Being transgender is hard

Alt+F4 said:
And we are to believe that a 2-year old or a 10-year old does.
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Yes. It's more vivid to a transgendered because they don't match the outside so they are treated as the opposite gender by society.

To say you don't know how to identify your gender as female is really willful ignorance. You don't need to know how it "feels to be a woman" to know your gender is not a man.


transgender for dummies link below

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2006/3/22/transgender-101-for-dummies-greetings-oh/

Simple video

http://lgbtlatestscience.wordpress.com/2009/12/20/transgender-basics-video-and-vocabulary/
 
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Alt+F4 said:
Yes, I thought it was a good article too. What caught my eye is that is this description of the girl:



I know she's only ten but I wonder if she understands that being a girl isn't about these things. A girl can have short hair, play with "boy toys" and still be very much a girl. I don't think her parents are doing anything wrong either but perhaps it's society that dictates gender?
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I'd be more inclined to agree if you had said, "isn't just about these things.

Yes, these are a social stereotype, as the quote you cited even said, but to someone in that child's position the stereotype is the only mechanism left for her to express herself as female. The strictly physical distinctions are unavailable.

A female in our culture can dress in male clothes without impacting her femininity, if she chooses to. It is difficult for a male to do the reverse, especially as secondary sexual characteristics come into play, but even before to some extent. Even so the social stereotypes are quite evident, and children are certainly aware of them. It isn't an accident that a girl who wears her hair short and and plays with boys' toys is called a "tomboy". And it is unlikely that a girl who acts that way is completely oblivious to the role she is playing. When a male is inclined toward the same sort of gender incongruity the traditional terms used to describe that behavior are much less charitable.

For some reason our society views females who indulge in stereotypical "male" pastimes with more tolerance than they do males who act too much like girls. Because of that I'm not sure that the comparison is entirely apt.
 
Alt+F4 said:
And we are to believe that a 2-year old or a 10-year old does.
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A TG at 10 years old, still being coerced into a cisgender role, is often quite miserable. They might not discover for a while yet why they're miserable, but they know that they are, and other people's disbelief does not change that.
 
Gazpacho said:
A TG at 10 years old, still being coerced into a cisgender role, is often quite miserable. They might not discover for a while yet why they're miserable, but they know that they are, and other people's disbelief does not change that.
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This is really important to understand. This is what the research supports. The documentary about David Remeir really conveys this very well. Although David was socialized to be a girl and never taught about his real identity he insisted upon it, never knowing what was wrong until it was revealed to him in his teens.

The trauma that was inflicted upon this poor child most likely devastated his sense of identity which ultimately led to his suicide.
 
Gazpacho said:
A TG at 10 years old, still being coerced into a cisgender role, is often quite miserable. They might not discover for a while yet why they're miserable, but they know that they are, and other people's disbelief does not change that.
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There are tons of reason why pre-transition kids are miserable:

- forcefully and habitually cross-dressed at school, which can be especially humiliating.

- going through puberty can be like watching your body slowly mutilate itself for years.

- boys and girls socialize differently, there are different "rules" for these groups. Almost always, pre-transition trans kids feel socially isolated, they may voluntarily or involuntarily alienate themselves from both groups, have a hard time making and keeping friends.

- especially for young tg girls, parents can be surprisingly cruel when their biologically male child "acts like a girl", especially when they insist on wear traditionally girls clothing.

I know a lot of tg people in their 20s or older, and every single one of them says they wish they could have said something to their parents sooner. A lot of people keep it a secret because their parents may disown them altogether.

Anecdote: A close friend of mine was essentially disowned from her parents after she came out -- she didn't say a word to them for 3 or 4 years. Then, by accident, they ran into each other at a wedding, her parents saw how much happier (and pretty!) their daughter is. They've been close ever since, and her mom even helped purchase plane tickets so her daughter could fly to Thailand for GRS.
 
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One of my good friends is gender queer and is often frustrated at being put into categories. Even being called he or she can be upsetting. However since we as a society tend to distinguish between the two Jamie can't figure out how to resolve the issue. This is quite different in many ways.

One thing that is also important to understand is what was brought up earlier regarding being associated with gay or lesbian communities. The trans girl will not feel like they belong in the gay community because it's about sexual orientation not gender.
 
truethat said:
Did you actually listen to the interview? Chaz says he was confused because he thought he was a lesbian, he didn't understand that he was a transgender.
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This is good, and given your other apology, perhaps I can be forgiven for some cautious optimism. So I'll restate the question.

Chaz Bono is 42 years old. During much of his life, he was confused (your words). Confused for decades.

Now then, therefore, please explain how it is impossible that a 10-year-old pre-pubescent, or the parents, or the participating psychiatrist or endocrinologist could possibly be confused. Because that's what I'm seeing from the reactions. It's so obvious that anyone who wonders or who asks for evidence is ignorant and probably a hateful bigot, too.

I'd like to see some evidence. Something scientific, tracking diagnoses and seeing if they work, especially on people who have extremely limited understanding of gender and no first-person understanding of interacting sexually.

That is, something a bit more solid than "awww" Youtube videos and news reports.

While we're at it, maybe it could also be strong enough to justify the Harry Benjamin (now WPATH) standards of hormonal therapy for the pre-pubescent.
 
Toke said:
I conclude that as there is a sliding scale for sexuality there is one for gender identity as well.
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I agree. What's interesting is trying to reconcile that with an idea as binary as saying someone has a male or female brain.
 
Dessi said:
There are tons of reason why pre-transition kids are miserable:

- forcefully and habitually cross-dressed at school, which can be especially humiliating.

- going through puberty can be like watching your body slowly mutilate itself for years.

- boys and girls socialize differently, there are different "rules" for these groups. Almost always, pre-transition trans kids feel socially isolated, they may voluntarily or involuntarily alienate themselves from both groups, have a hard time making and keeping friends.

- especially for young tg girls, parents can be surprisingly cruel when their biologically male child "acts like a girl", especially when they insist on wear traditionally girls clothing.

I know a lot of tg people in their 20s or older, and every single one of them says they wish they could have said something to their parents sooner. A lot of people keep it a secret because their parents may disown them altogether.

Anecdote: A close friend of mine was essentially disowned from her parents after she came out -- she didn't say a word to them for 3 or 4 years. Then, by accident, they ran into each other at a wedding, her parents saw how much happier (and pretty!) their daughter is. They've been close ever since, and her mom even helped purchase plane tickets so her daughter could fly to Thailand for GRS.
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Good points, but I'd add that there are many reasons that any kids can be miserable with some of the same feelings as tg, some of those reasons very similar to the ones caused by tg without being the wrong gender.

It is sad that people who know they are tg feel pressured to stay silent and in pain for so long just because someone else won't understand. That's true whether it's a co-worker, society, or family. Can't people see that they are causing pain for very little reason?

epepke said:
This is good, and given your other apology, perhaps I can be forgiven for some cautious optimism. So I'll restate the question.

Chaz Bono is 42 years old. During much of his life, he was confused (your words). Confused for decades.

Now then, therefore, please explain how it is impossible that a 10-year-old pre-pubescent, or the parents, or the participating psychiatrist or endocrinologist could possibly be confused. Because that's what I'm seeing from the reactions. It's so obvious that anyone who wonders or who asks for evidence is ignorant and probably a hateful bigot, too.

I'd like to see some evidence. Something scientific, tracking diagnoses and seeing if they work, especially on people who have extremely limited understanding of gender and no first-person understanding of interacting sexually.

That is, something a bit more solid than "awww" Youtube videos and news reports.

While we're at it, maybe it could also be strong enough to justify the Harry Benjamin (now WPATH) standards of hormonal therapy for the pre-pubescent.
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It does seem kind of insulting to the transgender individuals who didn't act until later in life to insist that someone can't be confused about if they are tg or not and that it's obvious.

However, I reject that one can't know gender until one has known sexual interaction. That premise presupposes that sexuality is the overwhelming component of gender. It isn't for everyone.
 
I'm losing track of who is asking for what evidence, but based on a self-selected sample of TG adults who use the internet (mostly middle-aged), the average age at which TGs recall their first awareness of "being the wrong gender" is 8, and the most frequent age is 5.
http://www.gjss.org/images/stories/volumes/7/2/3.%20Kennedy%20and%20Hellen.pdf

Note that the peak is at the age when American children begin school.
 
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tyr_13 said:
However, I reject that one can't know gender until one has known sexual interaction. That premise presupposes that sexuality is the overwhelming component of gender. It isn't for everyone.
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Then let me ask you, where do you think the knowledge of one's own gender comes from? If a 10-year old, born as a biological male, states that he is actually a girl, how did that person gain that knowledge? Is it innate? Is it a societal construct?
 
Gazpacho said:
I'm losing track of who is asking for what evidence, but based on a self-selected sample of TG adults who use the internet (mostly middle-aged), the average age at which TGs recall their first awareness of "being the wrong gender" is 8, and the most frequent age is 5.
http://www.gjss.org/images/stories/volumes/7/2/3. Kennedy and Hellen.pdf

Note that the peak is at the age when American children begin school.
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21% of the respondents to that survey self-identify as transvestite and another 12% identified as "other".
 
tyr_13 said:
It does seem kind of insulting to the transgender individuals who didn't act until later in life to insist that someone can't be confused about if they are tg or not and that it's obvious.
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Could be. I'm not really interested in whether something is insulting, though. Chaz Bono exists, whether or not he is insulted or whether people are insulted on his behalf.

There's also a problem here when listening to adult transgendered individuals talking about their youth, because by the time they get to be unambiguous adults, they know. (Some might disagree, but I don't.) This doesn't help the other way around: how many diagnosed transgender children will grow up to be transgendered?

However, I reject that one can't know gender until one has known sexual interaction. That premise presupposes that sexuality is the overwhelming component of gender. It isn't for everyone.
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You can disagree if you like, but your supposition of the presupposition is fallacious. The presupposition is that maturity and a variety of life experiences are important for understanding gender.

Now, I happen to think that sexuality, in the broad sense, is an overwhelming component of everything, including the drive behind intellectual pursuits and learning, and emotional maturity. Even male dogs, who have notoriously simply sexualities and intellect, fly the pink zeppelin when humans teach them behaviors.

This is a minority opinion, but if you balk at that, consider this. Our culture does not allow pre-pubescents even to make decisions regarding their sexuality, or refuse consent to medical treatment, or enter into binding treatments. So, I'm not convinced that it is possible to get good enough readings from them to warrant the Harry Benjamin protocols involving hormone treatments of pre-pubescents.

Even if you balk at that, fine! Let's discuss it as adults. It would be a couple of orders of magnitude better than what has happened in this thread, or any other I've seen.
 
epepke said:
This is a minority opinion, but if you balk at that, consider this. Our culture does not allow pre-pubescents even to make decisions regarding their sexuality, or refuse consent to medical treatment, or enter into binding treatments. So, I'm not convinced that it is possible to get good enough readings from them to warrant the Harry Benjamin protocols involving hormone treatments of pre-pubescents.
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You're confusing correlation with causation. We don't allow children to make their own decisions because of a lack of mental development (and later a lack of mental/emotional maturity), not due to a lack of sexual development.

As evidence for this, note that individuals who have suffered castration or are otherwise underdeveloped sexually are still given the freedom to make their own decisions, while individuals with severe mental disability are kept under guardianship into adulthood even if sexually mature. It's not the timeline of sexual development that underlies our willingness to afford decision-making capacity to people.
 
AvalonXQ said:
You're confusing correlation with causation. We don't allow children to make their own decisions because of a lack of mental development (and later a lack of mental/emotional maturity), not due to a lack of sexual development.
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I'm not. I just disagree that sexual development is unrelated to mental development.

As evidence for this, note that individuals who have suffered castration or are otherwise underdeveloped sexually are still given the freedom to make their own decisions,
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Sorry, but being castrated isn't underdeveloping sexuality. It just underdevelops plooking ability (and really, if you look at eunuchs, they seem to get into some pretty advance non-coital plooking.). Sexuality goes way beyond plooking, in my view. I made it clear that I was referring to sexuality in a broad sense, and I did say that it was a minority opinion. So you may not share it.

It's not the timeline of sexual development that underlies our willingness to afford decision-making capacity to people.
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It is some timeline, though.
 
Alt+F4 said:
Then let me ask you, where do you think the knowledge of one's own gender comes from? If a 10-year old, born as a biological male, states that he is actually a girl, how did that person gain that knowledge? Is it innate? Is it a societal construct?
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Are gay men women? Are lesbian women men? Are virgin men unknown?

Not having definite encompassing answers myself of how one knows one is a girl or a boy does not mean I need to accept that sexual activity is the only way to know.
 
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