Title says it all. I do believe there are degrees of transsexualism. What about you?



Note: If you just want to argue about the relevance of this discussion, we've heard it all before. This is a serious inquiry into the degrees of our condition.

I tend to agree with you.  Some people are better able to deal with the feelings.

Sarah L.

More on this:

There seem to be different degrees of somatic dysphoria and of social dysphoria.
Some peeps are very dysphoric about genitals and such, and some aren't.
There are TS who experience much difficulty early in life do to being the wrong gender and those who don't.

Quote from: Nero on December 19, 2007, 04:42:46 PM
Title says it all. I do believe there are degrees of transsexualism. What about you?

Absolutely! I also think that level of intensity that one feels can change during different times in ones' life.

y2g

it'd be naive of people to think that there aren't types.  Dr. Harry Benjamin himself classified transsexualism into different groups and subtypes.  I'm a
diagnosed type VI.
http://www.symposion.com/ijt/benjamin/chap_02.htm

Group 1
Type I  Pseudo TV
Type II  Fetishistic TV
Type III  True TV

Group 2
Type IV  TS, Nonsurgical

Group 3
Type V  TS, Moderate intensity
Type VI  TS, High intensity

Quote from: Valentina on December 19, 2007, 05:20:46 PM
it'd be naive of people to think that there aren't types.  Dr. Harry Benjamin himself classified transsexualism into different groups and subtypes.  I'm a
diagnosed type VI.
http://www.symposion.com/ijt/benjamin/chap_02.htm

Group 1
Type I  Pseudo TV
Type II  Fetishistic TV
Type III  True TV

Group 2
Type IV  TS, Nonsurgical

Group 3
Type V  TS, Moderate intensity
Type VI  TS, High intensity

Hi, Nero, Valentina,

Call it what you will, mild, moderate, or severe, when all is said and done one is either transsexual or they they are not.  No grey scales here.  Being a little bit transsexual is like having a mild case of pregnancy.

My two cents' worth.

Wing Walker

Quote from: Wing Walker on December 19, 2007, 05:29:18 PM

Quote from: Valentina on December 19, 2007, 05:20:46 PM
it'd be naive of people to think that there aren't types.  Dr. Harry Benjamin himself classified transsexualism into different groups and subtypes.  I'm a
diagnosed type VI.
http://www.symposion.com/ijt/benjamin/chap_02.htm

Group 1
Type I  Pseudo TV
Type II  Fetishistic TV
Type III  True TV

Group 2
Type IV  TS, Nonsurgical

Group 3
Type V  TS, Moderate intensity
Type VI  TS, High intensity

Hi, Nero, Valentina,

Call it what you will, mild, moderate, or severe, when all is said and done one is either transsexual or they they are not.  No grey scales here.  Being a little bit transsexual is like having a mild case of pregnancy.

My two cents' worth.

Wing Walker

Yes and no.  A severe case of the flu isn't the same as a mild case.  It is still the flu but both types necessitate different ways to treat it.  The same with transsexualism.  not every trans person wants surgery or wants to kill themselves.

Quote from: Renate on December 19, 2007, 06:56:25 PM
I definitely believe that there are degrees to transsexualism.

I have never claimed as intense a need to transition physically and socially as others that I have heard from.
Like most transsexuals, my feelings go back to a very young age, but I never had depression or suicidal thoughts.
For me, I consider the issue to be a set of weighing scales.  When they have tipped over to the other side you've made your decision.

I do have somatic dysphoria and changing my body with hormones now and in the future with surgery is the solution.
Transitioning socially for me was neither the greatest thrill nor the greatest trepidation.
It simply brought me the freedom of honesty.

Renate

Thank you for your reasoned replies.  I see the logic and my mind it gets sort of blurry.  There are those like me who need to have the inner and outer person at least congruent with one another and others who, for whatever reason, will not see surgery .  Those people are no less or more transsexual than I am.  I can see the differences, however, I find it hard for me to assimilate them.

Transsexuality is transsexuality, to be clearly distinguished from any manifestation of being transgendered, and either a person has it badly, so to speak, or they have a mild case, as I have read it.  That is a mind-broadening concept to me, I suppose.

"I yam what I yam and that's all what I yam!" fits well here, I suppose.

Thank you.

Wing Walker

Quote: Different Degrees of Transsexualism

Of course.  They are called primary and secondary transsexualism.  There, I said it! 

tink

Tink... You like to pump the polemic machine 

Degree, is a continuum, like temperatur, not a binary, so hey primary and secondary wouldn't fit.

Besides,
Primary and secondary definition is a theory with very little empirical support..
Besides, TS who identify as such.... That's all I will say. 
Now, I'll burry the issue 6 foot so it will be dead for good.

Quote from: Keira on December 19, 2007, 08:15:17 PM

Tink... You like to pump the polemic machine 

Let's get the dragons out!  >  I didn't invent those terms BTW.  Harry Benjamin did.  A primary transsexual is often called a "true" or "full-fledged transsexual".  If people don't like these terms, well, we will have to resuscitate Harry in order to ask him why he had the audacity to come up with these terms 

http://www.symposion.com/ijt/benjamin/chap_02table.htm

tink

YEah, but benjamin was just a theory, its old, has not really been improved
much in 40 years. That's not very good for a theory. IT being a continuum,
discrete (various stages) or progressive is more probably if it is not a binary.

Benjamin was a pioneer, its very very rare a pioneer gets things right.
In physics, it took hundreds of years before the base theories solidified.
The first ones were mostly superceeded or at least became special cases
of more general theories.

Quote from: Keira on December 19, 2007, 08:15:17 PM

Tink... You like to pump the polemic machine 

Agreed.  Threads like these can get very nasty.  I tend to agree with WingWalker: You either are or are not.  Extensive labeling and categorization is a holdover from the past when we were considered mentally disordered and treated like lab rats.  We are not lab rats and we are not mentally disordered.  We have a birth condition that is a normal biological variant.  Through our life experiences we self-diagnose ourselves and then move forward to bring our body and brain into alignment.

Classification systems belong on the trash heap of history.  They have only caused trouble, frustration and pain for us.

I agree that there are different levels of transsexualism.
Anyway in the frame work that has been laid out here.

But I also think there maybe another side to all of this.
All of us are different and we do have different pain thresholds.
That is some people can stand more pain than others.

So it seem to me that some maybe able to hold up under the more intense internal presser to transition physically and or socially than others can. I believe some maybe able to function, to some level normallcy, as there birth sex despite there intense desires to transition. But other can't even with less intense GID.

To accurately considering effects of the level of transsexualism all subjects should be exactly alike and in the same envrionment but we are not. We can only make limited assumptions from what we perceive.

Just my thoughts on this.

Jillieann 

Hi all, just dropped in for a sec. Thought I would introduce you to my new friend who does Renfests here in Vancouver. Wing Walker and I had really good time with her last night. Now I am just a little less bored. To young to sit in a rocking chair sowing sweaters. 



Cindy

ever noticed that the only people who dislike 'primary and secondary', are the secondarys?
inner jelousy? self loathing?
R

Quote from: Rachael on December 19, 2007, 09:41:06 PM
ever noticed that the only people who dislike 'primary and secondary', are the secondarys?
inner jelousy? self loathing?
R

*smile* Yes, that could well be true. Or, one might also say, as has been, that the primaries who want to harp on it simply want to build their own confidence that they are 'the real thing' or better than others.

It's another competitive game that has been played out a few hundred thousand times on this and many other TS boards, websites, blogs, articles, etc. And generally always leads to hard feelings and some feeling more validated and some feeling less.

Make distinctions if that makes you feel better. BTW, yes, Rach, I have heard that title tossed my direction more than a few times: "the real thing."

Finally what does my realness or lack of it mean to anyone but me. I do what I must do and what you are or think of yourself affects me not at all.

Someone else's realness is not mine to judge. Their business entirely.

Are there more than one type? Prolly so, just like there is more than one type of collie, or frog.

Rachael, your own theory doesn't work since I almost transitioned, even took hormones for years, starting at 20 and tought about living another life, from age 10 (when by girlfriends started puberty), so I'd be classified as primary by those criteria. Yet, I'm still against that theory. Why? Because I'm at heart a scientist, and the theory doesn't describe reality too well. And that's why the classification has fallen out of favors in those few who study TS in a non quack manner.

Also, assigning motives, or states of mind, to others is always a losing proposition unless your a mind reader. I'm pretty sure your not. 

And as long as we are resurrecting ideas about how to classify TSes, should we discuss the Blanchard, Bailey, Lawrence theory of the two types as well? Umm, Homosexual men and paraphiliac men. That's it. There are no FTMs at all. Makes short work of women to men. Erases them all together!

->-bleeped-<- (paraphiliacs) are characterized by being scientists, executives, lawyers, doctors, construction workers, pilots, etc. Homosexual men are characterized by being prostitutes, waitresses, day care workers, dancers and hair-dressers.

Women fall into the roughly the same categories as do the homosexual men!! Really now!!

Categorizing and labeling are almost always used as straw-persons that can be easily knocked over for the sake of proving one or another fairly ludicrous proposition.

Even though my current employment, or soon-to-be employment, doesn't fall into the categories above, I think being a woman is what it is, and what I am if I get right down to it.

And I am willing to accept that others are women as well. I am also willing to accept that men are men.

TSes? Well, that's a metamorphic creature, very like an insect pupa or larva. They are on the way, generally, to becoming something else entirely.

Quoteprimaries shouldnt feel superior.  they should damn well feel lucky.

Speaking for myself here of course, but I don't.