Interesting. I just came over here after reading this article a friend sent me:
Gender bending: let me count the ways
http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/gender_bending_let_me_count_the_ways/And instead of posting a new topic, I'll just throw it into here because it kinda fits.
On one side, I think it's important for people to just be themselves - to be allowed to be themselves (so long as it doesn't involve anything illegal or hurting someone else) and like other people have said here already, your mind changes all the time about who you ARE. We're all in a state of evolution (or we should be) in that we're trying to be the best people we can be ... we're trying to be happy, etc. If someone feels they are trans but then realize that their mind or viewpoint changes, that's part of personal evolution. This is part of the reason why I hate labels at all.
That article mentions something like 23 different "variations" of "gender" among other points. Personally, I feel that some of the classifications are more sexual fetish than they are gender choice. It'd be like comparing "furries" to transsexuals ... or not really comparing but lumping them in the same category - which obviously they are not. I don't have any kind of personal problem if someone wants to be a furry ... or if someone wants to call themselves pansexual or whatever. You can all yourself a purple potato and I'll be like, "ok, if that makes you happy, then by all means go for it". But I can also see the realistic viewpoint in that there's a ton of levels where gender applies in society - we're not there as a culture, race, society, etc. for all of us to accept it all. I can also see how some people actually mistake trans(gender/sexual) for a fetish rather than a condition.
Now, getting back to the original, "I just can't really tell who's like... seriously transgendered". For me, personally, I always had a problem with being called transsexual (although I've been called transgendered by psychologists as well - seemed to shift based on their own personal viewpoint as to what they'd "diagnose" me as) because it is a construct of the psychological field in the way it is classed "medically". So is homosexuality if you want to get right down to it. By that I mean that at a point in time, psychologists had deemed that to be a disease - an abnormality - a disorder. Unlike a medical doctor diagnosing a disease of the body, we have psychologists basically judging other people based on the way their minds work - the way they feel love - the way they view their own body. These are not diseases to me. It's not like schizophrenia or other detrimental psychological conditions. You're not crazy if you feel you were "born in the wrong body" but psychologists for a very long time classified it as crazy (probably still are some today that do as well).
That bit about psychology is just my opinion of course. I realize that the field DOES help some people. I'm also fully aware that without a diagnosis one can not peruse things like HRT, surgery, etc. I know that many are actually relieved when they get a diagnosis such as being transsexual because it "fits" - it makes sense of why things were not "normal" for them for however much time passed before they sought help and it's the 1st step in doing what we now all call "transition". But there is a detrimental side to it imo. I'm not one of those people who were helped at all by it, so yeah I have that different viewpoint but can at least acknowledge that it works for some people. Everyone is different.
I can't "tell" who's transgendered either - especially on the internet where anyone can basically be anything they want. On a personal level, it might not matter to me. Because psychology is involved, because being trans effects everything about someone's life from their interaction with their families to their work to the laws that effect them, it does matter.
I'm in between in trying to digest some of the points brought up in that linked article for example. It seems a great many things are in flux, some things are beneficial, some are detrimental when it comes to gender and acceptance.
In regards to the trend thing - someone else brought up when they were growing up there was no trend of emo or cutting yourself. I can totally relate to this because not only did that not exist when I was growing up but transition itself was not a well-known thing. It was a very rare thing and I don't think I even became aware of it until I was well into my 20s. Would I have opted for something like that had I known about it when I was 14? I can't really say because my 14 year old mind was a lot different from my mind now. I knew a lot less things about the world and myself and I can definitely admit that I made a lot of other ignorant decisions about other things at that age so I'm kind of thankful in a way it wasn't an option to me early on.
