Thoughts Upon the Transsexual/Transgender Debate

[Inanna]

There have been studies, yes. But none of it is conclusive yet.

That's only because the human brain is much more complex than chromosomes or reproductive organs, which are easier to study from the outside. 

I'm not waiting on the cisgendered world to unravel the deep mysteries of the brain before I get their approval to be considered born intersex.

I understand. There are many spectrums of trans people. You got trans who said they were always female and then aligned their bodies, you got trans who never gave it much thought until they got older or after a divorce, you got trans who identified as male for one part of their lives and then switched over to female for the second half (or vice versa).

People, both cis and trans, are born on different parts of the spectrum, and naturally some are closer to being both genders than only one.  As it happened, my brain has "only one" even though I've certainly tried to have a dual gender identity to be okay with lingering male physical attributes - it never worked, even slightly.  I don't think the brain's sex is fundamentally changing by gaining conscious awareness and acceptance of who we actually are.

[ninjaboi]

Ive just read most of this topic and realized i am actually not genderqueer, i am transgender! According to what your saying here. 

[Padma]

Boy oh boy, does it depend who you ask... .

[ninjaboi]

Boy oh boy, does it depend who you ask... .

Its all very confusing! Lines get blurred!

[Padma]

Its all very confusing! Lines get blurred!

That's because the lines are artificial, and hand-drawn .

[ninjaboi]

That's because the lines are artificial, and hand-drawn .

Yes!  I am me, thats all i know.

[Padma]

Yes!  I am me, thats all i know.

Someone I rate a lot said once: it's not so much a question of becoming more yourself, as of just stopping trying to be anyone else...

[Annah]

That's only because the human brain is much more complex than chromosomes or reproductive organs, which are easier to study from the outside. 

I'm not waiting on the cisgendered world to unravel the deep mysteries of the brain before I get their approval to be considered born intersex.

There are already tests to see if you are intersex.....I was talking about the tests that are being developed to gauge transexuality in a person.

Currently, the medical definition between transsexual and intersex is very different. As I said earlier, some intersex people may object to you calling yourself intersex by being trans.

[Silas]

It's pretty iffy once you get down to it. XD I always saw transgender as the umbrella term, but most definitions I've seen of transsexual tend to give non-ops the middle finger. I don't really care to've been born with a more developed penis (that's all clits are, underdeveloped), I much rather'd been born with (and allowed to keep) some sort of intersex condition.

I think of myself as both, although namely transgender, but pretty much because I already see myself as male and male-bodied, despite the overabundance of estrogen and "female" reproductive organs. The transgender part just includes the genderqueer part of my ID. Although I don't think I'll ever see myself, even post-T, as someone who previously had a transsexual condition. I can completely see how a lot of people do, but I'd probably just see myself as intersex. (Which would probably be ideal to me in the first place.)

It seems like "Transsexual VS Transgender" in sorta-kinda in the same field as "Black VS African-[Country of Residence]". With the former, you have people saying they're the same and people saying they're not. With the latter, you have pretty much the same. "Transsexual? But you haven't had any surgeries!" "African-American? But you're white!" etc. ha. Everyone has a preference and is entitled to defining themselves however they please.

[Inanna]

Currently, the medical definition between transsexual and intersex is very different.

The "medical" definition of individuals with variant sexuality or gender has such a good track record, does it not?

As I said earlier, some intersex people may object to you calling yourself intersex by being trans.

I suppose that is their problem.  If anything, I object to this even being a serious point of contention.  If someone actually believes TS is acquired rather than developed prenatally, I don't care to partake in convincing them otherwise.

[Annah]

The "medical" definition of individuals with variant sexuality or gender has such a good track record, does it not?

I suppose that is their problem.  If anything, I object to this even being a serious point of contention.  If someone actually believes TS is acquired rather than developed prenatally, I don't care to partake in convincing them otherwise.

it's not that it is their problem. Maybe I am not really explaining it well and that is my fault.

Right now, there is a clear medical difference between transgender/transsexual and intersex. While they both are related in terms of gender, they are still uniquely different from one another. It is like an Apple and an Orange. They both relate to each other in terms that they are both fruit but they are still very different from one another when compared side by side.

So it is not about who is comfortable with what term between intersex and transsexual. There's a major medical difference between the two.

I only stress this because there has been a growing number of transsexual people labeling themselves as intersex so that they can feel better about themselves or make it easier for others around them to deal with the transition. There is also a desire for transsexual people to want to have a less "contraversal" label and I really respect that but it is what it is. Intersex people are intersex. Trans people are trans.

[gennee]

I am a transgender woman who is not offended by either term.                                                  GENNEE

[Inanna]

- The prefix inter- means between.
- In the womb, sexual differentiation permanently affects the path of development for the reproductive organs and structures of the brain.

If the fetal brain diverges in a direction opposite to their reproductive organs, the fetus is neither fully biologically male or female.  In other words, they're between sexes.  A term we use for that is "intersex".  It's not a matter of who came up with or agrees with these labels, it's a matter of biology:

http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/131/12/3132
http://jcem.endojournals.org/content/85/5/2034
http://www.biologicalpsychiatryjournal.com/article/S0006-3223%2808%2901087-1/abstract
http://www.fertstert.org/article/S0015-0282%2807%2901228-9/abstract
http://www.journalofpsychiatricresearch.com/article/S0022-3956%2810%2900158-5/abstract
You can find more studies at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_transsexualism

[Julie Marie]

I am a transgender woman who is not offended by either term.                                                  GENNEE

I am just like everyone else: completely, entirely, totally and indisputably unique.

[Princess of Hearts]

For me the difference between transsexual and transgender really comes down to this.    The transgender person while certainly not ruling out surgeries and feminisation procedures is not as fixated upon the techniques and procedures as the transsexual.    Secondly, in my opinion the transsexual desires to undergo the whole gamut of surgeries and procedures currently available and is keen for yet more surgical procedures to become available.   The transgender person prefers on the whole to pick-and-mix what he/she has done.   This is just my opinion so please feel free to express your own opinion.   

[RhinoP]

Honestly, and just because I don't beat around the bush, I'll say it outright; I use Transgender and Transsexual almost as the same term and I usually forget to separate them.

But at the end of the day, I do believe that Transgender applies to a few concepts, like "proudly passing without medical intervention" or "acting like the gender and not medically being the sex".

And then I believe that Transsexual often applies to concepts like "truly needing medical intervention to pass" or "proudly doing every medical step needed to make me feel like the sex I want to be."

The controversy is behind the psychology of appearance. GID peoples who are born Androgynous-looking in terms of biological body and facial traits usually have less severe levels of stress because they are already able to socially pass or identify physically (facially and sometimes body wise) with something other than strictly their biological sex, while people who are very strictly born looking like their biological sex (extremely masculine, extremely female) often have much harder times coping with that type of canvas. The result is that naturally Androgynous people with GID tend to have a much lower drive to medically transition (and many of them proudly refuse medical transitioning), while the patients with extreme bodies and faces tend to want the medical transition full force and are very proud to medically leave the days of "looking a Caveman" behind them.

But of coarse, that's by no means a guideline or even a full definition, it's just a pattern that has been pointed out by many professionals.

[Rachael Michelle]

I'm no expert here but seems transgendered means being on gender on the inside and the other gender on the outside. Transsexuals are those who take on the other gender's physical sexual characteristics. Now I have heard some say that one is not transsexual until they have had GRS so I don't know that breast development of the opposite gender would count. That being said, I don't really care. I just don't like being thought of as a gay male, though I would be happy to be thought of as a lesbian female. I don't like the term ->-bleeped-<- either, as to me it implies a ->-bleeped-<-, a man happy to be a man but likes to play as a female sometimes. But that's just me. No offense to anyone that thinks differently. The most impt thing is to be true to who you really are and not be caught up in labels. Love, Rachael

[Princess of Hearts]

Honestly, and just because I don't beat around the bush, I'll say it outright; I use Transgender and Transsexual almost as the same term and I usually forget to separate them.

But at the end of the day, I do believe that Transgender applies to a few concepts, like "proudly passing without medical intervention" or "acting like the gender and not medically being the sex".

And then I believe that Transsexual often applies to concepts like "truly needing medical intervention to pass" or "proudly doing every medical step needed to make me feel like the sex I want to be."

The controversy is behind the psychology of appearance. GID peoples who are born Androgynous-looking in terms of biological body and facial traits usually have less severe levels of stress because they are already able to socially pass or identify physically (facially and sometimes body wise) with something other than strictly their biological sex, while people who are very strictly born looking like their biological sex (extremely masculine, extremely female) often have much harder times coping with that type of canvas. The result is that naturally Androgynous people with GID tend to have a much lower drive to medically transition (and many of them proudly refuse medical transitioning), while the patients with extreme bodies and faces tend to want the medical transition full force and are very proud to medically leave the days of "looking a Caveman" behind them.

But of coarse, that's by no means a guideline or even a full definition, it's just a pattern that has been pointed out by many professionals.

I agree with a lot of the above RhinoP.    This afternoon the thunder rumbled, the skies grew slate gray, lightening flashed, and the rain bounced off the ground.   This type of weather always puts me into a contemplative mood.   One of the things that I realised today is that being very young I don't have to rush into things as it were.    I have up until now over-looked the fact that there are people here who are 20, 30, 40 years older than me.    They feel 'Time's winged chariot ' drawing near and this lights a fire under them.  They think if I don't undergo all these procedures in the next year or two I probably never will.      Age, and the awareness of the passing of time combined with an increasing awareness of so much lost time and opportunities squandered can be powerful factors in considering if one is a transsexual or a transgender.

[Princess of Hearts]

Wow!   I came across this powerful and very appropriate quote from Dr Thomas Szasz one of the leading lights in the anti-psychiatric movement.


                                                                " In the animal kingdom, the rule is, eat or be eaten; in the human kingdom, define or be defined."
                                                                       Thomas Szasz

[JungianZoe]

The controversy is behind the psychology of appearance. GID peoples who are born Androgynous-looking in terms of biological body and facial traits usually have less severe levels of stress because they are already able to socially pass or identify physically (facially and sometimes body wise) with something other than strictly their biological sex, while people who are very strictly born looking like their biological sex (extremely masculine, extremely female) often have much harder times coping with that type of canvas. The result is that naturally Androgynous people with GID tend to have a much lower drive to medically transition (and many of them proudly refuse medical transitioning), while the patients with extreme bodies and faces tend to want the medical transition full force and are very proud to medically leave the days of "looking a Caveman" behind them.

But of coarse, that's by no means a guideline or even a full definition, it's just a pattern that has been pointed out by many professionals.

I think that's blatantly unfair and doesn't reflect any professional opinion I've ever read.

The psychology is much more individualized than you give credit for.  I'm not going to go into any false modesty here: I'm genetically lucky.  When I started hormones seven months ago (at 33 years old), I had no hair loss, a small frame, only half the facial hair of a normal guy, not a single body hair, no adam's apple, feminine arms, small nose, and a high voice.  After just two months on HRT, I passed so well that people were shocked when they saw my license, and some people openly questioned my identity as they stood two feet from me inspecting every feature for recognition of a male beneath the surface.  Now, after seven months, I blend in as if I was any other girl and noone ever thinks twice.  So no false modesty... I pass, and I pass damn well.

But you know what?  That's a fluke of genetics, not something I did.  Sure, I pluck my eyebrows.  Sure, I take great care of my skin.  Sure, I've had a lot of facial hair removal (laser and electrolysis).  I primp and I preen and I make myself appear date-worthy.

What's that?  Date-worthy?  Yes, I'm lonely.  I haven't been with anyone in over three years (not even a single date) and I've only had sex six times in my whole life (once with my first girlfriend, the rest with my ex-wife).  I only ever dated five people in my entire life, including my ex.  Want to know why?  Because I hate what you can't see below my clothing.  How can I be with a guy as a woman when I have what I have down there?  I really want to date, but would I ever find a guy that open-minded?  One who won't want sex at all until I've been corrected?

And I'm currently unemployed and am $60k in debt from student loans.  My basic bills are $2000/month, which means I need to clear $24k/year just to break even.  That's basically an unattainable salary with my educational background (two bachelor's degrees in fields that aren't exactly in demand).  So when will I ever get to have surgery?  When will I ever get to fix my body so I don't have to be lonely anymore?  What if this economy goes into another recession next year like experts keep saying is very likely?  I'm making NO progress toward surgery, much less being able to pay off my current obligations.  I'm despondent, I'm depressed, I'm desperate.  I pass, yes.  But it's not enough... nothing short of surgery is going to be enough to make me feel comfortable in my own skin.

So saying that we androgynous people have low surgical drive...?  Think again.