Firstly, I'm new here and ignorant, so please excuse anything i say that sounds stupid / weird...
So I was curious if there are some common events that seem to happen to many transwomen. Yes, I understand that everyone's different, but there do seem to be a few common things.
For example, I've known a couple of transwomen, and they all had some kind of horrifically traumatizing experience with being forced to cut their hair short. So... yeah, things like that.
The only thing that I know of that is 100% common amongst all transsexuals, being MtF or FtM is the initial depression, and the various stages of pre-transition preparation.
Generally, you are Transgender at birth it doesn't just happen over night nor is it contagious, however, some people don't know that they are, or don't understand their feelings and or desires to be or live as the opposite gender until later in their life. Most common time frame to understand the feelings is generally about 17 or 18 years, to about 27 or 28, from my knowledge. And then from about 35 or so upwards. There are even some cases where people had understood from birth, but this is more rare then a later understanding.
Usually, the initial feeling of something being wrong is a feeling of emptiness, and not being able to fill it, even for a second. Other people feel a `disconnection from reality`, jealousy towards people of the opposite physical gender role (Or the preferred gender role) and some people have some very obvious signs, like wanting to play with their preferred gender role's toys when they were young.
Nothing is certain in it, except the feeling of something not being right, and the depression. Aside from that, any number of things can be the same, similar, or opposite to any other situation.
Hehe... okay, good to know it's not contagious. Now I can stop wearing one of those medical masks around my friends. :D
The most ubiquitous feeling I've found in all transpepole is they were suffering before and doing something about those feelings makes them happy extremely happy to the point where all of them feel regret at not having done something sooner no matter how old you are.
Another common experience is they Transpepole are often left-handed and usually the only left handed person in the family. That's one of my experiences.
A whole lot of sadness and experiences of body horror. It's not a nice thing to go through.
Huh... I'm very surprised about the left-handed thing. That is very good to know!
See, um... to be honest, this is kind of for a story I'm writing (despite my total lack of talent). I want to have a transsexual character, and I want it to be accurate. Hence, I think it'd be nice to include some "common" traits / past events. Although clearly this is kind of a weird pursuit because people are so different from one to another...
Keep reading and you will find plenty.
I wasn't TRANSGENDE at birth...I was suffering from Harry Benjamin Syndrome.
There's a new book that explains why we are like we are:
HBS Harry Benjamin Syndrome Review..
http://harrybenjaminsyndrome.yolasite.com (http://harrybenjaminsyndrome.yolasite.com).
Quote from: pebbles on May 25, 2010, 05:08:21 AM
Another common experience is they Transpepole are often left-handed and usually the only left handed person in the family. That's one of my experiences.
Ah, yes my sisters left handed and she's not transsexual but wait I am also left handed!
Left handedness does not relate to being transgender and I'm sure just as many right handed people are also transsexual too!
There are several different standard trans 'narratives' (that is, ways people experience and interpret being trans) just within Western cultures. The MTF experience differs from the FTM, and each of those has several different sub-narratives. And trans people living outside Western cultures have completely different narratives that they draw from.
We'd need to know more about your character before we could start talking about common experiences. Does s/he identify as male? female? A man? A woman? Something else? How old is s/he? Where and when did s/he grow up, and where does s/he live now? How old was s/he when s/he began transition? What is his/her sexual orientation?
Quote from: sarahm on May 25, 2010, 04:04:33 AM
Generally, you are Transgender at birth it doesn't just happen over night nor is it contagious, however, some people don't know that they are, or don't understand their feelings and or desires to be or live as the opposite gender until later in their life. Most common time frame to understand the feelings is generally about 17 or 18 years, to about 27 or 28, from my knowledge. And then from about 35 or so upwards. There are even some cases where people had understood from birth, but this is more rare then a later understanding.
Most people have these feelings at an early at around 4 or 5 years old. For me personally the feelings started around 4 years old and were pretty intense by the age of 12. But depending on the era in which you grew up the hurdles varied. At 12 years old I dressed as androgenously as I could and had my hair long enough to sit on! this wasn't that easy for a kid growing up in the 70's but that was the way I felt and I stuck to my principles. When your 13 or 14 it's surprising how far you can push the bounderies!
But by the time I hit 20 I really lost my way and tried to conform for a few years which really made me feel miserable. I had my hair cut but by today's standards you wouldn't call it short and I tried to comply with a male image. This of course didn't last very long...
Quote from: Naturally Blonde on May 25, 2010, 06:35:21 PM
Ah, yes my sisters left handed and she's not transsexual but wait I am also left handed!
Left handedness does not relate to being transgender and I'm sure just as many right handed people are also transsexual too!
I'm not saying there aren't any right handed Trans-pepole Or left handed non-trans pepole. Of course not! Nor am I saying it can be used as an accurate method of diagnosis.
But when I noticed this myself reading others stories and I looked it up and it is a documented statistically significant phenomenon.
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.80.5457 (http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.80.5457)
http://www.pfc.org.uk/node/784 (http://www.pfc.org.uk/node/784)
http://www.springerlink.com/content/x30l7j8067622044/ (http://www.springerlink.com/content/x30l7j8067622044/)
Becoming so ridiculously popular that your phone runs hot.. so much so that you grab a headband and use it to pin your phone to your ear. So you have your hands free to be also able to reply to your ridiculously ever expanding by the minute email inbox.
[pic removed]
lol.... [/sarcasm]
Quote from: kyril on May 25, 2010, 06:43:37 PM
We'd need to know more about your character before we could start talking about common experiences. Does s/he identify as male? female? A man? A woman? Something else? How old is s/he? Where and when did s/he grow up, and where does s/he live now? How old was s/he when s/he began transition? What is his/her sexual orientation?
Eh... well, it's kind of hard to explain... the story isn't centered around the character being transsexual, and I haven't even settled on a gender or name or anything for the main character. I was originally thinking of the person being "MtF", but I'm not sure anymore. Actually... this is a pretty big sidetrack, but... I don't like that term. "Male to female" implies that at one point, the person was male and then became female, and I guess that could be true for some people, but in general what I've seen is that a person's biological sex doesn't change (duh, you can't remove a Y chromosome), but neither does a person's self-identified gender. The people I've known (yes, it's not universal, I know), they've known to some extent that they identified as female since they were young, even if it was subconsciously. So... yeah, just saying that there must be a better term...
Okay, where was I? Right, all I know is that the story will deal with gender issues and I thought that one way to use this was by having the main character be transsexual.
I think you've hit on one of the most common experiences of ... let's just say, "us." That is: discomfort with the words that are used in various contexts and by various people to refer to us, and a struggle to find a way to speak clearly about whatever it is that defines who is meant by "us" in a clear and graceful manner.
For example, you talk about "biological sex," but that term is quite troublesome in itself. Sex is a phenotype, not genotype, resulting from the interaction of several different genes, which may or may not be located on the X or Y chromosomes, so the question as to which phenotype or combination of phenotypes one uses to make that distinction (or to determine that the distinction doesn't apply) is a murky one indeed!
Many biologists make the distinction with regard to the size of the gametes one might produce -- it's quite useful in ecological or developmental research, but says nothing, of course, about social interactions. Others (who have different interests in the question) support the "brain-sex" model; I tend to subscribe to that model as being useful in describing the social implications of what I sometimes call "trans identities." I tend to see it as helping to explain the diversity of gender-variant experiences (including as "gender-variant" those very gender-conforming people whose only variation is that the gender they conform to is different from the one that it was assumed they would). Many proponents of the theory, however, use it to draw sharp-line distinctions.
Then there are the labels -- "transsexual," "just a man/woman," "genderqueer," "HBS/WBT," "transgender," "FTM/MTF," "->-bleeped-<-," "trans," "she-male," "two-spirit," "hijra," "third gender," etc. -- or something entirely new. Which ones are slurs, which are culturally valid, which are overly-technical or not technical enough, which have undersirable connotations, which adequtely or inadequately describe your own experience -- those are all difficult and very often bitterly disputed questions.
Kyril and NB are right on when they talk about how cultural factors influence the experience. That applies at both large and small scales -- from the region of the world and decade or century of your birth, to the particular dynamics of your family and your personal disposition. I think that however broadly or narrowly you define "us," "we" are about as representative a sample of the human population as you can come up with, something like "type-one diabetics" or "eldest children."
I suppose that doesn't answer your question of shared experiences directly, but it's something you brought up. I think the better answer is simply to read the forums, books, other web sites and blogs, find other trans people in your area, and you'll get your answer there. I hope that you will find that we have far more diversity than conformity in our population. Rejoice in that: being "one of us" doesn't mean you can't still be yourself.
--
[edit -- ah, I see -- you're not actually "one of us" -- but that's fine; what I said still pretty much applies, and you're still allowed to "be yourself." ;)]
Quote from: Alyssa M. on May 26, 2010, 11:53:37 AM
I think you've hit on one of the most common experiences of ... let's just say, "us." That is: discomfort with the words that are used in various contexts and by various people to refer to us, and a struggle to find a way to speak clearly about whatever it is that defines who is meant by "us" in a clear and graceful manner.
For example, you talk about "biological sex," but that term is quite troublesome in itself. Sex is a phenotype, not genotype, resulting from the interaction of several different genes, which may or may not be located on the X or Y chromosomes, so the question as to which phenotype or combination of phenotypes one uses to make that distinction (or to determine that the distinction doesn't apply) is a murky one indeed!
Many biologists make the distinction with regard to the size of the gametes one might produce -- it's quite useful in ecological or developmental research, but says nothing, of course, about social interactions. Others (who have different interests in the question) support the "brain-sex" model; I tend to subscribe to that model as being useful in describing the social implications of what I sometimes call "trans identities." I tend to see it as helping to explain the diversity of gender-variant experiences (including as "gender-variant" those very gender-conforming people whose only variation is that the gender they conform to is different from the one that it was assumed they would). Many proponents of the theory, however, use it to draw sharp-line distinctions.
Then there are the labels -- "transsexual," "just a man/woman," "genderqueer," "HBS/WBT," "transgender," "FTM/MTF," "->-bleeped-<-," "trans," "she-male," "two-spirit," "hijra," "third gender," etc. -- or something entirely new. Which ones are slurs, which are culturally valid, which are overly-technical or not technical enough, which have undersirable connotations, which adequtely or inadequately describe your own experience -- those are all difficult and very often bitterly disputed questions.
Kyril and NB are right on when they talk about how cultural factors influence the experience. That applies at both large and small scales -- from the region of the world and decade or century of your birth, to the particular dynamics of your family and your personal disposition. I think that however broadly or narrowly you define "us," "we" are about as representative a sample of the human population as you can come up with, something like "type-one diabetics" or "eldest children."
I suppose that doesn't answer your question of shared experiences directly, but it's something you brought up. I think the better answer is simply to read the forums, books, other web sites and blogs, find other trans people in your area, and you'll get your answer there. I hope that you will find that we have far more diversity than conformity in our population. Rejoice in that: being "one of us" doesn't mean you can't still be yourself.
Yeah, ugh... so complicated. For example there's that condition where a woman has a Y chromosome, but looks completely female. I think it's a different condition that just being intersexed. I knew the name of it a while ago. I think it's the one that that angry Republican lady has. Does anyone know what I'm talking about?
Er, anywho... the point being that... I don't know how to say this exactly... but for someone like me who identifies with their biological sex (my mom had chorionic villus sampling, so I do indeed know that I'm XY), it's kinda anxiety inducing to talk about anything like this because it's all SOOO personal and serious that if I were to ignorantly use the wrong terminology, I'm kinda scared that I'll really offend someone... :embarrassed:
Sometimes, no matter what you do, you will offend somebody. When that happens, do what you can to minimize the offense and move on.
Yes, you almost certainly will. It's pretty much unavoidable. But you seem to have a generous and caring spirit, so I'm sure you will be able to handle it gracefully when that happens.
The condition you mentioned is probably CAIS, and it's considered an intersex condition (I believe). How much bearing intersex conditions have on questions of trans experience is another controversial matter. There's always nasty gossip about various public figures being trans or intersexed (or gay for that matter), whether Ann Coulter or Lady Gaga or Jamie Lee Curtis or Richard Gere. Don't buy it.
Thanks, that's very sweet of you to say. I... I'll be careful though. I don't wanna upset anyone... ^-^
Okay I am a little lost on what the hell is going on in this thread. Legora, are you someone who identifies/is trans in any way or are you someone who's gender identity matches their outward/physical gender at birth?
From what I've picked up it seems like you are not trans, but before I go forward with anything I'm thinking I'd like to know the answer to that question. There are things that obviously would need to be explained for someone who does not have the experience at all as opposed to a trans person who is on one side trying to learn about the opposite end of the spectrum.
Quote from: Legora on May 25, 2010, 03:47:08 AM
For example, I've known a couple of "FtM" people (I don't like that term), and they all had some kind of horrifically traumatizing experience with being forced to cut their hair short. So... yeah, things like that.
Well, I'm FTM and that never happened to me. The only certain thing is probably overwhelming discomfort. And perhaps being misunderstood.
Quote from: Cowboi on May 26, 2010, 02:37:25 PM
Okay I am a little lost on what the hell is going on in this thread. Legora, are you someone who identifies/is trans in any way or are you someone who's gender identity matches their outward/physical gender at birth?
From what I've picked up it seems like you are not trans, but before I go forward with anything I'm thinking I'd like to know the answer to that question. There are things that obviously would need to be explained for someone who does not have the experience at all as opposed to a trans person who is on one side trying to learn about the opposite end of the spectrum.
Eh, yeah, sorry. I'm male. I mean, biologically and gendery. I'm uh... occasionally told that I can be kinda effeminate though... if that helps...
But I think I do have a pretty firm understanding of the basics of what transsexuality is. If that's what you mean.
Quote from: SilverFang on May 26, 2010, 02:55:52 PM
Well, I'm FTM and that never happened to me. The only certain thing is probably overwhelming discomfort. And perhaps being misunderstood.
God ->-bleeped-<-ing dammit! Um... sorry. I'm new, and I got the terminology confused. Again. This isn't the first time...
I meant to refer to people born genetically male who consider themselves women. Dammit... this keeps happening...
I thought it was pretty clear you meant "MTF." Heck, I used to do the same thing, but mostly because I'm just a little bit dyslexic, expecially when it comes to acronyms or numbers.
And yes, having short hair always sucked. I don't remember any specific experience, since it was short from as long as I could remember, but I always resisted going to the barber, so I tended to have stupid looking floppy hair, and I was always really jealous of my sisters' long hair -- and, of course, many other things they got do do or have or experience or be.
Quote from: Legora on May 26, 2010, 10:46:02 AM
Eh... well, it's kind of hard to explain... the story isn't centered around the character being transsexual, and I haven't even settled on a gender or name or anything for the main character. I was originally thinking of the person being "MtF", but I'm not sure anymore.
...
Okay, where was I? Right, all I know is that the story will deal with gender issues and I thought that one way to use this was by having the main character be transsexual.
Alright. I get where you're going with this, but the questions I asked are really relevant - not just to us telling you what experiences your character might have had, but also to how the story will unfold, and even what kind of story you'll be able to tell. "Gender issues" look very different through the eyes of a gay trans man than through the eyes of a straight trans woman, just to pick two possibilities out of the spectrum.
Quote from: kyril on May 26, 2010, 03:41:32 PM
Alright. I get where you're going with this, but the questions I asked are really relevant - not just to us telling you what experiences your character might have had, but also to how the story will unfold, and even what kind of story you'll be able to tell. "Gender issues" look very different through the eyes of a gay trans man than through the eyes of a straight trans woman, just to pick two possibilities out of the spectrum.
Well... okay, this is gonna sound complicated, but bare with me. So firstly, I was influenced by a few different sources. I always liked those short stories where someone becomes obsessed with one thing to a creepy degree (
Bernice,
The Hell of Mirrors,
The Yellow Wallpaper, etc). Then, I heard from a friend that she was kind of scared of flowers, and it got me thinking.
Okay, long story short, the idea for the story is about some kid is talking about their mother. She is obsessed with flowers to an unhealthy degree, collecting them and arranging them throughout the house and whatnot. But eventually she gets sick, and as her disease progresses, so does her mania. She begins hiding flowers throughout the house, dissecting them, creepy stuff like that.
Anywho, so since most good stories game some kind of theme/symbolism to them, I wanted to add some of that to it. So flowers are kind of symbolic of femininity and such, and I'd like to work in stuff about gender roles and blah blah stuff, because that's been on my mind recently (hence why I'm here). I was hoping to work transsexuality into it somewhere, but right now I'm currently imagining the narrator (the child), as a heterosexual male, who's like... uncomfortable around femininity in the present day partly because his mother was forcing all of this stuff on him. Or something. It's still pretty early in the the making process.
I'm tired, so I apologize if anything above doesn't make much sense.
Quote from: Legora on May 26, 2010, 12:31:58 PM
Yeah, ugh... so complicated. For example there's that condition where a woman has a Y chromosome, but looks completely female. I think it's a different condition that just being intersexed. I knew the name of it a while ago. I think it's the one that that angry Republican lady has. Does anyone know what I'm talking about?
Er, anywho... the point being that... I don't know how to say this exactly... but for someone like me who identifies with their biological sex (my mom had amniocentesis, so I do indeed know that I'm XY), it's kinda anxiety inducing to talk about anything like this because it's all SOOO personal and serious that if I were to ignorantly use the wrong terminology, I'm kinda scared that I'll really offend someone... :embarrassed:
It's called Klinefelter's Syndrome and it is indeed a form of intersexuality, even though the external genitalia appear female, the individual is indeed XXY.
/boringmedicalguy
Quote from: KaleisGood4U on May 26, 2010, 09:49:03 PM
It's called Klinefelter's Syndrome and it is indeed a form of intersexuality, even though the external genitalia appear female, the individual is indeed XXY.
/boringmedicalguy
Yeah, I knew about that one, but I looked it up and I was actually thinking of "Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome".
In the beginning, the baby in the womb possesses the physical characteristics of both female and male children. For the first seven to ten weeks of life, everyone has female and male internal sex organs. Then, at round about week ten, one set of the organs predominates over the other and the baby takes on the physical sex of either girl or boy.
In most cases, this comes about quite simply. At the point of conception, the chromosome structure of the baby is decided: if the chromosomes are XX, then the baby is genetically female; if they are XY, then the baby is genetically male. It is the Y chromosome that instructs the babies body to produce chemicals called androgens, which diminish the female sex organs and stimulate growth of the male ones. So, at about twelve weeks old, the baby has either developed ovaries or testes: it is, at that point, biologically either a girl or a boy. And as the baby develops, so external sex organs develop to match the internal ones, and baby girls develop a womb, vagina and clitoris, while baby boys develop testes, penis, scrotum and prostate gland.
It all sounds so simple: and in 99 percent of cases, it is just as simple as that. But not always. Some babies are conceived with a syndrome called "Klinefelter`s Syndrome", in which their genetic structure is XXY A surprisingly high number of people - perhaps one in 400 - have this ambiguous genetic sexuality. As well, about one in 2,500 girls is born with "Turner's Syndrome", in which one X chromosome is absent or imperfect, so that the ovaries do not develop, although the external sex organs are quite normal.
The development of male external sex organs depends on the baby's body producing male hormones, especially one called testosterone. Some babies who are genetically male, therefore, may suffer from a syndrome known as "testicular feminisationn" in which, although their body produces normal amounts of testosterone, it does not trigger off the correct development of external sex organs: such children will be genetically male, but their appearance at birth will be female, and their genetic sex may not be discovered until they fail to menstruate at puberty.
Other babies which are genetically female may have "congenital adrenal hyperplasia", a syndrome in which their adrenal glands produce large amounts of hormones similar to testosterone. At birth, the external sex organs of these children will look ambiguous, or perhaps even male, although they are genetically female, usually with normally developed ovaries. A similar syndrome has occurred in the babies of some women who took synthetic forms of the hormone progesterone during pregnancy, which turned out to have similar effects to male hormones. Other girls may be born with a condition known as "Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome" in which they actually have an XY genetic structure but develop as normal girls because they are not sensitive to the male hormones which the body produces.
Just to make things more complicated, recent medical research has indicated that areas of the brain are affected by hormone development while the baby is in the womb, and that these developments influence the way in which the person will prefer to act all of their lives. Such research indicates that, irrespective of their genetic sex and their internal and external sex organs, people with a female brain development will prefer female play and activities and people with a male brain development will prefer male play and activities.
So even from the point of conception, the commonest question asked about a new baby - "Is it a boy or a girl?" may not have quite such an easy answer as at first appears. We have to recognise the existence of four ways of describing the baby's sex - genetic sex; biological sex according to internal sex organs; biological sex according to external sex organs; and brain sex. And although, in most cases, all four of these ways match the same description - male or female -there are ample cases where they do not.
The New Scientist of 18th January 1992 carried an article about the use of "sex-tests" at the Olympic Games. Since 1968 the International Olympic Committee has tested the sex of competitors by taking a smear from the inside of their cheek {the Buccal Smear test) and analysing its genetic structure. Only a conventional XX result was accepted as evidence of female status. Obviously, this meant that women either with Turner's Syndrome, or with Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, were defined as being men and were excluded. The personal emotional suffering and professional humiliation which this caused to women who had never been regarded before as anything else other than female can be imagined As one such athlete, the Spanish hurdler Mario Patino, put it, "In the eyes of God and medicine I am a woman." Campaigners against this practice have now won agreement from the International Olympic Committee that, from 1992 onwards, this test will be dropped.
Source: New Scientist18th January 1992, p.14
Relevant information. If your all interested in sexual gonadal development do you guys wanna see some slides from my biology course?
It's Developmental biology and I have to memorise and expand upon this and the other 16 lectures before it for my exam later today XD
http://www.myupload.dk/showfile/521055aa517.pdf (http://www.myupload.dk/showfile/521055aa517.pdf)
Quote from: Muffin on May 26, 2010, 11:26:56 PM
The New Scientist of 18th January 1992 carried an article about the use of "sex-tests" at the Olympic Games. Since 1968 the International Olympic Committee has tested the sex of competitors by taking a smear from the inside of their cheek {the Buccal Smear test) and analysing its genetic structure. Only a conventional XX result was accepted as evidence of female status. Obviously, this meant that women either with Turner's Syndrome, or with Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, were defined as being men and were excluded. The personal emotional suffering and professional humiliation which this caused to women who had never been regarded before as anything else other than female can be imagined As one such athlete, the Spanish hurdler Mario Patino, put it, "In the eyes of God and medicine I am a woman." Campaigners against this practice have now won agreement from the International Olympic Committee that, from 1992 onwards, this test will be dropped.
Source: New Scientist18th January 1992, p.14
Actually, I'm not entirely sure about that last part. I heard that recently the Olympics stopped giving female athletes sex tests for this very reason (ironically, I think they still give men these tests). Although it's pretty much a moot point because in order to qualify for the Olympics you need to win several lower competitions that probably will have genetic testing stuff. Also, I think the article was referencing "Maria" Patino. But I'm off topic...
Quote from: pebbles on May 27, 2010, 05:25:39 AM
Relevant information. If your all interested in sexual gonadal development do you guys wanna see some slides from my biology course?
It's Developmental biology and I have to memorise and expand upon this and the other 16 lectures before it for my exam later today XD
http://www.myupload.dk/showfile/521055aa517.pdf (http://www.myupload.dk/showfile/521055aa517.pdf)
Huh! I didn't get a chance to pour over the whole thing, but there's some interesting stuff there. Although to be completely honest, most of it went right over my head, hehe... I can't believe you have to memorize the whole thing! :o