I would be interested in the responses of others who have pondered that question. Many of the discussions here seem to assume that the answer is yes. But the trend in other circles has been away from that view, both in the US and in other nations with large numbers of crossdressers. Is the trend misguided? Or does it have merit?
Mumbai, India may have more crossdressers (i.e., transgender women of one kind or another) than any other city in the world, although the available statistics are just rough estimates. Indeed, I’ve been told that that Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad, and Chennai all have substantial transgender populations. In my opinion, the Indian transgender persons often are very good-looking. I love the brightly colored saris (clothing) and gold jewelry that some of them wear. But the more basic point is that transgender people in large numbers are found on every continent. World-wide, there are more than 150 million of us. In addition, transgender people have been documented in many Western and non-Western cultures from antiquity. We are a normal part of the human gender spectrum.
That assertion runs counter to the dogmas of US psychiatrists as recently as the early 1990s — and even to the ideas of a few rear-guard psychiatrists today. Regarding the latter, there is a group named the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) that is well-funded and a hotbed of “professionals” who have not budged from the idea that transgender people have mental and other medical disorders. The American Psychiatric Association, a much more credible source of information, recently disavowed that notion (their updated Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, DSM5, will officially become available in May 2013); but to understand WPATH and its intransigence on a premise that is contradicted by most of the pertinent evidence, we need to recognize that some individuals have vested interests in the older view. Their incomes may depend on whether crossdressing is seen as a normal condition or as a mental disorder. If the latter is widely accepted, then they receive more prestige, power, and income! Nonetheless, according the American Psychiatric Association, a mental disorder is a condition that causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social or occupational functioning. If having cross-gender feelings is a terrible disorder, then why are there so many well-functioning transgender persons all over the world?
But someone might argue, “Doesn’t that overlook thousands of poorly functioning transgender persons?” As I was thinking about this, The Washington Post, a prestigious US newspaper, did a feature story on transgender prostitution in Washington D.C. One of those they interviewed was Staci Daniel, a 23-year-old escort who had been working on the K Street NW strip for several years. She got into sex-work when she realized that her transgender identity and appearance were preventing her from being hired for other work. She desperately needed to put food on the table; and she discovered that she could make hundreds of dollars a week as an escort. Besides supporting herself, she began putting a niece through college.
Most large US cities today have districts like the K Street NW strip. Many of those who work in such areas have been thrown out of their homes by parents who thought that being transgender was an abomination unto God. It concerns me that parents should be so judgmental of transgender teenagers; they (and we) should at least try to understand the reasons for the work they may wind up doing. They are functioning as best they can under the circumstances. I hope that Staci will find other work eventually, and that she also will find the happiness to which we all aspire.
The important point here is that when people encounter what they think are poorly functioning transgender persons, they usually are missing something important. There usually is more to it than meets the eye. Although Staci Daniel seems both intelligent and emotionally healthy, we must recognize that prejudice and discrimination can cause clinically significant impairment in practically anyone’s functioning. The term “psychological victimization” (see the link below) refers to how that happens. Being transgender can lead to being discriminated against, which in turn can lead to psychological distress and related symptoms. Most transgender persons escape that chain of consequences, but some do not. Some transgender persons in the US and across the world have not been as lucky as I have.
Anyway, your thoughts on any of this would be welcome!
http://toselfbetrue.com/transgender/...ry.html#victim