At what point in our lives is gender determined? I knew at an early age something was not right. So now that I am comfortable with my gender that I was given, at what point does it become official? When my name changes? When I have the facial surgery? When I have (SRS) the other surgery? When I start hormones? When I start presenting myself in my preferred gender? When all the above have have taken place and the final one is achived? I am not talking legally, I'm talking about when should society accept us as we are.
Michelle
My reason for asking this question is, my story made national news last week. I have asked my boss when I can so up for work as Michelle since he and management totally accepted this at the beginning. I have been told to not show up as Michelle until it is official with my name change. That to me is not the time when my gender is determined. I live my life as Michelle other than at work and they know it is imminent. My name should be legally changed in about 1 month but it is the point of it all. If I where to change my name without being trans, would I be expected to show up to work in female attire? I don't get the reasoning, the only thing I can think of is lack of education. dam I have a lot of people to educate!
Michelle
Hi,
At birth or before with a scan, for me it was at birth close as 65 years ago. what they , the Dr did not know was i was intersexed, now theres a lot of difference's for us so really who would know some of us a long time later or for myself age 10.
For my self at the later age i told Jos 18 years ago & our family i was a woman 8 years later & during that time Jos accepted i was / am a woman. hard yes very,
7 years ago i told friends & others i have known 54 years back so acceptance came as i told people .
Now hormones sugery, no F F S, & dressing as a woman had no bearing at all not in my case. being intersex. because i was female / male at birth well long before that of cause,
Socity & acceptance depends on you & what you say on what & who you are,
My birth certs were changed after surgreys from noel edward to noeleena , edwina, no probs.
For socity for my self as i grow as a woman my manirisms how i interacted with people those i knew were very understanding they knew my background fully & accepted with out ? , they took my word as being correct, up front & yes this is who i am as a person first & then as a woman.
This of cause came about because many of those i told have known me for a long time & why would they dought me , you build a trust with people you get known & respected , & every other detail takes place when needed,
As to name change you can by deedpol though im not sure what county you are in so may be different,
Im from New Zealand,
My birth cert is female at birth, thats different,& to do that we had our marrage anuuld after 35 years & went before the court to have my documents all changed to reflect im a normal women born female.
Put my name on the net youll see my profile & iv been interviewed for T V & papers, nation wide,
..noeleena...
So they gave me permission to dress as me, Michelle when I go to work tomorrow. When I am out and about not at work I am treated with respect and called Madam or a lady. If I act, dress, look and present myself as a duck that is how I have been referred as.
I never needed their permission to dress as Michelle in clothes that I find comfortable because there is no dress code and I do not wear a uniform. I would have liked their blessing which I got today.
I am tired of being someone I am not.
I also asked that I be called Michelle from this day forward, understanding that it will take some time to adjust and people are going to use my male name until they get used to it.
I will let my employers benefit from being an understanding organization but bottom line is I determine what is going to happen and nobody else. I can be slowed down but never stopped or forced back into a closet because of other peoples issues with trans people.
Well, gender is basically a social construct. People in the beginning of the human race split the population in two and established the distinction of male and female. Thus, as far as I am concerned, you're whatever gender you feel that you are inside.
Quote from: DianaP on August 01, 2012, 06:44:59 AM
Well, gender is basically a social construct. People in the beginning of the human race split the population in two and established the distinction of male and female. Thus, as far as I am concerned, you're whatever gender you feel that you are inside.
A long time ago people began to notice that if you put certain people together, the population would begin to rise. It was determined by some that female students should be kept from male students in order that students could focus on their studies, saving child-birth for later when they were in a better position to support a family.
In today's modern Society people in the penal system tend to be separated in a similar manner. Also people who can get pregnant tend to desire intimacy and tend to be physically less strong than people who can cause pregnancy. People who can cause pregnancy tend to have a hormone in their bodies which tends to cause secondary sexual characteristics. So even if we can't see inside someone's pants we can often determine what is in someone's pants by their secondary sexual characteristics, which might be considered useful by some since it isn't always polite to look inside someone's pants or under their skirt.
Enters the modern day transsexual.
The rules have been changed, or have they? Society is still playing by the same old rules. And to Society it's a game, now more than ever. Society is honing it's skills to separate the boys from the girls. People know more about secondary sexual characteristics now than they ever did. They feel as though they must, in order to determine the boys from the girls. You may ask yourself, "Why does Society concern itself with such things, why won't Society simply accept that a woman was born with male parts?" "Why won't Society give that woman a break and accept her now that she has accepted herself?"
Because males who were born with male parts tend to believe that everyone who was born with male parts experiences life just like they do. Males who were born with male parts tend to believe that male parts are what make them who they are. It's called psychological projection and the only people who don't engage in psychological projection are the people who are aware of it and make a conscious effort not to engage in it, because somewhere along the line psychological projection was a survival mechanism and it's essentially instinctual and operates on a sub-conscious level.
But we are unusual. We are not well represented by numbers. We are the exception and life is short. It would be difficult to school the entire planet on how we experience life and the truth is that information of this nature tends to have almost no effect on Society except that Society will use the information so it can play the game better and sort the boys from the girls more easily. Because people only believe what they can feel, they only believe what they can experience. Anything people cannot feel or experience for themselves is just a theory, a useless string of numbers that doesn't mean anything and has no real practical application.
There is a old story about casting one's pearls to swine, sharing that which is meaningful and precious with unappreciative people who would defile it.
I found that the more I educated my oppressors, the more they oppressed me. The friend who lives on my block, all the time I spent educating him only reinforced his belief that I am a male pretending to be female. He told me recently that if he accidentally had sex with someone who transitioned how it would make him angry. Why do you think it would make him angry? It doesn't really matter why to me anymore.
The OP asked, when can we be considered our gender? I would say that you will be considered your gender when you change the rules and learn to play the game to win. Until then we can rely on people to be good sports most of the time and why wouldn't they be good sports? The house always wins, Society always wins whenever we play by their rules. They get to continue sorting the boys from the girls and we get to feel special or
accepted excepted.
A large part of their concern (it was with my work), deals with paycheck/retirement/medical/etc.
If you're known as one name at work, and they issue you a check in that name, you won't be able to cash it (Banks need a court document to change the legal name on an account; you can add your new name as an "authorized user", but that won't let you cash checks. Some federal anti-money laundering law, iiuc)
I was allowed to go by my new name, because things are somewhat casual in that regard...but one time I had to fill out an "incident" report and I was required to use my legal (old) name. This sucked, but it's the law. That motivated me to get it done ASAP.
Quote from: Noey Noonesson on August 03, 2012, 03:16:39 PM
I found that the more I educated my oppressors, the more they oppressed me.
Well, a lot of people, especially those whose views are cemented by religion, are stubborn and irrational, making it difficult to educate them with rationality. I agree that the best thing one should do is play by their own sort of rules. This is why it's better to come out on a need-know basis (family, friends, coworkers, etc.). For everyone else, once they get to know you better and see that you are a normal, decent human being, you'll change their minds about us and make them understand that gender isn't so concrete like they think it is.
Now that I transitioned, I think of myself as having always been male. For family and friends, it was when I started T, but I didn't push it until my documents were changed. I didn't come out at work until my documents were changed, as I needed them to change my paychecks etc. As far as work goes, I would follow their lead, let them make some sort of announcement. Even the most tolerant of employees would probably have a problem if someone showed up dressed as the opposite gender without some sort of warning and planning on their part.
Good luck!
Jay
Ido? For me it was when the guys at work started feeling uncomfortable around me in the locker room and sent me to the woman's room. Also they are super nice to me now and totally treat my like a lady. Loves the attention I get from guys in general now. It's intoxicating
Quote from: sneakersjay on August 03, 2012, 09:42:54 PM
Now that I transitioned, I think of myself as having always been male.
Same here, since I have transitioned I have come to think of myself as always having been female. I didn't always feel that way and honestly it didn't really happen for me until after I was finished with everything and more importantly I hadn't heard "old name" or wrong pronoun references for a while.
I think it is because being female is a verb that implies action. Been refers to being in the past tense. I have always been female in some way but now I have been female in a more 'active' manner, complete with verbs.
Which is interesting because my sister was visiting from out of state and told my parents not to invite me for dinner because people can't change their sex. O_O who knew?
You should be the gender you consider yourself when you consider yourself that gender. It would then retroactively cover previous events.
Ex: I came out and realized I was a guy when I was 18, there for at 18 I was male/a man. I also was a boy, and have pictures of myself where people comment saying "oh you were such a cute boy growing up!"
I'm not sure how helpful this is but: depending upon the laws of your country or state whatever things vary. In Australia you can legally wear whatever you want as long as it is not 'obscene'. Hence a heterosexual male can quite legally wear a dress etc in public if he so wishes.
Individual businesses have dress codes that stipulate what people can wear and how to present to the customer or client in the work place but those restrictions cannot be 'sexist'. Neat casual dress covers a multitude of opinions but extremes are probably difficult to justify. Even so the employee should receive a warning about their mode of dress and what is expected, otherwise the unfair dismissal laws kick in.
In the work place, this appears to be fluid and the Law around Australia is that a person cannot be discriminated on their sex or gender. Appropriate toilets etc have to be provided. This can vary from workplace to workplace but it cannot be discriminatory. As a (TG) woman I cannot be told that I have to use male toilets. I cannot be told that I can only use Unisex toilets. I am allowed access to toilets appropriate to my sex and gender identification. If, for example, another woman has a problem with me using a toilet, it is up to management to rectify the situation by counselling that person. It is not up to me to rectify it (in fact I've told to keep out of and discussion and just report it to HR), it is up to my employer to fix it; by law.
OK, South Australia and Australia in general are progressive but there are still problems.
When are you allowed to use the gender facility that you wish?
This has changed relatively recently. I have been told by my therapist that as soon as I put in a legal name change request the expectation is that I am under going treatment for GID/SRS/Whatever any definition people want to use. That I should inform the HR depts that look after me and just let them know that in future you will be using the female toilets etc. This will not be refused but as a courtesy they should know in case there are any complaints.
I did inform my HR dept, in particular I told them that I wanted my gender marker and sex marker changed and that I wanted my name and email changed. I had a reply within the day saying fill in form X, and please send a copy of your new legal name so we can update the records. We will inform the pay office etc. Make sure you change your bank details. If you need any help please contact us.
Tough calls :laugh:
Cindy