Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
User Journal

Journal Just Jennifer's Journal: A Bit About Me...Part One 28

Yesterday I had the misfortune to discover that a member of Slashdot had chosen to take a disagreement here. This person, who uses the name tomhudson, now imagines that he will take this story to local and national news. I have to say, the image I get is of a great ape, pound his chest, and bellowing as a warning to any who would threaten him. And what led to this show of masculine bravado? I dared share some information about him on a discussion group on Usenet.

Yes, alas, it is the same sad story. A minor dustup on Usenet is turned into what some fool thinks is a major battle.

And what led to all of this. It is a disagreement over the social and medical issues surrounding transsexualism. I am a post-op transsexual, and tomhudson wishes to claim to be a transsexual as well. I am of the mind that transsexual, or as I and others prefer, Harry Benjamin Syndrome, refers to a specific medical condition. tomhudson wishes to stretch the word to the point of being meaningless. This is not uncommon among those who belong to a social/political movement that is know as "transgender."

Sadly, "transgenderist," a term that originated with a notorious crossdresser who used the name "Virginia Prince" was originally meant to be exclusive of transsexuals. Sometime, around the late Eighties, or eary Nineties, some came to imagine that there would be greater political strength if the united crossdressers and transsexuals into a single entity. Those who were transsexual largely ignored this at first. Most of us were more concerned with simply correcting our bodies and getting on with our lives.

The simple fact is, true transsexuals are rare. Crossdressers are much more common. As this movement took hold, many who were crossdressers began to claim to be really transsexuals. It was just that they didn't want to have surgery. You see, the thing is, while crossdressing starts out as simply a sexual thing, first showing up after puberty, some crossdressers crave it more and more until they reach a point where they sometimes decide to dress full time. They have no desire to have their body corrected, because for them, the trill comes from being a "woman" with a penis. Even if they go so far as to take hormones, which will likely reduce their sexual desire, this aging crossdresser still desires to remain a woman with a penis.

On the other hand, a transsexual is born with a birth defect that occurs during in utero development. There is a common misconception that we all start out as female. Actually, we all start out as undifferentiated. If a Y chromosome is present, then certain tissues develop and begin producing male hormones. This causes the body to become male, and eventually differentiates the brain as male. If the Y chromosome is not present, or if there is a chromosonal defect, OR if something interferes, then even though the male hormones ae present, things don't go as they normally would. In the most extreme case, you have an XY woman. This is a person who appears normally female at birth, but who, when they fail to start puberty, turns out to be chromosonally male. They are usually sterile, having no internal female organs, and they require hormones to develop normally.

If something interferes, the person can be born intersex. This can occur at any time, and the severity of the condition depends on how much interference occured. The condition can range from a simple hypospadia (an opening of the urethra at the base of the penis) to a person that shows characteristics of both sexes and who will require surgical correction to lead a normal life. There is, however, controversy over when the surgery should take place.

Finally, it the interference occurs after the body has differentiated to being male, the brain may default to female...or in other cases, the brain my be differentiated to be male even though the body is female. This produces a true transsexual.

More to come....

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

A But About Me

Comments Filter:
  • 'Jennifer' Usher claims to have "Harry Benjamin Syndrome"

    Andrea James on the fake Harry Benjamin Syndrome [tsroadmap.com]

    "Harry Benjamin syndrome" (HBS) is a fake disease created by some self-hating transpeople who self-diagnosed as intersex. I had not had any dealings with these people until one tried to recreate a deleted Wikipedia article about this fake disease. After I redirected it back to transsexualism per consensus, they went crazy. Their self-proclaimed Spanish leader Charlotte Goiar and self-proclaimed US

    • ROTFL! I realize it is a bit much to comprehend, but people can disagree and remain friends. That is provided one of them is not a complete idiot like tomhudson.

      Oh, and the group that I am part of has nothing to do with either Goiar or "Purple Girl." I do agree with Andrea that they are both quite odd.
  • Source: http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.srs/browse_thread/thread/daa7efadfefa1c1f# [google.com]
    (see thread for additional commentary)

    The Myth Of Howard Thomas Usher's Sex Change

    by JenniferFlusher

    Howard Thomas Usher, also known on the internet as Jennifer Usher, likes to
    pretend that he is a person who underwent a sex change in 2006.

    This post will prove that Howard almost certainly never had sex change
    surgery and give the reasons why. Howard has been known as "Jennifer
    Usher" since 2000 on the

  • I just looked at your comment history here (it's available for all to see [slashdot.org]) and I see that you started posting comments this Tuesday morning. It is Friday morning as I write this. So far all of your comments are either here in your journal entry, or over in tomhudson's journal entry. Also your UID here is very high - the highest I have seen to date. So it appears that you created an account to come here to argue with tomhudson. Of course, there is nothing explicitly forbidding that, you can do so if you
    • Well, let's just say I am responding to someone who brags about trolling.

      Give me time. I am still learning my way around, and in the meantime I am dealing with tomhudson's attacks. Apparently he thought he could trash me here and I would not know.
      • Say the truth - that you first threatened to out me in a newsgroup, then decided to cause more problems here, and that in both cases, you failed.

        You don't understand what slashdot is - it's not primarily a place to journal - it's not a f***ing myspace for nerds - it's a tech discussion site. Something you don't know much about, since you don't work in the field.

        You're out of your league here - just as you are everywhere else.

        • tomhudson himself admitted that I could not possibly out him, as he was already out. I was well aware of that. I simply brought some public information to the Usenet group, doing to him what he was doing to me.

          Then, we he decided to trash me here, I came and stood up to him. Obviously this is proving embarassing for him.

          Oh well...
          • Several points:

            1. Like most transsexuals, I don't call attention to my status. Most of the people on slashdot aren't aware of it. Sometimes, someone will correct another poster when it comes to pronouns and stuff, but I don't make an issue of it, because I know that people here don't misgender out of malice - unlike you.
            2. Whether I was out or not is immaterial, since your intent is what counts, same as a drug dealer buying 10 pounds of icing sugar instead of smack.
            3. You can't harm me for the simple reason
            • First off, this attempt by tomhudson to undo the damage he has done to himself is amusing. As he said originally, and quite truthfully, trying to out him was like carrying coals to Newcastle. Again, I simply gave him a taste of what he was trying to do to me.

              My intent was to give him a taste of what he does to me. Clearly he cannot see that.

              As to intimidating him, this line is pretty much a repeat of something I said to him. Nice try, but I said it first.

              Now, he tries to claim that I outed him on Usenet
            • Woot! And we do love you Barbie. We're on your side, and assholes like this that you're arguing with can go beat it! :p

              I simply don't have the time to read every word, but just from the skimming I'm catching all the anti-vibes I care to for today...

  • Anatomy of a transquisling - Part 1 - Jennifer Usher attacks transsexuals and other transgenders

    Topics in this post include Jennifer Usher's attacks on transgender and transsexual women, years of attacks on a woman who was raped, a crude attempt at outing me, claims of 'special privilege', and the University of California San Francisco's action (or lack thereof) over the years concerning Usher's use of UCSF computers and work time to harass transsexuals on the Internet.

    Introduction To begin this sto

    • Simply put, tomhudson's article is a perfect example of amateur journalism. He makes up facts and he interprets things ignorantly. It is more creative writing than journalism.

      Now, let me point out a few things. I have done nothing to tomhudson that he has not done to me repeatedly on Usenet, and elsewhere. The pot calling the kettle black as they say.

      If, as tomhudson fantasizes, this article were to get attention from real journalists...well, that is when things will get interesting. You see, his "fact

Top Ten Things Overheard At The ANSI C Draft Committee Meetings: (5) All right, who's the wiseguy who stuck this trigraph stuff in here?

Working...