Primary and secondary

[Shiranai Hito]

And my question remains, why do people feel this need to define themselves as 'primary?' What does it provide them with—comfort, status, increased self-awareness, biological imperative, clarification, or justification?

WARNING MY OPINION ONLY: the only real reason I've seen that people need to define themselves as 'primary' is to separate themselves from people they view as 'secondary.' It's a form of internalized transphobia. As in 'I am not a part of the hoi polloi of ->-bleeped-<-s... the great unpassable, the ones who aren't really what they say they are.' And there are transitioners who just can't let that go (as demonstrated by this thread). No matter how many denials I hear about the 'secondary' label not containing judgment and condemnation, I see people using it with those connotations over and over again.

Personally, it makes me feel very disconnected from whatever trans community there is.

I'd like to see what Nero has to answer about this, however i can see a few other options.

First off Nero repeatedly mentioned some TS that actually claims to be superior for being able to cope with their ->-bleeped-<- untill late, which seems to be the main cause of his anger. So from one side those people refuse the idea of two different kind of transexuals but then believes to be somewhat superior and that negates the previous statement. Again i have no clue about who they are, but certainly i cannot condone such a way of thinking from anyone.

Second. let's put it this way. What would you say if someone called you a ->-bleeped-<-, and even after you explain to him that you are actually a transexual he would dismiss you with a "same thing, whatever".
I guess you'd feel offended in your identity but that doesn't mean at all that you believe to be superior to a ->-bleeped-<-.

I'm not saying that primary and secondary absolutely exists, we are discussing it, why not?

Note that there are already two different way of transexualism that are well accepted in this forum. Nobody denies that there are FtM transexuals and MtF transexuals, and while we recognize there are many things in common, there is certainly something different.

EDIT: Nero beat me in answering while i was typing...

[taru]

The amount of peer pressure and problems is not related how bad the GID is, but how good one is at lying/hiding/social things.

Being very different and showing it to everyone are two different things. Some people can trick people and use a completely bogus role they know to be a lie. Of course this means psychological problems later on, but it means typically less abuse in childhood/teenage even with the same GID.

Different people have different kinds of GID and suffering. But trying to force those into two boxes seems silly.

[Hypatia]

I want to thank and honor both Nero and Amy for their very valuable contributions to this thread. I'm deeply sorry for having brought up traumatic memories, for having induced them to quarrel, and I ask forgiveness of both. If you have to get mad, don't get mad at each other, get mad at me, I guess I was stupid for even starting this. I've learned a lot from both of you and you've both equally deepened my understanding of this difficult issue.

Nero's analysis helped me to understand my own personal history better and where I fit in relation to this question. Namely, that I don't fit into the classification at all. I totally agree with everyone who's said if the awareness, information, resources and support were available to me as a teenager, I would have gone for it right then and there.

Amy has argued very convincingly for the uselessness and harm of the primary/secondary dichotomy, and in my mind this issue has finally been put to rest. As I noted above, it bothered me because of how it was used to divide us into an elite and an underclass. I certainly hope no professional caregivers or gatekeepers are still using it!

If I'd known it would bring on a bitter quarrel, I would never have started the thread. I raised the question in the first place because I was hoping to confirm that the primary/secondary dichotomy is fully obsolete and discarded. I'm seeking to put one of my own personal traumas to rest. My mother has been rejecting me ever since I came out. She pulled a Lloyd Bentsen on me by saying "I have worked with gays and transsexuals in my professional career, and you're not one of them." In her mind, "real transsexuals" must be limited to the stereotypical primaries or the Blanchardian category of HSTS and everyone else is phony or deluded. She has been trying to guilt me into giving it up. My wife used a similar criticism that I'm not like the extreme girly boys she saw growing up, therefore I can't be trans. Both of them have been drawing the boundaries of who's allowed to be trans as narrowly as possible in order to exclude me and persist in denial.

If it were anyone else's ignorance, I wouldn't care in the slightest. But my Mom is not just anybody, my relationship with her matters too much, and even though she tried to sever me from her emotionally, my primal linkage to mother was never broken. It just bothers me a lot that my Mom thinks there can be only one possible description of transsexualism, when the reality is so diverse. I'm examining this issue to put it to rest, because she wrongly classified me as secondary and then erroneously negated this supposed secondary as not really trans. I wrote for her a long list of facts to the contrary, going back to my preschool days, demonstrating how my lifelong cross-gender behavior spoke for itself loud and clear, even if my voice was silenced.

I think the difference between those who act out and declare their gender crossing in childhood vs. those who hide it is explained by a difference in personality traits (extroverted/introverted, assertive/intimidated) rather than by a supposed hierarchy of transsexual authenticity. My response to adversity was always withdrawal and hiding. Although I instinctively felt I belonged on the girls' side--and my behavior going back to preschool bears this out--although I've known all through my life that maleness was drastically wrong for me-- I was too afraid to challenge authority figures, sensing there was no support for me to be found anywhere, and that if I ever dared to speak out openly against my gender role, there would be hell to pay. So I got into the habit of hiding (even from myself), believing I had no options. I've had to go back into the worst pain of my past to rescue that scared little girl hiding deep in the dark closet.

Posted on: July 15, 2007, 10:18:31 PMCoincidentally, I was just reading Laura Seabrook's Hypergraphia on sexuality and gender, and she said it well: "Being trans is just another example of a bipolar dichotomy. Two extremes are considered 'opposites' and everything else either ignored or explained as a variation. What this hides is that one of the extremes is always a 'privileged' position."

She illustrated this with a sketch of a circle split into halves. The top half labeled "primary, privileged" and the bottom half "secondary, repressed." Around the circumference are the words "minimalised" and "excluded."

How apt... her critique (after Derrida) applies perfectly to this primary/secondary issue we've been discussing. The dichotomy that's been used to divide us has made one of the extremes into a privileged position. I wanted to examine this issue to bring out clearly what oppressive BS it is to divide us like that, the better to get free of it, to break its hold over us.

[Jeannette]

What's with the classification of transsexuals into "primary" and "secondary"? I've seen these terms in medical and psych journals. What are the implications for our lives?

The classificaton of transsexuals goes beyond primary and secondary.

http://www.tsroadmap.com/mental/categories.html

http://www.genderpsychology.org/transsexual/primary.html

old fashioned terminology or not applicable to some?  Every condition possess different levels of intensity.  Don't see why transsexuality has to be the exception to the rule.  I'm not like someone who started a crossgender journey when they were 40 for nameless reasons.  You can call it bigotry and you're free to guess what you wish. But I'm not like them and they aren't like me.  It's a no-brainer concept that has nothing to do with discrimination but how well we adapt or fail to adapt to our environment and what sorround us.  I've been accused of elitism before.  Dunno what to think but it isn't true.  Why shoud I be put in the same box with someone that doesn't even know who they are? I have nothing in common with them.  I cant share anything with them and viceversa.  Similar situations in support groups for "transsexual" peeps where everybody id themselves as transsexual but are there warming up the seats & disconnected from reality & talking tripe.  We've got GID but it isn't the same for everybody. 

[Jeannette]

Something like this:

Secondary Transsexualism


The transvestic and homosexual variations of secondary transsex­ualism as formulated by Person and Ovesey (1974a,b) have been dis­cussed in Chapter 2. Others have reported similar behavior patterns although using different terms to characterize this. For example, the secondary transsexual is conceptualized by Wise and Meyer (1980) as an aging ->-bleeped-<- with a fetishistic cross-dressing history. However, this individual is believed to show massive regression and loss of defenses following a major life crisis. The result is not a spontaneous occurrence of transsexualism, but rather, a request for sex reassignment based on late-developing feelings of gender dysphoria. Considerable overlap is postulated spanning the developmental personality features and the gender identity of fetishistic ->-bleeped-<-s and transsexuals, both pri­mary and secondary. Wise and Meyer (1980) reason that their aging ->-bleeped-<-s (secondary transsexuals in our terminology) are a group that "bridges" the fetishistic cross dressers and the primary transsex­uals. These ->-bleeped-<-s typically had a strong masculine-role history despite long-held ruminations concerning transsexualism. Of the 20 cases they report, all had strong fetishistic histories and none had a homosexual background. This is not inconsistent with Person and Ovesey (1974b) who saw the homosexual transsexual applicants as yet another distinctive group. Wise and Meyer give emphasis to the role of major life changes and stressors as causal factors in the emergence of these late-occurring transsexual applicants. A report generally support­ing the distinctions necessitated by differences in sexual orientation, fetishism, and gender identity has been provided by Freund et al. (1982).



It is not rare for preoperative transsexuals to abandon their quest for reassignment; it is not well-established that such cases are more likely to involve secondary transsexuals, but this is what we would predict. Shore (1984) reports the case of a young man who was positive he wanted sexual reassignment, was favorably evaluated for surgery, and was on his way to the hospital when he learned the hospital had changed their policy and now prohibited sex reassignment surgery. This man, soon thereafter, changed his entire life-style and reportedly gave up his sex reassignment plans.

http://www.geocities.com/just_nobody_1970/docs/Primary.html

Posted on: July 16, 2007, 12:53:59 AM

This distinction might be useful for your debate because secondary transsexuals report greater rates of regret and less social adjustment than primary transsexuals do (sorry, I can't recall a good reference at the moment). There was once a major study saying SRS wasn't effective (Meyer and Reter, Arch. Sex. Behav. 9: 451-456) but it's *so* methodologically flawed. You can read a reply in IJT, which is available on-line: Fleming M, Steinman C, Bocknek G (1980), Methodological Problems in Assessing. Sex-Reassignment Surgery: http://www.symposion.com/ijt/ijtc0401.htm . There's also some feminist literature opposing SRS (most notably by Janice Raymond) but that line of debate probably isn't so relevant to a psychology class.

[Keira]

I just classified myself as a third column and called life on the phone...
Its coming, I know it is... Just after Godot serves me a drink...
(lit ref for those who care about these things)

Living is the only cure for all this madness,
no matter what label we stamp in our furrowed forehead.

That I was able to "deal" with GID for 30 years and live to regret being that dumb,
seemingly primes me for the B list, pushed aside by those young starlets, oh the shame, oh the humiliation...

Yeah, when I crack like this, its because the debate has become mightily circular 
I'm leaving the room now for some strong.... Huh tea... ... And chew on a few dozen 
(they are addictive). You guys better have
concluded something by the time I get back here in 3-4 years or I swear I'll drive a pencil through my head  . You don't want me to hurt myself huh guys, gals... Uh, do you... 

Dragged off to the loony bin, otherwise called bed... 

[Kate]

let's not sugar coat it or couch it in other terms. I'm not interested in more theories and explainations, or 'we're all in this together' shmoozing, I want you to come clear how you really feel about this.

I've always *assumed*, I don't KNOW, but ASSUMED that the unspoken (but hinted at in demeaning ways) insinuation by some is that primaries are the only REAL transsexuals, and everyone else is either a transvestic fetishist or crossdresser who took things "too far."

~Kate~

[Sarah Louise]

So, what are we doing?  Assigning values to being either primary or secondary (I guess the definition of these terms is still up in the air).  Transsexual, is transsexual, no matter when you discovered or acted upon it.

I hate these elitist definitions.

Sarah L.

[Kimberly]

Primary?
Secondary?

Worthless terms in my opinion.

In my case I am a girl stuffed in boy skin. Call that what you will.

[Kate]

For example, the secondary transsexual is conceptualized by Wise and Meyer (1980) as an aging ->-bleeped-<- with a fetishistic cross-dressing history. However, this individual is believed to show massive regression and loss of defenses following a major life crisis. The result is not a spontaneous occurrence of transsexualism, but rather, a request for sex reassignment based on late-developing feelings of gender dysphoria.

Wait, I'm lost... isn't "late-developing feelings of gender dysphoria" the same thing as "a spontaneous occurrence of transsexualism?"

These ->-bleeped-<-s typically had a strong masculine-role history despite long-held ruminations concerning transsexualism

Lost again... if these people had "long-held ruminations concerning transsexualism," doesn't that mean they're transsexuals? TVs by definition don't ponder changing their sex all their life.

~Kate~

[Sarah Louise]

Ok, I'll be good.  Keep my fingers off the keyboard.

Sarah L.

[Sarah Louise]

Now maybe the Primary/Secondary labels should be abandoned because of the negative stigma and the early/late transitioner implications which are by no means fair, nor are the hetero/homosexual implications fair, but there HAS to be some distinction between me and 'John Gotti' over here!

Now that I will go along with Nero.

Sarah L.

[Kate]

Now maybe the Primary/Secondary labels should be abandoned because of the negative stigma and the early/late transitioner implications which are by no means fair, nor are the hetero/homosexual implications fair, but there HAS to be some distinction between me and 'John Gotti' over here!

Well, I'd guess that someone who never had a GID thought at all until later in life is going to have a harder time shedding their socialized behaviour patterns?

The "Always Knowns," even if they managed to live a reasonable life in the role of their birth sex, STILL were well-aware of their instinctive behaviour - even if it was being intentionally suppressed.

~Kate~

[Steph]

I find it a little troubling that these studies place so much credence on what children feel/think during their formative years, these are all simply assumptions based on facts drawn from interviews with TS who state that "I've always felt that there was something different about me, even as a child..." and similar statements, like even as a child I knew I was a girl, or I always wanted to be with the boys, etc. etc.  These stories are from transitioned or transitioning adults not from children.  I would really like to see a factual study where infants have been monitored from birth, discovered to be TS and then followed up producing valid clinical data.

I'm just really glad that I'm just a woman.

Steph

[Shiranai Hito]

Oh Neeeerrro,  umm, if someone could assimilate into their birth sex, then why are they transitioning? Is it a fantasy or fetish (or a sexual orientation as Blanchard believes)? What's your take on it?

This is a very nice question, and it's something that "normal" people probably will be never able to understand.

"You were able to be a boy so far, i never even thought you were feminine or gay, what's the problem in going on like that?"

"You like girls, why you want to be a girl? Shouldn't be normal for someone who likes girl to be a man?"

"Why can't you just accept yourself for what you are?"

"You did a great job so far, keep up with the good work" (priceless)

"It's not like you get everything you want from life, you should just accept what life gives to you"


How would you answer? I think there's really little chance to make them understand, it's hard to explain.

I find it a little troubling that these studies place so much credence on what children feel/think during their formative years, these are all simply assumptions based on facts drawn from interviews with TS who state that "I've always felt that there was something different about me, even as a child..." and similar statements, like even as a child I knew I was a girl, or I always wanted to be with the boys, etc. etc.  These stories are from transitioned or transitioning adults not from children.  I would really like to see a factual study where infants have been monitored from birth, discovered to be TS and then followed up producing valid clinical data.

Wait wait... i'm pretty sure that GID has been diagnosed in children, the DSM IV even lists the differences between GID in childhood and GID in puberty and adulthood. I don't think that can be questioned.

[Sarah Louise]

I'm really hoping to come up with some better labels, seeing as I don't agree with some of the Primary/Secondary criteria. As I've discussed in previous threads, I don't see a difference between a young TS with access to all info, support, and treatment options, and a mature TS who had no access to all these luxuries in youth. That notion is totally unfair. I also don't agree with the hetero/homosexual Primary/Secondary criteria.

The 'secondaries' I'm talking about are mostly in my age group. And I now realize that nobody is getting my point, only seeing all the baggage these terms carry.

This is what I said earlier in this thread, those of us who are older (I'm 62) didn't have access to information, doctors and others just said we were "sick" or "crazy" (I heard those so many times from therapists when I was young).  Ok, yes, I knew things were wrong from early childhood.  I won't go into the problems I had or things that happened to me, I didn't even know there were others like me until I was in my 30's.

Transitioning later in life does Not make me a "secondary".  Enough said, I will try to back off now.

Sarah L.

[Rachael]

I thought primary and secondery classified when one realised one was a member of the oposite sex? not when one did something about it? if one realises young, and does till later, surely thats still primary?
i thought it was and age of realisation thing?

Nero: that sort of person sounds funny, can we put them in a cage and torment them?
thats female caracature, not a female.

[Rachael]

i guess im primary by both deffinitions. ill shut up

[Shiranai Hito]

Gina this might be kind out off the topic but you are bringing up an issue that's really important for me, i need to understand. The following question can be answered from anyone that transitioned very late, so somewhat is connected with the concept of secondary (wether you think it's a relevant concept or not).

You never transitioned untill very late, why? You said you knew some transexuals so it's not like you didn't know about it. Is it really that you never thought about becoming one? What stopped you from doing that? You were scared? You wanted to but for many reasons you told yourself you couldn't? Or maybe you never really thought you wanted to? Did you think you could live with it without ever transitioning? Did you think you weren't actually like the other transexuals you knew and so maybe your path was different?

[tinkerbell]

Okay, since you asked, I will be more than happy to respond to your questions, Regina.

so how do you feel those people will compare to you a few years post-transition?
Will they be less authentic in their genders and bodies? Will they be 'tweeners?' Will they be less passable?

And before I answer, this is my opinion, and my opinion only. I think that there are variations of the intensity of GID, being primary, secondary or what have you.  The thing is that when I go back in time and look at how my life developed since early childhood, I can tell, for sure, that it is completely different from that of someone who transitioned later on in life.  Why? because I avoided the common traps they fell into (i.e, denial , marriage, male presentation and the ability to CHOOSE to put off transiton for whatever reasons) When I look at these differences, it is clear, to me, that I transitioned young because I felt more strongly about being a woman than older transitioners did/do.  I didn't have A CHOICE.  I transitioned because that was what I had to do.  For me it was a matter of life and death.  Being who I am was more important than everything older transitioners have lived for (i.e, jobs, careers, school, children, family, spouses, society, pressure, and whatever else there is for an excuse). My priority was to be who I was, the rest (everything others have lived to build during their lives as males) was secondary.  Why? because I had no choice.  It was simply the way I felt.  My dysphoria was too much for me to bear.  I had to break free; otherwise, I would have died.

Will outsiders be able to tell a clear difference?   Will you have very different ways of connecting to other primaries vs. secondaries?

Well, There are certainly degrees of success pertaining to transsexualism.  The younger you transition (most primaries transition at an early age) the more successful you are in adapting yourself in society as your true gender, and developing skills such as voice, female presentation and communication that go in accordance to the gender you identify as.  I have met a few late transitioners who really didn't give a flying monkey about anything that pertained to female presentation.  "I am a woman but I don't need to work on my voice, demeanor or posture.  Society owes me big time for being transsexual" That kind of attitude. Get the picture? 

Are you able to tell your primary brothers & sisters in an instant... if so, how?

I actually can.  It is funny but true.  Nero mentioned the alert system he has, LOL  .  Well, it is the "famous vibe" we have talked about so many times on these forums.  That invisible energy that never fails combined with how the person communicates, expresses herself/himself in threads, posts, during stress, etc, etc, etc.  Some people call it a "vibe".  I tend to call it an "energy".  It just appears out of nowhere and somehow, before that person gives you too many details about his/her life, you just know that he/she has been where you have.  There's an automatic connection between that person and you, a wordless language that only you and that person knows. 


I hope I have answered your questions to your satisfaction.  I know you didn't want to hear about more links, but I have to provide some for those members who may be interested in reading them. 


Sex Orientation Scale (S.O.S.)

Are the research finding about all transsexuals or just some?
Some researchers and transsexuals propose there are many different "types" of transsexuals. This raises a questions: Are the neurological findings about all transsexuals or just some 'types'?

One distinction is between transsexual men (Female-to-Male) and transsexual woman (Male-to-Female). The theoretical reasons BSTc was proposed as a possible TS difference imply we would find similar results for transsexual men. However, this study only involved transsexual woman. We should be cautious about making the generalization to transsexual men without the empirical evidence. A nice replication and extension of this finding would be to study the BSTc region of both transsexual men and woman; I hope neuroscientists undertake that study. For the remaining two catgorical distinctions I am limiting my discussion to only transsexual woman.

A second distinction is age of onset, the categories are 'primary' and 'secondary' transsexuals. The defining difference is the age when a transsexual requests a sex change: 'primary' transsexuals usually request a sex change in their early to mid twenties and 'secondary' transsexuals request surgery from forty years old and onward. As groups, they differ in sexual orientation (more 'primary' transsexuals are straight in their target sex) and their gender expression (MtF primary transsexuals tend to be more feminine). However, please be aware that these differences are statistical like sex differences in height. Men are taller than woman but that doesn't mean any particular man is taller than any particular woman. Is the brain difference only a difference for primary or only for secondary transsexuals? No. If you look at the table below, you will see that three transsexuals in the study are primary and two are secondary transsexuals (there is no datat reported for one brain).

The partial article above was extracted from this link:

http://www.genderpsychology.org/psychology/BSTc.html

********************************************************************

Harry Benjamin Standards of Care

DSM-IV

ICD-10 Gender Disorders

Harry Benjamin Disorientation Scale

Watson's Gender Disorientation Scale


Treatment of young MTF transsexuals

Transsexual Children


I could do some extra research and I am sure I will find more stuff.  I'm good at research. 

tink