Susan's Place Transgender Resources

Take a guess on how long its going to take society to absolutely and unconditionally view being Transgender as being unequivocally equal to genetically designated M and F or whatever preferred label that lets everyone gain total acceptance of all others as their preferred way of presentation to society and themselves. In the past year things have moved quite rapidly where discussion of the trans world is far more open. If things keep progressing the way they have in just the past two years there should be an incredible change in perception of trans people in 20 years.

I think that it will be about twenty years after gays are "fully accepted." For gays, we're pretty close. So I checked 10 to 20 years. It might be a bit longer than that. Barring a resurgence of fundamentalism, I think within the next couple of generations. Sadly, I will have completed my life before that happens. I'll just mark myself down as a pioneer and give myself a pat on the back for those who follow my footsteps. I hope that those who do, live more fulfilling lives because of the new societal acceptance.

Cindi

Never.

I mean I think it may get a great deal more accepting, but total unconditional acceptance? Has any society ever totally and unconditionally accepted anything? There's always going to be some people who don't and won't. In a free society people are free to not accept, too. I'm wary of those people out there with Utopian visions of acceptance for all who are in their own way becoming fascistic justice warriors trying to force people to accept things (which in my view will simply achieve the opposite effect. Force never gets the effect you want with human emotions).

But I dunno, another 20 years and hopefully we won't be lepers anymore, although there'll always be someone out there feeling justified in calling us freaks of nature. We may well be freaks of nature, but I'll be satisfied enough if I'm allowed to go about my day unmolested, all the same.

Quote from: Cindi Jones on March 02, 2016, 01:34:16 PM
I think that it will be about twenty years after gays are "fully accepted." For gays, we're pretty close. So I checked 10 to 20 years. It might be a bit longer than that. Barring a resurgence of fundamentalism, I think within the next couple of generations. Sadly, I will have completed my life before that happens. I'll just mark myself down as a pioneer and give myself a pat on the back for those who follow my footsteps. I hope that those who do, live more fulfilling lives because of the new societal acceptance.

Cindi

I'm in the same age bracket , so I don't know how much I'll live to see. I'm mad at all the movies I''ll miss.

Even in my close "society of friends" it is not yet unconditional.  Yet I want to acknowledge the growing visibility and acceptance I have experienced in my lifetime and that is remarkable.

I am old enough to recall when virtually no queer people were out of the closet except for Liberace in Vegas.  We learned to identify each other with keys dangling just so or enough eye contact to know you were looking too.  In the USA people with any disability were most often home schooled or institutionalized.  There were no kids in wheel chairs running around in our schools back in the 50s.  The first Trans people i met were furtive, fearful and underground.

Now we walk tall and own it.  We go were we want as we are and even arrive, reluctantly at times, with celebrity status.

The real work often starts at home within ourselves.  We often acknowledge that by saying "the hardest person to come out to and accept is ourselves" 

We keep working and we are a joy to behold. ;D

Amen

Unfortunately I cant see there being absolute acceptance of gender variance any time soon.
I think it will get alot more easier for people to come out, and be themselves. However i selected 50+ years, as I think there are always going to be people in society who, for some reason or another, are unable to accept other people, or who have been brought up to be ignorant.

I do however think that we are gradually gaining more acceptance in society, and its great that more and more people are finding the courage to come out. I think that people need to be educated about gender variance, and that will help a lot.

Xx

I think no matter how much education happens, there will always be ignorant people and bigots. I think there could be a shift in what is considered "norms", but 100% unconditional acceptance seems like an unachievable goal.

I will likely be in my fifties before acceptance is going to be a mostly universal thing in the western societies. Some corners of the world will likely never accept us, unless something absolutely groundbreaking happens.

I think very few human beings unconditionally love and accept others and themselves. It's a very rare thing in humans. There will always be some form of hate, discrimination, even if not apparent. Love yourself FIRST and foremost. Then, the rest doesn't matter. ;)

Absolute acceptance from everyone is almost impossible to accomplish.  Look at some of the junk media in America for example.  There's still a lot of racism and sexism towards ciswomen alone.  I think LGBT acceptance will significantly improve if you turn the page a half century forwards, but I don't see it becoming absolutely perfect.  That doesn't mean that there won't be small utopias here and there though :)

On second thought, I think there will be patches of discrimination, and the vast majority will accept.  This is given around 40 years or so.  I'll probably be 50 or so when we can finally say acceptance isn't much of an issue in the majority of regions and communities.  It looks great in some countries already, and others will lag behind.  Isn't that what happened in history though?

I believe that within the next 10-20 years gene therapy will make it possible to mold your body however you want (I know, it's sci-fi now, but I think it's close).  At that point, no one will be able to tell what you were before.  That's if you're into the gender binary.  As for anything in between, I dunno.  50+ years?

I think society's view of trans people is at about the same stage that its view of gay people was at the time of the Stonewall riots.  That was in the late 1960s.  It took about 45 years for them to get general (though by no means universal) acceptance: same-sex marriage.  I don't think we will have an easier road (though I'd be happy to be proved wrong), so I checked 30-50 years.

Quote from: Karlie Ann on March 02, 2016, 06:41:42 PM
I believe that within the next 10-20 years gene therapy will make it possible to mold your body however you want (I know, it's sci-fi now, but I think it's close).  At that point, no one will be able to tell what you were before.  That's if you're into the gender binary.  As for anything in between, I dunno.  50+ years?

Not to pop your bubble but you do know how gene therapy works right? For that to even work we would have to be able to change all the cells in our body from an xx chromosome to an xy and vice versa. Gene therapy to date (that affects the whole body) is only really concievable by manipulating an embryo if you want the changes to affect the whole body and also we are speaking of a small gene that gets injected, through a virus or whatever. So apart from finding a messenger that can inject and remove gene from a certain place in the first place which is really hard to find. It's still only a gene not an entire part of a chromosome that gets removed and or added, not to speak of the incompability issues you'll face. And changing the chromosomes will not result into a change you are just changing how the body will work from that point on, not the things before it.

To summarize, adding or removing a gene is already incredibly hard, let stand a whole chromosome that you'll have to add in gene by gene which needs to be compatible aaaand adjusted in every single cell of your whole body. :/

Hi Luna-

I keep an eye on this article, which gets updated in the comments frequently by the author.

http://hplusmagazine.com/2014/05/08/total-gender-change-within-decade/ (http://hplusmagazine.com/2014/05/08/total-gender-change-within-decade/)

Quote from: Karlie Ann on March 03, 2016, 07:52:51 AM
Hi Luna-

I keep an eye on this article, which gets updated in the comments frequently by the author.

http://hplusmagazine.com/2014/05/08/total-gender-change-within-decade/ (http://hplusmagazine.com/2014/05/08/total-gender-change-within-decade/)

Readt through the article , it's about stem cells not really gene therapy ^^''' . I must admit my knowledge about stem cells is more limited, whilst I can see it become possible to grow breast tissue and the like, I think it is a bit far fetched to call it a "total gender change"
in fact you are only growing something, on something existing.
Whilst it is true that stem cells are amazing cause they dont reject the new part since its your own tissue, is that really the case still when you get for example ovaria donated by someone else which they grew by using a genetic female's stemcells? Donated stem cells which you get for example for treatment of sickle cell anemia (a disease which affects the form of your red blood cells) in the end only replace some tissue in your bones which stand for your red blood cell production and that procedure tends to have some complications.

kinda summarize it, its still kinda more like growing tissue on already existing tissue as far as I see, I doubt it will work for a "complete gender change". Although I can see it become a help for most people I don't really see how it will help someone further than someone on hormones for the most part.

Then again I am not really that well versed in stem cells as I am in gene manipulation.
Alas was a good read

Dang it, Luna, I'm an Engineer, not a Biologist.  ;) :D

Quote from: Karlie Ann on March 03, 2016, 08:38:33 AM
Dang it, Luna, I'm an Engineer, not a Biologist.  ;) :D

I actually study biology :D , I am pretty sure you'd school me in anything math or technology related though haha :)

Quote from: Karlie Ann on March 03, 2016, 08:38:33 AM
Dang it, Luna, I'm an Engineer, not a Biologist.  ;) :D

That's why its really nano-technology rather than gene therapy.

Apart from that I tend to agree. Its going to take something where there's no real difference between cis and trans. Of course its probably going to a whole lot easier just to fix your head than your entire body, and being trans will be really odd again. Except of course with all that technology people are going to start doing some really extreme body modifications that are going to make gender change look very conservative, hence quite acceptable.

Kind of unpredictable I think. So many ways it could go.

Quote from: JustASeq on March 02, 2016, 02:49:54 PM
I think no matter how much education happens, there will always be ignorant people and bigots.

And those evil people who are quite cynically willing to hurt others for their own advantage. Like some politicians I can think of.

The original question was about time for acceptance.  I think it needs to be measured in generations, not years.  I suspect when most of the currently 30+ year old people have "moved on' trans* people will be generally accepted.  Not as a norm, but at least understood and not separated into a group with negative connotations.

I would guesstimate 50+ to never. Society, as we know it, imposes conditions on everything. I truly hope the day will come but I do not feel it will be in mine or anyone being born in this lifetime. Sadness that I won't see the day, but that's okay because I'm at peace and happy and I can't ask for more than that.

Never!
Why?

Human nature.

I agree with the 10-20 year guess. Will it ever be complete, nope but overall acceptance.

During this same period i believe you will see rapidly declining misogyny. Socially it is getting harder and harder to maintain such views. Women are leading males in a lot of areas such as academics. Older people are sometimes given a pass, but of course that will pass on with many of them.

I put down 20 years , but it's probably going to be longer, but it has moved fast in the last 2 years. Probably not total acceptance , but at least to a point of tolerance

I think all societies can change at will. Ancient Roman societies were accepting of homosexuality to a much greater extent than today, they had terms for different gay relationships. Hawaiin traditional societies were okay with trans women. Ancient Japan had male geishas and male oiran (prostitutes). Yet, all those societies become more conservative as the times went on.

Just because were growing in acceptance doesnt mean it cannot be taken away. But that takes years as well to change that.

I say in "x+100" years we will be accepted, if technology allows us to fundamentally have a cisgender body.  Then you will have riots about that too.... Just keep that a secret.

Quote from: Luna Star on March 03, 2016, 06:53:53 AM
Not to pop your bubble but you do know how gene therapy works right? For that to even work we would have to be able to change all the cells in our body from an xx chromosome to an xy and vice versa.

It's not necessary to do any genetic alterations, because your sex isn't directly determined by genetics. Instead it's determined by what hormones are present during a critical period that starts about 6 weeks after conception and ends a few months after birth, and is later reinforced and maintained in adulthood by hormones as well.

The Y chromosome only contains a very small number of genes. There's the SRY gene, which directs your undifferentiated gonads to turn into testicles, and there's a few dozen other genes on it that are mainly involved with spermatogenesis. Outside of testicular tissue, the Y chromosome doesn't appear to do anything at all. It's the hormones produced by the testicles, not the Y chromosome, that cause male development to occur, and without those hormones, development occurs as female instead. There are certain medical conditions proving this to be the case (I've included some examples in the link at the end of this comment).

In other words, apart from the cells in gonadal tissue, all the cells throughout the human body appear to be effectively "gender neutral", and will quite happily function as either male or female cells, depending on what hormones are present. So no gene therapy is necessary, just taking the appropriate hormones for several years is enough to change the metabolism of all the cells throughout your body to match your chosen gender!

https://www.quora.com/What-causes-a-person-to-be-transgender/answer/Hugh-Easton-1