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Erasing transsexual realities

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Echo Dancer

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Nov 10, 2001, 1:36:20 PM11/10/01
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Blanchard and Lawrence divide transsexuals into gay males and
autogynephiles. I don't think that works, but it shows two of the sides that
try to erase the realities of transsexuals. There are know-it-alls who in
ignorance and self-projection deny that transsexuals exist or they say they
are transsexuals too and assume that all transsexuals have to be like them
and thereby they work to erase our realities and it shouldn't surprise
anyone that that pisses us off - at least I know it pisses me off. When gay
men say we're just gay men in denial who can't deal with our internalized
homophobia, that pisses me off because it denies our truths and seeks to
erase our realities. When autogynephilic het transvestites say all
transvestites are transsexuals and there's no need for anyone to have SRS
because they themselves don't need or want it, that also tries to erase
transsexual and realities and that pisses me off too. Yes yes, I know I
should keep my mouth shut so they can paper over the big cracks in order to
make one big happy dysfunctional family, but I get really fed up with
ignorant jerks trying to remake us in their own molds and trying to deny and
erase our realities. I don't try to erase their realities, why do they need
so bad to erase mine?

There are autogynephiles who candidly admit they are afraid to lose their
sexual capacity to have sex as men with women and that's why they don't want
SRS. When het transvestite autogynephiles take hormones dressing up isn't a
kick and they lose interest in sex when they can't sexually perform as men
and suddenly discover they don't really want to be women. That ought to tell
them something about what's really behind wanting what they want and that's
also a big difference between autogynephilic het transvestites vs.
transsexuals and transgendered who continue to enjoy living as women while
taking hormones and after surgery. It seems to me there is a gulf with
autogynephilic transvestites on one side and transsexuals and transgendered
on the other where the difference is why you want what you want and whether
what you want goes away when sexual excitement goes away. When someone
denies autogynephilia exists, they ought to listen to autogynephiles because
they make it really clear it does. I understand choosing to live as women,
because I couldn't stand to have to live as a man, but when het fetishistic
transvestites say all transsexuals are like them that's trying to erase
transsexual realities and that sets my teeth on edge. There's a wide
spectrum of T* people out there and I think most don't try to erase
transsexual realities but some do. If you don't believe me here's something
written by a Swiss het male transgenderist in the Virginia Prince mold that
is a candidly autogynephilic and shows what I mean:

http://www.geocities.com/WestHollywood/Cafe/3196/ThirdWay_english.htm

Jacqueline is a good example why het autogynephiles may make a bad mistake
if they have SRS. Clue #1, if your reasons for wanting SRS are like
Jacqueline's rejected reasons or Jacqueline's reasons for not having SRS
sound right to you, maybe you'd be making a big mistake too if you have SRS,
because you probably aren't transsexual!

- Echo Dancer


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te...@softhome.net

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Nov 10, 2001, 1:43:39 PM11/10/01
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in the parking structure Echo Dancer <anon-...@anon.twwells.com> whispered:

> http://www.geocities.com/WestHollywood/Cafe/3196/ThirdWay_english.htm

What an opinionated son of a bitch. _He's_ telling women that no,
they are not having orgasms, because he says so?

Then he has the gall to talk about other people "projecting"?

"I mean LORD GOD BUFU!" -- Moon Unit Zappa "Valley Girl".

Theoni
te...@SoftHome.net

=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
Theoni Srith is one of the Hackers in E Minor from Oh, Yeah.
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Foothills/7462
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=

/< (

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Nov 10, 2001, 1:44:11 PM11/10/01
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"Echo Dancer" <anon-...@anon.twwells.com> wrote in message
news:9sjrv3$2l5e$1...@server.twwells.com...

> Yes yes, I know I
> should keep my mouth shut so they can paper over the big cracks in order
to
> make one big happy dysfunctional family, but I get really fed up with
> ignorant jerks trying to remake us in their own molds and trying to deny
and
> erase our realities. I don't try to erase their realities, why do they
need
> so bad to erase mine?

We've always been a group of people from all walks of life, all social
circles - all those sweeping generalizations, they are just that - and
usually leave a lot to the actual day-to-day realities of our individual
lives. People who think their way is the only way must ignore other
people's experiences lest it invalidates their own, or so they think. The
emperor looks stunning in his new clothes, does he not?


Echo Dancer

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Nov 10, 2001, 1:51:27 PM11/10/01
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Sorry, that post got away from me. I was angry when I wrote it so I put it
in my drafts folder and I was going to look at it again tomorrow and usually
I don't send the angry ones, but when I decided to make a change to it I
clicked on send by mistake and before I could move it back from the outbox
back into drafts it got sent. If the anon service posts the messages out of
order and you see this before the original, I'm sorry for the confusion too.

BernadetteTS

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Nov 10, 2001, 5:34:32 PM11/10/01
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In article <9sjrv3$2l5e$1...@server.twwells.com>,
anon-...@anon.twwells.com (Echo Dancer) wrote:

> Blanchard and Lawrence divide transsexuals into gay males and
> autogynephiles. I don't think that works, but it shows two of the sides that

> try to erase the realities of transsexuals. I get really fed up with


> ignorant jerks trying to remake us in their own molds and trying to deny and

> erase our realities. When someone


> denies autogynephilia exists, they ought to listen to autogynephiles because

> they make it really clear it does. There's a wide
> spectrum of T* people out there.
> - Echo Dancer
>
Hi Echo Dancer. Here are my thoughts on Autogynophilia.

I have a theory about the whole gynophilia subject. In the early days of
TS care there were an amazing array of wrong theories about why we
exist. Things like we were only gay men in denial who wanted to seduce
straight guys. Or a person could not be a TS if they were ever married,
ever fathered a child, had ever had sex with a woman, if they did not
wear dresses only, along with more makeup than Tammy Fae Baker. It was a
mess.

As TS care became a little more structured, I think a pshrink observed
something. Most TS in transition came in and talked about transition in
terms of female socializing, passing, telling family and friends or
typical female activities. But this doctor had perhaps one in ten
patients who came in and talked about the physical changes of breast
development, softer skin, seeing themselves transformed as they looked
in the mirror. As a general pattern the majority of those in transition
focused on the social and lifestyle changes. But there were a minority
who focused on the physical changes that were occuring. The physical
changes were of course the secondary sexual characteristics. Everyone
who is exposed to Freud, like every pshrink in the known world, is going
to see this difference in terms of sex. The pshrink thought, "This TS
keeps talking about breasts, hips, skin changes so they must have a
sexual obsession with the female body and that is what is driving them.
I will name this sexual obsession autogynophilia." I believe the pshrink
observed that there was a different focus for some TS's and came up with
a theory to explain it. I also think the theory is wrong.

My theory is that AG is simply a spectrum of TSity that is focused on
the physical rather than the external female lifestyle. If you can have
a non-op TS who is satisfied with a female lifestyle and an incomplete
physical change, why can there not be an equally valid group of TS who
want a physical transformation but do not focus on the lifestyle?

I can see two situations that would create a non-lifestyle TS. First is
the TS who as a small child was told, "You can not wear dresses and act
like a girl. You are not a girl." Child innocently asks, "What do you
mean I am not a girl?" The parent answers, "You can not do those things
because you have a boy's body not a girl's body." Or words to that
effect from the parents. The reason given is physical not sexual. The
child then logically concludes, "If I have the body, then I can have all
the rest of the things I want." This is the TS who finds that SRS frees
them from the internal mental blocks their parents installed while they
were growing up. Once they have the physical changes they can make the
mental leaps to accepting themselves as female. They then go on to live
happily female. Then can not get past the mental barriers until the body
is complete. So that becomes the focus. During the visits they make to
the pshrink while under care they are going to talk about the physical
changes. But if the pshrink does not understand fully what is going on,
the pshrink is going to think the TS is focused on the sexual
characteristic changes, not that it is the TS watching for confirmation
of the physical changes that will break down the logic-block the parents
inadvertently created.

I have a suspicion that AG-TS's are a result of child abuse to a child
who begins to display feminine behavior very early. The parents began a
program of punishment to force the child to fit society's rules. The
child reacts in the typical pattern of shutting down the emotional
aspects of self and goes through life relying on intellect. They are out
of touch with the emotional and social aspects of life. They are quiet,
studious, unemotional and more likely to stay numb through being a
workaholic than drugs or alcohol. If you read between the lines of Anne
Lawrance she talks about 4 TS's who transitioned with a short real life
test. They were all doctors or professionals. Anne also thinks of
herself as AG. Being a doctor or other professional would be linked to
not needing a RLT. They are professionals like doctors and lawyers
because they learned as children to rely on intellect. This type of TS
actually needs HRT and SRS to get to the point of dropping the mental
barriers and finding self acceptance. Remember that in my theory a TS
would need physical changes to drop mental barriers.

You can also see this in the writings of post op TS's. Many TS write
that waking up after SRS was no big deal. There are other TS's that
describe waking up after SRS as the moment that transformed their lives
and let them be free for the first time. This would indicate that there
was a mental block that could not be lowered until the person can look
at their physical body and logically say, "I have a female body. I can
now dress, live and act as the female I know I am."

Another (theoretical) group are the chronic misfits. They had a really
rough childhood with TS based abuse from parents plus rejection from
peers. Eventually to deal with the pain, they mentaly step outside the
social framework. If the person was truely amoral this is the kind of
thing that would result in a sociopath. But a TS child has a moral
sense. They know themselves to be kind, smart, gentle and good people.
If society can not see that, society must be wrong. They are people who
no longer look to the world for feedback. Society has proved it can be
wrong. What counts is how they see themselves. So social feedback from
RLT and the world treating them as a woman does not provide
satisfaction. What counts is what they see in the mirror. Their own
evaluation of self. Society may not know what is under the clothes when
they undress to bathe but the self does. This makes the physical change
more important to some TS's than the lifestyle change. They need to
satisfy self not the external world.

I think this is one of the driving forces behind TSDoItYourselfers and
some of the other TS support groups that are not focused on living full
time as the test of being a "true transsexual." The SOC was a one size
fits all that demanded a RLT as the test to get HRT and SRS. This is the
opposite of what an AG-TS needs. They need the physical changes first so
they can get to self acceptance. Then they can make the social and
behavioral changes to fit their new body. The internet provides a way to
make that happen. /TSDIY, /TSDoItYourselfers/, Not100F/,
TSNonLifestyle/, NoTransition/, TS-Theory are all groups that in
essence, are TS's finding their own path of least resistance. For an
AG-TS to go through the SOC, they had to create a fake female
presentation in the same way that in the past they had created a male
persona to deal with life.

There are more clues that this is what is going on. Read a group of
posts about posts ops waking up after surgery. For many it is no big
deal. These are external based TS. Society was already treating them as
female so the surgery really didn't change anything. Other TS write that
waking up after surgery was finaly "feeling complete." It was the first
time they had ever felt right. In the second group, the physical proof
of being female finally allowed them to drop the last of the barriers to
self acceptance. They feel reborn on the operating table not from RLT.

Look at the difference in posts from nonopTS's. They do not need to have
SRS because those around them see them as female. In other cases they
say the partner they sleep with sees them as female even though they
have male genitalia. It is always based on external feedback. The AG
types say, "I have to have SRS because of what I see in the mirror."
They do not accept the external feedback but need self assesment.

It took me a long time to recognize the pattern but now that I know what
to look for, it is fairly obvious. Part of the problem was the SOC
demanded a RLT of all SRS candidates. No one could write about how SRS
and HRT before RLT worked for them because no one had that option.
Between those using the do it yourself HRT option and SRS in Thailand
with no SOC requirements, we are beginning to see a number of people who
are able to transition by following the path of least resistance. The
internet allows us to talk honestly about our needs and desires. When
the SOC was the only game in town for HRT and SRS, most TS learned
quickly to tell them what they wanted to hear. Honesty could result in
rejection as not being a true transsexual.

That is my take on AG. It exists but the AG theory is wrong. We accept
that there are non-op TS who want a complete female lifestyle without a
complete physical change. I think there is an equally valid group of
TS's who would be content with a complete physical change but an
incomplete lifestyle change. The SOC will not accept direct evidence of
this but tries to come up with a theory of why the post op is wrong
about how they feel. There has been a study of post op regret. The SOC
says that anyone who detransitions must have done it for reasons of
regret. Some post ops who have detransitioned have told them they are
happy or have no regrets. The SOC prefers to believe that they have
regrets but do not know it themselves. They can not accept that there
are TS who want the body but not the lifestyle. So they came up with a
theory that says they are really unhappy, they just don't know it.
http://symposion.com/ijt/ijtc0502.htm

Try reading some of the feedback letters on Dr Lawrence's site and
substitute the word "nonlifestyle TS" in place of AG. Notice In the
feedback letters on Dr Anne Lawrence's site how many of the letters
refer to the "body" as motivation, not "sex". Some of the ones that
mention sex do not have a focus of sexuality/sensuality but the physical
act of sex is confirmation that they are now a woman. Again it is an act
that confirms the physical body is female not an act done for the erotic
pleasures. The AG theory postulates a motivation linked to the sex
drive. It admits it can not explain why the motivation remains after the
sex drive drops to zero from hormones and antiandrogens. If you
understand that the motivation is physical-logical not sexual, it
explains why the TS remains motivated even without a sex drive. It
explains why they are happy with a short or even no RLT. It explains why
they can be post op and live male or partly male happily. It is not
about the lifestyle. The nonlifestyle TS needs the body but can make as
many compromises with their lifestyle as needed to not disrupt family,
career, wife, religion. It begins to account for many of the posts where
someone asks about having SRS while living as a guy or if anyone knows
how to grow small breasts with no other changes to a male life and
lifestyle.

Bernadette

Christine Beatty

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Nov 10, 2001, 8:12:12 PM11/10/01
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I don't blame you for being angry. I skimmed enough of this guys
gibberish to realize three important facts which remined me of a fourth
important fact.

#1. This guy is so self-centered that he must live in a constant state
of projection and, very likely, anger.
#2. He is in love with his penis as much as he is in love with
transvestism.
#3. He is very insecure about his beliefs which is why he holds forth
with such resounding authority and so dismisses other viewpoints.
#4. Anybody can put their misguided opinions on the Internet and present
it as gospel.

Take a few deep breaths, count to ten, and don't let the guy live
rent-free in your head a minute longer. He's not worth it.

Christine

--
Christine Beatty
http://www.glamazon.net

Susan Robins

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Nov 10, 2001, 8:22:33 PM11/10/01
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that's ok I use to get angry at this kind of
crap, it's not worth the energy I know who and
what I am. I don't need somebody who has been
breathing methane for long periods of time to
tell me what I am or am not.
--
Hugs;
Susan Robins

"Echo Dancer" <anon-...@anon.twwells.com>
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Pinnochia

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Nov 10, 2001, 9:54:56 PM11/10/01
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Think of the whole rigormerole as overlaping here, walls there, and
distance around back. In someways there are huge differences in
others there are small ones, still others none.

I oppose attempts to explain anything transgressive except in the
personal, the individual. Because having SRS meant so much to me, and
it worked for me, and I knew it would. But why I did is useless
except to me. Because I only ever did it for me- no one else.

There are tons of people who require excuses, explantions, treatise,
theories, cardboard boxes, closets and coffins to throw off
repsonsibility for their *own* actions, liabilities and limitations.
And so they need to include some and exclude others.

A good excuse is a terrible thing to waste for most people. And while
most wallow it's always comforting to drag someone else into thier own
bloody mess than clean themselves up.


Echo Dancer

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Nov 11, 2001, 3:51:11 AM11/11/01
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Because transsexuality ISN'T a "lifestyle" and never has been, and no matter
how often you say it is, it doesn't make it so. You're using the words to
try to pass off autogynephilia that isn't transsexuality as transsexuality
because transsexuality seem more legitimate than autogynephilia. I don't
have fancy degree and nobody spilled a spoon of alphabet soup behind my
name, but your theory of "the whole gynophilic subject" is dead wrong and
your "non-lifestyle transsexual" idea is bulls#&t and no matter how many
times you flop that cow patty on the floor, it's always going to stink.
Sharper people than me have already picked it apart before and I remember.
It's so wrong in so many ways it would take me hours to pick it apart the
way it should be. It's not only wrong, it's insulting wrong and I also
resent you trying to co-opt my disagreement with Lawrence's interpretation
of autogynephile as somehow being in agreement with your views because it
isn't. Your "non-lifestyle transsexuals" aren't transsexual, you are just
trying to co-opt transsexual experience and realities as some kind of cover
for something really different and that kind of co-opting is another form of
the erasure of transsexual realities and a moral wrong you commit against
real transsexual people. Like the jerk I complained about yesterday, you are
trying to co-opt and erase transsexual realities and distort our existence
to serve your own ends.

- Echo Dancer

P.S. - I know I should put this one in the drafts folder and read it again
tomorrow and then throw it away, but I get tee'd off when I complain about
somebody co-opting and erasing of transsexual realities and then somebody
else had the gall to use my complaint as an excuse to try to co-opt what I
wrote to erase transsexual realities for their own purpose! Gees Louise, if
you're going to co-opt and erase TS experience for your own selfish reasons,
at least have the decency to do it somewhere other than hitching it to a
complaint about the same kind of crap!

----- Original Message -----
From: "BernadetteTS" <doc...@voyager.net <mailto:doc...@voyager.net>>
Newsgroups: alt.support.srs
Subject: Re: Erasing transsexual realities


> My theory is that AG is simply a spectrum of TSity that is focused on
> the physical rather than the external female lifestyle. If you can have
> a non-op TS who is satisfied with a female lifestyle and an incomplete
> physical change, why can there not be an equally valid group of TS who
> want a physical transformation but do not focus on the lifestyle?

caillean mcmahon

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Nov 11, 2001, 12:19:28 PM11/11/01
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Too many differences amongst us emotionally and experientially, as well as
neuroligically, to ever catagorize responses so very neatly without a much
better experimental paradigm than has ever been constructed for following us as
a population.

It is all so neat to posit a radical position, especially one that raises the
bar or closes the gate to future transsexuals, especially when one is post op
themselves. Ahh; for the gentle common sense of Dr. Becky......

Caillean

Christine Beatty

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Nov 11, 2001, 1:49:29 PM11/11/01
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Elaine wrote:
>
> "Christine Beatty" <chri...@glamazonrocks.com> wrote


>
> > Take a few deep breaths, count to ten, and don't let the guy live
> > rent-free in your head a minute longer. He's not worth it.
>

> I'm surprised Echo Dancer is experiencing anger. She has been postop long
> enough to know the *truth* of her life.

I don't think it is so much a matter of how much experience one has as
it is a natural reaction to such a reprehensible view portrayed with
such "authority." I have the same reaction said to offensive things said
by Jerry Falwell and Trent Lott.

> When others say things like this, it
> is important only in that it may have a negative influence on the lives of
> those transsexual people just now beginning or yet to begin transition, the
> same as much of the TG activist activity does.

What kind of "TG activist activity" are you talking about? Hopefully not
fighting for protection from employment and housing discrimination or
hate crime. As a "TG activist" those are things that I believe help even
deep stealth TSs.


Christine

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