Let's get philosophical: What is Transsexualism?

[azSam]

This is a topic that has recently surfaced in my life. It's an amicable discussion. This is not a debate to prove who is right or wrong, it's simply a discussion to hear other people's points of view.

Let's start with what is a widely agreed upon statement of what transsexuality is. The basis of transsexuality is that your assigned gender at birth does not match the gender you feel or have a desire to express as. In more simple terms, your body does not match your mind; you feel like a boy but you have the body of a girl, or vice versa. The most widely agreed upon treatment for transsexuality is to transition the body to match the mind. This is met with a huge success rate.

I believe in giving people the benefit of the doubt; if a person claims that they are trans, that this is proof enough that they probably are. Most people don't usually stop to think, "Hey, I should have been born with the opposite body, this isn't right!" – It just doesn't cross their mind.

I believe that the desire to change one's body is at the very core of being transsexual. Since the most widely agreed upon meaning of transsexuality is an incongruity between the physical sex and the mental gender; it's only natural to want to change one's body.

This brings me to my final point. Does the lack of desire to change one's body make that person any less transsexual? It's not the lack of ability that I'm talking about; some people can't afford it, or have various other circumstances that keep them from transitioning. I am talking about the lack of the intrinsic desire to transition.

In recent events in my life, I have come across someone who says that they are transsexual, but they claim that they have no dysphoria and no desire to transition by means of HRT.

I'd like to hear other people's opinions on the subject as a whole.

[AbraCadabra]

When your 'heart and soul' – your inner being is of different 'sex' then you physical sex.

This 'gap' will be the cause of Gender-Indentity-Dysphoria (GID). This creates strong mental/emotional pain and the wish for a resolution.
The resolution is transition to the desired gender.

To have no GID and be fine with one's body-mind gender-aligment is typically a cis-person or non-trans-person.

Axélle

[eli77]

Personally, I don't really ascribe to the mind/body mismatch. It really isn't my whole body that is wrong, is it? My arms and legs look pretty fine to me, for example. It's just rather specific parts that are problematic. And my mind/brain are part of my body, so the whole thing seems a bit, well, inaccurate. I prefer to describe it as a brain/crotch mismatch. For me this has always been a very physical thing. I don't think of myself as a woman born in a man's body. I think of myself as a female with a birth defect. "Woman" is just a word we use to label people with my kind of physical form, it doesn't really mean anything to me beyond that.

I think this is a pretty personal kind of thing, honestly. I have absolutely no problem with anyone wanting to identify with the transsexual label. It only becomes a problem when your friend with no dysphoria and no desire to transition turns around and says, "because I have no dysphoria, you must not have dysphoria, because I don't need to transition, you don't." As long as we all stick to our own personal non-generalized experiences then we don't step all over each others toes.

But then maybe that's cause the label doesn't matter much to me. I prefer to think in terms of action and function. How do I feel? What do I want to do about it? Those concepts matter. Who I am? Pfft, who the ->-bleeped-<- knows?

[spacial]

I've given this question quite a lot of thought, especially since I joined Susans' and discovered the range of aspirations.

Personally, I would say that someone is transgender if they say they are. I can't see anything to gain from winkling out 'fakes'. Since I can't see why anyone would fake this.

If people join Susans' for example, so they can read salacious gossip then they are quickly disappointed.

The claim often made by some in the US, that it's an excuse to sneek into women's toilets is clearly a nonsense since it wouldn't be particularly difficult for such a voyeur to sneek in anyway. Lets face it. A guy, so disposed, could go in, in his normal clothes and hide in a cubicle where he can be disappointed and bored, without having to go to all the bother of declairing himself transgender, getting beaten up a few times, losing his home, family, friends and just about everything else, just so he can be bored and disappointed when he discoverers that girls also fart.

Apologies for making light of that point, but it really seems that ridiculous.

[Devlyn]

Wouldn't you rather play a nice game of Tic Tac Toe?

[justmeinoz]

I have a good FtM friend here who is a counsellor for Tassie's GLBTIQ support group, Working It Out.  They decided years ago to change society rather than their body. 
They came to that decision in the time it took to get from the Surgeon's office, where they had wanted SRS,  to the bottom of the stairs.  I guess that makes it a political decision, rather than a medical one.   Probably because of their background they seem to be coping well with their choice, so it really is a subjective decision I guess.

Karen.

[pretty]

Personally being trans is not a big part of my identity. I'm a girl who just happens to have been born a boy. I wanted to transition so I can be myself, who is too girly to be a boy. I don't even care about the idea of being a girl or the idea of femininity, it's just how I am and I just wanna be myself--who happens to be feminine.

I think people have different definitions. Some people are like me. Then to some people, being trans is in itself a part of their identity; they actually identify as a trans male or female before male or female. Some people maybe have other reasons. Different strokes. I don't think all parties will ever agree on a definition... I just think we all need to conclude that there are different reasons people transition for, and not try to speak for one another as a hivemind or something.

[spacial]

Thanks for the link Beverly, but it really seems like something entirely different. Even reinforcing the point I made.

No worries though

[Melody Maia]

Hey Samantha, I don't think you can be transsexual, but have no GID and no desire to change your body. I think by definition a transsexual feels the need to transition to the other sex. Whether that requires surgery is up to the individual, but I knew I couldn't live without it.

That isn't to say that person isn't a flavor of transgender. Maybe androgynous or even gay and crossdresser, but not transsexual by the strict definition of the term. IMHO.