Is Tg a continuum or a series of points of reference

[Shelley]

I have espoused my thinking on this before and have not seen comments from others so I thought it was time to throw it out there to be tested.

I am of the belief that we as part of the TG area of society live on a continuum. That is rather than a series of points being say CD, TV, Pre-op TS, Post-op TS, Intersexed and any others that I have failed to recall at this late hour.  I think we actually live on a continuos line or even a circle in which we tend toward one area or another.

This can explain why two people can self identify with one group but still differ in what that means to them. How you position on the continuum is achieved on more than one level. Gross positioning would occur at a fairly rough estimate such as the terms referred to above while finer positioning can occur as we interact with others and position ourselves more exactly on the continuum in a place where we are most comfortable.

This also tends to explain why we dislike being labelled. Labelling infers that we are the same as the other members with that label attached. This labelling does not take into account the finer adjustments of the continuum and leaves us with an uncomfortable fit.

I believe that this uncomfortable fit can be the source of confusion, not the only source mind you, but nonetheless confusion. When we become comfortable with who we are I believe our positioning on the continuum has become very close to where we believe we sit on the continuum and therefore the source of our confusion is abated.

I would be interested in either opinions that agree with this theory and those that don't. Testing of a theory is a very important part of it's development. Metaphorically try on my theory and see if it fits and let me know if it does.

Shelley

[Terri-Gene]

Sorry Shelley, but can't agree.  That particular theory has been popular in the TG community for many years.  It is popular in the TG segment but less so in the TS circles where things get more personal.

As a TS I believe my gender persuasion and inclinations involved in that persuasion is a fixed element.  It certaintly doesn't have any sliding back and forth in intensity, nor is there any point on any scale where I can find peace with myself short of complete and total immersion in my gender reality, mentally and physically, I must be completely, or be nothing at all, and it is my perception that it is the same for most other "true" transsexuals.  I don't believe in being a Little bit pregnant either.  You are or you arn't, simple enough to me.

The reference to being in a circle, leaning toward one or the other is unacceptable toward me, that implies I could accept being one or the other depending on the conditions of life and such simply is not true.  Anything that threatens forward movement toward my goals in life sets off a series of reactions and emotions that induces panic reactions and supercedes all moral and ethical principles.  It is a condition of achieving goals or die tring, it is that important.  There is no continuim to fall back on, no other stage to replace the goal with.  All or nothing, so as you can see, no continuim.  My Gender is a fixed thing, like the color of my hair or my eyes.

I've never figured out the reasoning behind the points on a scale or a "continuim".  In my belief, it was originally expressed as a theory of gender in order to further the idea that we are all the same and possess the same needs, which is preposterous.  It was an attempt at achieving solidarity within the segments of TG culture, but in reality, such theories have done much more to divide us, since there are those out here who know for a definate fact that we are NOT the same and that we have very realistically different needs in the real world of life, which affects the way we think, act and live.

I've been exposed to such ideas for a good part of my life and can clearly see that the continuim theory has no relationship or effect on my life and therefor can not embrace it.  It is more of a political argument than any actual effect when applied to a true GID individual, those with this condition are on a totally fixed position and can not in any form "slide" or be on any other "Point on scale" and be content with themselves in any way.

Such theories have been around for decades and have been argued about for as long, I for one can not forsee ever accepting it as a truth, I know better.

Terri

[beth]

             I agree Terri,

                       I don't see any continum for a transsexuals point on the gender scale. There may be some confusion in some before they realize they are TS, but once they are TS,  I think by definition and reality we are at A or B.



beth

[Debtv]

Hi  Shelley,

Well I agree, but I call it 'the transgender spectrum'. I don't think it is a sliding scale for us, but rather we each are on a fixed point...in terms of how strong our 'wish' to be the oppisite sex. It's like a post-op TS is on one end and on the other is someone who just thinks about it now and then (gender play). Most of us fall in between some where.

Now I know my tg desires have grown with my age, but that only means  my desire to express where I'm at in the tg spectrum. I am somewhere between a tv and a ts.

          gp<........................cd/tv.........................>ts
                                                              ^
                                                             me

Love
DebtV

[Terri-Gene]

I'd agree in principle with your viewpoint Deb,  spectrum or continuim, I could see each of us on a fixed point, no adjustments forward or backwards and no "circles".  We are what we are and individuals will differ on the strength of that. 

Spectrum theories tend to be highly popular with those who are dealing with the "Why" question, but for those who care less about Why then what to do about it, it has less credibility.  It matters not why, but how you choose to handle it.  Anyway, it's a very old argument and has been debated to death with the same seperations in acceptance for TG and TS individuals.

And yes, Age.  All indications are that if one has gid, the desire to transition increases with age.  I know I was able to resist any and all temptations or thoughts from early 20's until into my 40's when it began to take over my thoughts and concentration, forever changing my life no matter what I did, and still, it took a few years to totally accept the idea even though it dominated my councious mind as I got older, I could no longer lock it out regardless of what I knew it would mean to my public life.

Many who were able earlier to appease themselves with denial or shorter steps go through this, finally reaching a point in thier 40's and 50's where they can no longer resist thier true calling, no matter what the risks and sacrafices.

It is not a matter of "becoming" Transsexual, it is more a matter of no longer being able to justify any holding back and making it known publically, despite the consiquences.  I have met many crossdressers who I would regard as Transsexuals who simply haven't come to terms with the reality of the situation yet.

Terri

[Shelley]

Ah, I see a clarification is in order.

I am not suggesting that we move from place to place on the continuum. I am suggesting there is a place on the continuum where we belong based on where in the spectrum, as Deb puts it, we are. In fact Debs diagram  of a point on a continuum is very accurate to how the continuum works.

Where the movement occurs is in when we are trying to figure out where we are. Many of us have gone through periods of denial. (I personally through out the most comfortable pair of shoes I have ever own about 10 to 12 years ago.) Our journey is about heading to the point on the continuum that belongs to us.

Not all of us are on that journey of self discovery. Some of us have recognised the point on the continuum that most reflects us. If I may, I think Terri that you have made the gross and finer adjustments. That in itself does not indicate that you are totally happy with where you are but that you are able to recognise where you are. It also doesn't reflect the pain and trials that you underwent to get there I might add.

The point of the continuum is to recognise that even though we maybe able to be recognised as for example Post-op TS that does not mean that we experience the same journey through life or that we are exactly the same and experience the same things. My reading of the posts here are that for some they are nearing the end of their journey of self discovery while others have only crossed the first bridge.

I personally feel now quite comfortable with my position on the continuum. My friends here have helped me come to that point. I can say that because until coming here and sharing your experiences through interaction I did not know where I was heading. For that I am greatful, so why am I trying to figure this out.  I think that if we can find a way to explain our experiences then possibly we can help others who are trying find themselves. If we can describe to them what there journey looks like then maybe we can help them find their destination.

Shelley

[Terri-Gene]

ok, a better and clearer picture of what you ment, but to me it comes to the same conclusion, all you are saying is that each person individually has thier own individuality in how they feel or need to express themselves, I see that as a pure expression of personality and nothing at all to do with gender.  If one on any scale considers themself a female or woman, how can they accept any limitations on that.  It is my belief that a person is either male or female anything in between is niether, rather something else not definable as either male or female.  If one is male but can not accept the reality of being female, I see them as a class all of thier own, as they accept the full definition of niether. 

I'm sorry Shelley, but it is a mindset which can not possibly negotiate or compromise on such issues, as I am totally sold into the Binary concept of Gender.  Anything between the two sexes, male or female, has it's credibility, but I can't personally define it as one or the other unless the full commitment has been made toward totall identification as one or the other.  I don't understand the concept of being a degree of something.  It's all or nothing to me and I can find no alternative to that view of life.

Terri

[Shelley]

No need to apologise Terri,

I have no less respect for your point of view simply because it varies from mine.

I on the other hand find the thought of a binary concept of gender difficult to accept as there are other aspects of gender than clothing, physical attachements and self identification.

Where my thinking comes from is, I have male attachments yet emotionally and psychologically I identify with that area of a binary depiction that would be female.

My problem is that I don't fit into a binary system of gender identification. To me this is no less real than that which you have experienced. This leaves me in quandary as I am comfortable with who I am but that is neither all one or all the other.

Shelley

[Northern Jane]

I could not comment for anyone else, only myself, but at this point in my life I am absolutely clear on where I came from.

Although I did not have the life's experience to know for sure (prior to SRS), I believed myself to be a girl in a male body. The last 32 years have proven that I was correct. It was a matter of sex, not gender. The sex was wrong, plain and simple, and once changed, everything else fell into place.

I have my own beliefs as to what constitues "gender" but it is certainly harder to nail down and I have no idea how "universal" it is. I have had a great many male friends and a LOT of female friends. It has been my experience that I can understand how other women think and usually predict their reaction to something with good accuracy. Men, on the other hand, I find almost impossible to predict and very difficult to understand. Perhaps this is "brain sex" or "spirit sex" (depending on where one considers the seat of consciousness to lie).

Then there are aspects of behaviour. The perception of behaviour as an aspect of gender is very much culturally based and varies from place to place and culture to culture.

Then there is sexual preference (if there is any) but I don't see that being related to gender or sex.

I have no understanding of CD or TV, so I can not comment.

There, I hope I have muddied the waters!  >

[Celia]

It's probably considerably more complicated than even a continuum or a spectrum.  No comment on the binary gender paradigm.

-Celia

[Terri-Gene]

I realize that there are people who have personalities which are more in line with female then male and because of that consider themselves to be female, in the wrong body of course.

Personality and true identity are seperate things though and should not be confused.  My objection to a spectrum or continuim is that they imply one is by degrees female on the scale.  I don't believe in degrees but do believe that having more feminine type personalities encourages some to see themselves as female, but having male identities, their desire to transition is limited.

I have no objection to people on such a spectrum, only in actual recognition of them as female, since it doesn't mean enough to them to provoke a need for full 24/7/365 recognition.   Rather I recognize them as something different that I am not capible of understanding because of my own fixed mindset.

And talk about not fitting into a binary system, hell, I was so macho male behaviored for so long being as I am now wasn't a picture of anything anyone would possibly imagine, which was the point of course. Good riddance to that.

And it is confusing.   I don't really understand gender queer either, though I fully realize that I myself would have been seen as such before moving from nevada to california.  I was a very confusing presentation, presenting as female, but retaining all the total confidence of a male with deeply rooted aggressive tendancies.  It is only in more recent times I have worked through that and become a more peaceful person, the result of having to come to terms with a lot of things in my life.

Terri

[asiangurliee]

I agree with Shelly. I believe that it is possible to identify as a female and not go through the physical changes. Some people need to become female physically to affirm their identity, some dont, those that dont perhaps dont feel as strongly about their female identity or they dont feel that their identity is based on the type of body that they have.

I totally reject the gender binary system. It is oppressive. And I have no problem with transsexuals who must have SRS, and they are on the extream point of the continum.

[Kendall]

Its dificult to judge how various TG subgroups feel if you are not one of them (which everyone leans towards one, unless one had multiple personalities). Not sure if anyone actually involved could judge that, since your own view is skewed by personal bias and views. Maybe someone talking to hundreds of different ones could come to a more precise answer. Honestly I can only see what I feel myself. You can only guess what others feel.

The only persons that I have know to move along them, didnt fully accept or know themselves, and it wasnt as much a move, as a realization that they were really supposed to be in this other group.

I believe that gender (the real sex you are meant to be) is fixed, as well as orientation. I believe it is discovered, not changed.

Physical sex I know can be changed (cosmetically, secondary characteristics,  and hormonally at least)(maybe not chromosome/DNA changable yet)
Male and Female Expression too I believe can be changed (mannerism, walk, talk, clothes, gesters) and even varies in real females. I believe that there is a different degrees of expression.

[jan c]

If we were to quantify gender, (arguably, primarily a social construction), into percentages, and analyze, how many here (I am not doubting some can; it is my suspicion that some that argue FOR a strict binary interpretation of this construct may not be honestly among them) can say absolutely - "in every aspect of my behavior, in every situation, as clearly perceivable by every person that experiences me, I am 100% one or the other, fixed and immovable, inflexible point in reference* to what is called gender?" (*And it has to be a reference point. It has to refer to something in relative terms. Otherwise we're looking at chaos.)
"Absolutely I am 'feminine'. Absolutely I am 'masculine'. Absolutely I am not the other. Can't Be. Can't happen."

Seriously.


Posted at: May 29, 2006, 06:45:49 PMIE: there are Transsexuals that felt the need to prove to everyone, their masculinity, their studliness, their machismo during their journey as humans. That had a lot of emotional investment in maintaining what they later characterize, having 'transitioned', as strictly a fiction. Because society had constructed gender according to such a strict binary system.
Now such a person may cling just as ferociously to a diametrically opposing view of self. (And vehemently shoot down a theoretical/philosophical idea, with a good deal of emotional energy behind that posture. In support of that self-same binary set of oppositions that impacted them in the first place.)
Appears problematical to me.

[Elizabeth]

Hey Everyone,

I am a person that "compartmentalizes" everything. Meaning everything is something or it is something else. It is a very black and white world to me. I have a huge amount of trouble with shades of grey.  For this reason, I used to think that people that claimed that they loved presenting themselves as, and felt very much like women, but also said they loved being guys and would never give it up, were just in denial.

I am an expert on denial.  I have known since I was very young that I was a transsexual and I used denial as a coping means for a great many years.  The first time I heard of such a person, a "transgenderist", a person that may live thier life outwardly completely female, female part time, or adrogenously, yet still quinticentially identify with thier male gender, I was extremely skeptical. 

My black and white brain told me this just could not be.  Either you're a girl or you are not, but you are not a girl sometimes and a boy sometimes.  This skepticism slowly eroded as I met more and more people that described this as thier condition.  My only other choice is to either assume that the people making this claim are either lying, in denial, or mistaken about what is it they are feeling.  One reaches a point mathmatically where it just becomes hard to beleive that this large number of people that have never met, who have never researched it and who were not instigated into stating thier views, could descibe having the same experience and all be mistaken, lying or in denial.

I get a great deal of comfort from knowing there are others like me.  That is why I am here.  The only way I know they are like me, is because they have said so.  I can see no reason why people experiencing something different than me would have a larger percentage of people mistaken about what they are experiencing, than the group of people experiencing the same thing as me.

Until someone comes up with some definite science that proves otherwise, I am compelled to beleive that gender is a continuem with some people feeling entirely female, some feeling both genders, and some that feel extremely male, regardless of thier birth sex. Even though I can not personally phathom how a person might feel both genders, I must concede it exists.

Love always,
Elizabeth

[michelle]

I believe we are what we are.    But some of us were born way back in a dark cave with only a male body to relate to.   We were socialized into a male role because of our physical bodies and lead to believe that was the way we had to be.    But something was wrong, at least with me,  when puberty hit I related to the female.   I dreamt of wearing dresses, and bras, and nylons, and make-up.  My mind was blank as to how to be a male and score on a female.   The male attitude toward life was wrong for me,   I didn't get it.  The way out of this darkness and for me to accept who I was, a woman,  means that I have to shed myself of the male.   This shedding of the male for me has been a continum.   I also have had to realize it is not how others see me it is how I see myself.   I really hate to attach labels to this evolution of my self identity.  I also have the problem of growing up in an alcoholic family where self-delusion was a family trait.   At some point if I would have been able to feminize myself or had the internet to find others earlier in life CD would have been an acceptable label.  But for 39 years I was dead in the black cave of maleness dressing only in the dark of the night when I could liberate female clothes from the bag going to the thrift store or bras going to the garbage,  or used panty hose.    When my ex left it was as if a swelling of lava had blown me from the dark and I was left alone to  dress and to drink.   My second family accepts my expression of femaleness and I can wear skirts, slips, panty hose,  high heels,  lipstick,  fake breasts.    Within myself in relating to others my femaleness is liberated.   I amd shy so when I go out I wear female jeans and teeshirts and am flat chested.  I paint my toe nails to go swimming in the apartment complex pool,  shave my legs,  wear earrings.   I also discover by tucking and pushing my male organ inside that I would rather have a vagina and real breasts.   Will that ever happen,  who knows.   I know who I am and do not like labels.   If you wish to label me for your own comfort you can.  My spouse labels me a cross dresser.    That is what she is comfortable with.    Labels don't make me.   But I feel the femininity growing within me and I love it.   I am almost sixty.   We are homebodies not clubbers.   I really don't drink any more except for one or two beers every year or two.   For the time I have left I need to be happy with myself and accept God's will for the rest of it,  and earn enough to support five children who let me have my femininity however they wish to label me.   Over time I have been told that I am too emotional.   As my femininity grows I am becoming every so much more so.

[jan c]

This is a terribly interesting thread to me.
[I have external gonads of a male and internal (dried up) ones of the female, and secondary characteristics of both.
Ewww gross yes I know.
(Not happy about the former, lotta damage, lotta conflict, lotta drama, lotta expectations that Just Are Not Right For Me).
I could not pretend to be strictly either/or no matter what solution is sought or completed.]

I have always gone for the NOT 100% femme females. (there is an old thread here, donno where, a poll: what percentage of M/F would you prefer as a partner/soulmate, what-have-you). So, looking at this, I know there are women that are absolutely into being women that will strap one on and Love It. (sorry I can't mince words and get this across succinctly). That will pursue and capture. Hunt and gather. Domesticate their ostensibly male partner. So of course the opposite is equally true.
And if you look at what I just stated, you see I am talking about roles. Gender as a construction.
A construction, a social construction, exists on a continuum.
Very little in this world, this mundane, non-Platonic world is black-or-white.
As much as we might hate that black cave of a role we cannot play any longer and be content, we cannot get to the whiter space without quite a lot of dwelling in the grey.

I have not met that many people that I would say were 100%, according to classic societal expectations, one or other.
Those I have come across that I might characterise as such, were just very simple people. Lack complexity. Primitive. And a bit strange to me. That is only my experience. (But because of my situation I have been aware to some extent of this for awhile. YMMV)

Well those are my thoughts...

[Michelle J]

This thread has fascinated me since I saw it several days ago.  I am not an expert on tg issues, I am hardly an expert on anything.  However it seems to me that it is both a continuum and a series.  The whole issue is too complex to explain in just one way.  There is no answer to the who, what, or why I am like I am.  It is I believe always a combination of nurture, biology, and circumstance.  I agree with what some have said, that there is a point at which the person living in tension has to find release for that tension.  Transitioning seems to be the only way to do that.  At the same time, when does transitioning start?  Does it start when I finally openly recognize myself and start speaking with others? (Even if anonymously like here.) Or is it when I truly start physical transition?  Who would deny though that mental, psychological and even emotional transition has to start before that.

If I had to diagram the process it would in the shape of a spiral.  The rings of the spiral would be different levels of gender or inward and outward circumstances.  Cutting a line through from the outside to the inside would describe a person at that moment, but not necessarily in the next moment or even in the past moment.  To be honest, it is more like the famous Lorenz "Butterfly" fractal:  always looping in on itslef, but never touching the same point twice.  Afterall isn't the analogy that so many of us use the butterfly one.  I am whether or not I am chrysalis, caterpillar or butterfly still a butterfly.  I am a female.

Michelle James
michelleisfemme@yahoo.com

[Kate]

I am of the belief that we as part of the TG area of society live on a continuum. That is rather than a series of points being say CD, TV, Pre-op TS, Post-op TS, Intersexed and any others that I have failed to recall at this late hour.  I think we actually live on a continuos line or even a circle in which we tend toward one area or another.

Rather than a single line or continuum, I envision humans looking more like a graphic equalizer box with a series of sliders controlling various clusters of behaviours. You could probably spend a lifetime figuring out what those sliders represent, and even then I suspect they're vague at best.

Still, you can build a pretty entertaining human gender box with just sliders for Orientation (who you like), Sexuality (how you like it), and Adornment (do you like to show it off?).

For instance, take an ordinary male whose sliders are all within the M range (likes women, likes to be aggressive) and bump the Adornment slider down into the F range. Viola! You have a crossdresser. Now pull the Orientation slider down too (so now he likes men) and you have a drag queen.

It's not that simple of course, as I know that even those slider definitions are wrong and misleading.

Still, it's proven valuable to me to think of things this way - that someone's "gender" is the resulting relationship between a myriad of these variables, making it much more complicated than simply pronouncing someone "male" or "female."

LOL, and yet after I say all this, I can hear someone laughing in a far corner of my mind saying, "You're really just LOVE fooling yourself, don't you?"

Oh, nevermind...

[Terri-Gene]

Though I have known myself to be psychologically female for more then 50 some years, I can not by any means declare myself any kind of expert on such feelings.  I know what I know of it by my own actions and feelings along with the so few others I have met who are so much like me in the way I interact with myself and the public, and my experience with CD's has been limited and possibly flawed by the individuals themselves.

As to continuim of personality I perfectly well believe in it, having lived in doubt, feeling I was dealing with a mental problem that could eventually be fixed, and in learning to accept myself as I am and making no drawbacks whatsoever, not from loss of work, disregaurd of friendships, and even life threatning illnesses which I am at this time recovering from, for the 2nd time.

I fully believe that there are those who would want to go ahead with full transmittion to female, so accept the idea that crossdressers may have a future in the world of women, but see little or no regaurd for those who can happily live in the body of a man, I simply do not have that kind of intellectual depth.

To me, one is either a Man, or a Woman, regardless of what they were born as and again to me, they will eventually fully become one or the other, I can not see any other possibilities despite who may be hurt by the statement.

There is talk of "spiral" genders, being something in between male and female.  I can understand that there are some like that, but I would have to meet them and deal with them in a personal manner to actually understand and accept them.  As of todate, I have not done so, so shal stay out of that one.

I only know that if you are Male or Female in your own mind, you will identify as one or the other.  How you act/behave is a consiquence of your growth environment.  I am fully aware that much of the way I react to the world about me is due to how I have experienced the world and what was taught to me as a male character for so many years before I put Male behind me, so a cultural feminimen person I am not.  I am instead a more masculine inclined Woman who uses her head and responds to needs.

To all of you
Terri