Susan's Place Transgender Resources

Do you think its possible for doctors to reassign gender like they reassign sex and if it WAS possible would you opt for that solution instead of the physical changes ....... if you had a choice. 
I've noticed a lot of MtF say they want to become the woman they are  except they want to keep their penis which is incongruent to being a woman, but I get it I guess. So if they could be gender reassigned that would suit them perfectly. Like they would be reassigned the male gender to match their body instead of being reassigned female to match their gender.
Gender reassignment would also benefit my fellow andros too, it might be a bit harder due to the plural-ousity :-)  of our gender though. But I think changing a gender would be less tramatic then changing sex. Or do you think that's crazy?

No. Freakin'. Way.

I'd never in a million years wish to be a guy comfortable with being a guy, simply because I had the misfortune of being saddled with a guy's body.  I identify so strongly with my internal gender, with the social components of that gender, relating to others as that gender, that I could never be the other.  Gender binary?  You betcha.  Do I care?  Not a whit.

I am a woman.  My friends know this, my family knows this, and most importantly, every fiber of my being knows it.  The body can be whipped into shape. ;D

Fix my gender?  There is nothing wrong with my gender, it is the body that is off.  Fix that and all is right with my world.

I am a woman with a birth defect.

You don't think reassigning a gender would be easier and less traumatic ? I don't know.

They have tried to do just that, but ECT and Drugs never worked.  Surgery is much easier.

Why change something in the mind that can be chaged in the body? It's like sayig I REALLY like chocolate and cherry icecream and have an EXTREAM dislike penutbutter cup crunch an then taking a pill/injection/crazy mind altering agent wave thing specifically to swap the two. Why do it when Chocolate and cherry ice cream is so much better?

Changing your gender (juxaposed to sex) is changing a part of who you are, I personally would rather go throught the hadship and trauma that the SRS/Transmorphing would produce then have my core essence mutilated.

I'll start considering that around the time I start considering a lobotomy.

As others have said, I'd rather not change who I am.

It would more then a little offencive to most us and would it stop there. Think your bi or gay? Well we can fix that too

dangerous roada hun

If there was a pill that could align the gender identity with your physical parts would you take it?  I've seen variations on this question and the answer is always the same - NO!  The reason being is my gender identity is part of who I am.  All I have ever been is based on it and many other factors and to 'fix' my identity would make me into a totally different person.  I wouldn't be who I am now.  I had my SRS about an month ago and, while I'm still swollen, in a little pain and certainly not completely healed, I'm feeling more feminine than I ever had.  I'm the me I was meant to be and this is the path I had to take to get here.  Anyone understand what I'm saying?

Teresa

Quote from: Domitia on May 08, 2011, 05:17:40 PM
I'll start considering that around the time I start considering a lobotomy.

This.

My brain is the deciding factor of who and what I am, and nothing is wrong with my brain. I don't want anyone messing with that.

To be honest it probably would have been al lot easier that way. Ultimately I just want my body to match who I am.  Am I the only who recognizes that the defect is my brain? It's not like I have XX chromosomes and a male body just appeared. Something went awry during the development of my nervous system. Of course it makes me functionally female in the brain department and so that's who I am.  It's precisely because we can't mess with the brain that we have to change the body. I'm not above considering changing my brain a bit to match the genetically intended body. Besides after the proposed treatment, assuming it's successful which is the premise of this discussion, I wouldn't care anyway.  Think of it like someone with OCD.  Instead of making everything clean, you just stop caring about the dirt.

Just one question:

Who gets to define what the male and female gender are in order to encode it into this little pill which will 'reassign' you to it?

Do they ask a million people what makes them male or female and then take the averages? Or is it nothing more than a vague 'feeling' that you should have the physical features you just happen to be stuck with. If the former then you'd be little more than a walking amalgamation of other people, with no bearing whatsoever on a self-identity. If the latter, it presumes that the only thing which makes someone male or female are the bits between their legs which is, frankly, a bit silly. And furthermore, if given this reassignment pill, wouldn't it make people little more than clones of all who have taken the pill, identical in their thought patterns? How is that an identity, either?

So the idea itself seems a little nonsensical. Do I think it's possible? Not in the slightest, and therefore the question of whether I would choose such an option is irrelevent.

Quote from: Maddie Secutura on May 08, 2011, 07:22:01 PM
To be honest it probably would have been al lot easier that way. Ultimately I just want my body to match who I am.  Am I the only who recognizes that the defect is my brain? It's not like I have XX chromosomes and a male body just appeared. Something went awry during the development of my nervous system. Of course it makes me functionally female in the brain department and so that's who I am.  It's precisely because we can't mess with the brain that we have to change the body. I'm not above considering changing my brain a bit to match the genetically intended body. Besides after the proposed treatment, assuming it's successful which is the premise of this discussion, I wouldn't care anyway.  Think of it like someone with OCD.  Instead of making everything clean, you just stop caring about the dirt.

True enough, but since the only place in which consciousness resides is the brain you start messing around with key components of personality. One change here and you might lose your artistic flare, another and you lose the drive for science. It's the same argument as the "If star trek teleporters were around today, would you use them?" sure it gets you places faster but is it really you coming out on the other side? Does your consciousness still reside within the disintegrated particles floating around the transporter room o does it transfer? If you change something so base in your personality will you still be you?

Another thing is the fact that we've been living with this defect, for however many years, means the change would be effecting the way we think. In that time brain plasticity will have started to create work arounds and changes that would end up benefiting the way the default was set up. If we could fix that part that was messed at birth then you'd most likely still have similar tendencies and interests you'd just be okay with your body in general, which may not be a bad thing but it's not going to completely fix everything.

In truth though it comes down to this question, are you doing this to make you happy or to fit in? If it's to make yourself happy, go ahead, if it's just to fit in I'd say no. But it's all personal preference.

Oh, oppinion warning.

EDIT:Second oh, if there's something Scientifically wrong about anything I say, call me out on it please, I need to be whacked in the head a few time for stating things before knowing more about them.

My mom asked me something like this long ago when I had first come out to her, she had asked me that if it were possible, and there were a way to change it so that you feel comfortable as a guy, in such as way that no thoughts at all were of wanting to be female, completely masculine, would you?

No. Never. I never was to begin with, that's what I was starting to understand about myself, that inside I wasn't a guy, that's why I was fighting so hard to get out, and that's why I continue to struggle to be the gender that I'm supposed to be on the outside as well as inside, female. And one of those necessary steps for me to ever feel comfortable with my external being is to get sex reassignment surgery someday, otherwise there'll always be some bit of misery there. Hormones can only do so much, still got the wrong parts and that's not an easy thing to live with. Besides, what if I took the other option, making so that my mind thinks its male, what kind of person would I be? Because of what would be involved, which could not be just solely chemical changes but perhaps brain structure as well, I could turn out to be a real jerk. I am who I am, I like who I am (most of the time), and what the female hormones do for me is allow the best part of me to shine through.

I'd like to assume the cure, for sake of argument, would spare other parts of my personality. The whole point is to have a congruent body, right?  What if I could be happy with the one that my DNA said I should have?  I feel comfortable enough with my own feminity that I don't have to assert the fact that female is who I am.  But who I am didn't jive with what I was and that's where the problem lay.  It was making me hate my body.  If there were a way to make me not hate, and in fact like what I already had, why not consider it?  It's a little late now but were such a thing available you bet I'd have done it.

Quote from: Sarah7 on May 08, 2011, 08:27:53 PM
Maybe... maybe if I could test drive it? Like try it for a week and then revert to make the final decision? Be able to see how much I'd really stop being me. How much is just me being paranoid.

It does feell like it, and I'm sure that this side is the less rational and more on the side of fear but whatchu gonna do?

Quote from: Maddie Secutura on May 08, 2011, 07:22:01 PMAm I the only who recognizes that the defect is my brain?

This is how I see it: yes something went wrong when my brain was developing, as I must indeed have been meant to become a girl(as the brain only starts developing later during pregnancy), but the brain in itself is not defect. As it is, I have a male brain that is perfectly fine other than the fact that it doesn't match my body.

The brain is still who I am even if I am the result of an accident of nature. If it was changed it would no longer be me, it equals lobotomy to me, and I'd rather die.

I hate how people try to mess with the heads of perfectly healthy people just because they don't conform to their idea of how things should work and behave. What I'm frightened of (if it was possible to begin with) is the possibility of such a thing becoming a standard procedure rather than a voluntary choice. What you'd have next is people digging in the heads of homosexuals etc. to "correct" these things as well. And don't say people will notice such a thing is going against human rights, the masses would just accept it as the scientifically accepted practice and draw a sigh of relief to be rid of us.

Quote from: espo on May 08, 2011, 04:06:57 PM
Do you think its possible for doctors to reassign gender like they reassign sex and if it WAS possible would you opt for that solution instead of the physical changes ....... if you had a choice.

Like all the previous posters said you've just killed me, I build my gender identity but it's not through complete choice I work with well, me, sounds weird doesn't it, but I make choices and sometimes I neglect who I am for the stupidiest of reasons.

So it's srs that corrects my transsexualism so I can have full expression.

This is really a significant question to ponder, one which rattled me very deeply not too long ago.

We are creatures with significant will. I also possess enough intelligence to realize that by the grace of this will I am quite capable of living forever as born simply by waking up and diving into work or some other deviation of my time in full force.

But I won't anymore - I don't really know if I can't, since I have done so and succeeded for over 20 years.

Still, here I am.

What does it all mean? I would never take a pill to alter my brain's gender, but here I am taking the most potent estrogen our bodies can handle, which I'm sure will have some effect on the sexually dimorphic matter patterns and sizes of certain parts of my brain over the next few decades. (It may not effect the identity region of my brain, but neuroplasticity does persist to some degree until you die.) What the heck am I doing? Is it really necessary?

These types of questions were just something existential to sit and turn over while living every moment of a life that I felt like checking out of. Now that I'm in the process I want to stay alive, and I still know that I would never take that other pill, even if it meant a life of internal hell.

Things are getting worse but I feel a lot better. I feel like I want to be alive, even if it's a struggle. I'm sure that I'm capable of love now as well, this process has taught me that much. I can't imagine there being any other right way to go about aligning one's self if they have this struggle.

Maybe at or before birth, to avoid all the grief, but once my brain was developed even the slightest , I would regard it as too late.

I was asked this once and it caught me off guard. I've pondered it for a long time and this is what I've come up with...

I relate the question to this hypothetical situation: I'm in an accident and lose a limb. The doctors provide me with two options. The first option is that I can get a prosthetic limb. The second is that I could be "hypnotized" to believe I never had or was suppose to have that limb. Both options would be solutions. However, the second option isn't really the best fix for the problem of a missing limb. A pill changing my gender, while fixing the issue between mind and body, is not the best solution in my mind.

No, I would not take the pill. My soul is female. Taking the pill would, as a result, alter my soul. I do not want to change who I am. Only how I appear. Regardless of whether the body or brain develops first, who I am lies in my brain.

It seems like undergoing gender reassignment would be a slightly less messy form of suicide.  I would no longer be here, and there would be some girl walking around with my skin.

Stage hypnotists can already do something similar to what's been proposed, I've seen it done. They can make people believe that they are whatever gender the hypnotist wants them to be (usually making cisgendered volunteers believe, while they are under the control of the hypnotist, that they are the opposite gender and making them do wildly outlandish and flambouyant acts, purely as a means to get a cheap laugh). And the level of realism, of utter belief and acceptance without question, to the point of actually seeing and having tactile experiences with physical features that aren't there, and likewise being unable to see or feel physical features that are there, depending on the suggestions given by the hypnotist, is total. It would be easily possible to implant a series of very specific suggestions into a person's subconscious in order to bring about the effect you describe, namely of making someone believe they are the way they appear to be and nothing is amiss.

However, the fundamental flaw with this, and with medication to achieve the same results, is that it isn't real. It's little more than brainwashing. And the psyche has a way of seeing through illusions, as is evident by the burning desire of people here to be themselves, however long that takes, and whatever they have to do to break free of the illusion that society and physical development have placed on them against their will. It would be replacing a physical illusion with a mental one.

Ooh good question.
I personally am not suffering from my brain/body incongruence, so I wouldn't take the pill or have my brain altered.  If I was suffering, though, I would definitely consider the brain changing route and don't see anything wrong with it- provided other aspects of myself aren't changed along with the procedure.

I think one of the fundamental problems is the definition of self and non-self. I'm a woman. I identify and live as a woman. I'm Caucasian of  Irish, Scottish, English background. Nothing can change that.  People have tried to change my gender for the last 40 odd years. Sometimes with extreme methods. None have worked. Why? Because I am what I am. I have no choice. If I was been born female and my gender was male I would be as horrified by my plight as I am being born with the opposite birth defects.  I do and have largely changed my sex. It now starts to fit my gender. I am becoming my self. Finally. The brain and the psyche rule the body. The body does not rule the brain and psyche. I am me. Not what my body says. What I say.

Cindy

To me body and brain are both part of the same machine. I don't think the question is feasibility. Of course we can't change one's gender but to me  just one aspect of myself. Gender dysphoria is being uncomfortable with your birth sex. If it could be done in such a way as to make you comfortable with what was already there, why not?  This assumes nothing else changes about your personality.

Quote from: Maddie Secutura on May 09, 2011, 01:54:42 PM
To me body and brain are both part of the same machine. I don't think the question is feasibility. Of course we can't change one's gender but to me  just one aspect of myself. Gender dysphoria is being uncomfortable with your birth sex. If it could be done in such a way as to make you comfortable with what was already there, why not?  This assumes nothing else changes about your personality.

I agree with you, and if it kept my identity in tact I would take it. Now then, everyone else would have to take a pill that would make them view me as a woman.

I guess I think that if it would make everything all better, nothing else at all would change, and I would be happy with being a girl born in a male body, then fine - hand me the pill. My problem then would be not fitting in with the other girls, and not being seen as a woman by the rest of society.

There's a significant problem.

Quote from: espo on May 08, 2011, 04:06:57 PM
Do you think its possible for doctors to reassign gender like they reassign sex

No its not possible because 'doctors' have certainly tried over the years and they have never succeeded.
[/quote]

Quote from: espo on May 08, 2011, 04:06:57 PMand if it WAS possible would you opt for that solution instead of the physical changes ....... if you had a choice.

I would never ever consider changing who I'am, regardless of the scenario that one can dream up on this. Because, if the mind is changed to match the body you would not be the same person and if there was an option to change my body physically to the genotype.  Then I would not even hesitate to change it.
   
Kind regards
Sarah B

Quote from: Sarah B on May 09, 2011, 05:24:28 PM

I would never ever consider changing who I'am, regardless of the scenario that one can dream up on this. Because, if the mind is changed to match the body you would not be the same person and if there was an option to change my body physically to the genotype.  Then I would not even hesitate to change it.
   
Kind regards
Sarah B

I can appreciate this.  Maybe my cold objective outlook on things is what makes me think the way I do.  Much of the body develops before the brain and yet it is the brain that controls who I am.  Male or female or whatever else, gender is just one facet on the greater gem that is Me.  And of course I'm a woman.  I'll stand by that forever but there is no denying that I wasn't supposed to be (from a purely biological point of view).  I think the objection to it comes from the reluctance to take on some other gender role.  I'm recoiling a bit just thinking about if I had to be a father and take on the male position in life.  But that's because it goes against a part of who I am.  I used to hate green beans.  But now I find I quite like them.  If you'd have told me as a child that I'd someday like green beans I'd tell you to piss off because they were so objectionable to me at the time.  Masculinity is an objectionable condition to me.  But if I were ok with it, in other words male, then it wouldn't be an objectionable condition at all now would it?

Going off of Maddie's argument on this matter, as I understand it, I would have to say no. Not even for the argument that it would be changing a fundamental aspect of myself because it seems to me that it would make me identify as a girl so then I would see that as a fundamental aspect of myself.

My reason is that a lot of my identity has to do with my own mental image of myself.

I had to really dig deep to analyze this, to try and imagine myself as a chick and how I would feel about myself and what my mental image of myself would be. I'd have no issues being a chick interested in a lot of stereotypically masculine things, but I wouldn't want to be butch, per se. If I were a girl I would want to be a definitive girl, the sort of girl that likes to get down and dirty and can hang with the boys but who can also be taken out for a night on the town, so to speak. My mental image would follow suit, and I'd want to be attractive and would imagine myself as attractive.

I don't think I could pull that off with my body. I can pull off the mental image I have of myself right now with physical transition -- hormones, surgery, working out -- and I think I could make a good-looking guy pretty close in line with my mental idea of myself. I don't think, however, that I could as a girl.

Simply put, I think I'd actually be happier as I am now knowing that I can transition into the man I know I am than I would be if I identified as a girl to match my body. That's not just a cop-out either, I truly think I would have self-esteem issues if I identified as a girl.

I understand what you're getting at.  Technically the brain is only an organ who's job is to coordinate a massive colony of cells.  From that perspective, scarring a 'faulty organ' with mutation is probably much more humane and proper than to scar the overall rest of the creature.  But...thinking that way has two blunt problems.  For one, the body NOMINATES the brain to control it.  The brain is the organ that represents the creature itself, even to the stride of sacrificial decisions.  Simply, what it says goes, and the body literally lives only to be under its obedience.  That's the choice of the body, and that's the initiative of our mind.
The second problem is how detached such a line of thought.  Like everyone here said, our identity inhabits the mind...When our brain's primal sides fight, between the hormonal developments of our birth or the real identity of the brain itself... There's a violent conflict of thoughts that brings pain to the transgender individual, and inevitably the stronger transgender identity wins.  This is what nature decides for us, even if the nature is confined to a string of thoughts.  What you suggest feels like it implies that the healhier survivor needs to kill itself just so a borderline-dead being clutching to its ankles can take over.  Just because it's more 'likable' to its environment. (The environment being the body which is trying to work with a cisgender brain, not surroudning society)  ...I find this to be...drastically too unnatural...

I don't mean to be offensive, but I asked myself this question when I first took my ->-bleeped-<- seriously, and this is pretty much the way I came down to thinking about it.

Quote from: Sarah7 on May 08, 2011, 05:25:57 PM
If I want to die, I can slit my wrists.

I don't really have anything to add to this.

When I read the topic title, I thought the post referred to changing the gender-ROLE expectations. As in would I rather have others accept me dressing and living as I wish, and treat me as a woman, in spite of my biologically determined appearance instead of having to change the body to fit the role-expectations of the female gender I identify with - as someone said everyone else would have to take the pill that made them see and treat me as the person I feel I am, not the one I appear to be.

I actually spent some of my life trying to convince people men and women aren't all that different. (In general they are not).

I was disappointed to realize the post was about taking the blue pill to feel like I fit the role suggested by my male body.

I already tried this (not a pill - therapy - but still) and I think it would be death. I am just learning to be alive, I do not want to die.

I didn't mean to upset anyone, I asked because I would alter my brain or how I view myself if it meant being of one and the same sex and gender.   I didn't mean taking a blue pill to feel one way or the other, I meant reassign, that's very different.  When you reassign your sex you don't just think you're a girl, you ARE a girl (or boy) and that's what I meant about gender.
If I could BE my body, no way would I alter my body, maybe its because I'm Andro and IS so I could be chastised for posting this topic in the wrong  community but either way, I appreciate everyone's comments.  Even if I am Andro I would still attack the brain first and then the body but I totally understand people feeling the opposite.

Mmm...espo, I think the problem lies in that a prompt to change who we are mentally by any degree and/or means is exactly what we had to (and to varied extent still have to) cope with knowing we DON'T want.  An idealogy that inevitably goes along the lines of 'Why transgender?!' gets offensive even under the kindest wordings and kindest intentions.
Anyway, I would like you to please explain what you mean differently beween 'blue pill' or 'reassign'. ^^;  Your definition of reassign gender is designating that we reidentify ourselves into a cisgender equivalent of ourself, right?  That's...exactly what the 'blue pill' approach is, change our mentality from what it is as a transgender into being a cisgender version.  I find that thus there's no honest difference after all.  It's mostly a 'difference' from that reassignment doesn't call up the same stigma as 'blue pill' in this, so it seems different.

Either way, apparently there are methods to try to harmonize the mind to the body, rather than the body to the mind.  I was prompted by my therapist when I first met her on which one I was asking her to help me accomplish, so evidently it's real.  Furthermore I have an online contact who took the route.  Just like transexual persuit, it's not set up perfectly yet: In this case, he still deals with his transexual mind trying to wake up.

I'm glad you understand where we're coming from, though. ^^

(Edit: Added)

Also, I have just realized something that may be critical to realize.  A lot of thoughts from people who aren't transgender think of ->-bleeped-<- as an instance, as well as the body being a presence.  In terms of this, an 'instance' is always exclusive in its existance to the current moment, and a presence not only is present in the current moment but present in its history.
...This is actually the other way around: ->-bleeped-<- is a presence, and the body is an instance.  At any given point of time, your body is always as it is in the moment.  You're not male/female for any length of time in your body, despite your history, it's merely that your body has continued to hone its instance into its state: History is technically absolutely irralevent to the body's design.
Personalities, however, work as the continual presence.  In so, you are not changing "I am a woman/man" to "I am a man/woman"...rather, you are changing X time of the statement "I am a woman/man" being spammed out, x being the time since the brain was developed.  If you try to do it without countering the entire history of the statement, you give the mind a very severe culture shock of sorts to work with, and unlike culture shocks that are external...you drop it right on the mind itself.  The reason it culture shocks is because there's a drastic change in the environment the brain functions under, so previous standards can no longer apply, and it withdraws information to use from a standard that literally does not exist. (A transgender woman's brain wouldn't line of thought 'this is how a man does it', but rather 'Ok, this is how I, a man, do it' only to realize '...erm...wait, I never was a man though o_o' because it recognized everything it did as a female)   ---This all comes off as really dangerous to me. ^^;

On top of that, this is a kind of trait that's not just a particular statement, but furthermore 'coats' the history of the personality as well, because of what it is as a trait.  Everything a transgender does and has done essentially is a woman/man who's been doing it, it's just that the representive of their choices is not the same as the person who did the choice..So you're not just telling the mind to argue "I am a man/woman" in some form but also "A man/woman is what did and thought everything previously, not a woman/man".  Otherwise...culture shock from the inside again.
Technically I guess a scientist of sci fi poportions could give amnesia and replant the memories 'properly' to prevent an internal culture shock. but even if that were possible, the brain deals with hormones the same way as the body, I'm sure: No matter how masculinized/feminized the hormones develop the brain, the base brain itself HAS been a woman/man.  Just like a MtF's bones don't turn into a woman's structure with estrogen exposure, I severely doubt that it's possible that the brain would have genuinely changed to its male/female counterpart despite its developments' continuation.

I feel this is something worth consideration for this kind of question

I thought the blue pill approach was, As long as you take this pill you will feel like a girl or boy and reassigned is to be actually BE the girl or boy not just feel like one as long as we take pills.  Sorry for thinking that.

Ahhhh, ok.  That makes sense.  Well, don't worry too much, since it puts things on the same page. ^.^ With understanding reached, resolution comes---and with resolution, issues can lay to rest~ x3

Yeah, sure. I'd love to take a pill that makes me not me anymore... NOT!

As said by people before in this thread, there is nothing wrong with my gender. It's my body that is the problem. I'll fix that instead, thank you very much.

Quote from: Rachel Lynette Bellefountaine on May 13, 2011, 10:52:03 PM
Yeah, sure. I'd love to take a pill that makes me not me anymore... NOT!

As said by people before in this thread, there is nothing wrong with my gender. It's my body that is the problem. I'll fix that instead, thank you very much.

But how do you KNOW its your body thats the problem? ....ooOOoh

I object to changing the gender in such a fashion even if it were possible.  I don't object because of practical issues (in fact it is much more practical than changing sex) but I object because of fundamental issues.  Specifically, there's no reason to change my gender.  I am a woman, and I have no interest in being anything other than a woman.

You might as well be asking whether or not I would want to take a pill that would make me an engineer instead of a philosopher, a skateboarder instead of a gamer, or a heterosexual instead of a bisexual.  I have no interest in doing any of those things.  I don't skateboard because it's only mildly interesting, I'm not an engineer because I'm not particularly good at it, and I'm not heterosexual because it is not interesting.  For the exact same reasons, I would not want to be a man (even if I could be)

there's nothing wrong with me. after finding reading about the androgyne gender, some pieces started to fall into their right places for me, and i realized that no matter what my body looks like, i'll always simply be me. my body is healthy, and thus shouldn't have to be changed. my mind is getting healthier too now that i've realized i am who i am, no matter if society wants to accept me or believe in non-binaries

even nature itself have shown that it doesn't have to be either or, by the occasional intersex person who is physically more or less of both sexes at the same time. so there should be no reason to assume the same can't be true when it comes to gender

society is what should change, not nature. i believe any variation in sex, gender, and the combination of those is part of nature, and should not have to be changed. a woman with a male body is still a woman if she says so, the same for any other case of ->-bleeped-<- or intersex. i wonder why modern society is so reluctant to accept this. in a shamanist society all would be asked to become shamans because they are cases that go beyond the usual binary either or

I used think it I would have done it back in the day.  That was until I had an experience where essentially I did switch genders for a little bit.  I remember everything but I wasn't me.  It was like I had some other [male] personality loaded onto my consciousness.  It made me really dysphoric about my female appearance so in a way it was a temporary "blue pill" albeit it happened a little late in the game.  I can say without speculation that changing genders would change who you are.  You'd be conscious the whole time and you'd be making all the decisions but they would be different from those you would otherwise have made.   

i'm sorry but i think thats alittle crazy and kind of insulting ::) lol theres nothing wrong with my gender, i'm a woman simple as that and SRS's are to make the body match the mind and soul. and I think it would be more traumatic to do what you said :o , why would i want to change my personality/change what makes me...ME?! lol i would never change my brain because i like it makes me smart lol like i said i agree with others my gender is not the issue its my jibbly bits that pose a problem X3

Quote from: espo on May 08, 2011, 04:06:57 PM
I've noticed a lot of MtF say they want to become the woman they are  except they want to keep their penis which is incongruent to being a woman, but I get it I guess.

No. Having a penis or wanting a penis is unrelated to being a woman. At the same time, one might be assigned male at birth and have what is medically described as a "penis" yet identify it as a clitoris. This does not make the person less of a woman, nor less female.

QuoteSo if they could be gender reassigned that would suit them perfectly. Like they would be reassigned the male gender to match their body instead of being reassigned female to match their gender.

But they were already assigned male, and assigned "boy/man" so this doesn't really help.

QuoteGender reassignment would also benefit my fellow andros too, it might be a bit harder due to the plural-ousity :-)  of our gender though. But I think changing a gender would be less tramatic then changing sex. Or do you think that's crazy?

Um...lemme break it down a bit.

Gender is about identity, and presentation (but mostly identity). One could be man, woman, androgyne, agender, bigender, genderqueer, two-spirit, butch, fem(me), gender fluid, gender ->-bleeped-<-, etc.
Gender is also something that is assigned, typically based on genital configurement: when the doctor says "it's a boy" or "it's a girl."

Sex is also about identity: Female, male, intersex, sexqueer.
Sex is also something that is assigned typically based on genital configurement: when a birth certificate says male or female (I'm not sure if IS is put on birth certificates).

One can be assigned one sex, and identify their body as a different sex.
One can be assigned one gender, and identify themselves as a different gender.
Having genitals that are typically associated with being a penis does not mean you are male. Identifying with said genitals as being a penis does not make you a man.

Quote from: Sarah7 on June 16, 2011, 11:59:26 PMThanks Nygeel, you forced me to think it through a little more clearly.

*scratches head*
Uh...you're welcome...I think?

Quote from: Sarah7 on June 17, 2011, 12:14:49 AM
That was genuine if that's what you are wondering. You challenged the assumption that the original question was based on, forcing me to consider if with a narrower set of criteria my answer would remain the same. I.e. if sex and gender identity are held constant would I be willing to alter my brain to remove my dysphoria. It was useful, so I said thank you and posted my process in case anyone was curious about how the question could be reframed.

No, I was more confused about the why. LOL

Hello,

I cringe to disagree, but........it would be so much simpler, less expensive, and better all around.  You say that you having conflicting emotions and feelings, both physical and mental (and have had these life long). If gender reassignment would make that disappear, why not?  I hope that in the future, it will be further researched. 

Until your DNA matches your physical body.....you are still what you are!  There are research studies on this also.  As I am very "into" the research part of it...I look forward to the results.

Hypothetical question?  I have read some "trash", but I thought other articles were trash until about 13 years ago....which depicts terrorists groups "honing" in on the tg Market (for lack of a better term) in order to hide some of their activities.  Their take on it is....what a better way to go underground or "hide" than in another totally body.  We cannot let these "renegades" or whatever use this as a marketable strategy for evil and/or political gain.  I truly think that this is in part what is keeping legislation at the capital level in flux over this topic.

What do you think?  It is something to ponder....hmmmm?????

Angel

i ended up pondering a bit more over this question

actually i don't have any much dysphoria in regards to my body. i used to feel shy and uncomfortable about it until i realized it's not a defining factor as to "who" i am, only my personality is. of course i some times wonder who the heck that woman in the mirror is supposed to be. she doesn't really fit the image in my head all the time, and many days i'd rather see something more of a man. i have more often than not imagined if there was a way to change the structure of my body as deep as the genetic level (how i wish the alien prince ki-el dogra wasn't just a manga/anime character, he knows how to do it). but i can live with it, just like i'd be able to live without an arm, or with six fingers on each hand

my only real problem is "society". not all of it, i have friends and acquaintances who never saw any other than my personality, and those are mostly fine. but there are those who are put off when i don't act as the "girl" they expect me to be, some (that would be my mom..) who do their best to try and make me act like the girl that i never was and stop me from "becoming someone else". i also have trouble responding when people treat me like a woman if i'm not in that mode, and figuring out how to explain that the other side of me also really exists. etc.


in short, i'm very happy about my own gender identity, and my body is not something i feel a need to change (though i'd really want to if i could). the pill i want isn't one for me, but one of enlightenment for those who are too afraid or biased to accept a different reality than their own

but i still understand this may be a bit different for other people

Quote from: espo on May 08, 2011, 04:06:57 PM
Do you think its possible for doctors to reassign gender like they reassign sex and if it WAS possible would you opt for that solution instead of the physical changes ....... if you had a choice.
I've noticed a lot of MtF say they want to become the woman they are  except they want to keep their penis which is incongruent to being a woman, but I get it I guess. So if they could be gender reassigned that would suit them perfectly. Like they would be reassigned the male gender to match their body instead of being reassigned female to match their gender.
Gender reassignment would also benefit my fellow andros too, it might be a bit harder due to the plural-ousity :-)  of our gender though. But I think changing a gender would be less tramatic then changing sex. Or do you think that's crazy?

In a heartbeat so long as it didn't mean losing any of my past experiences.  The idea of waking up tomorrow comfortable in my own body without the immense costs of transition is unparalleled.

Quote from: Wraith on May 08, 2011, 09:00:16 PM
This is how I see it: yes something went wrong when my brain was developing, as I must indeed have been meant to become a girl(as the brain only starts developing later during pregnancy), but the brain in itself is not defect. As it is, I have a male brain that is perfectly fine other than the fact that it doesn't match my body.

The brain is still who I am even if I am the result of an accident of nature. If it was changed it would no longer be me, it equals lobotomy to me, and I'd rather die.

I hate how people try to mess with the heads of perfectly healthy people just because they don't conform to their idea of how things should work and behave. What I'm frightened of (if it was possible to begin with) is the possibility of such a thing becoming a standard procedure rather than a voluntary choice. What you'd have next is people digging in the heads of homosexuals etc. to "correct" these things as well. And don't say people will notice such a thing is going against human rights, the masses would just accept it as the scientifically accepted practice and draw a sigh of relief to be rid of us.

Something is wrong with my brain, not my chromosomes (XY) that were gifted by my parents to determine what sex I should be.  XY tried to form a male, they did a great job except in some portion of my brain that controls gender identity.  That part of my brain is messed up, not my body.  Why would I want to go to all the effort to destroy/disfigure an otherwise healthy body when I could fix an unseen, relatively minor part of my brain?

Quote from: espo on May 08, 2011, 05:06:12 PM
You don't think reassigning a gender would be easier and less traumatic ? I don't know.

As today the gender idenity center is a "rice-size" nucleous deep in the brain. No technology exist today to make the female center into a male one. Transplantaion is not possilbe either.

So, for the time been we stock with chnging the external piping to mathc my brain. I for one do not wants to keep my "P." I do not heat it, we have soem good times, and it was of critical importance into bringign myt chi;ldren into existance.

Even if there was a magic pild, I would rather endure the pain of surgery than give up my femaleness.

Kate D

Ya, I was thinking more a 'snap-of-the-fingers' then a pill or a transplant LOL joking


But okay, the gender wins over the sex in most cases.
My line of thinking is along what Interalia said

I wouldn't mind taking such a pill if it was temporary just to understand how men feel about their gender.  A permanent version would be a loss of who I am as much as a pill that made me feel like a cat and want a cat's body, even assuming I kept all my intelligence and memories.  In fact, I honestly think that pill sounds less scary than losing my intrinsic gender identity forever (just provided it was a female cat's personality :D).  Then again I'm a cat lover so I'm biased.  ;)

Quote from: Maddie Secutura on May 08, 2011, 08:04:12 PM
I'd like to assume the cure, for sake of argument, would spare other parts of my personality. The whole point is to have a congruent body, right?  What if I could be happy with the one that my DNA said I should have?  I feel comfortable enough with my own feminity that I don't have to assert the fact that female is who I am.  But who I am didn't jive with what I was and that's where the problem lay.  It was making me hate my body.  If there were a way to make me not hate, and in fact like what I already had, why not consider it?  It's a little late now but were such a thing available you bet I'd have done it.

If two of your friends swapped bodies like in fiction, would you see the person as the body they inhabit?  Or the mind inside that body?

Quote from: Inanna on June 21, 2011, 08:31:09 PMIf two of your friends swapped bodies like in fiction, would you see the person as the body they inhabit?  Or the mind inside that body?

You would see their body as your own, as "self", and see "your" body as belonging to the other person.  There is an interesting article about a study concerning this and how it relates to gender, here:

http://www.ts-si.org/neuroscience/3636-identity-a-the-illusion-of-body-swap (http://www.ts-si.org/neuroscience/3636-identity-a-the-illusion-of-body-swap)

Of course once our genitalia have been altered by surgery, the neural pathways corresponding to the old configuration shift to accommodate the new configuration, so that over time we forget what it was like to feel anything down there other than what we have now.  In effect then, surgery already does as much to change the brain as it does the body, and it does it without the risk of altering the core identity.

Quote from: Sarah7 on June 21, 2011, 10:26:30 PM
Actually that's arguably not true. The below study looked at "ghost limb" sensation for penises, comparing transsexuals and non-transsexuals. We may have an innate body image that matches more closely to a female body long before surgery. In fact that's one possible explanation for the dysphoria.

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/imp/jcs/2008/00000015/00000001/art00001?token=003e1852d91b15475c5f3b3b47462148553b447b2a6e7524404f58762f67c9 (http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/imp/jcs/2008/00000015/00000001/art00001?token=003e1852d91b15475c5f3b3b47462148553b447b2a6e7524404f58762f67c9)

Interesting abstract, thanks. :)  Did you happen to read the entire article?  I had no phantom sensations at all, but instead a feeling of "rightness" after surgery that I never experienced prior.  What we undergo is not merely penectomy, but full vaginoplasty/clitoroplasty/labiaplasty as well.  We don't simply lose a penis, we gain a fully functional, feeling vagina in it's place.  It mentions phantom limb sensation of having a penis in men assigned female at birth, which lends credibility to the assertion mentioned in the abstract that our core gender-specific body image is already hardwired in our brains.

But I was more referring to my own experience of forgetting how the old configuration felt as all sensation in that area has been replaced by a quite different subjective experience.  All the neural feedback now comes from places that didn't exist before, rather than from the absence of a limb.  Far from feeling that my body has been "destroyed/disfigured" by surgery, I feel it is now correct for the first time in my life.  The best part is that nothing can ever change that.

Quote from: Sarah7 on June 21, 2011, 11:46:03 PMI'm about a year and a half away from surgery.

It'll go by before you know it!  Yeah I would like to read the whole study too.  (and I love e.e.cummings ;))

Quote from: Nygeel on June 16, 2011, 08:39:14 PM
One can be assigned one sex, and identify their body as a different sex.

Hang on.  If someone has an accurately formed typical male body, including male genitalia and hormones and everything, this person can identify as a female?

Also, I didn't want to say this at first, but there was way too much talk in this thread equating the "changing gender in your brain" scenario to getting a lobotomy.
Ok.  A lobotomy destroys the frontal lobes of your brain - which is the part of the brain known for separating humans from animals and is the center of all higher thinking processes.  Even if you didn't know that, you do know that the big controversy (and why most of us even know what a lobotomy is), was that people ended up like zombies after getting it done. 
So really, people?
You're comparing changing your gender to getting a lobotomy?? Gender isn't everything.  Its one aspect of you who are.  There's more to you than your gender.  Jesus.

Quote from: Juliet on June 22, 2011, 06:53:14 AM
Hang on.  If someone has an accurately formed typical male body, including male genitalia and hormones and everything, this person can identify as a female?

Yes. Consider trans people who for whatever reasons are unable to to do any physical transition. I know of at least one trans woman that identified her genitals as a clit and used female language for her body before she ever started hormones.

Quote from: Juliet on June 22, 2011, 07:52:44 AM
Also, I didn't want to say this at first, but there was way too much talk in this thread equating the "changing gender in your brain" scenario to getting a lobotomy.
Ok.  A lobotomy destroys the frontal lobes of your brain - which is the part of the brain known for separating humans from animals and is the center of all higher thinking processes.  Even if you didn't know that, you do know that the big controversy (and why most of us even know what a lobotomy is), was that people ended up like zombies after getting it done. 
So really, people?
You're comparing changing your gender to getting a lobotomy?? Gender isn't everything.  Its one aspect of you who are.  There's more to you than your gender.  Jesus.

While the gut reaction is to think the species divide is infinitely more important than the gender divide, consider how long male/female has been around in evolutionary history compared with how long humans have been around.  Biological sex has existed for hundreds of millions of years (evidence suggests over a billion), whereas the closest common ancestor between humans and other species (ie chimpanzees and bonobos) lived about 8 million years ago.  True modern humans have only been around for at most half a million years.

Thus, the case can be made that gender identity has been evolving for at least ten times longer than the time it took humans to diverge from other extant species (non-extinct species).

Now being reasonable, I'm not going to assert men and women are more different neurologically than humans and other species.  That's silly.  But the differences can't be simply waved off either.  It's intrinsically woven into who and what I am, and changing it would be a loss of myself.

I don't quite understand Inanna's, and I can't help but assume that my earlier arguements themselves don't hold much water...it's always good to throw more variety into the opposition anyway, right?  Anyway...

Really, the pursuit of transgendered transition is a pursuit of one's own happiness and peace.  Though they go through hell and back, it is the choice of the transgender individual that they desire to cross the perceived fence of gender.  I do not think that someone should be called against their wishes no matter how self-scarring because it is their own life to which they deal with the consequences of.  Likewise people who take up violent sports, dangerous jobs, and so on are never called off from their occupation and choices over the level of certain damage and present risk that occurs with the said jobs.  Please understand that I am refering to the calling that ultimately lies behind it, and it should be valid to permit any kind of calling one's soul yearns for unless if it is destructive towards others.
If there are problems with the calling, then the problems are the primitive and/or minimal supports.
Just my two cents.

(edit: added)

I would like to also remark that it's wary to make practicality arguments.  The base argument is hypothetical in the first place. XD It's easily possible that a drug product that can percisely alter the portion of brain can have a significant chance of disturbing other parts of the brain, or even body.  Furthermore this kind of drug might turn out to be expensive. (either from resources or more likely complexity of design)  As earlier said, as well, if research effectively works at this, people would be wiling to use that medical breakthrough as an inertia in their wishes to produce sexuality-based 'fixes' of a similar design... just...really, a mental altering drug is more dangerous being successful than a failure. :\

I'm not sure it would be as simple as flicking a switch in someone's head anyway. What about the social interactions a person has built up as a result of their former self-identity, the relationships they've formed... wouldn't you also have to re-assign all their friends and relatives to accept the person's new view of themselves? How about their view of the world based on the way they've experienced it right up to that point... the discrimination or acceptance... and feelings towards that, the friends they've made, things they've done... do all those have to be re-written too? Juliet has a point, there is more to someone than their gender, and that's precisely why such a mental reassignment would throw up more problems than it would ever solve. I suspect it would replace physical dysphoria with social, mental and perceptual dysphoria instead.

Suppose you could mentally change someone's gender... you can't unlive their life to that point. They may be happy with their body, but maybe the rest of their life is thrown out of kilter and that ends up being the only thing they're happy with.

Almost for the sake of arguement, trashing your past can debatably be up for trashing so-long as you can live the remainder of your life towards personal peace and joy.  This is a situation whether you're transitioning or you somehow 'cure' your 'mental condition'. (used very loosely and sarcastically, really)
Really though, think about it.  Technically you did live your pre-transition gender, and attempted to take it into your mind as well.  Of course it didn't work out, but you're putting your past life through a shredder and collecting what's left on some aspects, especially when it comes to legal and record circles of the subject.  How much can you say that de-transgendering your identity would be different?  You are dealing with the same kind of situation of gender-contradiction, it's just now about your behavior and mentality rather than your physical form and instincts ---and like transitioning your body, transitioning your mind would be a matter of by-the-end-of-it putting it behind yourself.

Of course I do believe it would be a traumatic culture shock type effect to shift gender, but I'm pretending I don't believe that at the moment. XD

Here's an interesting alternative - instead of a pill that completely erases/replaces your gender identity, what if a pill only added the gender identity that matched your body without losing your original self?  I personally still wouldn't take it.  But for those that did, they could at least try to salvage their old sense of self and integrate that into the new person.

i still think the real problem is society. my anxiety was caused by a fear of people refusing to even try to understand wth is going on inside my head. after i came here i realized i'm perfectly fine as i am, something which made me happier than i've been in ages. even if my actual body doesn't match the mental image i have of it, this doesn't really matter much for me, but only for people who have expectancies of a persons genitals matching the rest of their appearance and behavior.

other people may think i should change my gender identity or alter my body to match, but why would i let other people decide what's best for me? i don't even have gid, for i don't experience any dysphoria related to my sex or gender or think that they are out of order in any way. i'm only occasionally confused for a sec when i'm reminded what i look like to others, or remember those parts aren't there because i never had them in the first place. the dysphoria i had before was really my fear of not being accepted as the one i see myself as rather than whatever my body looks like. so why change anything just to please society? if i decide to change something it will only be to make myself feel more comfortable, be it my sex or my gender, and right now i don't feel like changing either