Terminology

[suzifrommd]

I have made my own terminology which I will use almost every time except for very specific situations.

XY Female and XX Male.  Rather than Cis, XX Female and XY Male

I like this. Much more concise that the alternatives.

[Rita]

It is to the point 

That is why I like it, because it is how I feel.

[Constance]

I have made my own terminology which I will use almost every time except for very specific situations.

XY Female and XX Male.  Rather than Cis, XX Female and XY Male

Likewise, I identify as a "male-bodied woman."

[Annah]

I label myself as a woman

It cuts through the red tape, the hour long explanations and it's how I feel.

[Rita]

I label myself as a woman

It cuts through the red tape, the hour long explanations and it's how I feel.

That is for the outside world away from this forum

[M777a]

 Carlita, sorry I didn't get back to you sooner, but I felt I needed to address the post before yours without starting a firestorm.  Also I felt it would be improper to put both responses in one post, I hope you'll pardon me for that. Now that's been said let's move to you post. I would have to agree with you the conflict comes from our "disorder" being  in the DSM. Your right this is a disorder, but since I also know this to be a biological malfunction should it not be in the medical disorders book? By putting it in just the DSM the public and some us view this as something you can simply just think away (a mental thought) or pop a pill and your cured. That couldn't be further from the truth as you well know. The word disorder does have its own negative connotation. I may be wrong but the word seems to be used with mental conditions more often the physical ones. Misalignment seems better than disorder, due to the fact it doesn't seem to have a large negative connotation. 
        While it may be okay with you to be called a ->-bleeped-<-, from my perspective as someone who respects you for taking the time to input on this topic and in your life, I'll call your Carlita(that is you, ->-bleeped-<- is your "disorder"). I call people by their names, not by name calling.

[Annah]

That is for the outside world away from this forum

Thats how i label myself in here

[M777a]

I label myself as a woman

It cuts through the red tape, the hour long explanations and it's how I feel.

Well said Annah. The  terminology describes the condition not the individual. Have any other thoughts on the terminology of the condition.

[tekla]

I have made my own terminology which I will use almost every time...

Doesn't that, in fact, only confuse the situation more?  Doesn't that lead to a rather literal Through The Looking Glass kind of world, where instead of clarity one gets only confusion? 

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - that's all."

Long ago there was a proposal to use the word 'variant' as in gender variant, giving it a patina of a naturally occurring mathematical possibility.  But that notion sank quicker than the Titanic.  And though there is a movement to try to - as the gay community did with 'homosexuality' - get it out of the DSM entirely, but then 'no DSM, no money', and because there are (can be) such huge expenses involved in correcting the incongruenty, that movement goes no where fast.

And where terms are meant to limit, they are intended to include, as is the case with Trans - (sexual/gender), but most of these kinds of discussions always sound to me a lot more about excluding, having a heavy undertow of "those people over there, I'm not like THEM."

[M777a]

 I would like to take a look at tekla's last post. First a quote from the post:

quote/
   And though there is a movement to try to - as the gay community did with 'homosexuality' - get it out of the DSM entirely, but then 'no DSM, no money', and because there are (can be) such huge expenses involved in correcting the incongruenty, that movement goes no where fast.

My first question is why do you feel, as you imply in the quote, that if the condition is taken out of the DSM  there is no money? Money from where? Also couldn't there be a debate as to whether the condition is a medical or psychological  or both? Certainly by defining a term wouldn't that give clarity to where it falls on the medical/psychological spectrum?

The next quote:
And where terms are meant to limit, they are intended to include, as is the case with Trans - (sexual/gender), but most of these kinds of discussions always sound to me a lot more about excluding, having a heavy undertow of "those people over there, I'm not like THEM."

To respond: the only way you can be excluded is if you don't have it. The terminology describes only the condition not the individual. Maybe to help clarify a little bit, a captain in the army happens to be black, so he doesn't want to be refered to as a black captain, but a captain who just happens to be black. He didn't get to chose his skin pigmentation and that doesn't define who he is. In this topic there is no undertow of exclusion simply just to exclude people, if you don't have GSM then you don't. I don't like the term trans because I am not crossing anything, I am already there. Just have to fix a few flaws on the old cover stock.

[tekla]

Because there is no physical test, no obvious symptoms, then it's in the mind - and if it's in the mind, and it's going to be covered by insurance (and like it or not that's the way our health care works, and given what the new laws say, it's going to continue that way - insurance companies are - and will continue to be - at the fulcrum point of medicine in the USA for a long time to come) it has to be in the DMS.  That's a basic requirement for most insurance carriers.  If they can't 'code' it on the billing, they ain't going to pay for it, and in that sense the DMS is a huge coding guide.  And if your looking for insurance companies to adopt a more liberal, open and understanding attitude, then you haven't met many.  They hire huge office complexes of people to avoid paying, not for trying to find new and novel ways to give the company money away.  (Which is exactly how they see it.)

I guess if you have an argument with the use of the prefix 'trans' then, you need to pick a fight with the Dons of Oxford, as well as the Romans.  Now count me in on the second, after all the Latin I was forced to take in school I have my own set of problems with them.  If - on the other hand - your have trouble with how words come into existence in English, how they are validated and defined, and how they enter into popular usage, then count me out.  Trying to change usage, though possible, tends to be like something out of Animal House, you know, a situation that absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part - and I'm not that person.

And, since this does seem a lot like attempting to create a definition of one (you) that does not cover everyone else (them), I'm not at all sure what my part in it would be as my basic response to attempting to define/explain/elaborate/educate myself, or any part of me is to tell the person that I'm not a library, I'm not 411, and I'm not their personal professor either.  So the words used tend not to matter to me.  I'm pretty much OK with being called anything except late for dinner.

I mean I feel you on that whole 'trans' thing, if I was forced to pick (which I'm not) I prefer crossdresser to transvestite, if a choice has to be made.  Though I just call it 'doing drag' as that's' an old theater term/stage direction and I'm comfortable with that and everyone knows what it is.  Transvestite , first off, is a big, old, pompous Latin-type word when crossdresser, the Anglo-Saxon description, is much more to the point. When any sort of alternative is offered, the modus operandi should always favor the Anglo-Saxon word, ceteris paribus. Good writing, Strunk & White assures us, eschews the Latin, knowing; Vox populi, vox Dei. Besides, crossdresser seems to center more on the fashion aspect, opposed to transvestite, which arises from the psychiatric community and basically defines a pathology of mental illness revolving around specific sexual issues. Transvestites are routinely presumed to be gay men dressing as women for the point of luring other men to have sex with them, or else straight men with a sexual fixation to the point of fetish - neither of which seems to fit me very well.  And though I'm not 'doing a show' drag works for me because in a way (like the other public aspects of my life) is is a performance of a kind. But there you have it.

That, and I don't really believe in the psychiatric community either.  So there is that too.

[Rita]

Well said Annah. The  terminology describes the condition not the individual. Have any other thoughts on the terminology of the condition.

This right here~

Yes, I am a woman.  But I was physically born XY rather than XX.

There needs to be some kind of designation between us so that we can get the right answer to the right questions.

I find it like going to the doctor, you have to explain your situation in case he is not your endo.  Otherwise you may not be diagnosed properly.

[M777a]

tekla, at present there is no physical test to find the biological malfunction that could cause GSM. They said the same thing about clinical depression. They know there is a biological reason for clinical depression and thanks to that discovery they have better treatments for people who suffer that particular condition. As far as the insurance part of your responce, we could take up Susan's entire web site discussing what is wrong with the insurance industry. Just by taking GID out of the DSM won't make it any harder than it already is.
     As far as the current terms being used, as I have said so many times before, doesn't make them the best terms to describe a particular condition. Knowing where they come from, though informative, adds nothing to this topic. The terms currently in use are inadequate in helping people understand this condition especially when your are seeking help. My experience and others. It is a lot easier to ask for a glass of water than to ask for that liguidity stuff coming out of that shiny dohicky.
     You said I am attempting to create a definition of one that doesn't cover everyone else. If I get your meaning you think I am isolating a group of people, eliteist if you will, from all others here. Let me explain this again, the term GSM is to describe a condition not a individual. You can't be a member of the cancer survivor's club unless you had cancer. By referring to yourself as a crossdresser are you not doing exactly what you are accusing me of since I am not a crossdresser? We come to this site for support and understanding not to isolate into groups, but if your a crossdresser, by labeling yourself as such are you not defining yourself by a category. I just think of you as tekla who happens to be a crossdresser, but is smart and has insight into the world.

[M777a]

Rita, amen sister. Hit the nail on the head.

[Carlita]

Carlita, sorry I didn't get back to you sooner, but I felt I needed to address the post before yours without starting a firestorm.  Also I felt it would be improper to put both responses in one post, I hope you'll pardon me for that. Now that's been said let's move to you post. I would have to agree with you the conflict comes from our "disorder" being  in the DSM. Your right this is a disorder, but since I also know this to be a biological malfunction should it not be in the medical disorders book? By putting it in just the DSM the public and some us view this as something you can simply just think away (a mental thought) or pop a pill and your cured. That couldn't be further from the truth as you well know. The word disorder does have its own negative connotation. I may be wrong but the word seems to be used with mental conditions more often the physical ones. Misalignment seems better than disorder, due to the fact it doesn't seem to have a large negative connotation. 
        While it may be okay with you to be called a ->-bleeped-<-, from my perspective as someone who respects you for taking the time to input on this topic and in your life, I'll call your Carlita(that is you, ->-bleeped-<- is your "disorder"). I call people by their names, not by name calling.

First, thank you for your courtesy!

Next ... I'm not sure that I see the distinction you draw between a psychiatric and medical disorder since psychiatry is a branch of medicine and all psychiatrists (as opposed to psychotherapists) are qualified doctors. The fact that there may be a pre-natal/neurological causation for GID doesn't mean that it isn't psychiatric, since the symptoms we experience are mental and emotional rather than physiological - even if the cure may well be physical surgery.

Frankly, ours is a very strange state of being and although everyone on here can share or relate to many of the experiences and feelings that other people describe, we are all individuals and have our own personal story of how we have coped (or not) with the problem that our inner selves don't tally with our outer bodies, and we experience that contradiction in very different ways, from the little boys who dress as girls and are treated as girls from kindergarten onwards - nowadays even transitioning in their teens - to those (like me) who somehow fool the world that they are 'real men' and then find themselves trapped for decades by the very success of that deceit.

I think it would be very hard to find one word, or one term that would fully deal with that whole spectrum of disorder. the main thing, I think, is to find a description which is easily grasped and hopefully even understood to some extent by the rest of the world. Gender Identity Disorder seems to me to be as good a general description as any other. It's easily understood, clearly applies to a particular group of people and actually, by being labelled as a disorder makes it clear that we didn't choose to be this way and with a little bit of education folks can also come to understand that we can't be persuaded by therapy, disapproval or miracle drugs to be any other way.

So there's no point people being bigoted or ignorant. they've just got to deal with us and accept us as we are.

[M777a]

To start, psychiatrists for the most part do not do surgery, but they can perscribe drugs and mostly deal with behavorial problems. Psychcologists are therapists with Phd's and are also considered doctors. These people help you with the effects of GID not nessicarily the biological cause. I think we sometimes forget the brain isn't just thoughts (psychological) but also an organ (biological). No all brain disorders show as headaches, but present as behavorial manifestations. As I had said in a earlier post clinical depression can't be seen with an MRI , but they know its a biological malfunction. It would seem that folks see the genetic code as infallible, but we know that not to be true. To what extent we seek to repair this genetic glitch is up to the individual, but I can safely say you will need a therapist to deal with the impact of this biological mix up.
     Secondly, Rita said it profoundly that we are women, not men trying to be women and using the term transexual does hold us back emotionally. (Rita, hope you don't mind me paraphrasing your thoughts.) How we deal with our indiviual situations is up to each individual.
   Finally, I can't fully dispute your logic on the word disorder, it makes sense. Though I still think Gender Sex Misalignment (GSM) is more palletable then Gender Identity Disorder (GID). By the way I think in the new SOC the D stands for dysphoria, which to me is a hell of alot worse.

[Susan]

This topic has moved beyond the original subject matter, and it's time to let it die a gentle death. This topic is now locked.