Nature loves variety. Unfortunately, society hates it.
It is highly likely that you have passed a transgender person on the street, at the grocery store, in the bank, at the gym, and, yes, even in a public restroom, without even knowing that that person was transgender. A transgender person is not a clone of another transgender person. He or she is different and unique, just as is every other person. Transgender people are those who transgress gender norms of society by attempting to transition into the correct gender into which they should have been born. Transgender people are not the same as transvestites, cross-dressers, drag queens, or drag kings. Being transgender is about gender identity, whereas being a cross-dresser or drag queen or king is not.
Below are very basic terms and acronyms related to the transgender community. Sexual orientation varies because gender and sex are not the same (see my previous post for more on the differences between sex and gender).
(GLAAD calls this "an umbrella term [adj.] for people whose gender identity and/or gender expression differs from the sex they were assigned at birth. The term may include but is not limited to: transsexuals, cross-dressers and other gender-variant people. Transgender people may identify as female-to-male [FTM] or male-to-female [MTF]. Use the descriptive term ['transgender,' 'transsexual,' 'cross-dresser,' 'FTM' or 'MTF'] preferred by the individual. Transgender people may or may not decide to alter their bodies hormonally and/or surgically.")
(GLAAD defines cross-dressing as "occasionally [wearing] clothes traditionally associated with people of the other sex. Cross-dressers are usually comfortable with the sex they were assigned at birth and do not wish to change it. 'Cross-dresser' should not be used to describe someone who has transitioned to live full-time as the other sex or who intends to do so in the future. Cross-dressing is a form of gender expression and is not necessarily tied to erotic activity. Cross-dressing is not indicative of sexual orientation.")
These are brief and simple definitions, but they serve as a good starting point for those venturing into this unfamiliar territory. Being transgender is just another characteristic of being human and does not define the person.
Many transgender people want to blend in or go stealth (that is, pass in public without drawing attention to themselves) throughout their daily routines of life. Stereotypical characters like Corporal Klinger of the M*A*S*H television series, Dr. Frank-N-Furter of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, or RuPaul are not transgender but dramatizations of cross-dressing or drag; the popular misconception that these characters represent transgender people occurs due to the lack of a transgender role models and the perception that this less-understood group has comedic value.
During the past 30 years, a few positive transgender role models, such as Renée Richards, Caroline "Tula" Cossey, and, most recently, Chaz Bono, have opened their lives to the public in efforts to communicate the reality of being a transgender person. The more exposure real-life transgender people experience, the less inequality and discrimination society will subject us to out of fear.
Be Bold, Be Proud, Be Yourself.
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If you were offered a magic wish that could turn your body into the ordinary female it would have been, had your chromosomes been xx... would you do it?
That would of course mean female genitals, womb, ovaries... everything, but you'd still have the "bodymap" you have now of preferring to have a male anatomy.
Or would it be better to remain as you are, since your "bodymap" mostly matches up after hormones, etc.?
Transgender, for better or worse, is an umbrella term that covers many different groups including transsexual people, genderqueer, drag queens, cross-dressers, bi-gendered, androgynes and more.
I was born transsexual (mind-body mismatch) I did not become transsexual.
It doesn't matter if a person is pre-everything, pre-op, non-op or post-op, they are all transsexual because they were BORN transsexual.
http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/TS.html#anchor107763
Transsexualism is a medical condition, not an identity.
I am, and always have been, female.
If you were born with a female mind and a "mind-body mismatch," doesn't that mean your body was male?
"Was" is the key word. I recieved treatment for my birth condition and that is no longer true. A person's identity is centered in the brain.
However, things are always changing. For example some people are now thinking that transsexual people are a special type of intersex.
So stay tuned, as they say: The only constant in life is change.
Yes we live amongst you. Feeding of your blood?
How awful.
Xxo
Yes, gender isn't binary. It is two-gender-dominant, but by no means binary.
That I grew breasts in high school doesn't make my transition any more or less legitimate or any more or less despised by christianists and radfems.
The brain is a sexually dimorphic organ. Ergo, anyone trans is, by defintion, intersex. There may be less variation in gonadal development, but chromosomal variation isn't the only genetic variation that can lead to identification and assignment being at odds.
Try these instead:
Transgender is a social identity of someone that does not fit the binary assignment of 'man' or 'woman' based on current cultural definition.
Transsexual is a condition where people's sex-dimorphic body features developed out of sync with the sex-dimorphic features of their brain. It can vary in form and degree, as does the need for medical intervention to align the body to the brain.
They are two independent, separate aspects of a person. Just like sexuality and gender identity are independent and separate, yet sometimes overlap.
Some people who are transgender are also gay, lesbian or bisexual; some are not.
Some people who have a transsexual condition are also gay, lesbian or bi; some are not.
Some people who are transgender also have a transsexual condition; some do not.
Some people with a transsexual condition also identify as transgender; some do not.
Sexuality is a gender variance involving intimacy preference.
Transgender is a gender variance where one's social identity is somewhere between society's binary expectations of male or female.
Transsexual is a biological condition where the body's development opposed that of the brain's development.
If we can adjust our thinking to parallel that of sexuality vs gender identity, it would be the next step in furthering equality with full inclusion, without appropriating or erasing anyone's identity.
Gender variant: Anyone transgressing accepted norms of behavior for one's assigned sex.
Transgender: Anyone intentionally presenting (identification included) at variance with one's assigned sex.
Transsexual: Anyone using, or desiring the ability to use, technology (available or otherwise) to alter bodily presentation from that of one's assigned sex indefinitely.
And yes, as a trans woman, most, but not all of my basic human rights concerns fall in the first two boxes. (access to medicine falls into the third, for example)
From Wikipedia: The term transgender (TG) was popularised in the 1970s (but implied in the 1960s) describing people who wanted to live cross-gender without sex reassignment surgery. In the 1980s the term was expanded to an umbrella term, and became popular as a means of uniting all those whose gender identity did not mesh with their gender assigned at birth.
In the 1990s, the term took on a political dimension as an alliance covering all who have at some point not conformed to gender norms, and the term became used to question the validity of those norms or pursue equal rights and anti-discrimination legislation, leading to its widespread usage in the media, academic world and law. The term continues to evolve (after 2000).
I hope your bodybuilding competitions are going wonderfully, too!
Yay, Chris Tina!
:D
Many of these post-transsexual people take umbrage at being lumped in with transgender people.
On two points: The existence of rather vocal TS separatist groups (Always operative essentialist, among other unique rhetorical tics) arguing against the 'umbrella' does demonstrate that transgender is considered the catch-all of people whose presentation and/or identification are at variance with their assigned sex.
And secondly, trans women are born female, (and trans men male, respectively) as neurological sex is ultimately the only legitimate metric of sex in a sapient species.
It's also worrisome to separate trans people into different categories of legitimacy based on procedures undergone and genital morphology. I know cis women who, if phalloplasty were more affordable, provided more satisfactory results, and didn't require testosterone to maintain, would undergo the procedure. Would that make them less women in any way? I think not.
But the thrust of the article is good. Yes, with a Western world transition prevalence of 1 in 250 and rising, everybody not only sees trans people regularly, but likely also knows someone who has socially transitioned, though they don't perhaps know that that person has socially transitioned.
Ok, I thought that cis-gender was when one is born and happy with the same gender. For instance, I was born female and am totally glad to be a girl and would never want to be anything else. That, I thought, was "cis-gender."
You, here, say (and I quote): "I know cis women who, if phalloplasÂty were more affordableÂ, provided more satisfactoÂry results, and didn't require testosteroÂne to maintain, would undergo the procedure."
So I'm confused. If a born female person is cis-gender, why would she want phalloplasty? Can you explain this, please?
Thank you.
Respectfully,
Kali
You're quite close when it comes to the definition of cis, save for one word. Trans people identify as a different gender than that which they were assigned at birth, not the gender they were born as. What happens is that doctors assign sex (i.e. declare, 'it's a boy' or 'it's a girl', or other times surgically assign children with ambiguous genitalia, which shouldn't happen, but it does, yes, even today) based on a cursory inspection of genitalia, when gender identity may differ from that genital morphology.
So, having established that genitalia aren't gender, and that bodymap conflicts are different for each trans person, it follows that there may also be some bodymap variation in the cis population. This isn't discussed because, well, we're only just now getting our head around respectful treatment for trans people with or without genital bodymap issues. (i.e. not every trans person needs nor should have genital surgery, despite many that do)
There are cis people who, while they very much identify as the gender they were assigned at birth, do have bodymap issues when it comes to their genitalia, and express discomfort with said genitalia.
So yes, it does happen, there can be stress, of varying severity and with myriad treatment available. The friend I referenced earlier purchased a prosthetic, and, in her words felt, "complete." Though she still does experience periodic stress, it's manageable.
I hope this proved enlightening.
Can you clarify this? Are you saying that the preference for male genitals is common in both transgender and biological women, and thus isn't a disqualifier for being a "real" woman?
Further, and this is just anecdotally based on personal experience and the experience of others who I have spoken to, I wouldn't say a penis that was subjected to a typically female hormone range was male. Further, logically it follows, and I have heard anecdotal reports (there've not really been a great deal of studies done) that a vagina that was subjected to a typically male hormone range would also not have the attributes that one would easily refer to as female.
I'm sorry to bring up genitalia, and I would not, but it does seem to be a preoccupation when talking about trans people.