(Part 1)"I'm not TRANS anything" (Part 2) Are TS's "brain damaged?"

[Teri Anne]

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PART ONE of these posts discuss whether the term "Transsexual" is accurate for us.
PART TWO of these posts got interesting in that we discuss whether we're "brain damaged" or "changed" and what the causes might be.
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Websters' definition of "trans" - "Across...to the other side"

Okay, I know.  Labels are stupid.  But that aside, as a writer, I've always had a strong interest in words.  I've heard many post ops say, "I'm not "trans" anything," and, I admit, I've felt that way most times.  It's a weird position we're put in because some doc decades ago decided to call us "transsexuals."  Maybe we continue with it because we feel a strong kinship to those embarking on the same journey.  Many or most of us solve the problem by referring society to what's neatly typed out on our new driver's licences:  Female or Male.  Or, we call ourselves "T Women" and "T Men."  The adherence to the label "transsexual" when we're past that point seems to be unique in societal labels: 

- A poor man who becomes rich is not referred to as a transrich. 
- A pauper in England who becomes a nobleman is not a transcaste.
- A slave who was freed in the Civil War didn't define himself as a transfree. 

Yet we still adhere to the chains of our past like some kind of gender war veterans.  I'd hate to think that it is simply a lack of imagination that causes us to accept the "trans" label.  Presuming some of us WANT to honor our past, by labeling ourselves (with pride) as something more than just men and women, I wonder if we can come up with something that emphasizes our ARRIVAL rather than the trip there. 

Things like, PT Woman or PT Man (Post Trans)

You guys are smart.  Any ideas?

[alleigh]

I agree entirely!  I don't like the trans-words either 

New words!  Blast, I can't think of anything, but we need some new ones 

[stephanie_craxford]

Ahhhhhh the label thing again. 

So according to everything that's good and nice I'm supposed to be a "Pre-Op" Transsexual" who will be a "Post-Op" "Transsexual" in the near future,   Hmmmmmmmm let me check...

Nope, I'm still a woman, and always will be.  It's a nice label, short and sweet, easy to say, easy to use and easy to explain...  When asked whats the difference, it's easy... I'm not a man.

Steph

[Teri Anne]

I agree that calling ourselves man or woman is the endgame that, seemingly, most post ops choose.  I've noticed that the term "post op" doesn't really work as well if you're a F2M.  Some F2M's may not need or want an operation...yet, they're Post Trans.  I realize it's an issue that's probably debated every few months here at Susan's  - especially by "newbies" like myself - but I figured I'd just give it a shot to see if someone can come up with something new.

[Cassandra]

I'm with Steph on this one. I'm just a woman. Pre/post whatever. TS is jsut a convention as oppossed to CD TV or the more general TG. It is usefull here in that it gives the reader of a post a better idea of were the writer is coming from in that particular post. Beyond that I dont find the label useful for anything. I don't really know what the statistics are on post op women referring to themselves as Trans anything but I for one would just rather be seen as  a woman, like Steph said.

Cassie

[Teri Anne]

Cassie, you agree that when we talk to each other in the comfort of Susan's that there IS a benefit to an acronym shorthand so we can understand "where the writer is coming from."  My suggestion for that acronym would be PT (Post Trans) rather than TS or "post op TS."  So, I'm raising it up the fl->-bleeped-<-ole and seeing if anyone salutes.  It does me no good to use "PT" if I'm the only one using it.  I'm also wondering, is a post from a post a "post post?'"

In "real life," like Cassie and Steph, I walk as a woman, and talk as a woman.  Acronyms have no part in 99% of my life.

[stephanie_craxford]

Oooooooops
Teri Anne

When I referred to:

Ahhhhhh the label thing again.

I didn't mean it as be littling your post, it's just my sense of humor coming through. 

I realize it's an issue that's probably debated every few months here at Susan's  - especially by "newbies" like myself - but I figured I'd just give it a shot to see if someone can come up with something new.

It's debates like this  that make Susan's a great place to be, keeps us from being boring and makes us ask "why".  There are always different points of view and ideas and who is to say yours are wrong.  I certainly don't, I just don't agree with them. 

I would not refer to you as a newbie either, new to Susan's? maybe, new to life? I think not.

Chat later,

Steph

[Teri Anne]

Steph, no offense taken.  I presume a post like mine is old news to the long time regulars here....reminds me of my film school days.  Visiting directors would visit and, inevitably, some kid in the audience (no! not me) would ask, "How should I break into the film business?"  The juniors and seniors would groan a "not again!" 

You mentioned, "I would not refer to you as a newbie either, new to Susan's? maybe, new to life? I think not."  I called myself a "newbie" because that's what the rating on my moniker is at Susan's so far.  In terms of post op'ness, I'll be seven years old this coming May.  I'll be 54 in regards to that other birthday I have.

I am a woman through and through.  Definitely not a post-man, ha.

[Leigh]

PT?  Sure wouldn't work for me.

PT sounds alot like Part Time.

How about BTDT?  Been there done that.

I have seen people refer to themselves as "new woman"  What is that about?

Me, I'm a dyke!

[Teri Anne]

Leigh, you wrote, "PT?  Sure wouldn't work for me. PT sounds alot like Part Time."

You're right.  Even worse, people could mistake PT as Post Traumatic Disorder.  Though transitions are often Traumatic, guess we'll have to junk PT.  And P Woman doesn't have a good ring to it!

You further mentioned, "I have seen people refer to themselves as "new woman"  What is that about?"

Newly wealthy people get a label, "neuveau riche" (new rich).  It's not said as a term of endearment.  I suppose, if it didn't have such a religious ring to it, "reborn" woman might be appropriate.  If we used it, imagine the nightmare a conservative religious fundamentalist might have in reading that a "reborn" woman had legally "married" some woman. 

[Leigh]

The key word is legally!

Until it is contested.  Then its XX against XY and the courts rule that XY need not apply for insurance, inheritence and every other bennie that is granted to a natal woman in a marriage.

[Northern Jane]

Why cling to anything "different"?

Are you not a woman, plain and simple?

Why drag along something that is no longer relevant (unless you are speaking medically)?

Outside of The Boards, I would never refer to myself as "transsexual"! Even on The Boards, I simply refer to myself as "post-op" since it conveys all that need be said. To someone who knows my whole life story, I might say I WAS a transsexual, but more likely I would simply refer to my birth defect or being mistakenly raised in a male role.

Though there was nothing physiologically wrong with the "parts" I was born with (as far as I know), they were "not mine" and I see no more reason to elevate their importance beyond that of a wart or other unwanted growth. They are long since gone (turned into something useful  ) and if we must have a label to use among ourselves, surely we can find something more appropriate. So much of the mud we carry on ourselves is the result of society's preoccupation with binary genital sex.

If we must differentiate ourselves from the binary world, maybe we should call ourselves Transcendent, having gone beyond the common and become the extraordinary!

[Teri Anne]

Jane, I agree with you on all counts.  I'm pondering, now I see the silliness of discussing something we all agree with, how do I stop the discussion?  Guess I could hit the old LOCK icon.

Or....
Transcendant...beyond common, extraordinary...sounds good.

Oop, hold me down.  I almost started flying!

[stephanie_craxford]

Teri Anne there is no need to lock anything.  Debates and discussions are good, and this one was good.

Steph

[Terri-Gene]

Oh course it's good, but as for labels,  hell, I'll answer to anything that is said with a smile, does a new label hurt me or change me in my reality?

Terri

[Teri Anne]

Yes, I agree.  Labels are labels.  And labels are stupid (I think I've said that a few times).  While I agree, Terri, that labels will not change us, blacks, for some reason, started calling themselves Afro-Americans.  I'm presuming they renamed themselves in order to get people off the kick of looking at them purely from a color point of view.  I'm also presuming that they wanted people to consider that they came from civilization in a distant homeland...that they had a past they were proud of.

I'm a woman to all friends and strangers (I GET IT that most of us want to simply be called women, pure and simple).  Let me daydream for awhile though...I'm picturing a scene wherein I have to tell a person I love that I have a past, too.  Saying I "used to be thought of as being a male" defines it, I suppose.  But it brings up gender which, in my mind, has little to do with it...I was born a woman with a birth defect.  Transsexual and post op are good terms, too.  But they lack a sense of poetry, of art.  I'm warming up to Jane's "transcendent" term.  I can see a Time magazine cover showing a group of us with the title underneath, "Todays Transcendents."  It almost has a futuristic quality to it.  And, even though it has "trans" in the word, it has a sense of arrival that transsexual does not.  It also removes the idea that we are travelling to change genders...many or most of us feel that we were women to start with, so why intimate that we're changing genders?  It gets "gender" and "sexual" out of the equation.

One other good thing about "transcendent."  Those who call themselves T women and T men wouldn't needn't change that initial.

And yes, we would still and always would be "women."

[Terri-Gene]

...I was born a woman with a birth defect

Much as this is going to bug the hell out of many or most here, I have to put a word to that statement, much as most here would like to believe it.

I and every other person who was born with xx or xy chemistry was supposed to be of the sex/gender that chemistry represents.  The reason we are what we are is that for whatever misunder stood reason we are mentally mutated from being what we were BORN to be, XX or XY.

There can be little or no argument about this as it is scientific fact and if this won't be accepted then any and all medical reasons for the transsexual experience must be thrown out and the consideration made that we are all nothing but products of our enironment which makes it hard to understand those who do not and can not fit that catagory.

No, Transsexuals were born with a birth defect alright, but it is a defect of the mind rather then the body for whatever reason that science still has not verified, possibly because there are many reasons for such things to happen during biological development.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, though it affects myself as well, so I'll just appliy it to myself to avoid including or offending others .... What I am is brain damaged from before birth by reasons that have never been scientifically confirmed and that damage causes me to be female in nature rather then what my chromisones dictate what I what I believe myself to be, as my mind is not made or oganized at per the biological plan of my genes.

Sorry about that, but to my understanding of knowledge of science and evolution, it is the honest truth and I must face and understand that.

Terri

[Teri Anne]

Gee, Terri, wow.  And to think I was pondering locking up this post-site because we all were agreeing with one another.  You deepen, as you so often deepen, every discussion you take part in.  Thank you.

It is amazing what you said and, I think, being post op gives us all freedom to talk openly about what we're about without having to worry what some psych wants us to say.  I can hear many of psychologists ordering, "Say this, and you'll get the surgery."  By saying you feel you have a "defect of the mind" could perhaps have endangered that "hoop" process.  I don't dismiss or applaud your idea because, as you said, science and evolution is cloudy at this point.

If we are to bare our souls, there are other things that could be a cause...

- Renee Richards, a prominent post op TS doc, feels that she had an "obssession" that had no other solution than this.
- I fell off a car when I was two.  Did that do anything?
- I like the society of women better than the society of men.  It seems more civilized (though obviously there are exceptions).
- I felt trapped, not just by the men's body thing, but by the box men are kept in.  I like being emotional.  I like being able to hug someone without them thinking I'm accosting them.  I like hugging both men and women without anyone thinking I'm gay (if a guy hugs a guy,often eyes turn).  A guy who touches or hugs women is suspect.  Society accepts women touching a man's shoulder without thinking there are sexual connotations to it (In me, there aren't)

I considered all those when I transitioned and I kept coming back to two things that meant more to me than the above:
- The hermaphrodite who has genitals altered to female when they're born and they go through life KNOWING they're male.  I felt that same sense of certainty.
- The medical studies showing that a fetus body develops first the body and then the brain.  If anything happens to the hormone level in the pregnant mom while she is "carrying," the body can end up one way and the brain the other way.

That, in concise terms, are my feelings about why I'm here,   Thank you again, Terri, for sharing.

Teri Anne

[Cassandra]

I'm not really comfortable with the term "brain damaged". I don't consider my brain damaged. Although I do get what you're saying Teri-Gene. How about just female brained or male brained as the case may be. Like right brained left brained.

Cassie

[Terri-Gene]

I am glad you don't find objections to one of the many disagreements I have with many of the views I encounter both in forums and in real life, but I must make one thing clear to you since you apparently misunderstand.

I am not post-op.  I have been living in full time recognition, appearance and relationship of being female for just about 10 years now, but due to doctors concerns about health issues did not start HRT till sept. of 2003.  I have had an orchiectomy, but that was because of a stroke in Novermber of 2004 and they thought that continuence of HRT was not in my best interest, as they thought about my Chronic Hepititus C condition before I was able to get the right doctors together (as suggested to me by a former moderator here at Susans) before then.

I have never argued with, necessarily agreed with, or compromised in relationship with psychiatrists or psychologysts to fit their particular views.  I was originally dianosed as GID in 1969 during months (Daily) of intensive therapy to determine the causes of many problems I had relating with the public etc.... and did try to transition, but it lasted only about a year before events and fear of those events caused me to attempt to repress myself back into totally male environment which lasted into the 80's when I became less able to inhibit myself and I came out totally and irrevocably in the 90's, though I still tried as long as I was allowed to until I was forced out of my previous career and had to learn to survive with the feelings and opposition of everyone in my environment.

Thank you for taking me the way I ment it in my statement about how I feel those like us are born, but I had to clear up any misconception about my Transitional Status.  Much of how I feel is the result of having been deeply involved in the late 60's, the experience I've had and the people who have mentored me, but I am still short of the financial ability for SRS having gone through extensive expenses due to losing a highly paid career, going bankrupt and having a seriously ill and expensive woman I feel obligated and responsible for after 25 years of marrage and 26 years relationship with.  That occassionall, digs deep into what I can keep seperate from money I would like to forget I have until there is enough.

Thanks for the thought, but it is premature.

CASSIE: you are probably right about the term "brain damaged" but medically and scientifically that is the only way I can put it as that is the medical qualification of what has happened to Transsexuals.  And if you haven't guessed over time, I'm not one to worry about the use of words.

Terri