Yesterday, somewhere else a question arose whether transsexuals are "broken".
There were very strong opinions expressed that transsexuals are not broken but rather form a part of some spectrum or continuum ranging from one gender to the other and are therefore simply a variance within biological expression.
People felt very strongly that they were not "broken" and that using such a term contributed to the marginalization and dehumanization of transsexuals. Others equated "broken" with "wrong". This gave me pause to consider this in context. You see I actually believe that being transsexual means that you are "broken". I mean this in the following sense. This does not apply to gender variant persons.
Transsexualism is the presence of primary and secondary sex markers that do not match the self experienced body image (see V S Ramachandran 2007 Occurrence of phantom genitalia after gender
reassignment surgery). We don't suffer from GID or more recently re-termed GD but in some cases from situational depression associated with this disparity. That is why surgery and hormones "fixes" the condition. Our condition is outside any spectrum or continuum of gender variance, because transsexuals do not have a variance in their gender which for them is essentially defined by the gender binary (with each pole of the binary encompassing a varied expression that is still considered within norms.) In this sense transsexuals are "broken" or suffer from a medical condition which has a medical resolution to it.
Gender Variance is a culture spawned psychiatric condition that is rooted in non-conformance to cultural norms surrounding gender and it's societal rejection.
Cultural acceptance of gender non-conforming behavior does nothing for transsexuals in terms of their underlying condition.
Maybe we can discuss this with resorting to thread closure.
