The "T" Party.

sunandshadow said:

My hormone condition wasn't diagnosed or treated until I was 15, and even then the disease wasn't understood as well as it is now so it wasn't until I was 18 or 19 that I was actually told eating starches and sugars was what was keeping my hormones screwed up. By that point my appearance was pretty much set. For myself I'm fine with my body, but I want a man to fall in love with me, and it's really distressing that my appearance is inadequate for that dream to come true.

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Any man or woman worth loving is going to fall in love with you for you, not for what you look like. Regardless of whatever you may think of your appearance, whoever falls in love with you will think you're beautiful.

kuwisdelu said:

Any man or woman worth loving is going to fall in love with you for you, not for what you look like. Regardless of whatever you may think of your appearance, whoever falls in love with you will think you're beautiful.

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Well, appearances are important to me - maybe that makes me shallow, but I'm just not interested in sex with someone who physically isn't my type, and I wouldn't expect anyone to desire me if I wasn't physically their type.

I don't understood either about "feeling a woman" or "feeling a man", people are just people at the end.

Though, to be honest, I have had castration fantasies in very dark moments of my life. Thinking genitals make everything complicated.

maxmordon said:

Thinking genitals make everything complicated.

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Sure does. I'd have been quite content never seeing puberty; life would've been much simpler. On the other hand, I have a very happy relationship of about 26 years, which I probably wouldn't have otherwise had.

Ruv Draba said:

Sure does. I'd have been quite content never seeing puberty; life would've been much simpler. On the other hand, I have a very happy relationship of about 26 years, which I probably wouldn't have otherwise had.

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Yes, but I haven't had the join of having a consensual romantic relationship yet, Ruv. So, for me is complicated things like "behave like a man, who must do this, that, and those" or "don't go there, only women can go there" which frankly I fail to understand the whole fuzz about it.

maxmordon said:

So, for me is complicated things like "behave like a man, who must do this, that, and those" or "don't go there, only women can go there" which frankly I fail to understand the whole fuzz about it.

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I don't want to distract from the core purpose of Di's thread, but it's very interesting that gender identity problems extend well beyond accepted QLTBAG categories. On the one hand it's almost comforting to see how broadly gender identity problems can apply. It means that gender itself is difficult -- almost an imposition -- to many people. It means that people can bring to bear a lot more sympathy and compassion than they may currently be and that makes me hopeful.

On the other hand, I don't want to trivialise just how serious and abiding trans-gender and low-gender struggles can be just because (say) pubescent boys like picking on pre-pubescent boys for a couple of years.

In the big picture this feels very much a common human problem to me, not some 'born different' problem. I don't want to see anyone driven to depression or suicide from gender identity issues -- which essentially nobody asks for in the first place. What a terrible way for our species to live.

But I think that ignoring gender isn't the solution. A lot of people compete hugely on gender. They want gender to be noticed, and they want to be treated differently...

Maybe we just need to learn to take holidays from gender. Take a breather. Give each other some air. Stop running gender competitions 24/7. Just hang the sexuality and gender-jockeying on a peg for a bit, and enjoy the sunshine.

I dunno. What do you think?

When I was growing up, these questions weren't even talked about, but I remember thinking (when I was about seven) that God had made a mistake with me, and when was my penis going to grow in?

Now it's some forty years later, and sometimes I identify as a lesbian woman, and sometimes as a straight male, and it doesn't really matter anymore. I think if gender reassignment surgery had been more commonly available when I was a teen, I might have considered it, but three kids later I'm glad I didn't go for it. I've never felt feminine, but when I was pregnant and nursing, I was glad I had a female body. Now I'm just glad I have a body.

Interestingly enough, I can trace this through three generations (so far) of my family. Mara's story about being biologically male yet identifying as a lesbian resonates--you might be describing my dad. (Who would never admit it, though...) And my son started stealing his sister's dolls and dressing up as a princess by the time he was three or four. It wasn't until last year that he actually came out, though. I still don't know (and maybe never will) if he self-identifies as female or male, but he has traits of both.

Yeshanu said:

Interestingly enough, I can trace this through three generations (so far) of my family. Mara's story about being biologically male yet identifying as a lesbian resonates--you might be describing my dad. (Who would never admit it, though...) And my son started stealing his sister's dolls and dressing up as a princess by the time he was three or four. It wasn't until last year that he actually came out, though. I still don't know (and maybe never will) if he self-identifies as female or male, but he has traits of both.

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A genderqueer friend of mine has a biological father and grandfather who were crossdressers, but wasn't really raised by either.

Recently, a transsexual woman I know online found out that her sister (formerly believed to be her "brother") is also transitioning. They were raised together, but haven't seen each other much in the past few years.

I read an article somewhere describing some evidence that it was genetic, but I'm not entirely sure I believed it. (It was a scientific study, but some of it seemed a little sketchy and sounded silly, even if it was scientifically valid. Like a tendency of left-handedness. I happen to be left-handed, but don't even know if there is evidence that handedness is genetic.)

But yeah, I can definitely believe it's somewhat genetic. (Just not necessarily the arguments in the article, which honestly I'm not qualified to judge anyway.)

Thanks to Mara and Yesh for the genetic angle.

Here's a moral and perhaps an ethical question... Increasingly gene-therapies may be able to alter undesireable traits in children. Obviously, life-threatening traits will probably be targeted first, but traits that can affect quality of life might also be targeted.

If you were a parent and your child were likely to be genetically prone to transgendry, gender ambivalence, dysmorphia, androgyny etc... would you remove the trait? Would you ever deliberately introduce one of those traits to the child's genotype?

Why or why not? And what (if anything) would you tell the child?

Ruv Draba said:

Thanks to Mara and Yesh for the genetic angle.

Here's a moral and perhaps an ethical question... Increasingly gene-therapies may be able to alter undesireable traits in children. Obviously, life-threatening traits will probably be targeted first, but traits that can affect quality of life might also be targeted.

If you were a parent and your child were likely to be genetically prone to transgendry, gender ambivalence, dysmorphia, androgyny etc... would you remove the trait? Would you ever deliberately introduce one of those traits to the child's genotype?

Why or why not? And what (if anything) would you tell the child?

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That technology doesn't exist, and it would have to exist for me to make an informed decision. It would really depend on what the genetic tampering actually did.

Considering that some intersex people end up miserable because their parents chose to have the wrong procedures for them after birth, I'm a bit leery of genetic tampering that would basically be the same thing.

And being transgender isn't an undesirable trait with proper technology. It's mostly painful because of current circumstances. (Transphobia, lack of understanding, and limited transitioning technology for transsexual people.)

With future technology, I think it would be much more responsible to simply allow people to transition when they want, and to focus on eliminating the stigma.

I certainly would be okay if I didn't have to worry about discrimination or upsetting my family, didn't have to justify myself, and hadn't grown up in an environment where most of my life, my only knowledge of transgender people came from Jerry Springer, Ace Ventura, and similar "classy" stuff. And with better physical change options, there'd be even less of a problem. (First priority should be better options for trans men. I've heard there are military experiments with growing organs for injured soldiers, including penises, so this could be reality.)

In theoretical future world, I'd have transitioned by the age of 18-20 or so, if not earlier, and would be accepted for who I am, and would never have to worry about whether I was visibly trans or not. (Really, many transsexual people already feel fine once they transition, even with the problems we have now. With future technology, it'd probably not be a very big deal at all.)

Anyway, in actual future, genetic tampering wouldn't work very well, most likely. It'd probably just be a weapon for authoritarian parents who want even more absolute control over their children's minds and bodies. And I'm against that.

Oh, and I was mostly talking about transsexual people in most of this post. Out of all of the categories of transgender, we're probably the ones with the most justification to "cure," and I'm still very opposed to that.

Anyone who wants to eliminate genes for being androgynous, bi-gender, genderqueer, or a-gender should not be allowed to have or raise children. That's bigotry and abuse, pure and simple, without any sort of justification at all.

(Transsexual people have a physical problem. Other transgender people don't have a problem at all. But I'm sure the bigots would assume we all have a mental problem, and want to alter our genes accordingly.)

Mara said:

I read an article somewhere describing some evidence that it was genetic, but I'm not entirely sure I believed it. (It was a scientific study, but some of it seemed a little sketchy and sounded silly, even if it was scientifically valid. Like a tendency of left-handedness. I happen to be left-handed, but don't even know if there is evidence that handedness is genetic.)

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Left-handedness must have some genetic component, because it gallops in our family too. My father's mother, me, my sister, and my daughter are (or were, in the case of my grandmother) all lefties. And I wonder if the genes for left-handedness and gender queerness are close by on the same chromosome--I know a lot more left-handed lesbians than left-handed straight women.

But it's not necessarily an either/or situation--a combination of genetics and pre-natal environment could be the real cause, which would make studies that look at either/or seem somewhat inconclusive.

As far as introducing a trait into a child's genetics, absolutely not! (Is that enough emphasis for you?) I wouldn't change a child's gender identity or handedness any more than I'd want to change their actual gender or skin colour. I believe that we human beings developed certain traits for a reason, and playing God or fooling with nature (whichever you prefer) without fully understanding the purpose of those traits is asking for disaster. We've done enough damage as it is...

I'd only fool with the genetic traits of my offspring if said traits would result in a condition that would cause extremem physical disability or death in said offspring. And I say this as a mother not only of a gay son, but as of an autistic son as well.

Thanks again for comments, Mara and Yesh.

I think it's interesting that while people of nonvanilla genditude suffer all kinds of social problems, you don't feel that those problems are enough to justify changing identity if that could be done painlesslly. Or put another way: the problem is not nonvanilla gender identity, but peoples' problems with it. Fair enough too.

Here's an odd thing though... I can't possibly have suffered as many gender identity problems as someone born to the wrong sex, yet I think I'd have been entirely comfortable being gender-neutral. I'm not uncomfortable being male and I wouldn't give up my marriage for anything; I just have a twinge of sympathy with Max that not having a gender would be a lot less complicated. Less stupid stuff would be expected of me, perhaps. Maybe I'm still just harbouring a pubescent resentment at genetic destiny.

On the other hand, being as I am I wouldn't alter it. I just feel that if you're not going to reproduce (and I never planned to), gender can be rather stupid.

I'm entirely for minimizing restrictions caused by gender ideas. (That would help transgender people quite a bit.) I just start getting a little nervous when people get to the edge of saying "Gender and physical sex doesn't really matter, so transsexual people should just get over it and accept the way they were born."

Nobody's done that here, I'm just saying it happens sometimes. And that's why some transgender people are extremely touchy about "gender doesn't matter." I'd say that gender doesn't matter to some people, but it matters to other, and it's not a question of choice in either situation.

Also, a lot of us transgender people screwed ourselves up by insisting to ourselves that gender didn't really have meaning, that it was just a social construct that's dying out, and that we could just ignore it. It wasn't for me, and I'd probably have saved myself a lot of pain if I'd accepted that ten years ago.

More importantly, actually embracing my gender for once has been incredibly liberating and has made me very happy.

So, basically, I think people should be allowed to decide what's right for themselves. And pretty much anything is cool except for forcing gender onto people or forcing non-gender onto people.

(Some on the far right dislike transsexual people because we violate their strict gender ideas. Some of the far left hate transsexual women with the intensity of Fred Phelps' hate of gay people, because they accuse us of reinforcing gender norms and "the ultimate act of men raping female bodies." Both are crazy fringe people, but I've gotten wary of extremes.)

I used to be of the opinion that gender shouldn't matter, but I've changed my mind. It does and should matter--if it didn't there wouldn't be so much agony on both the queer side and the fringe straight side. And let's face it--the differences between us are what we find attractive about each other, whether we're queer or not. The world would be a dull place if everyone were just like me!

The human race (and every other species, for that matter) is so much more complicated than the "purists" make us out to be--there aren't just two genders, but many, and we're all necessary parts of the human race.

I used to feel threatened by the crazy fringe people (on both the right and the left), but now I feel sorry for them. They're so unsure of their own identity that they need to put other people in neatly labelled boxes in order to feel safe. Myself, as I've become more certain that how I am is right for me, I've become less likely to label myself and others, and more likely to just let others be who they are.

This thread fits me to a T. Horny female hetero with complete inability to grok femininity. I blame some of it on my lack of acculturation (or brainwashing, as I prefer to call it). In my school days, I was an outsider for various nevermind why reasons, so I never felt any need to impress a peer group with my conformity. I read what I liked, and what I liked was not girly.

The strange behavior patterns of my tribe have always puzzled me. I am very uncomfortable when anyone compliments me on my clothes. I sense ulterior motives -- is this person pushing me toward the pink cage, trying to encourage my nonexistent feminine side? I don't belong in the pink cage; I'm a human being, not a skirt-wearing slave with chained thoughts. Nor do I belong at the other pole with the good old boys imprisoned in their security blanket of noise and bluff. I always enjoyed hanging out with gay guys because there was no sex or gender hassle. I could just be me.

Oy, I rant, I rave.

Anyone who can respect me without looking at my boobs or making allowances for my lack of balls, gets my respect.

@ Matera.

It's only very recently that I've decided that I like nice clothes, and part of that is job-related. So I went out after Christmas and bought some new work clothes. The first day I wore them, the kids I work with (I'm a manager at a movie theatre) went nuts. Seriously. And I didn't know how to handle it.

But it wasn't sexual, it was just the novelty of seeing Ruth dressed up in nice clothes instead of thrift store specials for a change.

I don't wear skirts very often, though. I've always hated wearing dresses--I feel much more comfortable in jacket and tie. I don't know if that's because I often identify as male rather than female, or if because I was in army cadets for years and wore tie and tunic then, or if because pantyhose are the most uncomfortable things ever created by man.

New rule: Any clothing created by a man for women to wear must be worn by said man first.

I'm less interested in modifying the genetics of my children, and far more interested in modifying MY genetics.

One is sticky and immoral when used in anything but a life threatening situation. The other is...well, a personal choice made by a sentient for themselves.

Mara said:

Nobody's done that here, I'm just saying it happens sometimes. And that's why some transgender people are extremely touchy about "gender doesn't matter." I'd say that gender doesn't matter to some people, but it matters to other, and it's not a question of choice in either situation.

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This is probably analogous to white privilege in racism, and part of that privilege is not having to worry about your colour. And because you have never had to worry about it, it's then easy to wonder why it's a problem at all.

Those who have been on the receiving end of prejudice understand just how much those things can matter. I think gender prejudice is even more damaging and insidious in certain ways due to social normative pressures, moral pressures that are exerted (often through religious apparatus), and the deep complexities of defining and relating all the variables of sexual identity.

This is a really truly amazingly awesome thread. I've been lurking but hesitated to intrude at first.

Anyway, I truly deeply don't think that gender should 'matter', but not in the way that Mara was wary of. And I realize that whether or not something 'maters' or is 'right' or 'wrong' has very little to do with how society treats said thing, whatever it is.

So, the reason I don't believe gender matters is the way I was raised, which was to be gender blind. As a child, it truly never occurred to me that there was a 'wrong' way to love (I mean real love here, not abusive relationships), or that one gender was particularly one set of traits or another. To me, people were just people regardless, and some were bad and some were good and it had everything to do with the way they acted and nothing else. And people were supposed to love other people, and love themselves, and what they looked like on the outside shouldn't really influence that. As I grew up, I gradually began to realize that 'normal' society viewed these things very differently, but I didn't understand this.

At one point, I became very very close friends with a girl who was gender identity disphoric, which opened my eyes even further. And then later still fell madly in love with my first girl (long story) and became further convinced that exterior gender is an accident of birth, not a good indicator of anything important about a person. Similar in fact to skin color, or native language, or any other arbitrary physical attribute that has very little to do with who someone is inside, except because of the way society changes them due to it.

So, while I'm not transsexual or any other of the permutations of 'T', and therefore I suppose you could say I can't really 'know', I do firmly believe that exterior gender is arbitrary and immaterial. Who you are inside is what matters. I suppose I should say rather that I think exterior gender shouldn't matter, rather than that it doesn't.

And yes, I am a bit idealistic and optimistic. Why do you ask?

I'm a transsexual lady, and I'd like to thank Kitty Pryde for alerting me to the existence of this forum, and also Diana for starting this thread.

It's funny, some years ago I authored a regular column for one of our local (Palm Springs) GLBT magazines, and I called it "The T-Dance". What is it they say? GMTA!

I just published my debut novel, SHE'S MY DAD, and I've been very encouraged by the reception so far. Although the trans community still has a long way to go, I do believe we've made progress in recent years. For someone of my age (approaching the big six-oh) it's truly a brave new world, and I'm grateful to be a part of it.

Polenth said:

What do you mean by 'exterior gender'? Do you mean biological sex or things like wearing gender-specific clothes?

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I think biological sex is what I mean. Clothes are REALLY immaterial except as a statement of personality. And I suppose what I mean ultimately is that sex shouldn't be used as an excuse to discriminate. But it's more than that. It shouldn't be a way to discriminate against yourself either. You should find out who you are inside and just be that person, regardless of what your exterior surface looks like.

And yes I know that's easier said than done. This is just a statement of what I think 'should' be not what 'is'.

"If I had legs like yours, I'd want to show them off."
"If I looked like you, I'd want to wear makeup and pretty clothes."

It's off-putting rather than encouraging, but people don't seem to get that.

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I completely understand the urge to say these sorts of things as an outsider, however silly it seems now. The gender identity disphoric friend I mentioned earlier was one of the single most beautiful girls I've ever met. We were close friends for about a decade, from quite an early age (13 or 14) and at first I couldn't understand why she didn't want to wear things that accentuated her flawless beauty.

It took me a long time to realize she was beautiful however she dressed, and I really hope she makes the transition she's always wanted into a gorgeous man. I still don't understand, but I did finally manage to accept, and I'm glad she was patient enough to teach me.

One thing that helped me to realize it was seeing her dressed up gorgeously, but masculinely. She would look snazzy, but not at all feminine. And that really pounded the point home.

Bookewyrme said:

One thing that helped me to realize it was seeing her dressed up gorgeously, but masculinely. She would look snazzy, but not at all feminine. And that really pounded the point home.

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A lot of times, that seems to be the case. Seeing a transgender person when they're truly comfortable often helps friends understand why they need to transition.

Mara said:

A lot of times, that seems to be the case. Seeing a transgender person when they're truly comfortable often helps friends understand why they need to transition.

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I wonder if there's a reason behind that. I mean, most of the way people treat transgender (or any other QLTBAGer's) is just prejudice and hate, pure and simple.

But I wonder if sometimes it's simply a case of people seeing that the person is uncomfortable in themselves and being miserable, and misunderstanding the cause. Then, once the QLTBAG individual becomes comfortable with who they are, and therefore happy with themselves, the outsider finally "gets" it, or at least sees them happy and so doesn't try to interfere anymore. I dunno, seems a nice(er) theory anyway.

Polenth said:

The same things don't have to matter to everyone... that's part of the whole diversity thing.

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Right on!

Polenth said:

I get over-the-top compliments anytime my clothes are deemed to be a bit feminine. It's pretty clear from the conversations that they don't really mean "you look nice". They mean "think how much nicer you could look if you were totally feminine".

I also get a lot of guilt-trip style compliments like...

"If I had legs like yours, I'd want to show them off."
"If I looked like you, I'd want to wear makeup and pretty clothes."

It's off-putting rather than encouraging, but people don't seem to get that.

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Actually, I don't take those last two as encouraging, nor do I believe they were meant to be. They're actually not-very-thinly veiled insults aimed at getting you to conform to some perceived standard of beauty, and I'd reply as such. "I'm not you, and I don't want..."

As for the over-the-top compliments, I'd say a short, "Thank you," and leave it at that.

There are times when I think that "make up and pretty clothes" are gilding the lily. There are times when nothing is sexier to me than a woman in jeans and a clean tee.

Yeshanu said:

There are times when I think that "make up and pretty clothes" are gilding the lily. There are times when nothing is sexier to me than a woman in jeans and a clean tee.

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I can agree with that for sure. But western society kind of pre-conditions us to think of all the greatest beauty as being artificially generated by make up and clothes.

And I hate wearing makeup. >_<