As a queer person, thank you for A) being open to changing your mind and B) sharing that experience. As Dan Savage noted, most of the people who voted for marriage equality this past election were straight. I don't always agree with Savage, but here he was spot on: The LGBT community owes thanks to the straight allies, and I appreciate you weighing in on this /. discussion to speak your mind.

For example, they could better disambiguate between Santorum the tool and santorum the frothy mixture of blood, semen and feces.

I realize this isn't the main point of your post, but if you're doing it right there shouldn't be any blood...

I'm a trans woman, coupled with an Eastern European Jewish ancestry, so I kind of lost the body hair lottery. But I'm a huge fan of laser hair removal. The way I've come to describe it? Expensive, painful, and awesome. If you have a medium skin tone and dark body hair, it works exceptionally well.

Actually, if you were more educated, you'd know that chemical castration is a very effective treatment as well. But you're obviously not ...

What do you think hormone replacement therapy is? I was chock full of testosterone, now I'm full of testosterone blockers and estrogen. Shockingly, that's not very good for the male reproductive system. The dosages are different, but I'm basically on 'chemical castration' meds. Because that's what hormone replacement therapy is.. The treatment you're promoting (which you seem to think will 'cure' trans-ness) is actually what's needed to transition!

Except that ... well, there is [hard evidence as to what causes people to be gay or trans]. Look, I'm all for letting you live your life the way you want to, but I'm 100% against disseminating false or misleading information. You're pushing an ideology that isn't aligned with FACT.

Do you have any studies to back up that claim? I'd be really interested in reading them. As I said, there are some interesting clues as to how trans people's brains and bodies are different than typically gendered people. But - from everything I've read - no one is willing to make claim a causal relationship. Or, if they are, they admit they're not sure which way it goes: does having an atypical brain structure make one trans, or does some other (genetic/hormonal/etc) cause of trans-ness result in an atypical brain structure?

There are lots of people that aren't comfortable in their bodies. Not just transgendered individuals. There are people who claim that they should be born as animals, because their spirit is truly that of an animal. Do I believe their arguments? No. I'm close minded like that. In other words, I'm a logical empiricist. Show me proof that you're in the wrong body, and I'll believe you. Until you have something more tangeable than feelings, your opinion and your feelings are just as valid as mine

The proof of the pudding, as they say, is in the eating. That is, I was previously suicidal and depressed. Now, after going on hormones and transitioning, there's been a significant drop in my depression. Mental health professionals don't (usually) send for lab results before putting patients on antidepressants, they talk with the patients and use their training to judge the patient's state. Transitioning works, logically and empirically, and your argument about 'people who claim they should be animals' is on par with people saying gay sex is wrong because it will lead to bestiality: a ridiculous, unfounded, and (quite frankly) illogical argument.

Furthermore, gender is complicated, even though many people pretend it isn't. There are ample examples across the animal kingdom of animals - sans therapist or hormone replacement therapy - expressing 'wrongly' gendered behavior. Why should humans be any different?

1) Is there a phsycological element? can some form of mental treatment not help?

It's not totally clear what causes people to be trans, in the same way there's no hard evidence as to what causes people to be gay. (Or straight, or have particular kinks.) That said, there have been some interesting studies indicating trans folks do have some sort of physiological and/or neurological differences compared with the typically-gendered population. I don't know of any peer reviewed studies indicating ex-gay or ex-trans therapies work, which to me says it's not (solely) a psychological issue which should be treated like depression or any other mental disorder.

2) If it isn't phsycological and it is due to some hormonal imbalance, then does taking medication to further change your gender away from your physical gender not simply exacerbate the problem?

That's an interesting question, and not one I have good answers for. Speaking for myself, my hormones were at typically male levels before I went on estrogen. That is, my doctor ran my blood work and showed me that there didn't seem to be any hormonal reasons for my gender discomfort, as the reports indicated I was hormonaly male. I don't have any broader surveys of the trans community, but anecdotal evidence seems to point to the same thing: most (although certainly not all) trans folks didn't suffer from any detectable hormone imbalance. If that were the case, however, the doctor and/or therapist the trans person was working with should be able to help detect that. I think there should be less of a medical gateway before getting hormones than what currently exists, but I do think hormonal transition should include a doctor's care.

3) If it can be treated by altering hormones then why - if a choice is made to take medication for life - is a choice made to alter hormones in the direction of the sex you wish you were, rather than the sex you actually are? Would the latter not make more sense in that you would simply be able to live your life without even having to worry about prejudice, and without having to go through a presumably very painful operation or set of operations?

That's an excellent point, and kind of gets to the hear of the trans experience. It would have been great if there were a pill I could take that would result in the sensation of "Oh! I am male!" But - just as ex-gay therapy hasn't been proven successful - no amount of repression or therapy or abuse or pigheadedness has been able to 'cure' any trans person I know or anyone I've heard of through the news or the grapevine. All the studies and surveys I've read - along with a heap of anecdotal evidence - indicates being trans isn't 'curable' in the sense of bringing comfort to the person in their physical sex.

Let me know if you have any questions. I know this isn't something many people have reason to know much about, so I'm always happy to help educate folks who are honestly curious.

-Rebecca

My question, then, would be how should society handle people who have chronic illnesses that are nevertheless not catastrophic, and can't afford treatment? Things like diabetes or early stage cancer treatment. Who should pay for that if the individual is unable to afford it?

The 'free market' solution would be that those people get sicker and sicker until ERs, which are required to treat regardless of ability to pay, can cover the immediate issues. But I'd much rather live in a society where that cost is spread out over everyone, so no individual needs to worry about whether they can afford to go to the doctor.

I was oversimplifying and I'm sorry I came across as a member of "that part" of the trans community. I know exactly what you mean, and you're right: I absolutely need medical intervention. My issue is that GID is listed as a mental - as opposed to physical - disorder. With your cleft palate example, it's not something you need therapy to get verified as a 'real' cleft palate patient.

I would however, be down for reclassifying GID as a neurological or neuropathic condition, rather than a psychopathology...

It sounds like we're pretty much on the same page. I'm sorry my posts came across otherwise.

Definitely didn't notice that typo. Clearly commenting while WAY too tired. The joke was, in fact, clever. :)

No, their attitude - as far as I can tell - is wanting to use their service and have them pay for medical expenses is less profitable than insuring healthy people who don't need treatment. In Illinois (where gender identity is a protected class) I have had no problem getting treatment paid for by my insurance when I was under my parents' plan, and have none now that I'm in the state high risk pool. So once insurance companies grudgingly accept me in their system, they acknowledge my concerns are medically valid. But if I can't get into that system, what happens then?

(Illinois, fortunately, does have a high risk pool, and I can - at least for the time being - afford it. But there's a reason trans people have much higher instances of suicide, poverty, sex work, drug addiction, and substance abuse than the general population: because it's really difficult to live in a society that doesn't support you.

I meant more from the perspective of the insurance company. Why would they want to take my money knowing I - like someone with diabetes or cancer - am going to cost them money in the end?

My status as a trans woman seems to have split the discussion, and for that I apologize. I don't think the government owes me any help maintaining an Internet connection or a computer (beyond providing those things in public spaces like libraries). My point was that for people with chronic, preexisting conditions, the term "insurance" is something of a misnomer. As some pointed out during the healthcare debate, you can't buy insurance to fix a car you have already crashed. But we place fixing people on a morally higher ground than fixing cars. And rightly so. The question, then, is how do we - as a society - deal with people who require medical treatment they can't afford? Personally, I think the answer is a national, single-payer healthcare system. You're welcome to disagree with me. But it was people who said "the free market will solve it" who really frustrated me, since health care is a situation where the free market response may be "guess that person is going to die." Which I don't think is a good decision to make on a societal level.

Bringing the topic back to trans issues, I have some issues with the DSM's classification of trans people, but I think it's a good place to start. And the fact that there's medical consensus that being trans isn't a "lifestyle" (nice use of that rhetoric, BTW) makes me feel it should be treated like any other medical condition.

When wanting breast implants or a nose job or tattoos or a nice car is listed in the Diagnostics and Statistics Manual of Mental Disorders, we can talk about equating being trans and wanting a nice car. Until then, I think the slope is neither particularly slippery nor particularly steep. My position is as follows:

• 1) Society should collectively fit the bill for medical expenses that individuals cannot afford
• 2) The medical expenses that society should pay for should, furthermore, be determined by medical consensus, not by a poll of the general population
• 3) There is medical consensus in the mental health profession that being trans is not 'fixable' by psychotherapy, but should be treated with hormones and (if needed) surgery
• CONCLUSION: Gender identity disorder should be treated like any other medical condition, from the stand point of society's collective footing of the bill

It sounds like, more broadly, you have a (legitimate!) concern as to where your tax dollars would be going. That's entirely reasonable. But medical consensus indicates treatment for trans folks is not elective, and I therefore don't think it should be up for public debate in the same way a nose job might be.

Ummm...yes? Your point being? ::Gasp:: I'm trans and interested in dating? That I use the Trillian_1138 moniker elsewhere on the web? That I don't have a particularly deep divide between my Internet and 'real' life?