Are transsexuals broken?

[LeaP]

Kaitlyn, I only partially agree. Controlling the conceptualization is important. I think many of us agree with that - even those who dislike some terms. I don't EVER expect the cisgender population to regard us as normal and never as "merely" different (as some may regarding gays, for example). One can't rationally maintain that one is simply different ... yet needs to change. "OK, you're normal, just different? I see, and if it's so terrific to be what you are, you need to change it ... why???" (Yes, I'm aware that I'm conflating several different arguments here.)

Your major gripe is the irrelevance of the semantics, which is where I depart. It really DOESN'T matter to the trans person, one place we agree ... now. All the analysis mattered a great deal for a long while to me for my own understanding, though! But now as you say, it is what it is. It really, really does to the non-trans population, who needs a framework to understand. Beyond that, the framework translates into social acceptance, legal treatment, medicine and insurance, etc. I say tread carefully with the conceptualization and the semantics, because they have real teeth in the real world. Policy isn't writ on "it is what it is."

[Rianna Humble]

No... , but sometimes we are made to feel that way. Imagine for a moment that everything in the world was perfect...everyone is treated equally and with respect. People are free to be themselves and everyone is accepted. Then, nobody would feel broken, right?

To me, it wouldn't matter how much more accepting society was towards transsexuals, I would still have a birth defect that needs action to be corrected. The sham me was treated with respect, it wasn't enough to make me able to go on living a sham.

If society was organized in a manner that maximized each individuals human potential then I think that transgender folk would be treated quite differently.

What difference would maximising my potential make to the fact that I am not nor ever have been a man - yet my body proclaims otherwise? What "potential" do you expect your perfect society to maximise in me that would change that fact?

[mary something]

Rianna I would argue that if our society was different and maximized human potential it would not be binary. We don't fit the binary as we are born, it is our struggle to find our place in this world that defines us.

If you look at older civilizations you'll see examples of us (by different names of course whether it be hirja, eunuch, Fa'afafine or other) thriving and having a place, a name, a path to follow. These older civilizations did not have the luxury of being able to decide that some people were broken and others weren't. Every person in the village was needed to ensure everyones survival.

We know that gender identity isn't fully formed until we are about the age of 3. Why is that? Our physical gender and genetic gender is complete before birth, so what advantage is there in the fact that gender identity doesn't complete until after we are capable of talking and being social?

The reason why is because we are social animals, we NEED to have social interactions with others of our tribe or family. Inmates locked in solitary confinement for extended periods of time suffer madness from the isolation.

Most importantly by having gender identity complete itself after we are aware of the world around us it allows us to find the role that we fit into best. Unfortunately we live in a society that doesn't recognize us, there is no concept of third gender in the social consciousness. Most importantly the average two or three year old has no concept of it so they either choose M or F, because they have never been exposed to anything other than the binary how could they imagine anything else even existed? When children first start playing with others they find out quick whether they would rather play with the girls or boys, and cement their gender identity.

In our society the only unanimous agreement amongst the general population about what defines a woman is the fact that it is a person without a penis. Woman is a catch-all category and so we feel drawn to that.

To put it another way how many kids dreamed of becoming astronauts or web designers 300 years ago?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fa'afafine

In Samoan society they are not men or women, but Fa'afafine and they are happy with this. They do not wish to become one or the other because when their gender identity was being formed there was a third option that fit them.

[Rianna Humble]

Sorry Mary, none of that answers my question.

Incidentally, how do we know that Gender Identity is not formed before the age of 3 - how many new-borns have been asked their experience of Gender Identity?

Your argument about the Samoans who identify as something between Male and Female is fine for genderqueers and has absolutely nothing to do with the experience of transsexuals.

This thread is not about genderqueers.

[Kathryn Martin]

its hypothetical, its filled with empty semantics that serve no purpose..i'm broken, i'm not broken..tomato/tomatoe who cares.

The semantics are created by the interpretation of the word "broken" and all of it's perceived negative connotations. What stands however is the underlying issue which really is, how can you need healing when you are "healthy". When I am confronted with a statement by a person is not transsexual that "all transsexuals are broken" and I ask myself how do I answer this then looking at my and most transsexuals' common history, then I find that the need to heal or correct or fix themselves is the most pressing no matter what age fear is conquered.

So, do I answer then: I am not broken, but a normal variation of biological human variation nothing to worry about?

Or do I answer: You are right in one way I am broken and it can be healed, corrected, fixed?

Which of those two answers do you believe will elicit a response that is in fact an appropriate response to our need. You see I am not part of a minority, I couldn't give a flying hoot what society thinks of me for being so afflicted. I should have had a uterus, ovaries and a vagina. I don't care who screwed that up, society, God, my parents, my mothers hormone washes during gestation, that's all for philosophy courses and, alas, semantics. What I want to know is, what on earth can I do about it. How can my body be corrected that I can live a normal life, and be the woman I was born to be. By denying my pathology (and it is a pathology if you are born with missing reproductive organs) I have nothing left to fix but rail against society that they don't embrace me for being whatever outside of the norm.

I am currently working with three young MtF transsexuals aged 20, 22 and 26 professionally. They do not have any acceptance problems because the younger generation growing up has none of those issues. Two of them live in deeply conservative rural communities like I do too. But all three need only one thing: to correct their physical disability. People understand that, they realize that something is seriously "broken", afflicted, disabled and it's not these girls and this boys head but their bodies. One of them is an amazing mother, one is a spectacular make up artist and so gorgeous it brings tears to your eyes and the young man is such a man it makes you want to fan yourself. If you were to tell them that they are not disabled, "broken" or afflicted by this curse they would think you are nuts. They have no interest in being activists, or obtain rights which they already have, they want to get fixed, they want to be mothers, models, providers, with a wife and husbands, with a house (I think white picket fences are of no interest to them) and good job and a great family. What stands in the way for them is that their disabled, broken afflicted body stands in the way. It is not semantics it's the practical, required, necessary pre-condition to what they need.

They are transsexuals and one day they will be a man or women with a transsexual history.

[Angela Campbell]

In a lot of ways I have to agree with Anne. I cannot say I am not complete and all I need to do is complete something...and I agree also that "broken" infers that it worked at one point. It has never been that way for me, it has been all wrong since my earliest memories.

For me it is birth defect, nothing else really describes it for me. Even the best treatment available is no more than a band aid or illusion, it may never really be right.

[DaniG]

Sorry Mary, none of that answers my question.

I think that to refine the disconnect between Rianna's question and Mary's response, many of us are seeing the crux of the problem as a social one, how we interact with society. But for others (Rianna and I included), the more important aspect is completely internal, the discontinuity between body and mind. Society is completely irrelevant to this problem. I hope that helps clarify it a bit.

[celeste26]

Consider this point of view. Transexualism or GID or whatever you want to call it is the only medical condition that has no objective symptoms, no way of proving outside of what the individual says about themselves. There is no objective test that can be taken, no serious non-biased way to ever be sure for society, for doctors or even ourselves. Just feelings that our bodies are not the way they should be, and based upon those feelings a surgery that has been controversial since it was first performed.

Yet still we argue about whether we are "broken," there is no surgery for feelings is there?

[Kathryn Martin]

That may be true for GID or GD which I postulated in my OP is not part of a transsexual diagnosis. Not so true for transsexualism. There are objective symptoms that are measurable and can be used for diagnoses.

I presume you are non-op?

[mary something]

Incidentally, how do we know that Gender Identity is not formed before the age of 3 - how many new-borns have been asked their experience of Gender Identity?

"Basic gender identity is usually formed by age three and is extremely difficult to change after that" this is a quote from the wikipedia page here, there are three citations to support this claim that can be found there http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_identity

DaniG I was referencing how we interact with society but more importantly I was making the point that the society we grow up in has a lot to do with how we perceive ourselves, in no way does that diminish the authenticity of a transsexual in this society. It is just as authentic and true for me to know that I am a person with a woman's brain that unfortunately developed testes in utero as it would be for a Samoan that is my identical twin to identify as Fa'afafine and neither man nor woman.

Like it or not we are shaped by our environment just as much as a coffee bean is shaped by the soil it is grown in. Two genetically identical coffee trees that are grown in different parts of the world will produce beans that are noticeably different tasting. Making the argument that society has no influence on our inner feelings is ignoring the fact that we are social beings and are shaped by our experiences.

The point that I'm making with this argument is that I KNOW I am NOT BROKEN. My path to fulfillment may be different depending on where and when I live my life, my feelings and needs may be different depending on the society that shapes me in ways that are impossible for me to separate from myself. It is nothing more than a shell game, a fraud if you will, for a society that deals with gender variance to simultaneously exclude me from the binary while teaching me that only the binary exists. It is for this reason that I will never identify as broken or be particularly worried that I am, even as a postop woman with a transsexual history one day.

[Kathryn Martin]

Gender specific behaviors are learned during early child development and transgressions are tools to enable the learning process. It is strongly influenced by the culture in which a child is raised.

This aspect makes the "I have always know" narrative so prevalent in transgender circles that they always knew, simply a re-interpretation of normal child behavior by emphasizing as not normal what is in fact normal. This claim that a child’s very early behavior indicates a gender inversion and therefore is innate is not something that you will find with those that I would call true transsexuals.

[mary something]

Kathryn, I'm not sure if I understand what you mean when discussing early childhood behavior and true transsexuals, can you go in a little more detail for me please?

[Deborah_UK]

"Basic gender identity is usually formed by age three and is extremely difficult to change after that" this is a quote from the wikipedia page here, there are three citations to support this claim that can be found there http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_identity

I'm sorry but I take anything quoted from Wikipedia with a TON of salt - I could go in there and change it - that's the flaw in Wikipedia (imo)

[mary something]

as well you should Deborah, but that is why I referenced the 3 citations of support to this claim, those web links you could not change unless you have some serious hacker skills

[elizabethamy]

Some very wise people have been telling me that we (science) just don't know for sure when or if gender is ever a "fixed" concept. It might be fluid. Twenty years from now, we might know so much that all the angst that makes crossdressers.com the place to be and therapists always busy will be fixed with a little pill.

Or not! I'm convinced that we know much less than we think we do. Therefore, each of us has a challenge to figure out: who am I, what do I do with the life I have left, whether it's five years, thirty years, or eighty years?

The concept of "broken" really bothers me. I am suffering but I am not broken. Broken is for people who have given up on themselves.

e.a.

[Debglam]

Well said!

Physical (my personal belief), mental, or a combination of both is NOTHING BUT SPECULATION(!!!!) at this point. IMHO, very few things in this world are black or white, yes or no.

We are all just playing the hands we were dealt in the way that we individually need to!

Deb

[EmilyPith]

I am not broken, I just have not finished completing myself, something nature started but stopped short on.

I would like to elaborate on Barbara Ella (pshyadella) with my own prattle if I may:

I am the soul in this container. I will make of it what I please. Until we stop on this earth, we are unfinished, germinating, metamorphosing, evolving. Our minds will grow and change as long as we continue to search and learn.

Broken, no. Alive, kicking, screaming and cranky, absolutely.

I am not a woman, I will never be a woman, and I can only really think that I am thinking like a woman because... well, I am not a woman and I am guessing that this is how a woman would think... I may as well want to become a duck. Aint gonna happen.

The desire or longing is nothing new(not the duck part), I think it comes closer to broken when it reaches the obsessive stage. That can happen about a lot of things, though.

What I am is a man with a not so unique (despite what society tells us) perspective on the world.

Don't get me wrong, I still want to know why, but I would rather be this, with the ability to search, think, learn, grow, and love than some of the true psychoses and deformations that exist.

Quack.

[LeaP]

@Emily - And the relevance of this to a MtF transsexual - a woman is ... what? Your reason for posting about yourself (as a non-transsexual by your own words) in a thread about transsexuals, is ... what?

[TeresaL]

I'd like to have my diabetes and cataracts fixed because they are part of my broken body. So I'm taking pills for my diabetes, and will soon have "the" surgery for my cataracts. We do the same for gender birth defects -- pills and surgery.

[Badtranny]

Broken is for people who have given up on themselves..

Careful. I've stated my feeling on this, and I would challenge anyone to debate me on the concept of "giving up on myself". I've clearly done nothing of the sort. My journey has been documented and verified by many on this board.

So I feel like I was born broken, ...I would say I've managed it pretty well.

[ReineD]

You see I actually believe that being transsexual means that you are "broken".

Yes, if you compare it to any other, fixable medical condition. A broken arm or leg needs mending to knit the bones again. A congenital heart defect needs surgery so it can be strong and healthy. Transsexuals have broken primary and secondary physical characteristics that need mending so they can match the binary, either male (FtM) or female internal gender (MtF).

Gender Variance is a culture spawned psychiatric condition that is rooted in non-conformance to cultural norms surrounding gender and it's societal rejection.

Culture spawned psychiatric condition perhaps, but not internal psychiatic condition. It is not a psychiatric condition for my SO, who truly is not purely one gender or the other internally, although it is difficult to live that way in a world that gets most of its information from visible cues ... which have historically been either "male" or "female". Few people are prepared to accept the concept of hermaphrodites, who until recently were circus side shows. My SO has his/her (hir?) own gender, but to physically transition to a hermaphrodite and live publicly this way would be difficult indeed.

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.

Agreed. We cannot compare individuals who reside at the binary end of the spectrum whether they are cis or ts, to the gender variants who live in the middle.

The difficulty is in getting everyone to believe in the validity of non-binary gender (bigender or dualgender) and not look at feminine males as "less than" anything, or God forbid, gay!

Since we do obtain our info from what we see around us and not what resides inside everyone, many MtFs who truly are in the middle (as opposed to males who crossdress) know they are not male, yet to tell them they are not female in comparison to their non-maleness is not acceptable to them. They simply do not have the language nor have they seen evidence to understand or believe in non-binary gender, just like Doubting Thomas who had to see in order to believe. And then we have the individuals who are so thoroughly frustrated over not being able to express their non-binary selves by alternating male and female gender expression freely, that the temptation to reject the male self rises to the forefront especially if they're at the stage when their self-expression is somewhat euphoric. Try to tell such people they are not female.

I'm over simplifying, but hopefully you get my point.

[Kathryn Martin]

Reine, I am so glad you understood the "broken" reference. If you strip all of the emotional undertones that this word evokes in people it is an apt description of our bodies.

What I intended with "culture spawned" was how the condition and it's distress comes from the perception of non conformance by society. If it was generally accepted or even cherished that anyone could express themselves freely without having their social status challenged there might not be any distress. The distress if it is there can be catastrophically intense, hence GID or GD and is a serious problem for the individual. Your observation about the frustration driving rejection of male self is incredibly astute. In recognizing that the driver is intensity of frustration and distress over the non-acceptance by the acculturated social environment of one of the expressions it becomes clear that regrets are essentially programmed in to a transition if it were to happen. It would remove the flexibility of expression but the other way round.

It is interesting that prevalence for gender variance and transsexualism are quite different. Based on my view of transsexualism (need to surgically correct your body to reflect your gender) this is a very rare condition. I happened to come across some actual statistics of surgeries performed for one of the Canadian Provinces yesterday, that suggest that prevalence is 1: 32129.

In my view gender variance has a much higher incidence, as much as 1:500. If you consider jeans and a button down shirt worn by women a variance on the culturally determined female paradigm in it mildest form then from a social acceptance perspective the lines between "normal" and "not normal" become so blurred that it reveals, in my view, the insanity of the cultural norms society imposes on its members. Of course jeans and button down shirts have long since become "acceptable". Take for instance a man wearing tight fitting jeans and a sweater. If the colors of the sweater are muted, darker it's ok, if they are bright, maybe rose colored or violet you are suddenly suspicious, add a little swish in the hip and you're variously a sissy or gay. It is truly insane. Now have a man wear a skirt that is not "sc-o-httish" and you have all hell breaking loose.

[ReineD]

I agree with your numbers Kathryn. I do believe there are very few Level V or VI transsexuals. And I've seen with my own eyes instances where there are regrets when someone who is gender variant chooses to transition. The smiles are wide indeed just after SRS, but over time the smiles fade when she realizes that she is no happier as a binary female than she was when living purely male under severe constraints. And you're right … it's a f***ing mess brought on by a society that has overly rigid views of gender expression, again based on visible evidence rather than what truly resides in the cores of a minority, but still significant segment of the population in terms of sheer numbers. The ratio 1:500 translates to 14 million people worldwide who are non-binary gender variant, and if we are to be more generous and include males who crossdress regularly who are perhaps on their way to realizing their gender-variance and alter this ratio to 1:250 or even 1:100, this number translates to 28 million or 70 million people worldwide respectively.

So first, I want to define something. Binary maleness is a range, just as is binary femaleness, just as there is a range for everything else for example normal weight and normal IQ. It is false to define a binary, average male who is solid in his maleness as strictly macho and the binary average female who is solid in her femaleness as strictly girly, just as it is wrong to say that the range for normal weight for a given height or normal IQ is only one number. We all need to look at our neighbors and family members to ascertain the truth of this. Speaking of the cisgender population, not all hetero men are ultra macho, not all gay men are effeminate, not all hetero women are super girly, and not all lesbians are butch. In short, there is a wide range of both masculine and feminine personalities, all of whom are solid in their respictive gender identities that match their genetics (and that don't match their genetics for transsexuals).

I define this for the benefit of the perhaps newer readers here who are unclear as to what "binary" means, and this means someone who does idendity purely male or purely female, within a socially defined and acceptable, rather wide range of behaviors and preferences, whether they are cis, or getting back to your title, whether they were born with broken primary and secondary sexual characteristics.

So having defined this, there are still people whose gender identities fall outside of the male/female binaries described above, and these crossdressers/bigenders/dualgenders/gender-variants/gender-fluids/gender-nonconformists/transgenderists/etc who engage in cross-gender expression for more than fetish or just fun, would love nothing more than to live in a world where they would be allowed full freedom to express themselves, full freedom to publicly celebrate their natural sexual attractions whether androphile, gynephile, or both, if such a world were to recognize the validity of non-binary gender identity and variance in sexual attraction. Can you imagine such a world? Boys would be allowed to wear pink, have long hair, wear makeup, have electrolysis, and be pretty, and still marry girls if hetero and boys if gay, and climb up the career ladder, if society considered such boys just as attractive and desirable as the non-gender-variant boys. Actually, the gender variant genetic women already have more such freedom (although it is still challenging to be a gender-variant FtM in many circles), and this might explain the fewer numbers of FtMs who seek full transition or as full as is medically possible for FtMs. At any rate, we would have very few members of the gender-variant community feeling torn because they felt they had to pick a side and opting to forsake their birth sex entirely, down to penis removal for MtFs. And in my opinion, there would be lots more happy campers.

So in a nutshell, I agree with you.

[kellycan27]

Information overload! IMHO this thread has turned into an exercise in intellect. I just don't see how all this information and complex explanations are going to helpful to people who are really struggling ( for the most part) with the very basics of being transsexual to begin with. They would be great if one were writing a thesis or term paper, but honestly how are they helpful in the everyday life of the transsexual? When you're up to your ass in alligators it's hard to remember that your intention was to drain the swamp. Meaning: when someone is struggling with transition the who's, what's and whys become pretty irrelevant. It would be like my doctor telling me that I have cancer and then going into a detailed explanation of the disease itself. All I am going to hear is that I have it. ... Just saying.

[LeaP]

Kelly - yes, but I believe this thread largely fulfills the intentions of the OP. There's room for both types of discussion.