Do Transsexuals have no choice?
TheCallan
I believe that we have no choice about being born with a predisposition to
transgender, no choice to be transsexual or whatever other word you use to
describe it, but we do choose what we want to do about it. The notion of
choice -- and of taking responsibility for that choice -- is crucial to
our being able to become the best we can be in this world.
Many transsexuals argue that they have no choice but to have surgery, that
they have no choice over the chain of events that leads them to surgery.
For some, this fundamental tenet of faith is so strong that they feel if a
person feels they have choice over SRS, they are ot really a transsexual,
for transsexuals have no choice. This is a key part of their history, and
many get distressed when anyone talks about the choices a transsexual
person has to make in this world.
Where do choices end for transsexuals? They choose where they choose go
for surgery. They choose when to have surgery. They choose how to pay
for surgery. They choose to have a graft or not. They choose where to
transition, choose how and what to tell their friends and family. They
even choose what they wear to and from the hospital People choose all
these things, but many insist that they don't actually choose to
gendershift and have surgery. You may wonder what they would have done if
surgery was not an option-- as it wasn't up until about 40 years ago.
Life is about the cycle of death and rebirth, and we all choose to die in
some way -- and be reborn, though the death of the phyisical body is the
ultimate choice.
I actually had one TS argue that no rational person would choose
gendershift and surgery, so therefore it can't be a rational choice. Is it
a rational choice for a CD to put on a dress and go to the mall? The
rationality of decisions is very much about the way you view the options.
This culture wants to convince us that no rational person would do either
and enforces that decision with stigma. Who would choose to take the pain
that one has in telling their mother, their kids, their wife that they
choose to change gender and/or sex -- if even temporarily? Heterosexism
requires the separation of men and women, and works hard to tell us that
to cross that line is a horrible and bizarre thing. But it isn't -- or at
least that is the message of the the transgender paradigm.
The difference seems to be as simple as the difference between "I had no
other choice but to have surgery" and "I felt I had no other choice but to
have surgery." The first statements denies any possibility of other
choices, while the second affirms that we saw surgery as the right choice
for us, whatever the drawbacks.
I do understand that many TS who have chosen gendershift and surgery do
believe they have no other choice, that they have exhausted their other
options -- but that is not unique to transsexuals. The ability to
relinquish responsibility for our actions because we saw no other choice
than to drink, leave, kill, (or any other action) makes me very
uncomfortable.
I believe that TS people who choose surgery make the best choice they can
under the circumstances -- but actually going through with gendershift and
surgery has been made to seem so selfish and harebrained that they choose
claim no choice in the matter. "I didn't want to do it! I had to! My
nature forced me into it!"
Gendershift and surgery are fine and honorable choices, not selfish or
harebrained. They are often the best choice that we can make to get on
with our lives. I applaud and admire their choice, as a transgendered and
a transsexual person to bring their gender, role and body in harmony.
If it was easier to make the choice to gendershift, we would not have so
many TG people twisted by the closet, torn apart by being impaled on the
point of the dilemma of which way to turn. We wouldn't have to wait
until every thing else in there life was gone before we chose to walk
through the wall of gender -- and much of the pain of living with stigma
would be lessened and we could get on with our lives and our
contributions.
But the model that says TS is a disease, a birth defect, means it is
something to run from and deny, not to be proud of. I know many
crossdressers who longed to be TS, because that was explainable, took you
out of the range of making a choice to change clothes. But today even
many transsexuals reject that illness model.
James Green was talking to a big old shrink at an APA convention. When
he told the shrink that he was talking about transgender, transsexuality,
the shrink replied "I don't think God makes mistakes. James simply
answered, "Neither do I." We are not mistakes, just humans with special
gifts and challenges, like any other human. We can choose to see our
transgendered nature as a curse, or simply another way humans are born.
This is a big deal. Do we actually have choice over how we live our life,
even if we don't have choice over who we are? Are we slaves to the world,
or do we control our destiny by the choices we make?
Much of this discussion rides on how we define "choice." It is clear that
our choices are based on both biological predisposition and a wide range
of other environmental factors, and it is possible to argue that humans
are merely victims of their genetic and cultural programming, and have no
true choice. You can argue that humans are so limited by their history
that free choice is not an option -- the "meat puppet" theory.
But to make that argument is to take away our responsibility away for
change, for transformation. If we are only slaves to our past, then we
have no personal responsibility -- or personal freedom. We become only a
part of the collective, not individuals. Robert Schuller preaches on the
fact that this century has been one of collectivism, of serving the
machine, but the pendulum is swinging back for the next century to the
individual. He reminds us of our individual responsibility and choice --
"If it is to be, it is up to me!"
Transgendered people make individual choices. It is clear that well over
90% of culture doesn't have massive discomfort at living in a standardized
gender role. TG people don't ask for the ability to change the role of
everyone, but the ability of individuals to define their own role, either
crossing the sex/gender line permanently or exploring the turf around it.
We don't choose for the culture as a whole, but we do claim the right to
choose for ourselves, to not simply take what is issued at birth.
Not every choice is for something -- often we choose against something.
We choose not to be men, but does that mean we choose to be women? For
some of us we do, but for others the choice is more complex. For many of
us we choose not to choose, but to let the world push us where it will --
yet does that mean that we haven't made a choice?
We always make the best choice we can -- even if we don't understand why
we made the choice. Even when we make choices that appear self
destructive, we are choosing to destroy something that is haunting us. We
often choose to paint ourselves into a corner so that the only choice left
to us is the one we want, or the one that we think we deserve -- and so we
get it without seeming to make a choice. This is especially true of
choices that carry such stigma transgender and sexual orientation -- we
are so afraid of being shunned, isolated, separated for simply doing what
will satisfy us that we try to abdicate the choice.
Erica Jong notes that one reason people are so afraid of choice is because
it seems so easy to make the wrong one. Its so easy, especially in a
culture where choice is frowned on, one that socializes us to serve the
machine, become homogenized. People club us about our choices -- "If your
really loved me, you would never hurt me this way!" --when our choices
are not about hurting them but rather about finding what we need. We
become gun-shy, try to find ways to not be isolated, to not have to take
the responsibility -- and the consequences.
We also recognize that taking responsibility for our choices now means we
always had responsibility for our choices -- and then we have to forgive
ourselves our past transgressions, which is hard for anyone. Learning to
love ourselves unconditionally, not just for what we did or didn't do but
simply for what we are is the basis of learning to love others that way.
As others have noted, the range of choice that is open to us is expanding
geometrically. We have choices of communication, of travel, of medical
treatments, of life that were unknown just a few years ago -- and the
possibilities that are just over the horizon are even more boggling. We
are not living in a world that is getting more simple, but one that is
getting vastly more complex, where the range of choice will allow any
individual to become who they want to be.
Simply the fact that we have so much more information available to us
opens up our choices immensely. We now see options we would not have
known existed before.
To be prepared to handle this range, we have to start teaching kids to
make intelligent choices, not merely to follow rote patterns. We can't
simply crave going back to a simpler time -- it isn't going to happen, and
those simple times weren't really all that much fun because we were
chastised, stigmatized, humiliated and declared criminal for the choices
we made that seemed "anti-social." The drug problem is good example --
while some people tried to have kids "just say no," those in recovery
found that they couldn't kick until they took responsibility for their own
choices, and trusted, rather than fought, the callings of their "higher
power."
Society has an interest in making the choice to be TG -- or to live as a
gay person, or lots of other choices as difficult as possible. They
easier the choice is the more people will take it -- and that is seen as a
destabilizing force. If people thought they could choose to change without
stigma, they would -- and where would we be then? There are reasons that
the hurdles for SRS are so high, reasons the gatekeepers fight so hard --
and that we become who they expect us to be in order to get what we want
and what we need.
I watched Martine Rothblatt confound an interviewer on local TV. As the
interviewer tried to get the "no choice" phrase out of her, she simply
said she had lived as a man and had always wanted to live as a woman, and
her wife and kids thought it was OK so she did. The interviewer looked
stymied, not understanding how anyone would gender shift just because they
chose to. Gender shift is so drastic, so irreversible, so weird, so
isolating -- why would anyone choose to do this?
But Martine knows that she made a choice for change. It was her time and
her way. She was born transgendered, and chose to gendershift.
I understand the enormous pressure that comes from growing up gender
queer, transgendered, or even transsexual. I understand that for many,
that pressure is so intense that choosing surgery is the only choice they
see for happiness -- and that many of us were in so much pain that they
saw the choice between surgery and death as the only choice at all.
But taking responsibility for your choices in no way diminishes the pain
and suffering you felt -- in fact, it confirms your ability to do
something about them.
By choosing to gendershift, have SRS or transgress gender in other ways,
you cease to be a victim to the pressure the outside world puts on you to
conform to gender standards. We are shaped by peer pressure whether you
resist it or conform to it -- but by choosing our own path we become not
merely followers or reactionaries, but responsible for our own life and
future.
Declaring the ability to choose the shape and direction of our life gives
us the power to transcend our history, to become more than slaves to our
predisposition and our environment. Our choices will be shaped by who we
are and where we have been -- but they will not be limited by that. I
have a role that I wouldn't have chosen for myself given the stigmas of
this culture -- but somehow it feels like the absolutely right choice.
The dilemma of humans.
The point is that whatever limits we have to free will, in the long run it
is our choices -- not the least of which is how we choose to see the world
-- that determine the ultimate direction of our life. It only takes a
little bit of choice to make a big difference to any human life.
If we want to stop being victims, we must take responsibility for our
choices -- even those choices which are almost unfathomable to most in
this heterosexist culture. We must be able to satisfy ourselves, to be
come congruent and whole, even if some people think we are just plain
nuts.
To paraphrase what JoAnn Roberts often reminds us, in the words of John
Steakley, "You are what you [choose to] do when it counts." Once we have
control of and responsibility for our own lives -- and we don't simply
give in to nature or the culture -- then we can start to become full and
complete individuals.
And to me, that choice is worth working very, very hard for.
Callan
Alexis Belinda Dinno
: Do Transsexuals have no choice?
: I believe that we have no choice about being born with a predisposition to
: transgender, no choice to be transsexual or whatever other word you use to
: describe it, but we do choose what we want to do about it. The notion of
: choice -- and of taking responsibility for that choice -- is crucial to
: our being able to become the best we can be in this world.
I believe that I had a choice. I believe that I was male sexed and
gendered, and that I chose to become female gendered and sexed. I was
aware of TSs from an early age, aware that the possibility existed, but
had no inclinations no desires as a child to be female (although, I will
admit to never being fond of the aesthetics of the penis).
When I started to hit adulthood and to really get to know wimmin (and
men) and myself, I decided that being male was something I'd prefer not
to be, and that being female presented an attractive alternative. And
you know: the possibility of transitioning along gender and sexual lines
is a possibility, therefore it is something I can consider.
I'd describe the level of decision as about on par with my desire to
persue a higher (hey! stop laughing!) education, my desire to pursue
political acivism and my desire to persue artistic expression through
music.
The levels of discomfort I have felt in the adversity presented to me in
my transition along gender and sexual dimensions has been akin to my
levels of discomfort in the adversity faced in persuing those other
aspects of my life (in fact I was suicidal in part over not being able to
go back to school at one point, and _not_ because of any fictitious 'Gender
Dysphoria').
Perhaps one ought to go out and contrive new 'conditions' or 'illnesses'
to ascribe to me such as Educational Dysphoria, Social Condition
Dysphoria (hey! those Blacks in Watts, Jews in Germany, Queers on Earth,
Wimmin on Earth, etc aren't experiencing any genuine attitudes and
reasonalble feelings or reactions: they're all just Social
Dysphoric!...here let's go build 'clinics' for them...). Perhaps, dare I
say it? Artistic Expression Dysphoria?
No I chose, the motivation and the behavior...as much as one chooses
anything.
That's my experience. And I hope I'm not sounding overly antagonistic of
the Callan, but I'm _really_ tired of being fed the 'you had no choice but
to feel that way, so it's understandible and even justified for you to
make the decison' crap. And I know that you're trying to argue for the
correctness and nobility, etc of gendershift and sexual transition, BUT
arguing '...that we have no choice about being born with a predisposition to
transgender.' strikes me personally as just more of the same, and I get
really tired of it.
Not only are the transitions choices that 'dysphorics' (let's just
generally lump together people who feel that this whole TG business was
some hand they were dealt by fate) can make (and feel good about), but
_anyone_ can persue gender/sex shift and probably come up with something
positive in the experience. That is not to say that it is the correct
choice for anyone, but that _anyone_ could attempt to evaluate and make
the choice: not just some group of 'born that way, sorry (or not so
sorry)' folks...
Alexis...damn...now you've gone and got my dander up...
MarlaB 01
I think you need to consider that article for Crosstalk.
Marla