Question 1. Is it a disorder?
This might seem a no brainer, but it's important.
Take a gmale, born, say 200 years ago, in London. He is transgender. What does he need?
Dress as female. Be accepted as female. Be rid of the testosterone. Form interpersonal relationships.
He can't dress as female because the rules of the society would make this unacceptable. He might get away with it, but unlikely.
If he can get away with it, or if the social acceptablity was different, he could be accpeted as female.
He can get an orchdectomy. These were not unknown then. They were often done on young, prepubescent choir boys who had the misfortune to sing well. They were called castrato.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CastratoHe might form interpersonal relationships. There is ample evidence of 'homosexual' relationships from that time and every other.
So, there is no disorder. Just an availabity of plastic surgery and hormone replacement, whcih wasn't available 200 years ago.
The only major problem that existed then were the social restrictions, backed by law.
These are deminishing. The laws have been largely removed.
All that is left is the access to the surgery and hormones.
A look in the medical section of almost any classified adverts and there are many different procedures, readly available to women. Breasts, face lift, fat removal and skin tightening. There is even a plastic surgery to restore the hymen! That, in adition to reshaping the labia.
Yet the general attitude is that males, asking for any sort of modification are being unnecessarily vain. That if they persist, that is, they refuse to accept the dismissal, they must be disturbed.
It is an attitude problem in the medical community. They regard males as fair game for attack, while females are regarded as in need of comfort.
At this point, I would like to say something about FtMs. I don't seek to undermine the struggle and very real problem you have. You are generally labeled as rejecting your duty to bear children. To be submissive objects for men. The problems of periods are implied as something all women have to go through, so why shouldn't you?
These arguments, all of them, demonstrate an arrogance and intolerance by the medical community. They suggest that the medical community is looking at transgender people in terms of themselves and attempting to rationislise what we ask for through their own eyes.
The medical community needs to grow up.
Question 2. Is it psychological?
If you trawl through the past of almost any person on earth, you wil find emotional traumas. I, for example first remember realising that I am a girl when I was 4. But I also know that, at about 3, I was sexually assaulted. I don't remember much about it. He didn't hurt me. I only know about it because I asked my mother to do it later, when she was giving me a bath.
Now, assuming that was the reason I decided I was a girl. Is that a reason not to let me have plastic surgery and hormones, so I can achieve my wish?
But there is a further problem. There must be huge numbers of children who had the same experience as me. I say this using conjecture. If it could be demonstrated that every child who had been interfered with, yet not hurt, at about 3 years, became transgender, then there might be an argument. But I doubt it.
So, if it is psychological, that is no reason not to let us have access to the necessary medical procedures that will allow us to be happy. Or is psychology about accepting suffering? Being miserable? Is psychology an exercise in stoic indoctrination?
Question 3. Is it physical?
There seems to be a lot of evidence, mounting up, to indicate that many transgender gmales have slightly different brains than other gmales. More similar to gfemales. But I haven't seen any evidence to suggest that gmales, with these different structures are all transgender. Or that all transgender gmales have this difference!
That also leaves out FtMs.
So, to this question, please do some research. In the mean time, please let us have access to the safe and reliable procedures that we, as sane adults, ask for. The huge numbers who have had these and gone on to live successful lives indicates that it can't do any harm.
