Different degrees of transsexuality?

[Steph]

Hello

As you probably know I am one of those who feel that you are either a TS or you are not, there is nothing in between, yep pretty rigid, and probably narrow minded (been called that before).  We seem to have this incessant need to belong and to be ranked/graded, it is the most divisive issue we deal with.  We read the tables that are put together by learned individuals and then low and behold we take bits and pieces from the table and start defining ourselves accordingly, ya can't be a little bit pregnant.  Personally CD's, TV's, and Androgyne are not apart of who and what a TS is, just as we are not part of them and I believe to draw comparisons from these groups is wrong.  We have those who consider themselves to be non-op TS, but I would offer that they are not TS but something else.  I can't support any notion that there are degrees of TS.

Steph

[Ricki]

I think in the end people will agree to disagree with this one....
Ricki

[Teri Anne]

An old freind told me a person's perception is their reality.

Hi Ricki,
Or as the fellow who often appears on PBS puts it:  "When you change the way you look at things around you, the things around you change."

We all enter earth with a fairly blank slate but societal prejudices corrupts us all.  Why else would gays and TS's want to kill themselves?

As to any attempt to create a rigid form of seven TG/TS descriptions, again, I think it's in the mind of the viewer.  Before SRS, I felt there was a strong division between male and female.  After SRS, like many posties (so I hear), I feel there's more of a fuzzy line between male and female and that a lot (or most) of what we attribute to being male or female is society filling in the coloring book.  So, before "jumping over" to what you presume is the other side, do your due diligance (aka real life test).  There are niceties like people speaking in a more gentle friendly way to me but, overall, the world is what it is.

In terms of my personal perception (excluding society), yes, I do prefer not having that "thing"below me.  I sometimes wonder if God had just designed something more elegant and less disgusting to me, would I have transitioned?  I hear pre-op F2M's occassionaly comment that they hate their breasts.  I suppose it's the same kind of thing...leading me to the conclusion that it all was inevitable -- for me, anyway.

Everyone walks their own path, TG/TS chart or not.

Teri Anne

[Ricki]

Very Nice Terri Ann....
Nothing ever seems as simple as it is, huh?
A rubics cube of the transgender assortment, no?
thanks again for your post and insight!
Lovingly
Ricki

[tinkerbell]

Actually the table scale that Julie provided is used by the DSM to differentiate among the types of GENDER IDENTITY DISORDERS, and not the degrees of transsexuality. Transsexuals fall under group 3 of this table scale and according to the DSM, there are only two types of transsexuals: (type V - moderate intensity) and (type VI - high intensity).  The type IV (non-surgical transsexual) is considered a severe type of transvestism rather than a type of transsexuality. 

See link

Personally, I agree with this table scale, for it seems very accurate.  As any other medical condition, transsexualism also varies in intensity, and the differences between the two types (V & VI) are pretty obvious according to the information on the DSM table scale.


tinkerbell

[Melissa]

The way I see it is I think there are different degrees of being TS, but I disagree with following a table like that.  Just do what you feel needs to be done in order to feel comfortable in your body and life.

Melissa

[Kate]

Personally, I agree with this table scale, for it seems very accurate.  As any other medical condition, transsexualism also varies in intensity, and the differences between the two types (V & VI) are pretty obvious according to the information on the DSM table scale.

Seeing it categorized into those Groups, it makes more sense to me... though it still makes me uncomfortable for some reason. It's too rigid, the symptoms are too either/or, too black or white. In real life, it seems most of us have mixtures of these traits, or at least have had them at one time while we struggled to accept who we are.

Heck, I went backwards really on this scale for a few years. I *always* knew I needed to be a girl, yet never crossdressed (nor did I want to) until my thirties, and I DID find it erotic for awhile. But that phase faded rather quickly, and now clothes... are just clothes again as they were before. I never considered mutilating my genitals, as I never really linked them to my sex. Besides... how would that help anything? I'd rather have the appropriate parts, and must have them to be intimate sexually, but otherwise... it's just there. Ugly as heck, but the least of my worries right now. And yet, I've made serious, well-considered plans for suicide on a few occasions. And sexuality... god, what a mess. I *thought* women turned me on, now I don't think it was quite so simple. Now I see certain guys and I just CANNOT look away from them, I become enthralled, a physical reaction that I've never had before. I look at women and... they're pretty and all, but otherwise... nothing. Am I low intensity? High intensity? A TV because I found crossdressing erotic at one point in my life?

So speaking simply from a personal view, I don't fit into this scale. Or I should I say I spread all over it, naturally more in some categories than others, but it's a very messy fit.

[Melissa]

Am I low intensity? High intensity? A TV because I found crossdressing erotic at one point in my life?

So speaking simply from a personal view, I don't fit into this scale. Or I should I say I spread all over it, naturally more in some categories than others, but it's a very messy fit.

Kate, I have the same problem here, which was a major reason I came to my conclusion above.  I seem to fit mostly into the Type VI, but some pieces don't quite fit.  I have learned to accept my genitals as I have them now and when you described them as

Ugly as heck, but the least of my worries right now.

that had me laughing, because those words could have come from me.  Although the suicide thing was a looming threat for quite a while.  Now I feel more at piece or perhaps I'm only in the eye of the storm.  Also, I did pretty much reject the therapy, so that doesn't quite fit either.  So, like I said, I stopped using the scale and am making changes necessary to be comfortable with who I am.

Melissa

[Ricki]

Melissa this is awesome...

Just do what you feel needs to be done in order to feel comfortable in your body and life.

But it's not on the table thingie anywhere...
grrrrr......
extra holiday hugs
Ricki

[umop ap!sdn]

Also, as far as I know, I always felt "trapped" in the wrong body....so as you can see, these symptoms fall into what the DSM calls (moderate intensity transsexualism); however, my therapist always considered me a type VI based on other "experiences" associated with some "traumas" which I have never discussed here in the forums.

Even without my knowing of those traumas, your presence here on the board is soooo strongly female that personally I thought you to be unmistakably a VI anyway.