Transsexual Statistics? before the internet!

[Jamie D]

The internet has certainly made it easier for people to find out what is 'wrong' with them, and I think we see that reflected by young people joining this group.  Certainly when I realised I was female there were no resources to even explore what that meant.

I'm old.  I remember times before the internet.  You remember - libraries, books, journals. I remember the DARPAnet.

[Padma]

I wanted to transition when I was 23 (in the mid-80s) but the world just didn't seem supportive enough to pursue it then, and I didn't know myself well enough to be confident enough to try anyway.

The thing that made the difference to me now wasn't the internet, it was meeting other trans people and recognising myself in them.

[Naturally Blonde]

I wanted to transition when I was 23 (in the mid-80s) but the world just didn't seem supportive enough to pursue it then, and I didn't know myself well enough to be confident enough to try anyway.

The thing that made the difference to me now wasn't the internet, it was meeting other trans people and recognising myself in them.

I'm only a couple of years younger than you are Padma and I agree with what you are saying regarding the lack of support in the 1980's. But when I first saw and met other trans people at a clinic it actually put me off as I assumed that trans people on HRT would look female and unfortunately these people didn't. I found it very upsetting. I also didn't see myself like them and I just wanted to get out of there.

[chrishoney]

I was just teasing. You know I'm an academic and a luddite, right? The internet and I are still eying one another warily.

Hey Felix, I heard there's a website for Luddites.....but it's hard to log on because MS Internet Explorer still doesn't recognize cuneiform. But maybe there's an app for that; now where did I leave my ink pot and quill? lol

[MacKenzie]

But when I first saw and met other trans people at a clinic it actually put me off as I assumed that trans people on HRT would look female and unfortunately these people didn't. I found it very upsetting. I also didn't see myself like them and I just wanted to get out of there.

This^.^

[Devlyn]

I'm confused. The hormones didn't work back then? They weren't taking them? I don't get it. Hugs, Devlyn

[A]

I believe the average for transition is going down. Older transitioners don't have as much chances to pass as well as younger ones... Especially in the earlier stages. More older people = less passability, in theory.

I see many 30-40-year-olds around here who end up passing very well... But in their first 3-6 months, many weren't even close to passing, whilst a similar proportion of their peers half as old as them were already very close to, or already passing.

Plus, I assume that people visiting a clinic often aren't very far into transition. The further in you are, the less often you visit the clinic, right?

[Padma]

Different people have different desires (and expectations) when it comes to transitioning and how they want to look (and expect others to look). Fortunately for me, I've never wanted to be feminine, I just want to be female. I wasn't ready to fight the world to make that happen when I was younger. Now I'm ready, and there's less fighting involved.

[MacKenzie]

Plus, I assume that people visiting a clinic often aren't very far into transition. The further in you are, the less often you visit the clinic, right?

  Not necessarily, the clinic I went to had a support group for ts women and some of them have been going to it for many years and still look like a drag queens worst nightmare. 

[Naturally Blonde]

  Not necessarily, the clinic I went to had a support group for ts women and some of them have been going to it for many years and still look like a drag queens worst nightmare. 

Yes, that was my point!

[Cindy]

As for Devlyn's point I'm not sure when 'safe' hormones came through. Estrogen was limited to pregnant horse serum I believe, and I'm not sure when AA's came into use. That said it was around 1963 when I came out very confused to my parents, and they in turn rejected my confusion with an equal quantity of confusion. No wonder I was confused.

Certainly as a 13 year old I had no where to find out was going on. Our at least no where I could think of going, particularly after being told by my parents that I was sick and sinful. But they knew no better.

[V M]

There wasn't really much info available when I was growing up and I was scared to death to say much of anything     I thought I would be alone in my darkness forever

I'm really glad to have the internet and a place like Susan's to come to and relate to other folks

I am also very thankful for the friendships that have developed

[Amazon D]

I was put in haverford state mental hospital as a child for wearing womens clothes. My neighbor was in there for being gay. Many in my era didn't know what to do and were dealt a negative blow by psychologist. However, i was fortunate to have been successful with some buildings i eventually built which earned me the ability to transition after selling them. I was 41 then. I had also two sons by 2 moms so i wasn't in a long lasting relationship which might have held me back. Oh during the early 60's i was able to have long hair as a hippie bt that also allowed me to wear womens clothes until i got caught and put away. I started transitioning and then got on the internet to meet others like me. That was in the late 90's. The other problem i had in the 70's and 80's was each time i went to the gender clinic on 8th street in Phila pa they told me i had to like men sexually. That detoured me and made me angry and confused. I had as a early youth seen the phil donahue show with transsexuals on it but they were not like what i thought myself to be. I was more like a hippie chick and not some stereotypical heterosexual female. I did have my first lesbian relationship in 1970 as a rnaway living at a lesbian gay commune in N . Calif called HOKAHEY up miller creek in southern humboldt county (pot growing capital of the USA)met a woman named mary who was older and was intimate with me but she didn't touch me below. I had long hair and felt like a lesbian. In closing there are too many variables for us to be concerned about statistics because ot them. 

[tekla]

I WWW aspects of the internet come on-line at the same time that treatment becomes widespread - so you are seeing a mirror image in a lot of ways.

First of all, are there ANY transsexuals before Christine Jorgensen?  She was the first person to get both the SRS and the HRT, without either/both of those things in place isn't everybody just TG?

[Padma]

When I was 15 I knew gender transition existed in the real world, because one of my mum's fellow art students at college transitioned, and she told me about it. I already knew about it as a concept from all the fiction I'd been reading since I was a kid that just happened to have transition themes in it (Venus Plus X, Triton, The Marvellous Land of Oz...) - but round about the time I first allowed myself to know I wanted it, we were right in the middle of the first big anti-AIDS propaganda "blah blah gay plague" sickness that the UK went through alongside of AIDS, and all the hate just scared me off daring to be in any way visibly that different.

[Felix]

As for Devlyn's point I'm not sure when 'safe' hormones came through. Estrogen was limited to pregnant horse serum I believe, and I'm not sure when AA's came into use. That said it was around 1963 when I came out very confused to my parents, and they in turn rejected my confusion with an equal quantity of confusion. No wonder I was confused.

Certainly as a 13 year old I had no where to find out was going on. Our at least no where I could think of going, particularly after being told by my parents that I was sick and sinful. But they knew no better.

What I read was that exogenous testosterone was available in the mid-thirties and estrogen was available in the early fifties. I don't have a source for that at hand, though.

[AbraCadabra]

I WWW aspects of the internet come on-line at the same time that treatment becomes widespread - so you are seeing a mirror image in a lot of ways.

First of all, are there ANY transsexuals before Christine Jorgensen?  She was the first person to get both the SRS and the HRT, without either/both of those things in place isn't everybody just TG?

Well, not e.g. in India where there was, still is the caste of Hijras who all have had their primitive version of SRS.
And if I have it right the same ''system" was used way back in Temple of the Sibyl Women... in ancient Rome.
Our Western Judeo/Christian culture was not up to any of it, that much I will concede.
Also, "plant phyto-hormones" would have been know in some form or another - that be my best guess though.

Axélle

[cacasca]

So glad the internet helped me choice the right therpaist and such, and take care of myself before I got my prescription
very useful, feel bad for the past generations that couldn't

[mementomori]

why kind of hormones would people like april ashley and cocinelle be taking back in the 50s and how would they have gained access to them