Transgender question

[AwesomeHatMan]

Well, for all outward appearances, how is it different? I mean, I'm actually asking. I'm not talking about that condition that you can have your chromosomes backwards, but what is the actual difference between one person believing they are a woman trapped in a man's body, and another person believing they are a wolf trapped in a man's body?

how is being gay any different from people who want to have sex with dogs?

Consent ...

Was just about to post this FirstNameLastName... you think that wouldn't be that hard to come up with...

 

[The Lunatic]

Going back to Silentpony's suggestion on the first page, is therapy a better solution instead of surgery? No one seems willing to ask that in case it's offensive.

I've always considered this a difficult point.

On one hand. If we believe that gender is a cultural thing, and has no biological basis. Then what does it matter if your appearance is male or female? Aren't you just catering to cultural standards in the desire for it to be so, when your identity itself is against those standards?

On the other, it's most likely something that can't be controlled, and regardless of rationalising it, it's still a desire.




There's also the issues in the transcommunity itself, a lot of communities I've seen focus on the surgeries as an integral part of "Becoming a man/woman", which seems a bit harmful to the mental state of those in those communities.

On top of that, there's the argument if the surgery will even be effective, whilst it certainly helps some people, a large number of people who identify as transgender still comitt suicide after having the surgeries.

 

[Kathinka]

Going back to Silentpony's suggestion on the first page, is therapy a better solution instead of surgery? No one seems willing to ask that in case it's offensive.

I've always considered this a difficult point.

On one hand. If we believe that gender is a cultural thing, and has no biological basis. Then what does it matter if your appearance is male or female? Aren't you just catering to cultural standards in the desire for it to be so, when your identity itself is against those standards?

On the other, it's most likely something that can't be controlled, and regardless of rationalising it, it's still a desire.




There's also the issues in the transcommunity itself, a lot of communities I've seen focus on the surgeries as an integral part of "Becoming a man/woman", which seems a bit harmful to the mental state of those in those communities.

On top of that, there's the argument if the surgery will even be effective, whilst it certainly helps some people, a large number of people who identify as transgender still comitt suicide after having the surgeries.

Those are good points. The main issue is that only therapy has proven to be not satisfyingly effective to help. It has been tried, but it doesn't work as well as we want with our current methods. Believe me, if there was a pill or a therapy tool to make Transgendered people feel comfortable in the bodies they have, modern medicine would love nothing more. It would fix all the issues of the half-assed solution that is currently our best option to help. See my boding long-post above for more info.

 

[IMissedThatOne]

Sorry I tried to answer but the escapist somehow ate my post. I'll keep the post a lot shorter than the last one I typed. I think for most people there seems to be are more plausible (biological) explanation for transgender identities. We know of intersex conditions. We know that people sometimes develop atypically. That fetuses in the womb are exposed to both male and female hormones that atleast somewhat condition them. There has also been a lot of research in the field of Gender Identity and it's development. There is however almost no research in how a person can adopt an nonhuman identity. Nor are there any states in which a person as some kind of interspecies condition.
Here is a compressed version of the scientific history of GID: http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/biblio/articles/2005to2009/2006-atypical-gender-development.html


And some neurobiological insight into Gender Identity: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0070808#pone.0070808-Luders1

I hope that helps.

Thanks for that, but I'm not including those cases as part of my conversation. While they do exist, the conditions are extremely rare, and can't account for more than a few percent of the trans community. Maybe my assumption is way off and let's say 80% of the trans community provably are genetically atypical, what about that other 20%? I'm talking about those people. The existence of otherkin has proven that people can feel very strongly about their identity without it making a lick of sense to a 3rd party. Is that "20%" the same as otherkin, just with far less extreme views of their identity? Going back to Silentpony's suggestion on the first page, is therapy a better solution instead of surgery? No one seems willing to ask that in case it's offensive.

The problem with behavior therapy is that it didn't work. They tried changing gender identity to match the persons sex with various sometimes cruel treatment: https://books.google.de/books?id=IlPX6E5glDEC&pg=PA18&lpg=PA18&dq=electroshock+therapy+transgender&source=bl&ots=5hQ2O9PNEU&sig=7sP-RJl0kU9FkDvQIyMTQWoxAJA&hl=de&sa=X&ei=l_n6VJbsCsndPbSxgJAG&ved=0CHIQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=electroshock%20therapy%20transgender&f=false

If you research a bit the reason while surgery is an option is because it has been the best solution for transgender people that there is to life a comfortable life, atleast for those who wish so.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1158136006000491
http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S1677-55382012000100014&script=sci_arttext
http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4614-7441-8_13
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jsm.12413/abstract;jsessionid=AE3BCEC2817C62114C82CE53B328C268.f04t03?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false

 

[Loonyyy]

cisgendered

seen this phrase a few time lately im just curious what it refers to?

It means your gender aligns with your assigned gender, whilst trans means it doesn't.

Shares etymology with the pronouns trans and cis (For instance, trans and cis are used to describe the orientation of bonds in chemistry, resulting in terms like "transfat", where the bond is in the trans configuration, as opposed to the cis configuration.

 

[Beliyal]

What I find interesting is that we only ever pose this question to trans people.

Cisgendered people likely never ponder these things - they don't have to.

Yeah. In one of the conversations about this topic with my friends, this question was actually brought up (we're all cis). Suddenly, in that moment, no one knew what to say. Why do I identify as a woman exactly? Why do they identify as men? We don't know. I find it unfair that we ask trans people this, when it's so difficult to explain and vocalize. They identify as a gender they I identify with for the same reasons cis people do and no one can truly explain why they feel this way. Why? Perhaps one day we'll know for sure, after thorough studies and more insight.

It appears, gender is really in our heads

This much seems certain.

But what exactly is gender?

What does it mean to be of female gender? I think we can agree it's not wearing dresses or playing with dolls. It's not having a uterus or being into men.

So what is it?

I don't know this either. There are some good posts in this thread itself, but I'm not familiar with the answer to that question. It could be just a subjective sense that no one but you can determine for yourself, but I do believe that there must be some scientific way to define and explain this sense of gender identity. However, I'm neither qualified nor educated enough in this area to say anything further.

 

[shrekfan246]

is therapy a better solution instead of surgery? No one seems willing to ask that in case it's offensive.

The thing is, therapy is generally part of the whole package for trans people in the first place. It's not the solution, it's just part of it. By most accounts I've seen up to the present, there's a marked psychological difference between being trans and thinking you're a wolf. If your next question is, "how?" then I unfortunately don't know enough about the specifics to adequately explain it.

EDIT: But for a start, I would imagine that someone who feels that they're a wolf likely doesn't have brain patterns that are similar to those of a wolf's.

 

[Nieroshai]

I would say, as clearly as I can, that I am choosing to change my sex because it does not match how my brain works. It is not simply that I wish I was female; it is that for my entire life a penis has forced me into pretending to be something that ill-suits me. It's a matter of how the brain works, and how things work during fetal development.

 

[TakerFoxx]

I'm not talking about what they are sexually attracted to. I'm asking about their sense of self identification. Yes, that identification can change what they are attracted to, but that's not part of the question, or really this discussion.

no its not about sexual attraction

its the point that more often then not I see people point to otherkin as a way to invalidate trans people, much like people might point to something like incest and ask what the difference is between gay people

Well, that still doesn't explain why otherkin are unequal to transgenders. Either there is a good reason why being transgendered is better than being otherkin, or both are equal and that validates both or invalidates both. Which is it?

As I understand it, the brains of those with gender dysphoria and have been found to be hormonally in line with the gender they identify as rather than the gender they appear to be physically. There are also a number of other hormonal imbalances that can cause it. For example, one of my roommates does not properly produce a certain female hormone while producing an overabundance of a certain male hormone, which has led to her having gender issues. Not to the point of identifying as male, but it has caused her problems and doubt and she now takes supplements to compensate (and boy howdy, is she fun to be around when that happens!).

Note that this isn't universal, as there are other causes. My other roommate also has gender issues, though his is related to childhood trauma rather than hormonal imbalances. But to answer your question (and someone can correct me if I'm off-base in this, as this is just going from the top of my head), there is actual biological evidence to explain why many people struggle with gender identity, whereas none yet exists for otherkin.

 

[Jux]

I think you'll find these resources helpful in your search of knowledge and understanding.

http://tranifesto.com/transgender-faqs-and-info/ten-things-not-to-say-to-a-trans-person/
http://tranifesto.com/transgender-faqs-and-info/trans-etiquette-for-non-trans-people/
http://www.glaad.org/transgender/allies

All that tells me is transgendered people are too afraid to answer questions from people who are legitimately interested. I'll never understand why someone feels you're not supposed to ask a certain type of question because if someone is trying better inform themselves of something they don't understand, that mentality should not be met with judgement nor should they be chastised for asking questions. It isn't every day you see someone who used to be a man or woman but are now the opposite sex.

Perhaps, if one is truly interested in understanding the issues trans people face, they might first try to be empathetic to what they go through. I'm not saying that the OP lacks empathy, but rather the curiosity to have a question answered should take a backseat to first understanding what trans people go through. And there are plenty of resources out there on trans issues that answer most of the basic questions you're going to see. I would suggest that by first going to look at those resources, one demonstrates actual desire to learn. I can't imagine how often these very basic questions and misguided ideas get fielded at Mars on a day to day basis, but I imagine that it does get tiring very quickly having to correct people time and time again over the very same things.

 

[AwesomeHatMan]

I would say, as clearly as I can, that I am choosing to change my sex because it does not match how my brain works. It is not simply that I wish I was female; it is that for my entire life a penis has forced me into pretending to be something that ill-suits me. It's a matter of how the brain works, and how things work during fetal development.

The problem many people have with this is how is one ill-suited? What's so different between being a guy or girl? Or to put it another way why does one care which sex they are.

(Edited for grammar)

 

[AwesomeHatMan]

The problem with behavior therapy is that it didn't work.

Will that be true for all therapy methods ever or is it just true for all recorded ones so far? Does therapy have to be painful? Do parenting conditions affect whether the child will have dysphoria? Can a short amount of time in therapy later in life be expected to have greater effect parenting conditions earlier in life? Can therapy be a change in parenting conditions?

I am sorry if those questions come across as cold, the word therapy especially has certain connatations, but if you are going to discuss whether or not therapy, again I dislike using the word here, is viable then these questions should be considered.

 

[DocJ]

I don't identify myself as one, but sometimes I think I should be. Anyone who has met me knows I have a few feminine tendencies...Okay a lot of feminine tendencies. But I am definitely male. I mean, fairly sure. Kinda hard to mistake it. I'm often asked questions like, "Would you swap if you could?" My answer was maybe. I said yes to the question, "Would you mind spending a week or so as a girl?"
It's just, I dunno. I don't feel like most other men, I've never had a surplus of male friends. I usually hang out with members of the opposite sex just simply because...I feel more comfortable around them. I feel if I could change temporarily, and had some experience, then I could make a permanent choice. But I'm perfectly happy how I am now.

 

[IMissedThatOne]

The problem with behavior therapy is that it didn't work.

Will that be true for all therapy methods ever or is it just true for all recorded ones so far? Does therapy have to be painful? Do parenting conditions affect whether the child will have dysphoria? Can a short amount of time in therapy later in life be expected to have greater effect parenting conditions earlier in life? Can therapy be a change in parenting conditions?

I am sorry if those questions come across as cold, the word therapy especially has certain connatations, but if you are going to discuss whether or not therapy, again I dislike using the word here, is viable then these questions should be considered.

Oh I don't mind these questions but I say this. I'm by no means an expert or have any medical degree. So I'll quote what I found during my quick internet research.

As for therapy. Well as I already mentioned above very severe treaments like electroconvulsive therapy didn't help but also psychotherapy in generally seems ineffective:

Quoting from: Handbook of Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders
von David L. Rowland,Luca Incrocci

"Accepting Natal Sex: In the past, most clinicians regarded acceptance of natal gender as the preferred outcome in gender identity disorders and often recommended psychodynmaic psychotherapy as the treatment most likely to achieve this outcome. However rigurous studies demonstrating that psychotherapy can reduce gender dyshphoria are lacking.

Qouting from: The Gender of Psychology

"Various theories of causation were offered, but as psychotherapy and other treaments proved ineffective, doctors who who were sympathetic to thetranssexual plight were prepared to grant gender reassigment in the most extreme cases"

As to if parents can influence gender identity disorders, there is as far as I
know no evidence that parents have any direct influence on their gender identitiy.It is however a very complex thematic and for some indivduals their realtionship to their parents greatly might influences them and it might even play a role into their gender expression or identity. But again I'm no expert on child psychology and development.

 

[FirstNameLastName]

Because "Man" is an identity. "Male" is the physical having of the penis and such. The best analogy i can think of is think of all those old coming of age movies. The point where the MC is a "Man" doesn't mean when he suddenly grew testicles, it's something beyond the physical, it's something on the emotional/psychological spectrum;Likewise, you see examples of "man" being used in similar context everywhere. The phrase "be a man" doesn't refer to someone acquiring an XY chromosome configuration, it refers to a cultural expectation. Do you see the distinction?

Turns of phrase and idioms like "becoming a man" or "man up" are a rather poor type of proof. People also say things like "making an honest woman out of her" to refer to marrying someone, that doesn't mean that womanhood or honesty is in any way linked to marriage.

I'm not saying you're wrong for arguing that male is not dependant upon sex, just that using the literal interpretation of idioms is a rather poor way to bring that across.

 

[FirstNameLastName]

As for the otherkin debate, otherkin is more of a pseudo-spiritual type of wish fulfilment, being metaphysical rather than an element of psychology. They generally believe themselves to have a non-human soul, or some other spiritual connection a particular animal, or in the worst cases, videogame/movie/literary character.

 

[Nieroshai]

I would say, as clearly as I can, that I am choosing to change my sex because it does not match how my brain works. It is not simply that I wish I was female; it is that for my entire life a penis has forced me into pretending to be something that ill-suits me. It's a matter of how the brain works, and how things work during fetal development.

The problem many people have with this is how is one ill-suited? What's so different between being a guy or girl? Or to put it another way why does one care which sex they are.

(Edited for grammar)

But if you take some time to observe, you will find that most people do let their sex rule their thoughts and actions. Women who don't act feminine are called "tomboys" at best and treated like lesbians when they're not at worst. And if you're not manly, you MUST be gay. Whether it's a social structure or mere sexual dimorphism is up for debate since every culture we know of except possibly some remote tribal cultures separates roles along lines of sex. This may lead you to ask "Fair enough, but wouldn't that only matter if you had the body of a woman?" Unfortunately no, that's why this problem even exists: sexual identity is a brain issue. During development, the genitals form after the brain. No one fully understands why or how, but the brain can in rare cases match in chemistry the "wrong" set of genitals since those don't form until later. Another factor for transwomen is that every embryo starts out at least passably female and the process of development compounds upon this to modify it into a male fetus. As for how one "knows" that one is transgender, unfortunately there is no safe or humane test for this other than the perception of the individual. This makes it sound extremely subjective, yes, but as I said for the most part even gay humans are absolutely embroiled in their own identities as their physical sex. So when from childhood one is perplexed that their bodies seem alien and that they're forced to act as something that feels completely antithetical to what they are, no it isn't normal, because literally everyone else does not feel this way. It's something you feel even before puberty, which then raises its own issues. I'm going to "spoiler" a TMI section here for those who don't want to be bothered.

Spoiler

When you have to do mental gymnastics and have to visualize yourself having female organs to feel sexual pleasure and climax with your heteronormative female partner, I think that's pretty telling, don't you? I cannot speak for other trans because I don't have the data, but I do not feel arousal or stimulation the way a male typically does.

All this being said, actual study of transgenderism has been slow and hobbled by cultural and religious biases getting in the way of legitimate research. When I was still religious, I was shamed into hiding my feelings and opinions, and indoctrinated into believing trans people were just sick freaks with a fetish and, therefore, so was I. But discarding that shell and being free of a girlfriend who (aside from the "allowing premarital sex" thing) was insanely fundamentalist has allowed me to stop denying my nature.

A quick note on transsexuality. Transsexuality is a transgendered person acting as and medically attempting to match his/her body to his/her mind. A person dressing and acting as the opposite sex is not transsexual, he/she is a transvestite. Becoming transsexual involves hormonal treatment to alter the body's secondary sexual characteristics (effectively a "second puberty" as the opposite sex) and surgery to alter the genitals. This surgery renders one incapable of reproducing, but it does produce functional sexual organs that, while not perfectly matching, allows that person to copulate as that sex. With female-to-male surgery this process is not perfected, but with male-to-female surgery this results in a functional vagina and labia.

I'm doing my best to describe a science I don't have a degree in, so my apologies if I'm only confusing you more. If you're not convinced, I don't blame you.

 

[CrystalShadow]

(Snip)

(Snip)

I never understood why the definition of sex is considered to be so important by some people on these types of threads... Isn't it a bit off-topic?

Regardless, if you two do insist, to my knowledge sex in humans is usually considered as being meant to be defined in one of these two ways. (Maybe I will be more qualified to say in a years time after taking medical and developmental genetics papers, but until then this is my best effort.)

A.) Does the person have a Y-chromosome? If yes male, if no female. (Note: This can cause funky things if SRY gene is inserted/deleted/translocated or abnormal or if say the Anti-Mullerian hormone gene or some other genes are abnormal)

B.) Does the person have a functional copy of the SRY gene that was expressed during development? If yes male, if no female. (Note: Once again, this can cause funky things if SRY gene is inserted/deleted/translocated or abnormal or if say the Anti-Mullerian hormone gene or some other genes are abnormal)

Which of these two definitions is better or more correct I don't know, I think either are fine reasonable as long as you explain which one you choose to work with...

"But what about people who have Klinefelter syndrome what are they?" is no doubt what someone would then go onto say... well then scientifically their biological sex is male and they have Klinefelter syndrome. "Does that mean the should be allowed to enter the female Olympics events/toilets/scholarships/etc.?" Well, I guess you would have to ask the person making the rules for the Olympics events/toilets/scholarships/etc. The scientific community doesn't make the rules for Olympic events the IOC does.

I am also uncomfortable with people using the term sex to refer solely to genitalia, but unless either of you intend to explain how this topic relates to what this thread is meant to be about (which I believe is: non-dysphoric people trying to have a open discussion with dysporic people in order to gain insight), I believe this discussion should be kept out of this thread.

Best Wishes

I don't think those definitions are correct. They focus on something rather tangential to practical reality.

And it should be obvious from edge cases, AND history.

Take someone with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome. These are women for all practical and legal purposes, and prior to the advent of genetic testing nobody would've even thought to say otherwise.
Yet genetically, they have an XY chromosome, and suddenly that makes them male? Even though everything about how they behave, how they were raised, what their body is like, and even their legal status says othrrwise, this is all rendered void by some invisible trait most people never even have checked even once in their lives?
I'm sorry, but that's reductionism bordering on the absurd...

And I really can't understand how people find that kind of completely abstract ethereal kind of reasoning so appealing they try and use it to override everything else, even to the point where doing so becomes obvoiobvoobviously nonsensical.

As to why this matters, well, it's very much at the heart of the subject, since how you define it, and how rigidly those definitions are enforced has a huge number of follow-on consequences.

People's reactions to transgender people are informed by how they percieve gender. And while technically a seperate thing, to many, gender and sex are so synonimous they might as well be the same thing.

Besides which Biology teaches us many things that are highly complex and ambiguous, but then get used as though they are simple and straightforward.

The absurd gets passed off as rational, because superficially, some science says so. (yet what the science really says often isn't the same as what it's claimed to say when it's simplified and some elements are leapt upon by the public)


As for this thread, the question in the OP, and the like, that question is so poorly worded, and so clueless and misguided it's barely worth talking about except to point out how messed up it is.

Nobody chooses to be transgender, just like nobody chooses to be cisgender. ( that's a nice inflammatory word there. But since the alternatives are so problematic and awkward, it will have to do)

Just like nobody chooses to be gay, or straight, or bisexual.

Or black, or asian.

Might as well ask 'why did you choose to be human?' It is a nonsensical thing to ask, because it supposes something which isn't a choice is.

Cats don't choose to be cats, dogs don't choose to be dogs.
Humans don't choose to be human. They just are.


When it comes to being transgender, you don't get to choose. You are, or you aren't. That's it. People looking on from outside may have been confused and led to think it's a choice, but that is really just a convenient way to try and ignore the issue.

At most, you can choose how you deal with being transgender, and how you express it.
But that is not choosing to be transgender, it is merely choosing to openluopenly express your internal feelings. (or alternately, repress them, if you feel you have to).

it's simply an absurd question which cannot be meaningfully answered, because it makes no sense, and simply shows someone having completely misunderstood what is going on.

I am well beyond caring enough to be reasonable about this anymore though. The time where I actually cared about such things beyond an overwhelming sense if frustration and irritation are long gone.

By all means discuss it as much as you like, with any absurd question or perspective, just don't expect me to respond reasonably to stupidity and ignorance. That is if I can even be bothered to respond at all.
Probably best for everyone if I just stopped paying any attention to it anymore.
I've had enough, and so it'll only end badly if I keep going anyway.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

I would say, as clearly as I can, that I am choosing to change my sex because it does not match how my brain works. It is not simply that I wish I was female; it is that for my entire life a penis has forced me into pretending to be something that ill-suits me. It's a matter of how the brain works, and how things work during fetal development.

This I can concur with, but I think it's dangerous to assume that there is some normality of psychology to begin with. All humans are walking bags of neuroses. I knew a few trans people who couldn't give voice to the existential chasm between someone assuming they were a boy because 'X' when they couldn't see such qualities in themselves. (EDIT for clarity) It wasn't just a case of 'this, this right here. Brain fits.' ... it was more, 'this works well.'

By making it a purely essentialist reasoning kind of excludes the nature that identity is espoused self-expresion. Something that you can forge either now or later. That doesn't make it so much of a 'choice', but rather the pursuit to finding 'what fits' ... I know that kind of sounds the same, but I think there is a natural dichotomy between cognition and intuition. That trans identity can arise through an exploration of either.

The last thing we want to do is derail treatment because there is a cast iron template to gender identity and its treatment, and some doctor subjectively decides that a patient doesn't fit ... I know there is psychological criterion to follow. But like most psychoanalysis, it's a range of criterion, and not all of them are relative.

For this reason, it's also not so difficult to see trans identity can arise through a various range of feelings and rationalisations on different things. If we start shoehorning people both inside or outside some cast iron template, then we're missing the point of identity as self-expression in the first place.