Quote from: Elizabethor liz on April 23, 2011, 02:22:54 AM
I am only harsh to those that are harsh to me. I really have no big issue with Transgender as long as the transsexual are differentiated. I could not reply on the I do not understand post because replies appeared to be closed.

I do not understand because my life experiences are totally different from late transitioners and by late I mean post 45-50.  Dr. Benjamin and I both thought the numbers would have dropped dramatically by now but they are increasing and that is an issue. I am fully aware what lengths people will go through to push this deep inside themselves but I have no idea how they do it. That was not my life nor my experience. I openly fought my fight as a child in the 50's which was not normally a good idea except I had a mother that loved me despite the pain in the ass I was. I could no more have allowed myself to be a boy than willingly allow myself to be a leper although kids like me were lepers at times back then.

I wrote that post hoping people would actually respond and explain how they handled it and what they do to get through it but nobody did that. If attacked I am Welsh and can dish it as well as take it. I know many post operative women born transsexual that are both straight and yes lesbian but I have questions but one never gets answers. All one gets is late transitioners telling others they must be accepted because they say so and maybe they qualify as transgendered but last time I checked people do not turn transsexual at 50.  It is a life long drain on your very existence.

There is no such thing as painless transsexualism. What is one to think when some 57 year old man says he is transitioning on a specific date; will have surgery exactly 14 months later;  will then be a role model for all transsexuals; plus his wife will stay with him; and immediately knows everything about what it means to be a woman and transsexual; plus his wife and his new fem self will not be lesbian. Sorry that is a giant red flag and makes Blanchard and Bailey smile with joy because that is classic ->-bleeped-<- in their world.

Many people are in a battle to get transsexualism removed from the DSM and defined as a medical condition. Right now that is a dead issue because of what is happening in the transsexual community because Blanchard has a ton of evidence on his side everywhere.  I had one person quote Blanchard as an example of a "researcher" in trans issues. I was a research Engineer for around 40 years and that ->-bleeped-<- cannot spell research.

I wish absolutely not one single person under the transgender umbrella any harm nor prejudice in their daily lives. Everyone deserves the right of the pursuit of their own happiness but like all things in life there are limits.

I find some ->-bleeped-<- and cross-dresser bloggers both insightful and actually funny and endearing because they admit their condition and it is not transsexual.  I find others offensive and beyond dumb but that is their right in the blog world.

If you want to scream at me then post on my blog and explain things.  I will listen if it is rational and non-confrontational but I will respond otherwise. I do not know everything or sometimes much at all but there is no type of transsexual that is better than another one.  There are differences between Types of transsexuals and that is in intensity but it is always with us regardless of the intensity. There is no such thing as sudden onset transsexualism otherwise this is not a medical condition and Benjamin knew it was medical 50 years ago and even Freud thought it was medical and not mental. Bet you did not know that one.

Peace and be gentle or be rough or just be.

Truths:

Genetic related illnesses are considered medical.  Some do not manifest fully until later in life, especially ones related to mental stability. 

You cannot take a convenience sample and say its truth.  Just because X amount of Transsexuals agreed to the study and 50% were lesbian doesn't mean that 50% of transsexuals are lesbian.  There are plenty that are stealth that don't participate in TS research.  For that to be true you would need a true random sampling.  I for one transitioned in my 30s, live in stealth, and like men, yet i appear in no studies.

Depending on one's tolerance for pain one can endure torture.  Being TS is like having cancer, once the pain reaches a point in which the person can no longer resist then Transitioning takes place, this happens in different stages for people based on inside factors (the severity of GID) and outside societal pressures.

Women can be lesbians.

Genetic defects effect the brain in different regions, One can be effect while others cannot.  To assume its simply a mental condition based on not understanding the variables involved in the human brain (since we are still unlocking that information) would make mental condition a convenience hypothesis at best.

Without all the facts at best any reports would be inconclusive until we fully understand the human brain and match findings to genetic research. 

Sometimes events happen in someones life that will turn them into a the opposite sex, does this mean they are transsexual? probably not, this is the exception not the rule, usually they end up unhappy, and often change back if possible later in life. 

--------------------------------------------------

Just as there are facts supporting your argument there are also facts supporting the opposing one, until more information is presented it will be a topic up for debate, but don't let your personal experience bias your research.   In looking at various facts i lean more toward it being a medical condition you are born with symptoms that include various mental aspects.   These symptoms can easily be misinterpreted.  However i am open to changing my mind if new facts present themselves but the more i look at genetics research the more i believe it to be so, and sexual preference alone does not discredit the medical condition theory simply because the extent of brain feminization is a factor as well as which structures are effected in said brain.    Recently there has been a study that showed all female to male transsexuals in the study exhibited MRI scans that were identical to male responses, while MTF on the other hand showed up as a mix of male and female, not one or the other but between both.  Once again this is a convenience sampling but does pose some interesting information to look over.

QuoteIn Elizabeth's mindset, the ability (or necessity) to cope as a male disqualifies one from being transsexual ... and it fuels the prejudices of those doctors/psychiatrists/researchers who try to say that transsexuality is essentially a form of sexual fetish (or as she would put it 'mental') and not a genuine medical condition at all.

Exactly! This is a key problem for her and others that believe her, or think like her to grasp and understand.

I'm going to make a presumption here. Quite likely, when she was young, she found the courage as well as the voice to make her reality known to the important people that she felt comfortable enough with, personally, in that she could tell them how she felt. Not all of us have the same level of courage at such a young age. Not all of us have the same level of full awareness at such a young age. Not all of us can always trust the ones we should be able to trust at such a  young age. But, by not being able to act upon what we feel inside at such a young age, in no way minimizes the true nature of who we are. Some of us find different coping mechanisms. Survival mechanisms. Not to much different than the coping and survival mechanisms a young child, or a woman who is experiencing physical abuse must develop in order to survive, mentally and physically. They stay in the environment because the don't think they can trust anyone, and it's the only way of life they know.

QuoteMy personal view is that Elizabeth's attitude is an example of discrimination between transsexuals, within the transsexual community and it can only encourage and to some extent validate those who are prejudiced against us.

In other words, she is unintentionally doing precisely what she wrongly accuses late-transitioners of doing -  assisting the enemy.

Absolutely true! Instead of invalidating others who know who they are, and just happen to be "late transitioners"; how about holding out a helping hand in guiding those who had to fight off their true identities, sometimes for decades and be that "role model" not just for the early transitioner, but also for us late transitioners too? In so doing, you then put up a higher wall between the likes of Blanchard and Bailey, and the transexual medical condition and treatments with efficacy which would positively affect (really), so many more than the infinitesimally community that she would represent.

QuoteBut perhaps I have misunderstood her ...

I don't think so..............


Dawn

We've seen this "too many lesbians" before. It's ridiculous.

Guess what one of the leading candidates for a biological cause of lesbianism is? Testosterone! That's right, testosterone! It's thought that some (possibly many/most) cases of lesbianism are the result of partial masculinization of the brain due to testosterone exposure at a particular critical time in development. There are a couple of lines of evidence, but one of them is the high prevalence of lesbianism among girls with congenital adrenal hyperplasia. (CAH women include a lot of lesbians too, and many of them have very non-standard-female genitalia - are they not women? Are they mentally ill?)

Now, it does seem clear that something prevents trans women's brains from completely masculinizing under the influence of testosterone. But the brain studies we've seen so far suggest your brains are partially-masculinized. And one of the things we expect from a population of women with partially-masculinized brains is...a high prevalence of lesbianism!

Quote from: Sarah7 on April 25, 2011, 01:12:08 PM
I wonder if that could also explain why some trans people's orientation shifts on HRT, as testosterone is added or removed. On cis people hormones administered later in life don't do anything to orientation. But for us folks who have brains that are a little different, maybe it is enough to change things a bit.

Good points Sarah and Kyril. Also, cisfemales do not go through a testosterone induced puberty. Or social pressure to ogle women at an impressionable age.

Quote from: Carlita on April 25, 2011, 10:29:33 AM
I would love to be as feminine and beautiful as you, for example, Jen, but that has not (yet!!) been my fate. We're each just doing the best we can with what we've got ...

... and good luck to us all!

Awe thanks!  I bet you're closer than you think.

The reason I think it is a medical condition and not mental (at least for me) is I went to four therapy sessions, got my letter for HRT and never went back.  Yes I was dealing with severe depression when I started those sessions, but those hormones were the turning point in my mood, not psychobabbling.  In fact I was in a much worse place after therapy than before.  I don't blame my therapist for that, my life was just imploding when I started seeing her and I was on a sharply downward trajectory where I was quickly becoming unable to handle even living within my own existence.

Now a year or two later, I am happy, decidedly not crazy, and great with life  I don't have any use for mental health professionals and I don't think I really ever did.  I just needed a chemical adjustment, well along with matching my place in life with my identity.

~In Elizabeth's mindset, the ability (or necessity) to cope as a male disqualifies one from being transsexual~

The thing is that late in life transitioners do not have the ability to cope as men. We lived in missery, constantly avoiding human contact at all turns so no one could figure us out, or doing drugs to hide the person inside, or imersing ourselves so deep into work and career that there is no room for self. Or any other number of dehumanising survival tactics designed to help the poor woman forget the truth of her inner gender. Wash yourself in maleness and maybe just maybe something will stick and you will be percieved as male enough to get some positive reinforcement from society. Or outright avoid it at all turns and maybe you can ignore it.

Then one day the dam breaks and the woman inside can no longer deal with it and it is very much literaly transition or die.
It happens time and time again. Ask around the late in life comunity to their stories. If they are not allowed transition you end with a suicide.

Why didn't we transition earlier?
Mainly from what I have determined from having many talks with my sisters...Fear. Fear criples us. Fear of regection, fear of violnce, fear of death. Fear of losss of male privilage. These are very comon and real fears we faced that prevented our transiton.
Also many women wanted to have children of their own flesh before they transition. That is the right of any woman and I can not gainsay any woman who made this choice. In many ways I look up to such women and admire them. They make a very female choice to put their children before their needs.
Then their are women who put off transition for misguided honor and duty. It is very hard to get past the amount of crap males (and percieved males) get dumped on related to their duty to be men and be manly.

Then there is a thousand diferant personal reasons that can keep a woman in a male body. Some of us take it to their graves and we never know.
How many of us comit suicide due to negative crap we get heaped on us by society?
We definatly do not need to get any from those who are in our peer group. Even if we disagree with someone else in the gender comunity we need to keep it too ourselves. There are fragile egos and borderline suicidal folks in our ranks. Never forget that.

Those pics don't look right for 1971.  Anyway it's a generic 'beautiful' woman and the world is full of those, you had something and I'm thinking it's gone oh well don't be so shallow, basing your female identity on youth, seriously?

Anyway do looks make someone more of a woman?  or youth make a woman?  The second certainly is a question amongst women, it's changing there's more acceptance of older women as being attractive, like that ever was in doubt sheesh.

As one of the older (too much so) transitioners, I think I can reply from experience that it is a Medical condition that has the disadvantage of subjection to mental health and mental processing.  We have a problem where "sexuality" is overstressed in lives and is not as well understood as even the most expert person will tell you it is. Throw in a catastrophe of other mental issues from our families and extra-familial sources that overshadow our gender perception or our need to do other than just survive, and poof, you are an extremely ancient transitioner.  I can point to a 30 year period where my gender did not matter one bit to me or to other people around me, who never the less hung titles on me and made big deals out of their own sexuality.  I was too damned busy with others mental and physical health issues to deal with either sex or gender in my life. I was married to a woman for 10 years due to pressure when an exploration resulted in her pregnancy.  It destroyed a wonderful friendship though!  Alcoholism dependency and co-dependency, single parenthood, mental illness, plus a few wonderful things, just kept me from even thinking about gender. 

I have a known medical contribution to my gender feelings in the drug DES that my mother took to prevent a miscarriage in my third month of gestation.  Look up DiEthylStilbestrol (DES) to see what that entails.  DES is considered to be a Teratogen or "monster maker" that in XY babies is now known to have produced higher numbers of transgendered or transsexual individuals than occur normally.

I still have no problem with the term Trans Gendered being hung on me, but it does not pinpoint me, I know my body should be female, and that even though I iived and tried to fulfill a "male" role, we can all be stupid.  To all who can and did have the advantages, and indeed they are advantages, of transition early in life I lift a toast (today it must be water or fruit juice) to what life has provided for you.  Keep it up, and it will provide my age to you as well!!  If I can still get the "correction" surgery done, then maybe in a few years, I will figure out what I have for sexuality.  I notice that no-one has commented on where Asexual fall under the "Transgender Umbrella".  There are too few of us anyway to be arguing about who is upper or middle class Trans, me I just identify with having absolutely no class.     

Quote from: Sarah7 on April 26, 2011, 03:51:58 AMInterestingly, asexuality seems to be WAY more prevalent among trans women than the general population (7% as opposed to 1%). No idea if that is due simply to body dysphoria and negative sexual experience as a result, or if it is related to our weird brains.

It doesn't feel right to me that asexuality be associated just with negative causes or neurophysiology - another possibility is that trans women might actually be more contented.

Quote from: cynthialee on April 25, 2011, 11:46:15 PM
~In Elizabeth's mindset, the ability (or necessity) to cope as a male disqualifies one from being transsexual~

The thing is that late in life transitioners do not have the ability to cope as men ...

Very good point!! I guess I should have chosen a better word. What I meant was something like 'the ability to get through years or even decades of ones life, knowing that you a living a lie, but somehow managing to do your job, sustain relationships and even rase a family without actually giving into the temptation (and yes, I know it too) to find another way out ...'

And I also agree that fear of all the things you state - plus (which is the biggest issue for me) fear of bringing shame and unhappiness upon those people who depend on me as a man, husband and above all, father ... if I had only ever had to worry about myself, my life would have been VERY different, I think ...

Oops, I replied with the claws out and everyone has gone and been all polite over here. Damn.

In case the comment doesn't make it through approvals my point was simply that the statistical method is absurd - you cannot cut and paste statistics across variations of a species and expect them to fit. Others have also mentioned the lack of reliable data.

Really she seems more interested in putting herself forward as a shining example of HB's philosophies, maybe she doesn't feel special anymore now that he has passed and our understanding of the world has progressed.

Browsing through that woman's blog, I must say that some of her points are valid, but I sense a "I'm more trans than thou" attitude just because she transitioned early.  I'm also a young transitioner, but my life was very different from the start.  I had a very supportive family, and I have an intersex condition.  I cannot compare that with the lives of other people.  Doing so would be unfair.  But I guess everybody has their opinion about stuff.



For instance I don't know what to think about this:

I am baffled by the TV, CD, and non transitioned crowd

Quote from: her blogI am amused at the ->-bleeped-<-, cross-dresser, and non-transitioned transgender crowd as they prattle on about "passing privilege" and "gold standard transsexuals" and yada, yada, yada. yada, and more yadas. Like others with fetishes they see themselves as being "part" of the community that is transsexual. Ah, no you are not.

We have late 50's men announcing they are transitioning and of course they know immediately all things womanly and begin to preach to all and humorously accuse those that have walked the entire path "men" when in simple point of fact they are "still" men. That is typical male privilege at its finest. I have a tally-whacker so I know more about being a woman than any woman could possibly know and then of course they throw out the "you are not a woman" claim as they get excited in the wife's panties.

Quote from: FairyGirl on April 25, 2011, 04:02:58 AM
This pretty much describes me as well. Like Valerie I am post-op, post transition, extremely binary regarding my gender, and heterosexual.  I don't feel I belong under any umbrellas.  I never had children; I never had to personally deal with coming out to some unsuspecting wife.  I was born transsexual and knew it at age 4, was ready to die because of it by age 10.  But somehow I coped, for a while.  The details of that are very traumatic and very personal, and I won't be posting them publicly for anyone.  But if you ask me do I wish I had taken a straight path from childhood to transition?  We probably all wish that at some point, but gee while we're wishing why not wish it was never necessary at all?  The past is passed; I am healed, whole, cured, and at peace now, and I honestly never thought it could happen.  Mostly I just feel lucky to have ever made it at all.

I admit to being puzzled by the behavior of some people.  I too find I am not in agreement with a lot of what passes for transgender political correctness.  In essence, I have to say there are some things that I simply can't understand either. But one thing I am in agreement with is a low tolerance for intolerance (is that an oxymoron? lol) by any side of the gender debate.  When I see mean-spirited, hateful, ad hominem attacks on others, no matter if I agree in principle with the overall complaint or not,  it pretty much closes me off to anything else that person might have to say.  That applies just as much here as it does anywhere else.

I will say this: Sitting and passing harsh judgments on anyone is not helping any of us, or furthering any cause.  I'm glad the moderators locked that other thread because it became downright hateful.  How can we ever hope for the world to respect any of us if we can't try to respect each other?  I just  think we need to do better.

Almost my whole life experience in agreement.
Cindy

Quote from: Natasha on April 21, 2011, 11:06:53 AM
Medical or Mental?

http://ben-girl-notesfromthetside.blogspot.com/2011/04/medical-or-mental.html
4/21/11
By Elizabeth

Is this a medical condition or a mental condition? I guess I am one of the people claiming that a lot of the later transitioners and even others have created a dichotomy in whether this is truly medical or mental. I think the issue is not that someone is a late transitioner.  It is the simple fact in this day and age there are too many late transitioners and too many transitioners period that are lesbian.

If one is truly born with a female brain then that problem is there from early on and should be set around puberty until somewhere in the mid to late teens. Many people can fool themselves into doing certain things I will never understand but that does not mean I hate them but I do tend to judge the ones I am forced to deal with individually. The simple truth is you either are born transsexual or you are not.  If you believe this then we have a problem in the transsexual community.

IT is definitely a MEDICAL Condition.

Why are you bringing up this late transitioners issue again. People who are late tansitioners now feel able to transition because a lot of the societal pressure is off. I knew I was definitely 'wrong' when I was 12 I can possibly put my finger on other things before that that I knew I was different but didn't quite know what it was. I didn't feel able to transition until now because of family and societal pressure. You deal with the hand life deals you.

Quote from: Valeriedances on April 27, 2011, 08:11:28 AM
Whether you are late or early, straight or gay, binary or variant, umbrella or not, we all have to make peace with ourselves. No one needs permission to be true to who they are. It's easy to react strongly from words of others when we feel judged, I find myself reacting at times, I know. I can get caught up emotionally in whatever the issue is.

When I remind myself that I can only be true to myself, regardless of others approval, I am in a good place.

-Valerie

IT really annoys me when others have to put someone down just to justify their existence. Peoples life must be so bereft of substance to talk like they do about others.

It's okay/normal to be annoyed.   However, I believe that the person that handles themselves with the most grace wins, and I'm telling ya, the entire point of using inciteful language in an argument is to invoke an emotional response.  Giving into hysteria and anger plays right into thier hands.

This person could have used different language, much like they did when they posted in this thread-so you know they're capable of it, to make the same point and... nobody's upset.  Read between the lines and ask yourself why they chose the approach they did and, given the answer to that, do you want to play their game?  Do you want to devalue yourself and meet them on their level?

I dont think I was..

Oh, me neither.

Quote from: Jen on April 27, 2011, 10:36:10 AM
It's okay/normal to be annoyed.   However, I believe that the person that handles themselves with the most grace wins, and I'm telling ya, the entire point of using inciteful language in an argument is to invoke an emotional response.  Giving into hysteria and anger plays right into thier hands.

This person could have used different language, much like they did when they posted in this thread-so you know they're capable of it, to make the same point and... nobody's upset.  Read between the lines and ask yourself why they chose the approach they did and, given the answer to that, do you want to play their game?  Do you want to devalue yourself and meet them on their level?

Absolutely

Seriously though, I don't believe bigotry should go undefended on a public forum, anything I can do to make her look more foolish is worth my time and I'm not really worried how it reflects on me.