Being transgender is hard

[JWideman]

Most of us have a very simplistic view of what gender means in the first place. Man. Woman. That's it, no other choice. Anyone that defies this view is held with suspicion, at best. You don't understand them. You fear them. You hate them.
But that simplistic view is not accurate. It really isn't that simple. Why are you a man, or a woman? Is it because of your genitalia? Is it because of society? Is it because you just know you are? If you woke up in a bizarro world where everyone including you has had their gender switched, would you be able to accept this new arrangement or would it make you uncomfortable?
When you understand what really makes you the gender you are, then you'll understand why some people disagree with the gender others think they should have.

 

[MarkCorrigan]

As far as I'm concerned, whatever a person is psychologically, emotionally and what have you, that's what they are. I actually dislike the terms trans and cis, not because I think that trans people are freaks or should stick to what they were born, but rather that I think that they should be fully accepted as being what they are in their own minds, regardless of what they were born with.

I'm a man, I was born a man, and I've always known I'm a man. If someone was born genetically female but knows that they are really male on whatever level it is that true gender is assigned outside of strict biology, once I know that they identify as a man, I'll call them a man, use male pronouns and essentially ignore that they were ever a woman biologically.


I find the abuse and bullying over gender identity to be just as petty, pointless and despicable as bullying over any issue. It's a disgrace that humanity allows the punishment of others simply for being different in some way as a simple part of human behaviour.

 

[PhantomWolf]

Many of those questions are societal questions. What is going on in any one given person's head isn't especially relevant to those ones.

I have to admit, I totally disagree with this. Society has a way of trying to put people in a box and when it comes to gender issues there is no one-size-fits-all box into which people can be placed. Gender is more than just what you have between your legs, it's in the way you act, the way that you think, the way that you are. It's about your very identity. It's not up to society to attempt to regulate that and try and box you, or to tell you what should be in your head.

Since the 70's we have had parts of society trying to declare that boys and girls are the same, other than their physical parts, and yet more and more it's being shown that this just isn't true. While not all women fit the same mould, and nor do all men, in general, and unfortunately when we are trying to deal with issues like this we have to talk generalities whether we like it or not, most women tend to fall towards the feminine end of the spectrum, and most men at the masculine end, and they do this even when they are raised as gender neutral as possible (even when raised as the opposite gender.) Yes strangely enough, little girls are more often to like dolls and little boys more often to like trucks, it's a part of our biology. And no, that doesn't mean that some little girls can't like trucks more and some little boys can't like dolls more; it doesn't even have to make them weird or gay if they do.

Whether we like it or not, there are differences in the way that our biology is tuned, the sad thing is that after 50 years of trying to prove otherwise, those that really want to believe it is all nurture and push nature out of the barrow altogether are too invested in their beliefs to accept the evidence that nature has a large part to play in the mix, and that part starts to create our gender identity before we are even born. It's this part that tell us that we are "wrong" and "broken" when society starts to try and mould us based on what is between our legs.

I also reject the idea that someone can't come to those answers unwisely. People make major life choices on wrong motivations all the time, so I doubt that reassignment is immune. I'm not saying it happens in every case, or even that it happens to any great degree. I'm not arguing against reassignments in general either.

I'd be extremely surprised if anyone came to these answers unwisely. It's not like you head down to your local GP and say "I want to be a different sex," and they book you in for an appointment for a breast enhancement or removal. Candidates for reassignment have to undergo therapy and psychological evaluations before they even get close to being considered. They then have to live as the other sex for at least a year, more often than not several years before starting treatment. Once treatment starts they have to undergo several years of hormone therapy to get their bodies into a position where they can undergo reassignment surgery, generally undergoing 2-3 sets of it. It is not a short process, or an easy one, and it is hideously expensive.

It is not a decision anyone does, nor can, make lightly and without a HUGE amount of thought behind it.

 

[PhantomWolf]

Most of us have a very simplistic view of what gender means in the first place. Man. Woman. That's it, no other choice. Anyone that defies this view is held with suspicion, at best. You don't understand them. You fear them. You hate them.
But that simplistic view is not accurate. It really isn't that simple. Why are you a man, or a woman? Is it because of your genitalia? Is it because of society? Is it because you just know you are? If you woke up in a bizarro world where everyone including you has had their gender switched, would you be able to accept this new arrangement or would it make you uncomfortable?
When you understand what really makes you the gender you are, then you'll understand why some people disagree with the gender others think they should have.

Well said.

 

[tyr_13]

I have to admit, I totally disagree with this. (snip)

How society treats those who have undergone reassignment, those who wish to, and those who wish to identify as the opposite (or other) than their biological are of course societal questions. If a society is going to treat a man who desires to be a woman the same as a man regardless of if one has the op or not, and the goal is to be accepted by society as a woman, then the operation isn't going to achieve that goal. Before anyone starts in on that line, keep in mine that I'm in NO WAY claiming that is the only or primary goal for all transgender individuals. If a person's understanding of what it means to 'be a man' or 'be a woman' is different from how society defines it, friction can result. This is true regardless of if one is transgendered or not.

I'd be extremely surprised if anyone came to these answers unwisely. It's not like you head down to your local GP and say "I want to be a different sex," and they book you in for an appointment for a breast enhancement or removal. Candidates for reassignment have to undergo therapy and psychological evaluations before they even get close to being considered. They then have to live as the other sex for at least a year, more often than not several years before starting treatment. Once treatment starts they have to undergo several years of hormone therapy to get their bodies into a position where they can undergo reassignment surgery, generally undergoing 2-3 sets of it. It is not a short process, or an easy one, and it is hideously expensive.

It is not a decision anyone does, nor can, make lightly and without a HUGE amount of thought behind it.

I was friends with the Pride Alliance in college and have known more than one transgender person since then. I understand the huge investment of time and effort it takes. Still, I'd be surprised if it's never been undertaken unwisely. This is because of human nature.

 

[JJM 777]

it's never a case of "Getting your head right and living as who they biologically are." Living with a nagging feel that you are wrong, and hating your body because of it is not something you can just will away or go to see a shrink about. It is part of who you biologically are.

To an anorexic we would say (or not actually say, but we would try to get the message somehow through): your body is OK as it is, stop imagining that there is something wrong with your body. A psychological problem, a psychological solution.

I find it subjective and emotionally loaded when the same people who would search a psychological, rather than surgical, help to anorexia refuse to acknowledge the possibility, or ethicality, of the same approach for this other case where a person has a perfectly OK body, but he or she has a negative view about the body. In a world where gender change operations cause irrepairable damage which is impossible to undo if the person later changes his or her mind (which sometimes happens), psychological rather than surgical approaches should self-evidently be the primary way to attempt first. Gender change surgery should be illegal without at least one year proven track record of trying to solve the problem with psychological treatment.

 

[Tatyana]

I wonder if this really helps, it just causes the child to remain in puberty while the other kids develop facial hair or boobs.

The individual would essentially remain pre-pubescent, however, relatively neutral for secondary sex characteristics (which is extremely distressing to develop the sex characteristics of what one considers the opposite sex to themselves).

I think the majority of the medical community are aware that there are cis-gender individuals, however, it is preferable for an individual to make these choices for themselves as young adults.

 

[epepke]

I don't think you're coming off as a douche at all. I was a very tomboyish girl. I kept my hair short, wore boys clothes and while my sister had Barbie (with Malibu Dream House) I had G.I. Joe (with Kung Fu grip). This was in the late 1960s/early 1970s and my parents were definitely not liberal (they just ignored it). I turned out gay, not trans. I wonder if with different parents growing up today where my childhood playing would have lead to. I agree, 10 is too young for a child to make up their mind about this.

This is a valid concern.

There are a lot of questions about this, and I find it unfortunate that they are not discussed. I'm tight with some trans-advocacy groups, and I've seen a lot of them simply react to these questions with accusations of bigotry.

Whether a child at 10 can make such a decision, however, is less important than another consideration. Most places I know of, at 10, a child does not have the right to refuse medical treatment. If the parents decide that the kid gets a needle stuck in them, then a needle gets stuck in them, period.

So it's really the choice of the parents, and I wonder if at times the parents make bad decisions. Parents make bad decisions for their children all the time. Usually it can be corrected. Usually, this only requires decades of intensive therapy to correct.

It does not, however, cause lifetime sterility, except in extreme cases. That's pretty serious. When various groups of people were sterilized at the hands of the government, people get very offended, and I think rightly so. I think that one has to have an extremely good reason indeed to sterilize children, and I don't think that sufficient reasons have been presented.

I've also seen teevee programs featuring parents of transgender children, and they always say things like "Crissy always wanted to play with dolls instead of trucks." This does not strike me as relevant in any way. I played with a lot of dolls as a kid, and I dressed up in dresses, and sometimes I fervently wished I had been born female. I grew up to be about as male as it is possible to get without magical influence, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Of course, parents of transgendered kids get very agitated and abusive when this is pointed out and insist that they are certain, but there is a curious lack of explanation.

The very first of what was then called a sex-change operation was performed in my lifetime. We still know hardly anything about mental disorders, even seemingly simple ones like depression. There are disorders that psychiatrists aren't even supposed to diagnose at age 18, because there is a perception that people develop throughout adolescence.

Yet, at the same time, we are not only asked to believe that gender dysphoria is so well understood that it is not only acceptable to administer drugs to pre-pubescents that will prevent them from developing a functioning reproductive system, but that our understanding is so incredibly perfect that withholding agreement that it should be done on a regular basis can only be a sign of transphobic bigotry.

Color me skeptical.

 

[Tatyana]

Most of us have a very simplistic view of what gender means in the first place. Man. Woman. That's it, no other choice. Anyone that defies this view is held with suspicion, at best. You don't understand them. You fear them. You hate them.
But that simplistic view is not accurate. It really isn't that simple. Why are you a man, or a woman? Is it because of your genitalia? Is it because of society? Is it because you just know you are? If you woke up in a bizarro world where everyone including you has had their gender switched, would you be able to accept this new arrangement or would it make you uncomfortable?
When you understand what really makes you the gender you are, then you'll understand why some people disagree with the gender others think they should have.

I personally think if people actually realised what a complicated process sexual differential is, they would also realise how easy it would be for someone to have the brain of the opposite gender.

I should really see if there is any research on this for how often this occurs, but it would be very easy for a woman to have male chromosomes (XY), because chromosomal differention is only the first stage in determining sex, and having the XY genotype wouldn't make any (or much) of a difference in becoming female.

This is one of the reasons that Barr body (the second condensed X chromosome in the cells of females that occurs at something like 8 weeks of gestation), is no longer considered a valid determination of sex.

The hormonal milieu is an entirely more complicated situation, and it is not an uncommon situation for an individual to be be born intersex (1 in approximately 4500 live births), however, it is rare that the general public knows about this.

My point is that if is is a common occurence for the genitals to be ambiguous or intersex, it is common for the brain to have been influenced during development, and we know there are some variations in the brain between the sexes.

 

[Dessi]

To an anorexic we would say (or not actually say, but we would try to get the message somehow through): your body is OK as it is, stop imagining that there is something wrong with your body. A psychological problem, a psychological solution.

Helping anorexics to lose weight will kill them. The best treatment, according to every mainstream psychological and psychiatric organization, is to help them develop self-esteem and maintain a healthy weight.

Helping transgender people repress their feelings drives them to suicide and is notoriously ineffective. Being transgender may be a psychological disorder, but a person's gender identity is immutable and unlearned, it can't be changed. Consequently, every mainstream psychological and psychiatric organization recommends helping a person integrate into their target gender as part of their treatment, counseling and support for discrimination and challenges that come with transitioning (such as an on-the-job transition, working with kids or spouses, etc).

People who believe transgender people need to "fix" there gender-identity simply have an opinion that isn't supported by mainstream psychology.

In a world where gender change operations cause irrepairable damage which is impossible to undo if the person later changes his or her mind (which sometimes happens), psychological rather than surgical approaches should self-evidently be the primary way to attempt first.

See
Wikpedia:

People who undergo sex reassignment surgery can develop regret for the procedure later in life, largely due to lack of support from family or peers, with recent data suggesting a rate of 3.8%.[42] The total rate of patients expressing feelings of doubt or regret is estimated to be as high as 8%.[43] In a 2001 study of 232 MTF patients who underwent GRS with Dr. Toby Meltzer, none of the patients reported complete regret and only 6% reported partial or occasional regrets.[44]

People with strong regrets or wish to detransition are a microminority.

Largely, people have regrets due to unrealistic expectations of what surgery can do for them, particularly when they don't pass well above the neck.

Lynn Conway has a informative essay on people who transition for the wrong reasons, a group almost exclusively confined to fetish crossdressers.

Gender change surgery should be illegal without at least one year proven track record of trying to solve the problem with psychological treatment.

Presently all reputable surgeons in this field will only perform surgeries on persons who've had at least one year of the real life experience (living full-time as a member of their target gender), and usually requires letters of recommendation from two gender counselors. Its a huge liability to surgeons not to follow to standards of care.

 

[truethat]

I, on the contrary, imagine that gender change leads to a decrease in personal happiness in the long term, compared to just getting their head right and living as who they biologically are*.

(* biologically obscure gender cases are not included in the statement)

You obviously don't understand what transgendered means.

Two? Seriously? Any idea what those signs were?

I'm pretty darn liberal on this subject, and if either one of my boys wanted to grow up and get a sex change, or be gay, or just about anything (except a Rebublican ), as long as they were happy and didn't hurt anyone, I'd be fine with it and support them 100%. BUT, my oldest is 9 and there is no way he is anywhere even close to being mature enough to understand the depth of transgender issues, let alone be able to make informed decisions. I don't want to belittle anyone's pain or trivialize anyone's struggles, but 10 seems WAY too young for someone to go through this.

People have a right to raise their children how they want, as long as no harm is done. I can't help but think that this child probably received a bit of 'prodding' in this direction. "Oh, you like to wear women's shoes? Maybe you have 'Gender Dysphoria'" When I would have said "that's cute, but i'm not buying you your own women's shoes." Maybe that's wrong of me and maybe its wrong of society, but I think we're a long way off from a man showing up in drag to a job interview. I'm VERY uncomfortable comparing this child's gender issue with child abuse, but I think if we are going to have an intelligent discussion, we have to look at what harm this is doing to the child.

I'm sorry if i'm coming off as a douche, but I'm very sensitive when it comes to children.

Transgendered children never change their mind about sexuality. This is a clinical diagnosis and it doesn't go away. It's not as if the child on a whim decides he wants to be LIKE a girl. He feels he is a girl, it's different.

Be careful with that line of thought, its equivalent to involuntarily outing a little girl everytime she goes to the bathroom. Seems pointless and needlessly cruel on a very very personal level.

Most bathrooms use stalls, it's not that big of a deal for a transgendered person to go use the bathroom shut the stall and do their business.

I think it is becoming quite common to prescribe a drug that will suppress puberty so the child has time to choose their gender when they are older.

It is the same treatment for children with precocious puberty.

That's interesting I hadn't heard of that and I think it is an excellent idea.

To an anorexic we would say (or not actually say, but we would try to get the message somehow through): your body is OK as it is, stop imagining that there is something wrong with your body. A psychological problem, a psychological solution.

I find it subjective and emotionally loaded when the same people who would search a psychological, rather than surgical, help to anorexia refuse to acknowledge the possibility, or ethicality, of the same approach for this other case where a person has a perfectly OK body, but he or she has a negative view about the body. In a world where gender change operations cause irrepairable damage which is impossible to undo if the person later changes his or her mind (which sometimes happens), psychological rather than surgical approaches should self-evidently be the primary way to attempt first. Gender change surgery should be illegal without at least one year proven track record of trying to solve the problem with psychological treatment.

Anorexia is a disease. The problems you discuss are very different than those of transgendered. I used to think the same way you did about 10 years ago. But now that I've done a ton of research I would suggest that being transgendered would be like being born with a deformity.

If someone was born with two penises would you tell them just to get used to their body the way it is, or would you suggest removing one of the penises?

 

[truethat]

Dessi welcome to the board and thanks for sharing. I have been very intrigued by this topic for many years. I have heard about tranny chasers and I'm curious if you could share some insight on that.

At first I would think a person who is specifically attracted to transgendered women would be a godsend to these women. But it seems like there is more to the story with that.

 

[PhantomWolf]

ty Dessi and truethat, you responded with what I had planned to, but probably would have done in a way that got me suspended. I hate uninformed peoiple making judgements, and ones that are telling me I have a mental disorder are worse.

Transgendered children never change their mind about sexuality. This is a clinical diagnosis and it doesn't go away.

This is so true, I have got to a point where I have "made peace with my penis" but discussions like this bring up the emotions again and the hurt. I don't think people like JJM can understand what it is like *knowing* that your body is ugly and wrong not because you see yourself as something you aren't, but rather because you see what you are and know inside that you're shouldn't be.

The other thing I would say is that reassignment is not about getting society to treat you like the other sex. Most transgender already are treated that way before the surgery and want to be treated the same way before and after. It's about being acknowledged as who you are, and not some sort of freak. It's about becoming a whole person, instead of feeling split and trapped in a body that just isn't right for your brain. I doubt that most can truely understand that feeling.

 

[truethat]

This is why I firmly support hormone therapy for young transgendered children as they approach puberty. It is heartbreaking to see someone who can almost pass but has a very masculine face or a deep voice, it is very very unfair.

To me being transgendered is a mistake in the body not the brain, the brain is how we self identify, and the body accidentally became the wrong sex. It is like being trapped in another person's body. I have nothing but support for transgenders and really loath the cruel ignorance that perpetuates abuse and bullying.

This is not a mental disorder IMO it's a genetic mix up where the body doesn't match the brain the way it is supposed to. If we have the means to help correct this defect, then we should allow insurance to pay for these surgeries.

 

[Skeptic]

Let me get this straight. You have a couple wanting to do a sex change operation to their 10-year-old child, and you are surprised people are shocked by this and consider it wrong?

 

[PhantomWolf]

Let me get this straight. You have a couple wanting to do a sex change operation to their 10-year-old child, and you are surprised people are shocked by this and consider it wrong?

If you really wanted to get it straight, then you'd try actually finding out about reality rather than making crap up.

 

[Floyt]

Let me get this straight. You have a couple wanting to do a sex change operation to their 10-year-old child, and you are surprised people are shocked by this and consider it wrong?

There's probably no call to be surprised by it, because it's a safe guess that the Average Person is a bigot and happy to make snap judgements based on bigot mores. However, there's also no call to let them get away with it.

 

[PhantomWolf]

There's probably no call to be surprised by it, because it's a safe guess that the Average Person is a bigot and happy to make snap judgements based on bigot mores. However, there's also no call to let them get away with it.

What is worse is that it's not actually what is happening anyway. The child chose to return to school after the summer break as a girl as going as a boy became too much lying and hiding of who she really was. There is no surgery or even hormone treatment mentioned, and the child has been properly diagnosed by experts in the field. This isn't a case of parents dressing up a boy because they wanted a girl and making them do things they don't want, it's a case of parents supporting their child in who she really is, but hey, why would a bigot be interested in finding out the truth before attacking the child and her parents by calling them freaks?

 

[Skeptic]

There's probably no call to be surprised by it, because it's a safe guess that the Average Person is a bigot and happy to make snap judgements based on bigot mores.

Snap judgments like, "the average person is a bigot; we are so much more advanced!".

Did it occur to you that there might be more to this than everybody who disagrees else being a bigot?

 

[epepke]

What is worse is that it's not actually what is happening anyway. The child chose to return to school after the summer break as a girl as going as a boy became too much lying and hiding of who she really was. There is no surgery or even hormone treatment mentioned,

This is wrong. From the OP:

relating in particular how all but one endocrinologist is willing to treat her child,

See that? Endocrinologist. What do they do?

That's what people are responding to. Now, @Sceptic was also wrong by talking about surgery.

I notice that you responded positively to @truethat's statement as follows:

Transgendered children never change their mind about sexuality.

This is irrelevant.

The question is whether 10-year-olds can be reliably diagnosed as transgendered, especially to the extent of being confident of taking away their ability to reproduce forever.

Nobody in this thread has presented evidence for this, let alone evidence so strong that it overrides what we know of the poverty of diagnoses. All we've heard is that, if you don't automatically nod assent, you're a bigot.