Hi 

I have been thinking that if we as transsexual women are going to be accepted into mainstream society. where we can be completely open about ourselves and our wants and needs.  We should draw up a list a manifesto, a statement, or a 'Ten Commandments' that state our wishes, attitudes, and demands. 

For example I think that we would all want the right to feminise our names or choose a suitable female name that we wish to be know by.  We should also have the right to tick the female box and use the terms 'Ms' or 'Miss', not just on forms where it doesn't really matter, but on legal, financial, job applications, rental agreements and government documents.  That is if we self-identify as transsexual women.  We should not have to wait until the medical establishment - which is almost solely interested in us a 'cash cow' that they can milk for years - 'validates' us.  We should all start using the honorifics 'Ms' etc as a matter of principle from now on regardless of the document.  My only proviso is that everything else you enter in a document should be the truth.  I know that many people here will object saying that they are not yet ready to come out to the public at large. Or that the document would be invalidated because of ticking the 'Miss' and/or the 'Female' box.  I can sympathise with the first position, and it is undoubtedly true that ticking the above could cause you  some considerable difficulty.  However, we could use any threat of legal action as a platform to raise the general public's awareness of our situation and plight.  Think of the Suffragettes, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, and the whole Civil Rights' Movement.  If many of the Suffragettes where prepared to go to prison and endure forced feeding, and civil rights' protesters in Birmingham, Alabama, could stand up to beatings, water hoses, and vicious police dogs, then we should not be afraid to go to court.
My whole argument so far is this: I want the right to be known formally by banks, government, prospective employers, schools, universities etc as 'Stephanie X'  and be completely free to use 'Ms' or 'Miss' before my name, regardless of where I am in the SRS process. 
  I am graduating on 6 July with a BA(Hons) in History, but on my parchment will be my male name, a name I don't identify with.  Also I will have to start sending out my CV to potential employers using my male name.  A little bit of me dies inside when I have to answer to 'Mr' or someone addresses me as 'sir'.

Other 'Commandments' could be 'thou shall not cast doubt on thy sister's transsexuality'.  If a person, regardless of their age, appearance, job, financial and marital situation etc, self defines themselves as female then we as a community must completely accept that.  Casting doubt on another sister's genuineness or commitment only weakens our cause.

A third 'commandment' could be that we should not empower our therapist, psychiatrist, endocrinologist.  This means questioning them and not accepting their pronouncements and judgements meekly.  Too many transsexuals mix up womanhood with submissiveness.  How many readers think that doctors and the pharmaceutical industry are only really interested in us because they can make money from us?  How many of us have been told to dress in a stereotypical feminine way when we go to see the therapist etc?  How many are told to tell him/her that we are sexually attracted to men when we aren't? (if you really are attracted to men then of course say that, but don't tell lies to conform to medical science's cold stereotype of the 'typical transsexual').

I am sorry that this post has been rather long, and unfocussed in places.  It was a first-draft and a cri de cour

What to you think out 'demands' upon mainstream society should be?

I don't think we will ever be accepted into mainstream society. A few months ago I met a transwoman for whom hormone therapy, to put it gently, had been a miserable failure. I admire her for living as a woman anyway, for going through with it and for displaying an amazing level of strength in her effort to be true to herself...but it was still traumatic for me on a primal level, and I'm on her side. To the unwashed I think the perception is different.

We are raised with a relatively strict set of ways to intereact with people based on their master status as boy or girl, and when we blur that distinction it makes people get unpredictable. We might be tolerated, someday even protected, but accepted...I don't personally think it will ever happen. In addition to the behaviors of others, we should consider the desires and goals of ourselves too. I don't think very many of us want to fight, I for one have as my long term goal to simply blend into society, to not stand out anymore. That's a hot issue though, not one I think everyone will ever completely agree on.

I'm sorry about your diploma. Is there any way to get it changed some day, or is it final?

This seems like the sort of thing that would best be decided by someone who is post-op.

Quote from: Becca on June 25, 2009, 06:11:05 PM
I don't think we will ever be accepted into mainstream society. A few months ago I met a transwoman for whom hormone therapy, to put it gently, had been a miserable failure. I admire her for living as a woman anyway, for going through with it and for displaying an amazing level of strength in her effort to be true to herself...but it was still traumatic for me on a primal level, and I'm on her side. To the unwashed I think the perception is different.

We are raised with a relatively strict set of ways to intereact with people based on their master status as boy or girl, and when we blur that distinction it makes people get unpredictable. We might be tolerated, someday even protected, but accepted...I don't personally think it will ever happen. In addition to the behaviors of others, we should consider the desires and goals of ourselves too. I don't think very many of us want to fight, I for one have as my long term goal to simply blend into society, to not stand out anymore. That's a hot issue though, not one I think everyone will ever completely agree on.

I'm sorry about your diploma. Is there any way to get it changed some day, or is it final?

   Hi Becca 

I think we will have to think long-term.  Think of all of the achievements of the Civil Rights movement.  If Rosa Parks had given up her seat on the bus, there might not have been a civil rights movement.  Her action was small but it caused such a ripple.  If we used our female names and 'Ms' etc on all forms it would be a small step in the right direction.  Of course we would have to accept being rejected for jobs, not getting that credit card, or loan, not being insured etc but I think that this would be a small price to pay.  From small acorns mighty oaks grow.

  Probably in the future I will be able to amend my university records.

As much as I tend to be pessimistic, one reason for optimism is the historical record of other cultures accepting trans people.

As much as i hate to say it, being a believer myself, the lack of acceptance in the west is very much a derivative of a Christianized culture. Even though a considerably lower proportion of the people call themselves believers anymore, the CULTURE is still largely structured on those presumptions (although much less so than 50 years ago)

that sort of cultural shift takes time.
but it's not impossible.