I know that this subject has been discussed in the past but I thought that it might be useful to get some new viewpoints on it. The subject is the notion that post transition transpeople are not transsexuals anymore but men and women "with a transsexual past."  In this group of people, the very terms we use such as "Passing," "Being Clocked," "Being Read," "MTF" etc are seen as useless and have no value. Some indicate that these terms are not in their vocabulary. Their position is that after one transitions, there is no need to be part of the trans community since they have achieved normalcy. I know one person who indicated that as soon as she has her surgery, she plans to put being trans behind her and presumably her trans friends too.

I take issue with this notion because in fact we cannot erase our genetics nor can most of us erase the vestiges of our birth gender. People transitioning now will have their birth gender on record in background databases and credit reporting agencies indefinitely. Medical records are not secure and with the Real ID act, they may be accessible to even a checkout clerk. So it is conceivable in the near future that a nosy clerk who suspects we are trans can verify this and out us. My point is that no matter how hard we try, we cannot erase our past. I don't even think it is practical or wise to do so. Our successes in getting civil rights and being accepted as humans is in large part because we are not all stealth. Our visibility does let the general public get to know us and not fear that we are going to molest their children etc. Also, these people of a transsexual past have taken support and comfort from the trans community at large only to abandon us when they transition. That is sad and unfair. We have to stick together and stand up for each other or we have no hope of attaining the recognition we all need.

I believe that once you are a transsexual you are always a transsexual.

What are your thoughts on this concept?

Maggie

Yes/no.

After a long period of letting GID/transness eat up all your waking hours, life gradually smooths out.
Now you spend your days wondering if you have clean socks, whether you absolutely have to buy toilet paper today and whether your work schedule has been changed.
You can spend days on end without a single thought related to GID/transness crossing your mind.

Personally, I feel that some aspect of it will always cling to me.
First, because I wish to remain politically connected.
Second, because I will always bear a few marks that might make somebody "clock" me.
Third, because it is not a big deal to me.

I am going to use just myself because I do not wish to upset anyone,

When I get SRS, sometime in the future, I will finally be whole.  But even a woman, I will still have a past, and part of the past is that I went through transition.  My GID will finally be nil and a rest.  But stealth, for me, will not really exist because on some database somewhere will be the hints that I was at one time someone else.  And that person was male.

But that said, I will be as I am now a woman.  Yes I have a Transsexual past, but it won't matter at that point.  Just as I have a past that involved the use of Cannabis.  But they will just in the past.  If I need to I would reveal it, but only if it is relevant.

Once a Transsexual, always a Transsexual.  No I disagree.  That would mean that is no hope for a regular life.  It would be like being a drunk.  Once a drunk always a drunk, is not true.  They have a past where they were a drunk, but now they have move forward to a better life.

And so do we, when we reach the point that we are finally comfortable in our own skin.


Huggles,
Janet

I think everybody needs to just shut up already with the endless arguing over terminology.

Who cares? There is no "transexual", it's just a word someone made up, the only meaning it has is that which we apply to it. 

Transexual, man, woman, these words all have different meaning to different people, and the only remotely accurate meaning is the majority opinion, and I don't care about the majority opinion of transexual because the majority of people don't know me.

Terminology is important because without it, none of us would be able to get our identities and bodies to conform. Just how we see ourselves in society and how society views us is important. Considering that so many of our community are killed because of our need to live a different gender than we were born with, it is important.

The point I was making about being a transsexual is that person was born with a gender different than the internal identity. That can't change. Even with the best SRS, FFS and voice training, we still can't say we are the same as natal women. We don't have ovaries. We didn't have periods. We don't know what it is like to have the socialization as our internal identities during adolescence and for many much of our adult life. It seems that we are in our genetics different than males or females according to the latest research. In this way we share some of the characteristics of the intersexed.

I was not advocating living with a big label of TRANSSEXUAL for everyone to see, but rather to face facts. The social system we have won't allow us to go as stealth as was possible even a few years ago. We can do so in public and with some coworkers but eventually, the truth probably will come out. I don't condone those background databases or credit reporting agencies that keep my old name on file forever. I cannot stop them or even get them to change my name unless I first out myself to a new creditor and then get the creditor to change my name. All this with every official document changed to my new legal name and legal gender including birth certificate. The most I can get is to have my new name listed as an alias.  As a result, I don't have any credit cards.  I don't  have a car loan.

I went to a new doctor for an annual checkup and was asked to get a pap smear, I  had to tell her that I was trans. The doctor proceeded to mis code my visit costing me several hundred dollars then did not inform me that I had dangerous levels of Cholesterol in my blood work. I called the office and was told that the doctor would not tell me results but only if there was a problem. There was.  How am I going to claim that I am not trans when medically I still have male body.  Oh yes, when you get a colonoscopy, they have to know what birth gender you were because the large intestine is routed differently in males than females.

I would love to be able to erase my past and to say that I never lived as a male. I would love to have a cervix and ovaries. Not gonna happen. The most I can hope for is to live my life as a woman knowing that it is an approximation. Close in many ways but still an approximation. Hence, I am a transsexual.

it's just a word someone made up, the only meaning it has is that which we apply to it.

Are there words that does not apply to?

History is just that, the past.  And the past is prologue, it made you what you are today, for better or worse - and it's just the beginning, only the beginning, its not the final chapter. 

The beginning is never the ending.  Keep your eyes on the prize.

Quote from: Maggie Kay on January 29, 2010, 02:38:47 PM
Terminology is important because without it, none of us would be able to get our identities and bodies to conform. Just how we see ourselves in society and how society views us is important. Considering that so many of our community are killed because of our need to live a different gender than we were born with, it is important.

The point I was making about being a transsexual is that person was born with a gender different than the internal identity. That can't change. Even with the best SRS, FFS and voice training, we still can't say we are the same as natal women. We don't have ovaries. We didn't have periods. We don't know what it is like to have the socialization as our internal identities during adolescence and for many much of our adult life. It seems that we are in our genetics different than males or females according to the latest research. In this way we share some of the characteristics of the intersexed.

I was not advocating living with a big label of TRANSSEXUAL for everyone to see, but rather to face facts. The social system we have won't allow us to go as stealth as was possible even a few years ago. We can do so in public and with some coworkers but eventually, the truth probably will come out. I don't condone those background databases or credit reporting agencies that keep my old name on file forever. I cannot stop them or even get them to change my name unless I first out myself to a new creditor and then get the creditor to change my name. All this with every official document changed to my new legal name and legal gender including birth certificate. The most I can get is to have my new name listed as an alias.  As a result, I don't have any credit cards.  I don't  have a car loan.

I went to a new doctor for an annual checkup and was asked to get a pap smear, I  had to tell her that I was trans. The doctor proceeded to mis code my visit costing me several hundred dollars then did not inform me that I had dangerous levels of Cholesterol in my blood work. I called the office and was told that the doctor would not tell me results but only if there was a problem. There was.  How am I going to claim that I am not trans when medically I still have male body.  Oh yes, when you get a colonoscopy, they have to know what birth gender you were because the large intestine is routed differently in males than females.

I would love to be able to erase my past and to say that I never lived as a male. I would love to have a cervix and ovaries. Not gonna happen. The most I can hope for is to live my life as a woman knowing that it is an approximation. Close in many ways but still an approximation. Hence, I am a transsexual.

Not all women have a cervix or ovaries, not all women have periods, and my socialization as a male is near non-existent (I think it would shock you by how much, but I'm a bit of an exception in this regard), not even all woman have XX chromosomes. But whatever over defining you or someone else wants to do, the fact remains nobody seriously considers and treats them as men, because they don't know anything different and they don't fit better into any other box.

You know what files are right? They're pieces of paper and documents on computers, they don't have ANY real meaning to anything.

I think everyone should stop with this black and white over defined way of thinking.

No, I will never be exactly like 99.9% of females anymore than I'll ever be like 99.9% of males, I was robbed of that chance. But there's a box I fit in the gender binary (which by the way I take no issue with) and I don't care what pieces of paper say or what ignorant people think.

I think that a part of the problem is that we put too much weight in the "trans" part.
I believe that we ourselves are partially responsible for "trans" being treated to mean "not true" by putting that much weight on it.
By acting as if acknowledging our pasts makes us less man/woman we lend credence to the idea that the trans man/woman is somehow less than a man/woman. We add to the problem.

I don't feel a trans man/woman is any less of a man/woman than a cisgendered man/woman. This is because I believe (and have scientific evidence as reason to believe) that gender ultimately rests in our brains.

Not all women are fertile, not all women are XX, not all women are born with (perfectly normal) female genitals.
Not all men are fertile, not all men are XY, not all men are born with (perfectly normal) male genitals.
It's perfectly clear that the only real, reliable way to tell the gender of another person is to look at the brain (or ask).

When I say "I am a transsexual man" it doesn't change that I am a man, no more than saying "I'm a pansexual male" or "I'm a brown haired male" or "I'm a blue eyed bloke" or "I'm a 6'2 bloke".
None of these things make me less of a man, none of these things make me more of a man.

I will never be able to change the fact that the doctor's pronounced me a perfectly healthy baby girl at birth.
I will have to take testosterone for the rest of my life.
I will have to have surgeries done to correct the female aspects of my body so that it can more accurately fit my brain.
There will be people who remember me looking like a girl and a woman in existence for at least another 80 years.

None of those things make me any less of a man either.

If I start acting as if they do, then it is I, not someone else, who have started telling myself that I'm not the man I am, and you know what, F that!
I am Hans Miniar Jónsson.
I'm a bloke, guy, boy, man, whatever word for male you want to use.
I am a "He", not a "she".
And I'm not gonna excuse myself for having to do a fair bit of work to look like myself and have a name that more accurately suits me.
I'm not gonna omit parts of my past as if they were "dirty little secrets" because they are not dirty, they don't make me less of a man, and they are not "secrets".

For better or worse, I am a transman, and I'll have to live with that.
Just like I have to live with my haircolour (and it's rapid graying), eyecolour, sexuality, personality, chronic pain, height, shoe size, eyesight, etc.. etc.. etc...

... and since I mentioned eyesight.
If I have lasik eye surgery and have my need for glasses corrected, I'm not gonna deny ever wearing glasses and avoid mentioning glasses forever. It's not gonna change that I did see while I had the glasses and I do see after having it corrected.

The point I'm making is...

These words, trans, passing, stealth, etc.. they Do Not make you less of a man/woman, and if you feel they do then you are putting that on yourself.
The words themselves don't do anything, it's you.

Quote from: Miniar on January 29, 2010, 02:47:13 PM
I think that a part of the problem is that we put too much weight in the "trans" part.
I believe that we ourselves are partially responsible for "trans" being treated to mean "not true" by putting that much weight on it.
By acting as if acknowledging our pasts makes us less man/woman we lend credence to the idea that the trans man/woman is somehow less than a man/woman. We add to the problem.

I don't feel a trans man/woman is any less of a man/woman than a cisgendered man/woman. This is because I believe (and have scientific evidence as reason to believe) that gender ultimately rests in our brains.

Not all women are fertile, not all women are XX, not all women are born with (perfectly normal) female genitals.
Not all men are fertile, not all men are XY, not all men are born with (perfectly normal) male genitals.
It's perfectly clear that the only real, reliable way to tell the gender of another person is to look at the brain (or ask).

When I say "I am a transsexual man" it doesn't change that I am a man, no more than saying "I'm a pansexual male" or "I'm a brown haired male" or "I'm a blue eyed bloke" or "I'm a 6'2 bloke".
None of these things make me less of a man, none of these things make me more of a man.

I will never be able to change the fact that the doctor's pronounced me a perfectly healthy baby girl at birth.
I will have to take testosterone for the rest of my life.
I will have to have surgeries done to correct the female aspects of my body so that it can more accurately fit my brain.
There will be people who remember me looking like a girl and a woman in existence for at least another 80 years.

None of those things make me any less of a man either.

If I start acting as if they do, then it is I, not someone else, who have started telling myself that I'm not the man I am, and you know what, F that!
I am Hans Miniar Jónsson.
I'm a bloke, guy, boy, man, whatever word for male you want to use.
I am a "He", not a "she".
And I'm not gonna excuse myself for having to do a fair bit of work to look like myself and have a name that more accurately suits me.
I'm not gonna omit parts of my past as if they were "dirty little secrets" because they are not dirty, they don't make me less of a man, and they are not "secrets".

For better or worse, I am a transman, and I'll have to live with that.
Just like I have to live with my haircolour (and it's rapid graying), eyecolour, sexuality, personality, chronic pain, height, shoe size, eyesight, etc.. etc.. etc...

... and since I mentioned eyesight.
If I have lasik eye surgery and have my need for glasses corrected, I'm not gonna deny ever wearing glasses and avoid mentioning glasses forever. It's not gonna change that I did see while I had the glasses and I do see after having it corrected.

The point I'm making is...

These words, trans, passing, stealth, etc.. they Do Not make you less of a man/woman, and if you feel they do then you are putting that on yourself.
The words themselves don't do anything, it's you.

Perfectly said. I agree.

Maggie

In my experience it's the peeps that are older transitioners, pre-op, non-op, lesbian, gay, bisexual & can't function as fully integrated females in society who complain about this issue over & over.  I still have to understand what a fully integrated, post-op heterosexual woman has to gain by being part of the LGBT.  What exactly would she be "fighting for" considering that she's now legally & anatomically a woman & part of mainstream society.  What would she gain by outing herself as transgender? 

It does not take much reading of these posts to find out that many people - even post transition - never make it to that whole part of mainstream society that you speak of.  And, I'm not even sure you know what that amounts to in American society (or all the different American societies).

So, what of them?

Quote from: tekla on January 29, 2010, 04:17:07 PM
It does not take much reading of these posts to find out that many people - even post transition - never make it to that whole part of mainstream society that you speak of.  And, I'm not even sure you know what that amounts to in American society (or all the different American societies).

So, what of them?

What of them?

We can't make people accept us.

No, you can't make people accept you.  But you can accept them, imperfect and all, and perhaps, that's a start.

Quote from: tekla on January 29, 2010, 04:35:04 PM
No, you can't make people accept you.  But you can accept them, imperfect and all, and perhaps, that's a start.

I'm accepting of people that like and respect, I want people to be happy, just don't expect me to dedicate my life to somebody else's political movement.

I never asked to be apart of the transgender community, and I don't really want to be either.

Why would you expect someone who's transitioning because they refused to be enslaved by their assigned gender to allow themselves to be enslaved by TG politics?

I for one don't really care about LGBT politics, or any kind of TG acceptance movement. I want people to be more tolerant, but I'm not going to go out of my way to try and make them more tolerant, if other people want to dedicate some of their life to that, that's great, but don't expect everyone too. I for one have my own life and small pocket of the world to deal with, I'll leave the trail blazing to somebody else. It's selfish, but you only get one life to spend, and I want to spend it on myself.

Some people are born photographers, some have an innate sense of alpaca breeding.....don't fault the alpaca breeder for not being a photographer, each fulfills their purpose. But I guess that's the mindset you need to be an activist...come join me, which helps with getting the job done but is also annoying to someone who doesn't wish to do so.

As for the you will always be trans stuff....on a practical, colonoscopy level I sort of agree. But that doesn't mean we can't get on with our lives. I guess it's a personal thing and has alot to do with how you the individual deals with any sort of trauma or perceived wrong in your life. Do you linger in the past obsessively, just move on after a time of healing, or completely disassociate yourself to the point of neurosis?

Quote from: Valentina on January 29, 2010, 04:12:34 PM
I still have to understand what a fully integrated, post-op heterosexual woman has to gain by being part of the LGBT.  What exactly would she be "fighting for" considering that she's now legally & anatomically a woman & part of mainstream society.  What would she gain by outing herself as transgender?

nothing.


that's exactly it.  the glb-tg & the tg activists want the voice of fully integrated/transitioned females to advance their political agenda.  they can keep on dreaming because they ain't gonna get anything from me.

i wonder why they don't ask people like this to advance their cause?

https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,65059.0.html

ya i thought so!

I am of British descent (English and Irish) and have pale skin.  I marched in the sixties for civil rights for African Americans.

I was male and presented myself as male, but I worked for women's rights.

I can never get pregnant but worked for reproductive rights.

I have never been gay or had sex with a man (darn it), but I marched for gay rights in the 90s.

I believe that the restriction of the human rights of any group - whether I am of that group or not - lessens my human rights.

I will continue to work for gender-identity rights regardless of whether I continue to consider myself transsexual. 

But that's just me.   What you do with your life is up to you.  Isn't that the point of each of us having the same rights as everyone else?

- Kate

So, if I fired you for being a transexual, then that's OK?

Very good point, Kate.

If one human is denied their rights, we all are.

After all that is how some groups have gained control, by denying people their rights or by inciting others to do so.

Quote from: tekla on January 29, 2010, 07:17:18 PM
So, if I fired you for being a transexual, then that's OK?

I'm assuming this is in reply to Natasha, right?

- Kate