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Journal tomhudson's Journal: Gender Education: Are You A Transexual? 26

Journal by tomhudson

I - Basic Info On Transexuality
II - Are You A Transexual? - this article
III - Social and Moral Implications
IV - Questions by Posters
V - Politics And Gender Identity
VI - What's Involved In A Sex Change
VII - Breaking the News

WHAT: This is the second of several articles I'll be posting over the next little bit about sex, gender and identity.

WHY: Recent journal entries by several people have shown the need.

RULES: As always, any honest reply or question is welcome, and will be answered, and posted as a top-level JE so that others can read it. This is a sensitive topic, and the people who are most affected are in many cases extremely vulnerable. Please show the same compassion for them as you would want for yourself or a loved one if the situation were reversed.

Some of you may be thinking about now "What's the big deal - someone's not too sure about their gender? So what? People have self-doubts all the time ...

And they would reply "Its easy for YOU to say that ..."

The first problem is there is no 100% sure-fire diagnostic tool - no blood test, no psychological inventory, no CT or MRI (yet - those may be coming) that you can point to and say "yes, this is the problem, you have GID and this is the cure." So how does someone even come to realize that they have a gender problem? The answers would be as multitudinous and different as there are people affected, but many of them share common traits or behaviours.

For example, many people with GID have demonstrated "gender-inappropriate" behaviour at a young age. The sissy boy, the tomboy girl, and getting remonstrated and/or punished for such behaviour, are one such element. Later on, a feeling of discomfort or oddness about their gender will usually manifest itself. This can result in over-compensating behaviour both as an attempt to hide the condition from others, and as a form of denial.

There are plenty of "inventories" on the net that purport to help you evaluate whether you have GID or transsexualism. Most of them are a crock. Many of them give a "score" or points on such things as appearance or the ability to park a car, which is irrelevent when looking at individual cases. So what to look for?

Well, we could go on and on about specific behaviours, incidents, etc., construct some artificial checklist, and see where you "rank." Or we can cut to the chase. Picture this scenario:

You get a chance to see the greatest specialist in the world. He or she is sympathetic, and you quickly discover that you are completely at ease with them, and have the frankest, most open discussion possible. At the end, they say "We have recently discovered a cure." Reaching into the drawer, they pull out a bottle, saying "Take this before bedtime, and when you wake up, all your feelings of being the inappropriate gender will disappear. Forever. No harmful side effects. No doubting. No more agony, uncertainty or pain."

Are you disappointed? Is this what you wanted?

If not, then let us continue ...

The doctor sees your look of disappointment, reaches back in the drawer, and pulls out another bottle, saying "Now, if you take this before bedtime, when you wake up, you will be the opposite gender. Forever. But it has side effects, and its not 100% effective. We don't give it any guarantees, but it seems to work for many people in your condition."

Would you take the pill?

This is not original - its just a slight modification of one of the questions most GID therapists ask. As such, unfortunately, because it is a hypothetical question (the bottles of magic potions don't exist outside the story), it isn't a realistic gauge.

Here's a better one:

You read the following story in a newspaper (we'll use a man as an example, but it works for both sexes):

A man arrived at the local emergency ward last night seeking treatment.
He had amputated his testicles with a knife.
No further details are available.

  1. Would it be blazingly obvious to you what had happened?
  2. When reading this, do you find yourself a bit jealous that someone else "did something about it"?
  3. Can you relate to why someone would go to that extreme?
  4. Have you contemplated it yourself?

The point is, if you can readily recognize, empathize, and identify with someone with an extreme form of gender disorder, everything else is pretty much secondary. Also, if you've seriously contemplated self-mutilation, you are going to have to admit that continuing to refuse to seek help is putting your life at risk. Find a large hospital with a competent staff and a gender clinic and go see them ASAP. The Internet is a good way to check out candidate hospitals in a non-threatening way.

(A note for those reading this who are thinking: That is f'ing gross. How could anyone think like that? ... well, now maybe you've gotten a glimpse of the pressure that GID can put on people.)

For the men: Imagine that you woke up tomorrow with a pair of breasts and no penis? You have to go to work. So, what do you do? A bulky sweater, perhaps, and an ACE bandage to hide your boobs? And to top it all off ... as you walk out the door, you get your first period! Are you comfortable with the way you feel about yourself in such a scenario?

For the women: you wake up tomorrow with both breasts missing and you now have a penis with a "mind of its own." You have to go to work. So you do like when you were going on your first real date - stuff a bra with kleenex or socks; as for the penis, you "tuck" that bad boy away and hope it stays unnoticeable. Again, are you comfortable with the way you feel about yourself in such a scenario?

In either case, you're going to want to see a doctor to find out what the heck happened, and see what they can do for you.

Now think about it - for someone who has GID, every day they wake up to the unhappy scenario that they've got the wrong parts. And everyone else sees this as being "normal" for them. Its not like the above scenarios, where you can point to your birth certificate and say "I just KNOW I had them when I went to bed ..."

When looking for professional help, or helping someone else look for help, keep in mind two things:

  1. You're not looking for someone to "cure" you by obliterating your current identity, but to help you function more fully in that identity.
  2. Its your life, and you set the schedule and the conditions, since you will be living with the consequences. If you are not fully comfortable with whomever you end up dealing with, say so. Don't be shy. They're professionals, and recognize that not every therapist-patient relationship works out.

So, back to behaviours (for those who insist on ranking things):

  1. Do you find yourself wishing you were the opposite sex (your "target sex")
  2. Are these thoughts intrusive? Do they come at inconvenient times, like at work or school?
  3. Self-deportment - have you acted on these thoughts by:
    1. acquiring articles of clothing and/or other items identified with your target sex?
    2. dressing as your target sex in private?
    3. secretly wearing underclothes of your target sex to school or work? How often?
    4. going out in public as your target sex?
  4. Interactions with others - have you acted on these thoughts by:
    1. researching it at the public library and/or the internet?
    2. adopting an online persona to go for a "test-drive" as your target sex?
    3. telling others about your condition?
    4. interacting with the public as your target sex (gone shopping, for example)?
    5. talking to a doctor about it?

But remember, checklists are useless. What really matters is your perception of yourself. Points 1 and 2 only.

For those who aren't directly affected, but know someone who is - we'll be covering you tomorrow.

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

Gender Education: Are You A Transexual? More

Gender Education: Are You A Transexual?

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  • Why does gender have to be tied to sex?

    Do people with GI issues (and we're not talking Samthebutcher here) actually want to be the other sex, or do they want to have whatever form makes their behaviors socially acceptable?
    • i can only answer for MY case. I'm somewhere in between, i like my parts but i'd like any parts i had.

      But i don't feel like a girl, and i don't identify as one, so...

      i'd like it to be more socially acceptable for me to be the way i am.

      I'd like to be taller, too, but you don't see me seeking height reassignment surgery.

      Maybe that's because there's more range of heights in our culture than of genders. What if there weren't? What if there were only people over six feet by a lot, and under six feet by a lot?

      And

      • f i woke up tomorrow with boy parts, i'd wear dresses to balance it out

        Wow - the dragon would wear a dress! Willingly! :-)

        You're right - its about finally getting comfortable with yourself.

        Its been posited that we only see the cases of GID that are extreme enough to drive people to take action, and that there are others who suffer to a lesser degree. The evidence for this has always been lacking because its pretty hard to gather evidence on stuff people don't seek help for.

        What we do know is that the

        • so, you're saying that the fact that i'm an ambidextrous geek with sjogren's syndrome is pretty par for the course in the gender-identity-challenged world?

          • It's pretty much par for the course for the geek world :-)

            Lets face it, the average person isn't as curious about the world around them as the average geek. And being able to use both hands at once has a lot of advantages. I could never figure out why people insist on the following sequence for cutting a piece of meat:

            1. put fork in left hand, knife in right
            2. cut meat
            3. switch knife and fork around
            4. eat
            5. go to step 1

            I mean, I just put the fork in the left, the knife in the right, then cut, eat, cut, eat. And

        • I'd just like to point out that your examples are pretty obvious, when looked at in the bigger picture. I grew up being the only left-handed person I (or anybody in my family) knew. It wouldn't have been so bad it people accepted it as normal, but I was paraded around as a freak for a while because of it. Then I went into the computer field (not really by choice, but hey) and was paraded around as a nerd and a social outcast and a freak.

          To the point: When people are made to feel like everything is wrong
          • The examples are obvious to someone who isn't right-handed, because there are biological differences between righties and non-righties. Then, because of our differing experiences, we don't usually make assumptions as to "what's normal". For example, leave your mouse on the left side of your keyboard, and stand back and watch a right-handed person use your computer.

            Laugh as it doesn't occur to most of them to pick up the mouse and put it on the other side of the keyboard. Instead, they've either got their r

            • Laugh as it doesn't occur to most of them to pick up the mouse and put it on the other side of the keyboard. Instead, they've either got their right arm crossed over their body, blocking the keyboard, as they try to keep using their right hand with the mouse (sideways?!?), or they try to use the mouse with their left hand, pick it up, turn it over, stare at the bottom of it going "wtf is wrong here" ... I swear, sometimes I think they've got lateral retardation

              Heh, stay a way from my 'puter then. My m
            • :D I love being Bi-dextrous .. though I do sway to using the right for a lot of things due to conditioning . Only Reason I don't actually use m y mouse with my left hand is the bloody mouse is right handed GAH. :D Though I use my left hand to shake hands which really irritates people .. so I do it more often now
            • My first instinct is that left-handed people are more accustomed to accomodating themselves to a right-handed dominated society.

              • We try. But if you're a leftie, some accomodations are just impossible. Right-handed scissors being the worst case - it hurts to use them. Manual can-openers. Doors. Doors! Shopping aisles and the flow of traffic. I keep finding myself going "the wrong way" down the aisles, or in shopping malls. Then people look at me like I'm intentionally being rude, rather than "not paying attention" and "doing the right thing" (pun intended :-)

                Even mice are right-handed (yes, I know you can switch buttons, but its le

    • The whole point is that gender isn't necessarily tied to anatomical/birth sex.

      In the case of GID, its' not so much that they "want" to be the other sex - their brains are actually hardwired as the other sex's brains. (see the previous JE)

      So you have someone whose brain is one sex, and whose body is the other. Now, since your identity (who you are) is contained in your brain, its fair to say the body is the part that doesn't match.

      They're not looking to change their morphism (shape) to make their bevahi

    • Well being that Sex is just the reproductive functionality , it perhaps does not need to be .though in many many cases it is.
      Gender identity is linked to the sex of the individual , if there is a disparity then it is going to cause you no end of confusion and torment .

      If i woke up tomorrow with Female reproductive organs then I would certainly not be too happy about it , as I am sure most people who are happy with their gender would also feel .So imagine going your whole life (talking about pre-op people) l

      • They had to stop doing genetic testing to determine sex because about 1 in every hundred people tests out with some sort of chromosomal anomality. An extra X, for example (so much for DNA analysis being all that exact a science).

        • There are so many syndromes out there and genetics is an infantile science.. getting there but still incredibly early days . we are still not even entirely sure about the producers involved in the transformation of the genetic info into component building heh
          • What really gets me is the voodoo science behind a lot of the so-called dna testing.

            This was made quite clear in an article in Scientific American, where they pointed out all the flaws:

            1. All of the dna id kits are proprietary - none has been through an independent peer-review process.
            2. The judging of whether a marker matches is highly dependent upon the human doing the evaluating - the same output is interpreted differently by different people
            3. They don't check all, or even nearly all, the dna - just a few
            • Its ridiculous sudo-science in many ways . They are espousing DNA testing as something holy and infallible , which is by far not true.
              Genetics is a great area of science , something I consider one of the most fascinating areas of biology .. we have developed greatly in the field and have made amazing advances but some of the claims they make are frankly on a level with creationism (I exaggerate a little)

  • Hey (Score:2)

    by nizo ( 81281 ) *
    Imagine that you woke up tomorrow with a pair of breasts...

    Imagine? I already feel comfortable with my man-breasts, thank you so very much. Though actually they have diminished in size after my months-long sickness when I hardly ate anything. Luckily they should perk right up after the upcoming fudge filled holidays.

  • Look, all I know is these damned net stockings pull my leg hair like mad.

    Cheers,

    Ethelred

    • Sorry, this is a discussion of gender identity and transsexualism. Transvestism and transgenderism I'll save for another time :-)

      Seriously, there's a broad band of sexuality with some misconceptions, but only one at a time. For those wondering why I haven't mentioned transvestism, its because, while a lot of transsexuals are accused of being cross-dressers and just wanting to "normalize" their behaviour, nothing can be further from the truth.

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