On Transsexuality and Transphobia

[Shana A]

Friday, 9 January 2009
On Transsexuality and Transphobia
Zoe Brain

http://aebrain.blogspot.com/2009/01/on-transsexuality-and-transphobia.html

I should preface all of this by "to the best of our knowledge..." or "the evidence very strongly indicates that..." or similar weasel-words, rather than making flat statements. All I can say is that of the competing theories, this one is the only one consistent with all the observations. Where it has holes, there's plausible mechanisms postulated, and competing theories either have to invoke unique mechanisms found nowhere else in Science to cover their gaps, or more often, just plain ignore them.

OK, so what is transsexuality?

Simply, having a gender identity that differs from societal perceptions of the body's gender.

This definition in terms of "societal perceptions" covers the many cases where the body is Intersexed, or where surgical intervention shortly after birth reverses appearance of natural genitalia, or the various Intersex conditions that give rise to sex-reversal syndromes after birth.

For example, a boy who as the result of a botched circumcision ends up with no penis may be surgically altered to an apparently female form (I can think of 2 cases immediately). If the boy revolts against the outside assignation, he is deemed transsexual. The David Reimer case is well known, but Dr Zucker (that's PhD not MD) intervened in another case, and the patient as the result now identifies as a rather butch bisexual woman with severe difficulties in forming relationships and chronic depression. This Dr Zucker deems a "success", as he states on a video available at Youtube.

[Hazumu]

A. E. Brain

For very good reasons to do with evolutionary development, anything to do with confusion about gender identity tends to cause instinctive and unreasoning disquiet, discomfort, and even revulsion. This can manifest as bigotry and hatred, but most often results in people "not wanting to think about it", and ignoring the evidence saying "I don't buy this whole woman trapped in a male body stuff". Conversely, because the neuroanatomy is bimodal rather than binary, some people have an instinctive partial understanding of the situation. While not transsexual themselves, they have elements of transsexuality in their psychic makeup, and could probably function reasonably well in an opposite gender role.

Transphobia is a perfectly natural instinctive reaction. But so is Xenophobia, Racism and many other evils. Transphobia and to a lesser extent Homophobia are the result of evolutionary pressures towards increasing chances of procreation. Many such beliefs are rationalised afterwards: the instinctive revulsion comes first. Fortunately, we're rational, and not slaves to our instincts - unless we want to be.