, it’s not like you’re the first person to suggest it. Transgender literature is just overflowing with stories along those lines. 
For Joe_Cool and JerseyDiamond: I’m interested in debating you on the social aspects of the question without arguing the religious points. I gather that most of the issues you’re having are religious in origin; my first thought (back on the first page) was to comment that one is attracted to people, not a gender as such, even if most or all of the people one finds attractive are of the same gender (as is usually the case). On that basis, discovering that an attractive person was of the wrong gender—whatever “of the wrong gender” means for you, if it means anything at all—shouldn’t matter. That argument is primarily directed at those with secular or humanistic personal moralities. If the morality is external, as with religious moralities, such arguments don’t really go very far, and arguing definitions is not a fruitful pursuit. This is certainly not the place to argue the relative merits of different moral structures (not this thread, at least), so I’ll just stipulate that JC and JD find the idea of becoming romantically involved with, respectively, an mtf and and ftm, to be morally wrong. (Also, for the sake of argument, disregarding the fact that they’re already taken.) For regardless of the reasoning, it should be clear that a transgendered individual and an individual sharing JC and JD’s beliefs have a fundamental incompatibility that would cause both individuals to not want a relationship if they knew.
Now, we come to the crucial question of who bears the social responsibility to inform the other of this mutual incompatibility. Is it the transgendered, and if so, when? On first meeting? After talking for an hour? Before the first kiss? After the first kiss? Before having sex? Afterwards? “Eventually”? Or is it the person with the moral restriction? And if so, when? And if neither tells the other, who is “at fault” and how unreasonable were they being?
Ultimately, the answer has to address not just the relative situation of the two people but also the mores of society. To make this a little clearer, consider the case of a person born with a sixth finger, who had it removed in infancy, and their date, who feels that anyone born with such a “deformity” is an abomination. We can probably agree that the six-fingered one had a mild and surgically-correctable problem, had it taken care of, and shouldn’t assume a need to inform everyone about it—hence the date has the responsibility of mentioning their revulsion at the idea of congenital deformity before the relationship gets too far, and if not, it’s really not the six-fingered person’s problem. We have a sort of societal agreement that minor defects like this shouldn’t and don’t matter, though most of us would probably concede that there are people out there who disagree. Those that disagree are probably at least aware that they are at odds with most of society, and hence that the burden of revealing incompatibility is on them.
Of course that’s a gross simplification. With transgendered individuals who live as a gender different from that indicated by their birth genitalia, there are large segments of society that think it shouldn’t much matter, and large segments that think it matters very much. Sorry, but it’s so—whichever camp you find yourself in, there are lots of people in the other one, too. Those in the latter camp are a little more edgy, because until fairly recently they were in the clear majority in society, and they could (by the rules I’ve laid out) assume that anyone they interacted with was in fact not transgendered, or at least that it was up to the TG person to figure out what was going on and ditch out of the relationship early. There are communities where that view is still held by the majority. But there are others where it is not, and here is where the dangerous interplay occurs. JC, JD, in a society where it is not considered “wrong” to be TG, folks that are TG have no responsibility to out themselves, because to them and their society, passing for their non-birth-genitalia gender (NB: “true” gender or not, is irrelevant to my point) is not wrong. If you meet them in a context that could be said to be such a society, you really can’t expect them to assume you’ll have a problem with it.
Of course, in reality the latter camp may be shrinking, but their belief that “passing” is morally wrong tends to be so firmly held (and often violently, sadly) that even if it is a small minority, it’s worth the while of the TG to circumspectly find out early on, and ditch the relationship if need be. But it really isn’t their responsibility in a larger society where TGism isn’t wrong, notwithstanding a minority that finds it so.
This is getting long, but I have one more point to make about “hate” and lack thereof. Joe_Cool said a while back that he didn’t hate TG folks, and JerseyDiamond confirmed this. I do believe this; agnostic and atheist types often underestimate the extent to which Christians and other religious can believe the “love the sinner, hate the sin” credo. (To be sure, there are a lot of Christians that don’t follow it very well, but there are many, many that do.) The problem arises when, through sloppy thinking or bad communication, the distinction is not carefully maintained, and words like “deceit” and “liar” enter the conversation—these can certainly be read as words of hate. Even when the speaker is careful to maintain the distinction, listeners can miss it; and when using loaded words you need to be prepared for some people to read the words as hateful even if you yourself are not.
Ok, I’m really going to close now, with a hypothetical, somewhat stilted, conversation, and my verdict:
“I believe kissing a m2f TG is equivalent to kissing a boy, and morally wrong.”
“You kissed me, and I am m2f transgendered.”
“Oh, no! You have inadvertently caused me to do something I find morally wrong.”
What now? Well, the relationship’s over; neither person is going to want anything to do with the other. Neither one actually did anything socially wrong. There’s no fault or blame to be meted out. As for the moral wrong the man feels he committed, well, we can all be thankful that (afaik) all the religions with this sort of prohibition also conveniently happen to go pretty light on inadvertent transgressions and are big into some form of redemption through repentance, in case the inadvertence of the thing wasn’t enough. And if he finds that what he’s just done is revolting or whatever, well… shit happens, we all end up doing some things in our lives that we find disgusting.
Life, somehow, goes on.
From a christian perspective I dissagree. You are known by the fruits of your labor. So you can say you don’t hate someone, but if most others interpret your actions as hatred then that is what counts.
There are the Guevedoces.
From this cite
**
More cites:
http://www.usrf.org/news/010308-guevedoces.html
http://salmon.psy.plym.ac.uk/year1/psy128psychosexual_differentiation/sexdiff.htm
DES can cause abnormalities in a sons testicle, possibly making them more at risk for
testicular cancer, but this isn’t even certain.
I have not seen any research saying it has anything to do with a person being transgendered.
Do you have anything on that? **
[/QUOTE]
I don’t know about DES specifically, but Shiki’s mother also has hormone problems. I’ve noticed the same with many of my transgenderd friends.
I hesitate to break in here, because I’m not certain of the accuracy of what I’ve got to say, but my impression is that Joe (and Jersey):
[ol][li]Feel that “the gender you start with” (as expressed chromosomally and in body form) is the one you’re “supposed to be” and that the proper route for a transgendered person is not to undergo a course of physiological/surgical therapy to conform body to inner feeling, but rather a course of psychological therapy to conform inner feeling to body form.[/li][li]Believe that in a dating relationship, even a tentative first date situation, it’s incumbent on the transgendered person to identify what (phenotype) gender he or she started out as – because of item #1 – because to do anything else is deceptive to persons who feel (a) like Joe and Jersey, that you start out as one gender and remain that, even if you have your body modified to match what you identify as, and (b) they should not date someone “of the same gender” – even if he or she looks like the opposite gender. [/li][li]Are really firm on honesty and frankness being the proper mode of conduct between two people – and see the lack of such revelation on even a first date as a form of deception, regardless of the inner feelings of the transgendered person.[/ol][/li]
I’m not positive that that’s where they’re coming from, but based on their posts here and in the Araujo thread, that’s what I’m making of their position. It doesn’t happen to be one that I agree with in total (I do think that honesty and frankness, when socially possible, are entirely the right things to do). But it is one that I can understand the logic and moral rectitude behind, and not one that I’d see as based on hatred, fear of the unknown, or any of the other stuff.
This is Great Debates – people are entitled to express their stances here, provided they can defend them. I’d ask them to explain, in nitpicky detail if necessary, why they take the view that they do with regard to points 1 and 2 above (assuming here that they do take that view – and, with my apologies for misrepresenting them, to correct me and explain what their stance in fact is, if I did not read them correctly).
A brief hijack on the above: At first I read the two of them as “hate-filled fundamentalists” in the traditional liberal perspective – but the more I read what they had to say, the more I saw that that was not what they were indeed saying. It took me a long hard journey to see who they really were, and I’m disinclined to see them get dumped on because Joe tends to be too blunt and disinclined to see how his words may carry hurtful connotations – he’s focused on one particular element (my blaming the parents in the Dartmouth suicide thread, the deceptiveness – from his perspective – of Eddie/Gwen in the Araujo thread, and a similar lack of forthrightness in dating situations here). One point that might need to be made strongly is that being a man or a woman is not, obviously, merely a matter of dating-and-romance situations – Eve is a woman when she’s writing, shopping, posting on this board, and visiting her mother. (Someday, by the way, Eve, I’d love to hear the story of how your mother dealt with your “change.”)
I’m not saying all of this to “take their side” in the argument – I flatly think that Joe and Jersey are wrong on several key points, and will be prepared to argue them on a level playing field. But it’s important to me that they not receive a pile-on for stating a different perspective, unless and until that perspective is one of abysmal ignorance or hatred – positions that I don’t think they are accustomed to espousing.
As a side note, I was pleasantly surprised to find Vanilla and Eve hypothetically staking claims to me if I were single. For some reason, nobody ever flirts with me in MPSIMS or anywhere else; I was beginning to feel low self-esteem from it!
On the other hand, the person might have been set up for a blind date with Inigo Montoya!
I still don’t understand how someone who was born in a male body and grew up like a boy can ‘know’ that they were really a girl all along when the experience of growing up as a girl is so much different.
And I can’t help but find it a little bit insulting that it’s even said that way, because to say that discounts and ignores everything that a woman who was born a girl goes through in her life.
It’s rather like how I wouldn’t tell someone that I know how it feels to have grown up as a boy, because I didn’t. I don’t know what it was like to have a ‘wet dream’ for the first time or get an erection looking at someone attractive or be embarassed by that in class, and I’d consider it insulting to those who did have that experience if I were to say ‘Well I always was a boy, I grew up as a boy and I’m just the same as you.’
It’s not that I want to deny anybody the right to live their life as they want. It’s that I believe it’s just as intolerant to say that things like being in the bathroom when I was 10 years old and figuring out that whole ‘period’ thing that was never explained to me or having 11 year-old boys snap my bra because I was growing breasts are huge parts of what it was to grow up as a girl, and someone else saying ‘Well I always was a girl because those are just physical things that don’t matter’ feels like a slam.
catsix, I’m going to say essentially the same thing to you that I said the last time you said that sort of thing. Nobody except you is arguing that all women have the same experiences growing up. Nobody except you is saying that a transsexual woman is the same as a natal woman. All I’m saying is that a transsexual woman is a woman. Not all women are alike, and if you could just grasp that, I think the source of your confusion would evaporate entirely. Someone doesn’t have to be just like you in order to a woman, and someone can be a woman and still be very different from you.
Yeah, well I think there’s a much bigger difference between what someone who grew up with a penis and someone who grew up with a vagina went through than what a girl who got her period at 10 and one who got her period at 15 did.
And I still find it insulting to the things that made me who I am that someone can say biology doesn’t matter at all. That’s hurtful and intolerant to me, because my experiences in life are very important to how I feel as a woman.
If you could just grasp that what you’re saying about how you were ‘always a girl’ discounts things that are very, very important to who I am, maybe you’d understand why your POV is not that easy to grab.