Hy-pathetic-al Questions

[Hazumu]

Washington Post

By Gene Weingarten
Sunday, July 8, 2007; Page W36

"What if one's gender became a choice, in the sense that adults could change their sex any time they want, for as long as they want?...

...You men are idiots. A man who turned himself into a woman for the purpose of entering a locker room would find himself surrounded by naked people for whom he suddenly, exasperatingly, had no physical desire. Horrified by his mistake, he might even change back immediately, resulting in his being battered to death by exfoliating pumice stones."

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Ah, hah, hah, hah... very funny... 

The underlying coding of this piece is it's bad to change one's gender, and anyone who did so would be stupid, anyway.  Think I'll write the author a letter.

Note: This was the lead bit in a 'humour' piece with four flip answers to stupid questions.

Karen

Posted on: July 16, 2007, 12:13:33 PM------------------

Here's what I sent:

Greetings Mr Weingarten;

Hi.  I'm transgendered.  That is, I was born with a male body, but a brain that, for whatever reasons, had been  feminized,  I suspect it was the Diethylstilbestrol my mom was given to take when she was pregnant with me.  Be that as it may, medical professionals with gender issues experience all agree to the rightness and medical necessity of my transitioning to female.

I really wish that I could, at will, change my body to the gender of my brain.  Even if it were a one-way trip.  ESPECIALLY if it were a one-way trip.

I don't care if you don't understand this.  And it's obvious to me that at this moment you don't fully understantd it, based on what you wrote in the subject article.  It was a laugh for the 95%+ of the population that is cisgendered, where there is harmony between the body sex and the brain gender.  And I believe it reinforced old stereotypes which wreak havoc on the TG community, as well as reinforcing negative gender stereotypes.

Perhaps you believe the desire to change ones' sex (or, more correctly, gender) is an issue of morals, and perhapse you believe I have no morals or bad morals because I can't or won't make the morally correct choice.  If you do, please stop reading here, and let's agree to disagree.

If not, I believe your piece could have been written so as not to be offensive to me and those who have Gender Identity Disorder -- it could have still made the point that, for a majority of the population, those would have been the likely outcomes if a normal person tried changing their sex.  You see, a normal person can no more choose to transition to the opposite gender as a transgendered person can ultimately NOT choose to transition.  Almost all would want to return to their correct gender.  Almost...

Here's my call to action to you:  Please educate yourself on transgender issues.  Wikipedia on the web has good starter articles with hyperlinks to other articles.  Please also research Gwen Araujo, Brandon Teena and Tyra Hunter for starters, transgender individuals who were murdered largely because our society currently supports and prehaps even subtly condones the expression of hatred and bigotry towards the transgendered.

If you made it this far, thank you for hearing me out;

Karen [MI, LASTNAME]

Posted on: July 16, 2007, 12:45:08 PMThat was a nice e-mail exchange...

Karen, I think if you research my writings you will find that I am not a self-righteous ->-bleeped-<-, and am pretty wildly liberal on most social matters.   So please believe me, it was not my intention to offend, or to ridicule people with gender-related issues.      I write humor.   I didn't intend this piece to be any sort of sociological statement.   

Having said that, I'm not sure I understand why you can't change your body.    Hasn't transgender surgery become commonplace?   I know I am misunderstanding something -- what is it? 

Also, I honestly don't see how this column would seem offensive to the transgendered.... please explain.    It is talking about a hypothetical situation where you could pop from one sex (not gender) to another.     

Please elaborate.   It bothers me when I think I have offended someone, even inadvertently.   

Greetings, Gene;

Thank you for being open and asking questions about this.  I'll try to explain.

First, the disclaimers.  I speak for Karen Savage.  And I retired from the military as a Military Journalist. (I'm a DINFOS-trained Warrior -- Death from a Desk!)

Now, on to the fun stuff ;-)

Gender Identity Disphoria is recognized as a medical condition in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV)  The most successful treatment for this condition is to allow and assist the patient in transitioning.

Changing my body?  Yes, the surgeries are quite commonplace.  There is Facial Feminization Surgery (FFS), where facial features that are read as 'male' are softened or removed.  There is the sensational Sex Reassignment Surgery (SRS) which renders results that are highly functional, sensate and cosmetically almost identical to natal females.  There is voice therapy to train the trans-woman to alter her vocal apparatus to reduce the male resonances and increase those resonances that 'read' as female, and for those cases that still sound like truck drivers, there are recent advancements in larynx surgery that have helped a percentage of those who've undergone it.

You can do a lot to erase the stigmata that a male puberty saddles you with.

I think my anguish when reading your article came from the one-size-fits-all outcome of the hypothetical man changing to a woman just to get a peek.  In reality, there are those who object to transgenders transitioning who offer exactly that rationale for morally forbidding a male-to-female transition to take place -- that the transitioner does it just to be a voyeur.  Actually, you were right on the mark that someone who became a female would lose the prurient interest aspect (unless of course she found herself to be a lesbian...)

In fact, there are those therapists who view the first two months of hormone therapy as a sort of final test of their diagnosis.  The ones not ready for transition do have second thoughts and bail, just like your hypothetical example.

Recently, we in the trans community, and in the LGBT community at large, have noted that the progress in obtaining equal rights and basic human dignity have been attacked and even reversed in some cases.  There have been a stream of articles of late from the fundamentalists calling for sanctions against the LGBT community and attempting to 'defend' marriage.  One such writer said that a transgendered fourth-grader SHOULD be allowed to go to school with long hair and a dress, and the other kids SHOULD be allowed to 'teach' the TG kid the error of her ways...

Then there is a HUGE push by the conservative and religious fundamentalists to stop at any cost the Senate and HR Hate Crimes bills and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.  Another Washington Post columnist, George F. Will, has been a mouthpiece for the fight to end ENDA and the Hate Crimes bills, writing that it would silence free speech.  I'm mad and I'm frustrated, and I'm scared...

So, to tie it all up, it was the milieu into which you tossed your humor piece that made it take on a bitter flavour you didn't intend.  You came up with a funny idea, but one that cut too close to the truth of the matter AND to a common misconception about why a male-to-female transsexual 'does it'.  I also felt that the piece coded any sex change as negative, in the way the fundamentalists say that God made you that way and any attempt to change the way (we think that's) the way you are is morally deviant and should be punished.

For me, it needed a little buffering, something to say at least that there are people who SHOULD have that opportunity to change their sex, and they may be better off for it.

Well, thank you for letting me pour my heart out.  And I hope that as a liberal you continue to find juicy targets to skewer on your barb of humor.

If you are curious about transgender and have any other questions, do not hesitate to contact me, and I'll try to point you to the good sources of information;

Karen