From the man himself...

[Deborah]

[SIZE=3]Interesting article from Benjamin Harrison and may answer some of those who have a "label" issue. If it's been posted before sorry but i think it's worthy of mention again.[/SIZE]

http://www.symposion.com/ijt/benjamin/chap_02.htm

[Jeannie9]

Thank you for such a great link. Please take a look a the Sex orientation scale

http://www.symposion.com/ijt/benjamin/chap_02table.htm

You've found a gem of a site.

Bravo!

[Kate]

That is a very intersting site, although personally I still have strong reservations about the way the Sex Orientation Scale massivly (in my view) oversimplifies transvestism and transsexualism as two ends of the same scale.

Based on my own experiences and others I have spoken to it is far more complex than that. In my own case for example, I was a rather infrequent cross-dresser and in recent years it has dried up more and more. The reason being is that it seems pointless to me; what I intensely desire is to be a fully-fledged woman, and clothes do not maketh the girl. Infact if anything when I do dress and look at myself in a mirror the jarring contrast between my male facial features and the female attire is a painful reminder of my situation.

So, although I would dearly love to be out-and-about in the world dressed and behaving as a woman, I know I would never pass as I am and it therefore seems a fruitless exercise that would only distress those around me. That is despite being (on his scale) in the group 3 transsexuals! Also, I know that there are several others TS folk who are in a similar boat to me. To further confuse the issue, I would say that I started out lower down the scale and have progressivly moved along it in some respects in recent years!

Although having said all that, I have been increasingly feminising my appearence & behavious in recent months (growing hair & nails, loosing weight, speaking more softly, moving differently) - especially now that I have come out to my close family and friends, although I have not been wearing overtly feminine attire (just more androgenous things - jeans and sweaters for example). Perhaps a feminisation of behaviour in that way can be considered a form of transvestism, even though the clothes are not female?

Anyway - my point is that even now it seems the medical professionals are taking far too simplistic a view of people like us. Every transsexual person I meet is subtley different, not just in terms of the intensity of their desire to change sex, but in how that manifests and how they cope with it.

Kate.

[MandyTS]

Wow so true ^^^

As humans there is an inate feeling towards catagorization. I really like the way he puts the scales because he puts no breaking point for TV to TS, only catagories of gender. This means that "TS" is no better or worse than "TV", is "CD", etc.

I hold parts of both catagory 5 and 6 although I fall into 5 more than 6, but not for everything. BTW calegories 5 and 6 are both "true" transexuals, 5 is mile and 6 is severe, so I consider myself a medium, kind of in the middle.

As he said not everyone can go into the mold of catagoization, in my example I feel that because I am myself wearing womens clothing I do not need breasts, a wig, heavy makeup, etc to go out in female attire, I am a girl and it is normal for people who are girls to wear this clothing. Of course society sees a "boy" on the outside and does not see "girl". I that case I am almost literally a 6 because I do on occassion cross the dress boundaries of sex and gender.

According to his desiignation I in regards to sexual orientation I also fall within the 5 and 6 ranks, I am asexual but only like guys, and I have always said I am not gay but heterosexual as a woman. This has manifested itself in numerious ways including only being "arroused in the picture of myself as a woman or in situations of "gay" sex on the recieving end. Even the phycotherapy fits me, the only reason I go is for "Psychological guidance or psychotherapy for symptomatic relief only." Like wise I have tired numerious farms of gender mulitation and suicide.


Most of his information is quite correct and even today jives with what we know about tranvestism. It is kind of funny he made a comment on something like 44 out or 150 MTF transpeople were hydrogonic (i.e. lack or have diminished ability to produce testosterone (bio male) or estrongen (bio female). Basically due to my intersex condition I fall in that category...

Another twist though is that because I am intersexed I don't really fall into TS either... oh well the catagorization continues... why don't they stuff us in a file cabinet and be done//// that is where they seem to want to put us anyway.

[Nyx]

Based on my own experiences and others I have spoken to it is far more complex than that. In my own case for example, I was a rather infrequent cross-dresser and in recent years it has dried up more and more. The reason being is that it seems pointless to me; what I intensely desire is to be a fully-fledged woman, and clothes do not maketh the girl. Infact if anything when I do dress and look at myself in a mirror the jarring contrast between my male facial features and the female attire is a painful reminder of my situation.

I feel precisely the same way.

Although having said all that, I have been increasingly feminising my appearence & behavious in recent months (growing hair & nails, loosing weight, speaking more softly, moving differently) - especially now that I have come out to my close family and friends, although I have not been wearing overtly feminine attire (just more androgenous things - jeans and sweaters for example). Perhaps a feminisation of behaviour in that way can be considered a form of transvestism, even though the clothes are not female?

I have been doing the same thing. But I went a step farther and ordered hormones two days ago. I want to see if they will make me feel more comfortable and help me resolve my emotional distress.

[Kate]

Hi Nyx

I have been on estradiol for nearly 2 weeks now, and I really hope they calm me down a bit soon (starting an anti-androgen soon which should help too). Every day at the moment I seem to be getting worse (better?!) and my desire to transition as fast as I can is turning almost into desperation or a deep, visceral pain. :/

One theory I heard is that as your libido fades away (as mine has) it sort-of gets focused on the transition desire instead which is why hormones can relax things a bit. We shall see I guess!

Kate.

PS. I adore your avatar, Nyx.

[Jonien]

[SIZE=3]Interesting article from Benjamin Harrison and may answer some of those who have a "label" issue. If it's been posted before sorry but i think it's worthy of mention again.[/SIZE]

http://www.symposion.com/ijt/benjamin/chap_02.htm

Thanks Amy
a very intereting article not read it all as yet to much to take in, in one go

[Marlena Dahlstrom]

In fairness to Benjamin, the article is a chapter from his book, which was written in the 1960s, so it inherently doesn't reflect some of the learnings about transgenderism since them.

Transman sociology profession Aaron Devor has done some interesting work on refining a description of the spectrum. His work focuses on FTMs, but it's easy to see how it applies. The writing is a bit academic, so just skip down to Tables 1 & 2 if you want the summary version.

[CaptLex]

In fairness to Benjamin, the article is a chapter from his book, which was written in the 1960s, so it inherently doesn't reflect some of the learnings about transgenderism since them.

Transman sociology profession Aaron Devor has done some interesting work on refining a description of the spectrum. His work focuses on FTMs, but it's easy to see how it applies. The writing is a bit academic, so just skip down to Tables 1 & 2 if you want the summary version.

Interesting article . . . I learned something new. I didn't realize I was so high up on the scale (high female gender dysphoria). I would have thought I was much lower than that. Oh well, good to know - helps the learning and accepting process. Thanks, Darla.