Primary and secondary

[Kaitlyn]

A primary feels the same intense dysphoria in childhood that a secondary never feels until adulthood.
How come nobody else can see the huge difference?
I'm not saying it's carved in stone. I did say that some TS fall between the two categories.

The reason I just don't see it is because I, and many others, don't really fit either one? I really don't think its a direct dichotomy, with a small middle ground. There's an awful lot of people like me, that I know of. There's a broad spectrum of trans individuals, with a lot of different levels of dysphoria at different times of their lives.

[tinkerbell]

How come nobody else can see the huge difference?

Hmmmmm do you want me to answer that?  >  You know why.

tink

[Kate]

And no, this wouldn't be an issue if some secondaries I know would quit insisting they are primary and shut their mouth about their herculean strength and stellar personalities which prevented them from feeling much dysphoria until well into adulthood.

I don't know if anyone is suggesting that emotional strength or adaptability has anything to do with when one FEELS their GID? I mean... how can anyone struggle to not feel something they don't know is there?

My suggestion was that circumstances, both internal and external, dictate how someone copes with their GID once they know about it, whether that's at birth or when 105...

~Kate~

[Shiranai Hito]

"how you take comments/opinions is what you TRULY believe in your heart". So I will leave you to answer your own question

It might be as you say, althought i don't know why i'd rather believe this.

The theory of Nero is a totally different story and tends to believe that GID is what really matters.

Having experienced GID in my puberty i should be primary according to Nero, yet i think i pretty much do not satisfy any other requirement.

"I am TS but don't plan to ever transition" "I am strong"  really? ha! well, if people are soooooo strong emotionally, they could deal with everything, couldn't they? including transition.

Do someone that didn't transition qualifies as transexual?
I don't think it's matter of strength anyway. It's just a "give up", nothing more.

[tinkerbell]

Do someone that didn't transition qualifies as transexual?
I don't think it's matter of strength anyway. It's just a "give up", nothing more.

Some people tend to believe that it does.    Anyway I don't want to change the topic of the thread.

tink

Posted on: July 14, 2007, 06:17:46 PMBTW thank you for mentioning the Barbara Walters special, Nero  .  Everyone should watch it; I posted it in the Just for us forums.


Posted on: July 14, 2007, 06:47:00 PMWelcome to primary transsexualism ladies and gentlemen.  Hell on earth since I can remember.

Here's the link for the Barbara Walter's Special:

https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,13483.0.html

Enjoy!

[Hypatia]

Nero, looking at my life according to your criteria, I'm a Chinese dinner. Some from Column A and some from Column B. I don't fit neatly into either.

Primary:
* Recognizes their true gender no later than first grade (age 7 or so). I say this because if they were not aware of something wrong and had no knowledge of their gender before, a classroom situation would surely bring it out. (independent of one's upbringing/doesn't matter whether raised in 'gender neutral' environment or not)

My behavior was cross-gender beginning from my first year of preschool, when I was 4. However, I did not articulate "I'm a girl." I was constantly hassled by everyone (parents, teachers, boys who beat me up) for nonconformity to my assigned gender role from the age of 4 until 8, when I knuckled under.

* Upset by his or her sex, disturbed in his or her play and school activities

I never liked or understood male activities, I preferred to play hopscotch with girls instead of football with boys. I received constant pressure to conform. Unable to be male, and not allowed to join the girls, I became deeply isolated. I felt intense loathing and disgust for my male genitalia.

* As an older child - failure in his or her relations with peers, isolation, confusion, refusal to go to school

Yep, that was me all over. All-boys high school (my parents gave me no choice) was a living hell, I was isolated from everyone, contemplated suicide, and was sent to a psychologist. I was gradually persuaded to behave in ways that didn't get me hated and rejected by everyone.

* Sexual attraction to members of the opposite gender (same sex body) at puberty

I engaged in consensual sexual activity with boys when I was ages 12-13. I even tried to seduce one of them; it was my first time experiencing sexual arousal with another person.

Secondary:

* No knowledge of true gender in childhood, may not even recognize anything wrong

Not exactly. I never distinctly articulated girlhood, even to myself. Only when going back over the memories of my cross-gender behavior (how I instinctively tried to be a girl) did I fit the puzzle pieces together. I definitely knew something was wrong, but was never able to define or express it, nor did I connect it with gender.

* Puberty is no big deal

I have no memories of puberty per se causing me conscious distress, but I did become a very disturbed child soon after.

* No attempt to appear as or assume the role of the target sex at or before age 26

I was 45 when I came out, and began strongly identifying and presenting as a woman. I had felt desire to be a woman on and off from my early 20s, through my 30s; in my early 40s the desire became consistently stronger and stronger.

So by your criteria, I'm in between. From the perspective of my life, I cannot see the two as separate, distinct categories, but as a continuum.

[Keira]

- IF GID strenght is a spectrum (which seemingly it is, seeing as high variable it is and how it increases with time (to increase, it must be other than binary)).
- Onset beyond a threashold clinical level is variable (childhood to old age)
- How you react to it depends on individual's particular case, environment.

The only one that fits secondary by your definition Nero, is adult onset, whenever that is, with no clinical discomfort prior to that (it had no impact at all on how they saw themselves or how they lived their lives). They plainly assumed a male or female gender role without any reserve.

If I stay with this limited definition, secondaries often are CD's earlier in life.
MTF TS that have strong GID are most often NOT CD's unless they think of transitioning (in my case because I found no relief at all in just dressing, just more anxiety).

If you did not want to change with boys (something we talked earlier here) when you where 10, there's a good chance your GID was not secondary by that definition. Clearly significant GID existed even at that point and possibly this was the only real manifestation of it. Maybe you were not strong, just lucky that gender for you had little importance to your daily life for whatever reason. You were a tomboy, girls accepted you as theirs, you had an androgynous appearance, etc.

Nero, I understand your frustration at judgemental come lately's poopooing you, but their ->-bleeped-<-ness doesn't change the fact that GID is very complex indeed and reducing it to a binary at this point, is premature. Any affirmation about it, even mine,  is way premature; even though any such certainty would sure validate us. Don't mind the moron's TS or otherwise that tell you, you don't deserve to be you. You know how long you suffered to get to this point, how much you are worth. HUG!  Take Care.

[Kate]

Puberty is a major factor. I just don't feel a child has much dysphoria if they're not extremely distressed upon turning into an adult of the opposite gender.

I wonder if puberty is in general more difficult for females, as they REALLY begin to change: breasts, periods, curves... things that are all just impossible to ignore or hide.

Males get facial hair and a deeper voice. Not much fun either, but probably not as humiliating as a female's changes must be.

~Kate~

[katia]

The white man can't fathom what it's like to be in the black man's shoes, and his attitude is arrogant and condescending.

i also view it as offensive when someone tries to trivialize my feelings and make them sound "secondary".

So true. I've always thought that, but didn't want to dismiss an mtfs suffering as I wasn't in their shoes

puberty is puberty for males, females or whatever, but only a true transsexual who has experienced this turmoil will know.

[katia]

i wasn't referring to any of your posts nero.  as a matter of fact, i [agree] with everything you've said.  as a primary transsexual myself, i laugh at some of the posts i've read here (not yours).  transsexualism is a serious condition.  you just don't wake up a rainy tuesday & decide to have a sex change.  those people you talk about aren't transsexual on  my book either.  they can argue all they want but i won't see them as ts. 

[Kate]

So true. I've always thought that, but didn't want to dismiss an mtfs suffering as I wasn't in their shoes.

Me neither, and to be fair I should mention that I never got much body hair, muscles or the typical male "build" in puberty, so it wasn't particularly traumatic for me. But for those that did, I can imagine it being quite a nightmare. Same for body dysphoria in general: I don't hate my body with quite the passion many others do, but only because it was never particularly male-looking to me.

But that kinda goes to show the dangers of generalizing "symptoms" and specific discomforts to make these primary and secondary distinctions.

~Kate~

[Hypatia]

The boys in school called me "girl" and "pu$$y" as they shoved me around. I cut all my phys ed classes in high school because I could not believe I was expected to get naked in front of the boys, I was horrified by that requirement. Puberty was bad for me because the girls quit being my friends and I just wanted to be friends with girls. I suffered so much from GID in childhood and adolescence and adulthood too, but didn't know what GID was or recognize it in myself until my 40s.

That some young kids assert their cross-gender identity early, while I kept mine bottled up, I attribute to outward-directed vs. inward-directed personality traits, so this is not a measure of transsexual authenticity. Some people are highly assertive and outgoing. I was not, I have always been easily intimidated, avoided conflict, and lived very inward and withdrawn. I don't feel I was strong at all. My cousin is very outgoing, not very intellectual or reflective, easily ingratiated himself with girls in childhood, and I was always jealous of him being admitted to female society while I longed to gain admittance but didn't know how. When he grew up, he came out as gay, and this fits the childhood GID pattern well-- most of them grow up to be gay men, not trans. By contrast I was shy, intellectual, thought about stuff too much, and isolated myself because dealing with society was too painful. So how come I'm trans and he ain't?

It bothers me that "secondary" TS have sometimes been stigmatized as not being really TS enough, put in an inferior category, given a poor prognosis for transition. I always thought I'd be classified as secondary simply because of late onset, though in this discussion I see it's more nuanced than that and I'm probably in between.

The main thing I'm satisfied about is, this is not a simple binary. Take that, Bailey.

[Kate]

I'm not trivializing ftm transition and what you and others go through, but please don't do that in the other direction because that really stretches credulity. On average, transwomen go through more costly, more painful, more complex transitions than ftms do (except for the very few ftms that go through phalloplasty) and are subject to far more social hostility than ftms. Kindly don't minimize that to fit a neat theory.

My apologies, and you'll notice that both Nero and I backed away a bit from what we originally said and said we don't want to minimize what many M2Fs do go through.

Yes, if I had grown any taller, sprouted hair down my back and chest, grown bulging muscles and a male physique... puberty would have been truly terrible, as I'm sure it was for those who suffered through that sorta thing. As it was, I didn't, so puberty wasn't a huge difference for me aside from a deeper voice and sparse beard. And sexually, I was already getting aroused by accidental physical stimulation (not something I should explain in this section, lol) from a very young age, so puberty didn't even mark the beginning of that embarassment for me.

My only real point here being that how much one hated puberty isn't a reliable indicator of GID discomfort or pain.

~Kate~

[seldom]

Blanchard is a hack who sadly was on the writing committee for the DSM-IV TR

Bailey's book was not only slammed by TS but also nearly everybody in the medical and psychological community who worked on gender identity issues. 

These terms primary and secondary are now widely dismissed. 

The truth is we are still operating under a Blanchard system.  There is a good possibility in the future it will be tossed though.  NOBODY likes it. 

Autogyphelia needs to be tossed in the wastebin.  Period.  In fact anything regarding any Blanchard theory needs to be abandoned.  The man was a hack, if you read more into his Toronto gender clinic you would realize this.  He is easily the most destructive force to TS in the history of the diagnosed disease.  While HB may have not completely understood us, he was on the right track. 

Also do definitions of primary and secondary, especially dating at what point when transitions (which is garbage as well). 

The whole recognizing the true gender no later than age 7 (to be honest most people who write on primary put it before age 13, not 7) needs to be abandoned as well.  Many TS do not understand that real gender consciousness is not cemented until puberty, plain and simple, even the older scientist understood that PUBERTY played more a role in gender awareness than early childhood, most gender variant kids do not end up being TS, PLAIN AND SIMPLE, they end up being gay, the only ones who end up being TS are those who cement at early stages of puberty, and several end up with true gender consciousness when there was gender confusion or being unaware.  Gender consciousness on a real scale, does not happen until then, its the cementing event.    Also who you are attracted to should not play into things at ALL. 

Sorry my little rant.  Age of onset SHOULD NOT be a criteria, and when you divide people with such arbitrary  criteria, you get into the terms of absurdity and the type of things that have hurt many TS.  And honestly its a level of high elitism. 

Sorry I hate the primary and secondary criteria.  I hate the age of onset factors.  Just because it applies to you does not mean it applies to everybody.  Also it demonstrates a high level of elitism.

There is also the fact that there are a large number of TS who do not fall into either of these categories.  I find myself closer to the Benjiman scale (I am asexual for example) V or VI than I do the primary and secondary criteria.  I also have found people that would confuse the hell out of these classifications. 

There was a wonderful pre-dsm-V paper that was written that basically stated the Blanchard and Benjiman type models need to be abandoned because the variations were so wide and that treatment was beneficial one way or the other, and that these classifications served no good in the first place.

I agree with that.

Abandon primary and secondary.  Plain and simple its a crap idea.  It was the smartest thing done in the SoC Sixth Version.

Also Autogyphelia does not exist.  It was something that was based on crap science.

The entire primary and secondary thing is convoluted.  Believe it if you will but I do think less of ANY TS who buys into ANY of Blanchards crap theories, be it autogyphelia, primary and secondary TS, etc.  It demonstrates either elitism, or in many cases FLAT OUT IGNORANCE, of the principles of these ideas and the history of the man behind them.  The man and his ideas have been extremely damaging to the TS community.  The Toronto gender clinic was a house of horrors towards TS.  And he literally needs to be called out for the transmysoginistic hack he was.  Those TS who buy into his theories need to be educated in detail why the man, and ideas of primary and secondary TS, and the criteria they set in place are not only dated, but completely offensive. 

Everybodies experience is different. By discounting the experiences of another person and being elitist.  Also those categories and the criteria are far too narrow, and some (like the age of onset) have very little to do with ones gender identity.  Not everybody who is TS knows is conscious of their gender by age 7.  Sorry, for some of us we knew something was wrong since early in life but could not figure things out till puberty.  That is just the way it was.

Also in many peoples cases they hid.  They did not act out.

Sorry. About the rant, this primary and secondary thing upsets me more than anything else, and I can't believe there are TS so ignorant of the history and the terms, and why they are so offensive that they buy into it just because they fit the terms perfectly.  There is no primary and secondary TS, sorry, some people fit neither term.  There is also no such thing as autogyphelia.  Abandon that idea, its HIGHLY offensive.

Seriously, that is one of my biggest problems with this board, some people are holding onto dated and offensive ideas, if you even mentioned on another TS board you would get general outrage, and for good reason, certain other TS boards are better educated on this issue and the history (try mentioning this on trueselves for example, you will get attacked by nearly ever girl on that board).

The modern thought amoung most gender specialist in the US is these terms are CRAP, antiquitated, offensive and need to be abandoned.   

[Keira]

Although, I've noted that in general a binary classification, or any classification of TS, is bound to leave many outside any classification, it is intriguing that some don't have any GID at all (I'm not talking repressed GID here), until it pops up later from seamingly nowhere.

From a scientific point of view, when things happen like that, there must be some factor involved. What is it? Why was GID latent. As I said, intriguing.
It does not make these TS less valid, but it does make them very different from most. In a sense, they live a different trauma, its like being a man all your life certain of your identity and then waking up with a body that suddenly feels alien to you (instant puberty?).

[Kate]

most gender variant kids do not end up being TS, PLAIN AND SIMPLE, they end up being gay...

Agreed, as I've noticed (IMHO) that it seems effeminate (which I consider different than feminine) behaviour is more likely hard-wired into gays than TSs.

the only ones who end up being TS are those who cement at early stages of puberty...

I disagree. I absolutely, clearly, umambiguously *always* knew I needed to be a girl as far back as my memories go, which is to around 3 or 4. Puberty didn't cement anything for me. It was old news by then.

The weird thing is at that young age I had *nothing* to validate or support my feelings. I wasn't particularly feminine (or masculine really), I didn't hate my genitals, I never thought I WAS a girl... as I knew I was physically a boy. Whatever my GID is, it stands alone, independent of any evidence or symptoms, and was just always THERE... it was never a "conclusion" I came to through reverse-engineering of my "discomfort" or anything.

If anything, it's THAT distinction that I'd make between primaries and secondaries... though I REALLY wish we could find terms that were less scale-oriented. And in the end, we seem to arrive at the same place, so I don't know why it matters anyway. I picture GID like a seed: in some people, it's already sprouted by birth.. and in others it just takes time to germinate.

Also Autogyphelia does not exist.

The phenomena of feeling aroused when one imagines themselves a woman certainly exists, but his conclusions as to WHY are kinda nuts. Fantasizing about having sex with a guy as a genetic female certainly turns me on like nothing else. But why wouldn't it if I'm really a heterosexual female in my mind?

this primary and secondary thing upsets me more than anything else, and I can't believe there are TS so ignorant of the history and the terms, and why they are so offensive that they buy into it just because they fit the terms perfectly.

People will be people. Some need that sorta thing to justify their identity, some don't. It's not just with TSism, you see it everywhere with "real" christians, "real" americans, "real" republicans, etc.

Frustrating yes, but sometimes you just gotta shrug and let them have their ego candy.

~Kate~

[Keira]

But, Nero, a classification system that excludes most, how good can it be?
And in the end, does it really matter unless we're actually grading people on pain suffered? Which I would never want to do, because I don't even want to recall the painfull events in my life.

Everybody with GID deserves to be happy in their own skin; I'll ammend this to being something that everyone deserves.

Nero, those that torment you are jerks, that they are TS is just incidental, please do not let them get to you; they could be alien platypus's from the planet "look at me" and they would act the same. When you let people get to you, its not them who suffers, its you; they don't care.

[seldom]

Nero.
No offense.  Its alot easier societally to transition from FtM, and generally speaking alot easier growing up.  Most transmen I know recognize this, but they are in communities with larger trans populations.  Being butch in a girls world does not carry the same consequences of being effeminate in a boys world. 

Also do not discount that there is a high level of PHYSICAL abuse that several MtF face growing up, the ones who could not conform no matter what.

I was constantly picked on and beat up when I was kid, because while I was confused about my own gender I was extremely effeminate in several ways. 

As much as FtMs complain about female gender conformity and being ignored by  girls for being a tomboy.  I have yet to meet one who who can match the horror stories of MtFs had to go through during childhood.  Being even a little bit effeminate in a boys world is a straight trip to physical hell. 

I had to put up through this my entire childhood.  It went beyond hating haircuts for me.  The toys and clothing of being a boy were not that bad, but the hell was directly related to the entire fact if you went outside the gender spectrum in any way, you were forced to deal with physical hell.  I was still a gender variant as a kid, really confused more than anything, because of that my behaviors and emotional variations were punished with constant physical and verbal torment.  I have heard FtMs complain and I have heard MtFs complain.  Being tortured physically from ages 5-13 is what I had to deal with. Being punished physically by my parents for how I acted didn't help either.  I could go on and on and on.


Oddly enough it was when I started to express myself more and embrace my gender identity even a tiny bit more in HS that things improved a little bit. 

Also I can get into how its easier to transition and how there is not the level of hatred towards transmen than transwomen.   As it was stated we are more likely to be subjects of hate crimes, more likely to be harassed, and more likely to be the subject of ridicule.   I highly suggest you pick up Whipping Girl by Julia Serano.  Generally speaking there is a devaluing of femininity in this culture once you get into the world of adults.  I could go on how in even the queer "community" we are devalued and receive alot of crap, while transmen are generally accepted by most in lesbian culture, so they are at least generally accepted in one community. Transwomen...well we have no real community and we are generally an isolated lot.   

Even with regards to not passing its not as bad.  Even with regards to safety being regarded as a "butch women" does not carry the same risks of being identified as a transwoman or MtF transsexual, or being seen as "a man in a dress".  Passing for most transwomen carries a burden of safety that keeps most transwomen isolated and actually necessitates the level of surgery we undergo.

I could go on.  But the reason why many transwomen have issues with transitioning often does stem from a history of peer abuse that most transmen never encounter. 

[Kate]

I picture GID like a seed: in some people, it's already sprouted by birth.. and in others it just takes time to germinate.

Exactly and there is a difference between the two. Why are people so offended by that fact?

Because some of the "always knew" people often insinuate that the "figured it out later" people aren't *real* TSs like they are?

~Kate~

[seldom]

I picture GID like a seed: in some people, it's already sprouted by birth.. and in others it just takes time to germinate.

Exactly and there is a difference between the two. Why are people so offended by that fact?

Because some of the "always knew" people often insinuate that the "figured it out later" people aren't *real* TSs like they are?

~Kate~

Exactly and they like to make these clear determinations and classifications, when the reality is its the same conditions,  there is a stink of elitism and exclusivity that is offensive.  They place a high importance on onset, when it gets down to it onset is not important AT ALL in modern clinical thinking.  Most therapists and gender specialist can care less about onset, its only important really to understanding the patient. 

I could go on, the difference really matters very little.  Yet the always knew people thinks onset means more than it actually does.  Everybody is a little differant, and by stressing onset and these primary/secondary constructs they are buying into concepts that don't matter.

And the truth is there is more than "two differant types" this effects everybody in different ways and using onset as a criteria for anything is completely devaluing that individuals history and experience.  There are alot of shades of grey that primary and secondary concepts do not cover. 

Like I said.  I think the modern ICD-10 definition is probably the best one for TS.  It is plain, it is clear, and it is simple and it really does not conform to the convoluted concepts of primary and secondary and other Blanchard style concepts.  The definition is also all inclusive and does not place absurd importance of onset.  Its also the one that is probably most considerate that everybodies personal history is UNIQUE. 

Because the reality is consciousness about gender is far from hard and fast.  Because everybody has different set of experiences putting something in these narrow Blanchard definitions just leads to a devaluing of the individual.