Quote from: Nero on August 13, 2007, 12:41:27 AM
Is everyone who transitions a member of their target gender?
If you think it's probably true that everyone who transitions is in fact a member of their target gender, vote 'true'.
If you think it's probably false that everyone who transitions is in fact a member of their target gender, vote 'false'.
Nero, I really think you should ask more controversial questions of us. You hold back way too much.
You are quite a child of Eris, dear.
And I am just perverse enough to love it!
Well, Maybe I am her child as well.
I agree with Tink. I think there are many reasons that people find themselves uncomfortable in their lives. TSism is one, but, like a lot of other reasons, that one can be passed (no pun intended) with the proper actions taken by the sufferer. Of course, a person prolly needs to be certain she or he is actually a sufferer.
MY experience has been that a lot of TSes diagnosed as such, prolly are not. They may be ->-bleeped-<-s or CDs, but they cannot quite make the transition to a sex other than the one they are born into. But, they make the journey and find themselves no more calm and self assured than they were before their transitions. I imagine they are not TS.
IMO, this journey is not a way to overcome a sexual identity that one finds uncomfortable. It is not a way to make one's life easier because people of the other half of the binary have easier lives. Such reasoning, although what I imagine is that there is not much reasoning in such choices at all, leads them right back to the misery they were trying to alleviate in a way that was never going to work.
My guess is that we cannot accept too readily the statistics on srs, hrt, etc as a valid way to count TS prevalence as Lynn Conway does. My guess, from my experience, is that TSism is more rare than many of us would like to think. But, I think a lot of folks use it as a false hope of relief from themselves. I would imagine that all of the regretters and many of those who consistently post in places like this about the misery of their lives as they transition are simply chasing the wrong means of finding peace.
So, I answered False.
Addendum: IMO, the idea that chromosomes mean someone cannot 'really' be woman or man is another mistake we often make. Tink, Buffy and I are real women. You are a real man. One's gender/sex is a matter, imo, of soul/mind/heart, not a matter of stains and specimens on a slide. In order to reach that state of feeling and knowing that one is a functioning member of society and humanity one can pretty much discount the chromosomal aspects.
When I lived the way my chromosomes insisted I should, I was not functioning well. Now that I am living in my sex/gender, I function much better, for myself and others. A four cylinder car can run and function on two or three cylinders. It functions best and most efficiently on four. I function on four now.
Nichole
