Quote Originally Posted by ikatrina View Post
Wow!! I just spent a great deal of time reading through most of this discussion and I can say that my (apparently incorrect) view of "support" across the community has been crushed. I'm truly surprised (and quit hurt) of the hierachale slant some have been putting on the topic and the ignorance and stereotyping going on. It seems that "transitioning" TS's (because apparently there "must" be a distinction) are completely different species and share absolutely no commonalities to other transgender individuals. :facepalm:
I understand the comments and complaints about things like hierarchical views of the trans spectrum, and I understand how they are read into the responses, here and elsewhere. To be honest, I share some of them. There is no doubt whatsoever, for example, that female gender identity (forget expression for a moment) in "our" population runs from none to 100%. There are implications in that. The internal experience is not the same as a result, and neither is the urgency (typically) of resolution. It's not better or worse. It just is, but you CAN view that as a hierarchy, should you choose to do so and focus exclusively on that. I would submit, however, that for every TS that may look down on someone whose female identity isn't as "complete," there is another person who wishes their own was greater. Wannabe's and elitists picking at one another. So I get that.

There are also varieties of trans identity, however, that are simply different. One may have no real male identity ... but also no female identity either, for example. I.e., the spectrum isn't a spectrum at all, really. It's a matrix. Any individual aspect of an individual's identity, phenotype, genetics, expression and role, etc. may fall anywhere in that matrix. Sometimes individual characteristics MAY be expressed in spectrum terms. Gender identity itself, considered broadly, often does - but not always. Even there, individuals, even cisgender invdividuals, have gender characteristics which are "atypical" (no, I'm not going to define it).

The heart of the heat in THIS dicussion is whether transitioned transsexuals are different (in OP terms - what's the difference between ...) from the rest of the trans population. And that's where I tend to agree with them and say yes. If you read carefully, they are NOT saying they (necessarily) are different in identity, but that the experience is so radically different that it just doesn't compare. Do other trans people experience deeply feeling their identity, have conflict, experience GID, commit suicide, experience depression and marital difficulties, blah, blah, blah. Yes, of course. But they do NOT have to live exposed in the same way, do NOT experience the same social and economic consequences, do NOT have to walk (there's a euphemism) away from friends, family, jobs, church, community, etc. at anything like the same levels of risk. It's not that these things don't happen to some other trans people. It's more that the situation is turned upside down. I.e., if 10% of the non-TS trans population experiences such things, 90% or more of the transition(ing) TS population does. To live transitioned is to live 100% of the time at risk of being a pariah. And THAT is "different" (OP), if not in kind, it is in certainty.

Lea