Susan's Place Transgender Resources

Boy Or Girl? What's The Science Behind Transgender?

http://brainspongeblog.com/2015/10/29/boy-or-girl/

BrainSponge
October 29, 2015

Outspoken second-wave feminist Germaine Greer recently caused controversy by claiming that transgender women "can't be women" and "just because you lop off your penis...it doesn't make you a woman".

Of course in a sense she is absolutely right. Genitals alone do not define your gender. Cancer or severe injury can result in the necessary removal of testes or penises for example. Yet the men that undergo these procedures are no less men afterwards. Medical vaginectomies, or the removal of part or all of the vagina, does not mean that a woman stops being a woman. Obviously surgery alone does not define your sex. But that's not what Greer meant.
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Get past the opening about GG and the article pretty well summarizes a lot of what we know about transgender. There's no one-size fits all answer, but we all make up this wonderful wacky world of diversity. JMHO

I was very upset that they claim that all trans people "feel trapped". I tried to leave a comment but I don't know if I succeeded.

Your comment is there, Suzi. We both know that many transgender people don't recognize the non-binary segment of our community either. Getting the world to see it is going to be even harder.

As for me? I'm a man and a woman, not trapped, but living a nice life in a shared body.  :)

Hugs, Devlyn

Quote from: suzifrommd on October 30, 2015, 08:56:43 AM
I was very upset that they claim that all trans people "feel trapped". I tried to leave a comment but I don't know if I succeeded.

I feel trapped. I really do.

Quote from: iKate on October 30, 2015, 09:53:27 AM
I feel trapped. I really do.

Yes, a lot of people do. But not everyone.

According to my poll (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php?topic=188956.10), a little more than half.

Quote from: iKate on October 30, 2015, 09:53:27 AM
I feel trapped. I really do.

I did too.  Like being locked inside a suffocating box.  With HRT the lid is at least open now.


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Quote from: iKate on October 30, 2015, 09:53:27 AM
I feel trapped. I really do.

But because you feel trapped doesn't mean there are people in the trans community that don't. It's not an invalid way to feel and it's a totally understandable way to feel. However, to assert that ALL trans people feel that way is a massive generalization and caters to cissexist and bio-essentialist ideas. Some trans people are comfortable without surgery or even without hormones. That doesn't even go to include the non-binary folk who largely get overlooked. Some experience physical dysphoria and some do not.
I also think forcing the idea of "being trapped" can force subconscious ideals on trans* youth. I've met trans folk who seem to subscribe more to the media created idea of transness before self searching and finding their own identity.
Sometimes I feel trapped. Sometimes I do not. I think it's important that we fight overarching stereotypes perpetuated by news shows that focus on sensationalism rather than reality, contrived characters and overarching generalizations we place on our own community. We constantly say we don't want others to put us in boxes, but I think we do that just fine ourselves.

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The whole idea of not having any dysphoria and then soul searching to find out you are trans seems very foreign to me.  I'm not judging it one way or the other but I can't understand that at all.


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Quote from: Deborah on October 31, 2015, 11:35:13 AM
The whole idea of not having any dysphoria and then soul searching to find out you are trans seems very foreign to me.  I'm not judging it one way or the other but I can't understand that at all.

Speaking strictly for myself, the dysphoria was subtle enough to not be readily identifiable.  I knew something was not right, that I wasn't "normal", but I didn't know what.  I felt trapped, all right, but I could not identify the nature of the trap.  And I bought into the myth that, if I could just learn to be normal, the problem would be solved.  It was only after some "soul searching" that I started looking into transgender issues and those parts of my life started to come into focus.

Quote from: KathyLauren on October 31, 2015, 03:08:20 PM
Speaking strictly for myself, the dysphoria was subtle enough to not be readily identifiable.  I knew something was not right, that I wasn't "normal", but I didn't know what.  I felt trapped, all right, but I could not identify the nature of the trap.  And I bought into the myth that, if I could just learn to be normal, the problem would be solved.  It was only after some "soul searching" that I started looking into transgender issues and those parts of my life started to come into focus.

Thanks.  Feeling some dysphoria but not immediately identifying the source makes a lot of sense. 

I bought into that myth too even though I mostly knew the source pretty early.  I put up a long fight but the dysphoria finally wore me down.


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Quote from: Deborah on October 31, 2015, 11:35:13 AM
The whole idea of not having any dysphoria and then soul searching to find out you are trans seems very foreign to me.  I'm not judging it one way or the other but I can't understand that at all.

I get that. For me it's the opposite. I can't imagine what it would feel like to "know" that your gender is different from your body sex. I admit to a bit of envy of the women who say they always knew. I think I would have found my true gender much earlier.