Do LGB's Care About the "T's?"

I totally understand what you're saying, Mara, but isn't there a difference between transsexual and transgender? (ie, that transsexuals identify with the opposite sex (and so take hormones, get surgery, etc. to transition from MtF or FtM) while transgender identify with another gender than the one they are assigned at birth?)

savagelilies said:

I totally understand what you're saying, Mara, but isn't there a difference between transsexual and transgender? (ie, that transsexuals identify with the opposite sex (and so take hormones, get surgery, etc. to transition from MtF or FtM) while transgender identify with another gender than the one they are assigned at birth?)

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Not exactly, though that was the older meaning. Right now, transgender is a blanket term that includes transsexual and genderqueer, and quite often also just means "transsexual" in the average use.

And most of the non-transsexual people who are transgender don't believe in the gender binary as it applies to them. So I was thinking we were talking mostly about transsexual people here, and that's definitely who CeCe is, and who generally are the ones who have the most issues with rights. (And genderqueer people who medically transition--sometimes called MtX and FtX. They're basically transsexual and genderqueer.)

EDIT:
There's a lot of us who believe separating "transsexual" and "transgender" into two categories for clarity would help, and I'm one of them.

Except that there's a political issue with that. *sighs* Some older, ultra-gender-binary traditionalist trans women use "transgender" as a slur against transsexual people who don't transition the way they think they should transition. As in, transsexual women who wear "masculine" clothing or transsexual men who wear feminine clothes or trans people who don't get surgery (or can't afford it). It's ridiculous, but they use the divide as a way to say, "We should get our rights, but not those transgender freaks!"

They're a tiny group, but it's a sensitive subject, so it's generally not discussed a lot. But yes, transsexualism is mostly about "sex" and not "gender," and if that's what we're talking about, I kinda understand what you're saying. It's just that I'm so used to seeing people talking about "gender" as including sex that I've kinda given up and just assumed that's what most people are talking about.

Mara said:

"What if you woke up in the wrong body tommorrow?" is a neat mental exercise, but a much more realistic one is, "What if you woke up with severe mental illness tommorrow, and also you happened to look like the opposite sex?"

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Yes, you are correct, and I think that is a much more accurate way to explain what your experience is like.

I will try to better explain this. I'm probably not making much sense.

The thing is, if you asked people if they would be okay with waking up as the opposite sex, a lot of them would care. It wouldn't really be the same experience as a transgendered person, but they wouldn't be okay with it, either.

I have always felt that I WOULD be okay with it. Surely, I don't know for sure, but I thought I would. For this reason, it was hard for me to understand. There is much more to it than just the idea of how men and woman are supposed to act.

Mara said:

Transsexualism is mostly about literally going insane because you're under the influence of the wrong hormones and they're ruining your quality of life (at least) and making you suicidal (usually). The body dysphoria (genitals etc.) are a secondary problem, and only seem to be a problem in some trans people, and there's research suggesting it might be linked to how our brains map our bodies. The social aspect, which the media _loves_ to focus on, is a very distant third. Most transsexual women were not "Princess Boys" when we were children, and most transsexual men were not hyper-masculine, but we all felt something was seriously physically wrong with us.

You can totally eliminate all socially constructed ideas of gender, but you'll still have some people who feel inexplicably depressed and/or full of rage and won't function correctly as adults until their hormone levels are fixed.

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It does sound as though transexual (which, if I'm understanding right, refers to the hormonal imbalances you're talking about) and transgendered (which refers to someone's own psychological identity as male or female) are two very different concepts, even if they can occur together.

It's a shame there's so much political sensitivity around calling them different things because, well, they are different. And the fact that they get blurred together so much is probably misleading for a lot of people, particularly since so many aren't educated about the subject in general.

The Otter said:

It does sound as though transexual (which, if I'm understanding right, refers to the hormonal imbalances you're talking about) and transgendered (which refers to someone's own psychological identity as male or female) are two very different concepts, even if they can occur together.

It's a shame there's so much political sensitivity around calling them different things because, well, they are different. And the fact that they get blurred together so much is probably misleading for a lot of people, particularly since so many aren't educated about the subject in general.

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Actually, transsexual does usually include psychological identity as "male" or "female," too. It's a bit confusing, I know.

Basically, transsexual people psychologically identify as the opposite sex from what they're assigned at birth. (Usually.)

If we use this definition, transgender people identify as the opposite gender, or no gender, or two genders, or genderqueer, or bi-gender. And that's really hard to quantify or explain, and it'd be better to let someone in that category explain.

EDIT:
Transsexualism generally involves both the hormonal problem and identifying as the opposite sex of the assigned-at-birth sex. And I have no idea what the relationship between those two is, or how often they're separated, or how much society's influence has on the latter part, or what.

I do know that even if someone only has the hormonal issue (and that does happen, it's just rarer), it's harder for them to get treatment due to ignorance of some doctors who think they need to dress and identify a certain way. Standards on that have gotten better, though.

EDIT2:
There's this complicated picture somewhere that shows all the different concepts that make up different identity categories, but I can't find it.

Generally, "sex" is male or female, "sex identity" is man or woman, and "gender expression" is masculine or feminine. Any of those can be in-between, though. And...

This is soooo hard to explain at this hour. I'll try again tommorrow, maybe.

Mara said:

EDIT2:
There's this complicated picture somewhere that shows all the different concepts that make up different identity categories, but I can't find it.

Generally, "sex" is male or female, "sex identity" is man or woman, and "gender expression" is masculine or feminine. Any of those can be in-between, though. And...

This is soooo hard to explain at this hour. I'll try again tommorrow, maybe.

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I think I've seen that diagram before, though I don't know if I could find it again either. But yeah, that really highlights how complex the whole issue of sex and gender is, and even that probably doesn't cover all the different possibilities.

I do get what you're saying, I think. And I didn't mean to imply that transexualism is just about hormone levels. I probably sounded completely clueless in that last post, so I apologize. But the media does seem to focus heavily on the social/gender aspects and pay very little attention to the whole "people literally need these hormone treatments in order to stay mentally healthy," so maybe drawing more of a distinction between those two things would help the public understand it better and take it more seriously.

But then, I guess, there's the risk of people not being taken seriously if they don't have "real" medical issues ("real" as deemed by the medical establishment) and being denied the right to transition.

Mara, thank you so much for being so polite and doing your best to explain in a candid, detailed way.

Just a couple tips:
Transsexual is spelled with two "S"s (trans + sexual)
People are "transgender", not "transgendered"
"assigned sex" is the term for the sex a person was designated at birth (by mainstream logic, all XYs are boys, XX are girls, and intersex people aren't taken into consideration or are surgically "corrected")

Transgender means that your assigned sex and your mental gender don't match. So all transsexuals are also transgender, but not all transgender people are transsexuals.

Transsexuals usually have gender dysphoria (the psychological misery Mara described) and use hormones, sexual reassignment surgery, clothes and/or prosthetics (packers, padded bras, etc.) to make their sex and gender align.

Some transgender people feel their assigned sex and mental gender don't match, but they don't have gender dysphoria, and they may choose to live as their assigned sex even if it doesn't match their gender. My spouse and I are both this way. I see my assigned sex as a disappointing second choice, but I don't want to physically alter my body and nor does my spouse. I'm definitely male gender, right down to how I perceive my genitals and relationship roles, but I don't suffer gender dysphoria. I think of myself as "the best of both worlds" rather than seeing my sex as a birth defect. Transgender, but not transsexual. Because these terms are used synonymously (or incorrectly) so often, I usually call myself "genderqueer" to avoid confusion.

Thanks for the clarification, Kat. I'd seen the spellings both ways so I wasn't sure.

Ardent Kat said:

I'm definitely male gender, right down to how I perceive my genitals and relationship roles, but I don't suffer gender dysphoria. I think of myself as "the best of both worlds" rather than seeing my sex as a birth defect. Transgender, but not transsexual. Because these terms are used synonymously (or incorrectly) so often, I usually call myself "genderqueer" to avoid confusion.

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Adding this in, I'm further confused. Are we going by traditional American relationship roles as in? Because your explanation of the difference between transsexual/transgender is in league to what I've read, but when you add male perception of relationship roles, again I'm lost.

For the sake of simplicity, I have a "somewhat" small question -- what does it mean to not assign with mental gender? Or, better yet, is there a standard definition of gender used here that I'm not aware of?

And I'm sorry for the questions, I'm just curious.

thebloodfiend said:

Are we going by traditional American relationship roles as in? ...when you add male perception of relationship roles, again I'm lost.

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I mean that if I'm in a relationship with a man, I think of it as gay (m/m) and if I'm in a relationship with a woman, that would be straight. (Even though to outside perceptions, it would be the other way around.) I guess "role" isn't the right word; maybe relationship "type"?

what does it mean to not assign with mental gender? Or, better yet, is there a standard definition of gender used here that I'm not aware of?

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This link is a good place to start on the difference between sex and gender. From the article:

"'[G]ender' refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and women" and that "'masculine' and 'feminine' are gender categories."

...The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation makes a distinction between sex and gender in their most recent Media Reference Guide. Sex is "the classification of people as male or female" at birth, based on bodily characteristics such as chromosomes, hormones, internal reproductive organs, and genitalia. Gender identity is "one's internal, personal sense of being a man or woman (or a boy or a girl)

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So "gender" can refer either to socially constructed roles OR a trans person's own sense of whether they're a man or a woman (regardless of physicality).

By the former definition, a couple in a female-led, male-submissive relationship might consider themselves genderqueer even if they're both cisgender because it breaks social norms for a woman to ask a man to marry her on bended knee, for a man to be primary nurturer to children, etc. It may seem like no big deal, but people who step outside the box of gender expectation can get marginalized pretty badly.

In the latter sense, anyone who knows they're female is female. That internal gender identity is what most trans people are usually thinking when they talk about gender. It's inappropriate to ask a trans person for "proof" of their maleness or femaleness, just like it's insensitive to disbelieve a person with chronic pain or depression just because their state can't be easily proven.

savagelilies said:

Moreover, what is considered "masculine" and "feminine" is not inherently masculine or feminine; we ascribe these qualities to various things (ie blue is "masculine" and pink is "feminine, often to value or devalue them).

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(Emphasis mine)

While I've been soaking in the discussion in general as an interested yet novice reader, (I'm simply a straight gal who likes to broaden my horizons, and as such I lack the qualifications to seriously contribute) I feel qualified to provide a nugget of information on this point.

In the mid-1800's, blue was considered a calm, feminine color, while red and its associated shades, including pink, were considered strong and masculine. At the turn of the century, pink was the color for young boys, and pale blue the color for young girls. Around the time of World War II, the two colors swapped. I've found no clear reason for the switch in the research I've done on the subject.

Just goes to show how arbitrary symbols in society can be. They only have meaning because someone decided it would be so.

I realize this doesn't lend much to the actual topic, but I hope that my bit of trivia is beneficial to someone.

Shadow Dragon said:

The main thing is, a lot of gay people (particularly gay guys) do their best to appear to be "normal," mainstream, blue collar people so that the general public will like them. In turn, they try to distance themselves away from trans and the more eccentric parts of the gay community. "Hey, I'm just like one of you guys, except I happen to like other guys instead. I'm not one of those freaks."

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I guess I don't see that in my world. Now I live in very conservative Indiana. But I surround myself with people who are open-minded (though I still know people who have both homophobia and prejudice problems). But in my experience, the gay people I know stand out, but now that think about it, it's mostly the lesbians... the gay guys do better at blending in. I know one trans person well and most people do not know this person is trans. So to me, he is the one who is more integrated into the mainstream. But on a national level, I don't know what the official score is.

I think some people are even more confused about T than LGB, though. Even other LGB. The main thing I have heard from other people-gay and straight- that is negative is that being T and changing your gender is "selfish" because of the way everyone else percieves you. I think the heartbreak is that a T person can't transition as soon as they feel they need to, which would usually be childhood. And just like gays and lesbians who leave straight marriages because they are unhappy, if we could all just be who we are from the beginning, less people would get hurt.

Also, I think that trans people may not always want to be associated with the LGB. I may be wrong, but it seems to me like they would want to be seen as male or female only, not "I used to be this, but now I'm that, or I never really was this and changed to who I really am" etc.