Defining Transsexualism

[Celeste]

How did we let the definition of transsexuality get so turned around? Just
how long ago did this begin? In my day, (don't you love that phrase), the
concept was simple. Almost anyone on the street knew that, "a transsexual is
a woman born with a male body" or " a transsexual is a man born with a
female body", and they just want to get their bodies fixed! Wow, what a
simple and novel concept!

Then along come the shrinks and the sociologists, the bigots like Janice
Raymond and the turncoats like Germain Greer. They started harping on social
gender constructions and conformity and sexual stereotypes and all kinds of
other blather designed to confuse, obfuscate, divide and intended to
conquer, to conquer and destroy YOU, yes YOU!

Well phooey on all that. It is so simple. From my first conscious thoughts,
I understood that I was a girl with a penis. I was three when I dreamed of
getting switched for my birthday. That was what I wanted for my present.
Just give me what I need to be fully a girl I thought. But at the same time
I sensed already that it was probably impossible, and probably was at the
time, in those Christine Jorgenson days. So I shut up and waited. I didn't
wait long though. I wanted to do stuff I saw other girls doing. Why, because
I was a blasted girl. By the time I was fifteen my parents got me into
analysis and finally I had someone to talk with about the problem. The rest
is history. I have already written about that here.

In the end it was about getting surgery. It didn't take me long to focus in
on that and distill my understanding of the problem down to that. I tried to
have sex and all the while I thought, damn this is dumb, I am supposed to be
the one with the vagina. I set out to get mine. I had no idea how I would
get the solution, but I got it as soon as I could. Life since has been the
usual tough row to hoe that any girl faces. And I was still a girl when that
all happened. But the life I have had all my adult life is all I wanted. I
am here because I want to see other get their TOO! Need concept don't you
think? Caring that others might want the same thing we wanted, knowing how
hard it was for me to do, wanting to make it a little easier for others?

So the point is, lets dispense with all the gender junk and get back to
basics. Its about sex not gender. I has sex reassignment surgery. With my
vagina and breasts I am free to express myself from a gender perspective any
way I want. I can be masculine or feminine or androgynous or I can be
unconcerned with anything other than just being my individual self, how ever
I want to be. Isn't that a more constructive way to understand what
transsexualism is? But in the end, transsexualism is about getting that
surgery, getting those physiological parts, partaking of a surgical miracle,
(bless Roberto Granato's sweet heart).

To that end, I agree with many that the medical system does us a great
disservice. I put up with it only because they were the only game in town.
What else was a girl to do? I played their game because I had to get through
their gauntlet to get my vagina and breasts. I recommend that anyone with a
penis who wants a vagina and breasts play the game with the medical
establishment to the best of their ability. The medical establishment is in
control. They have what you want and you have to get it from them. I got
mine and anybody else who wants should get theirs too. More power to us.
Although I think their structure and their position is all wrong, those who
need their services must play along with them. Once you are done with it and
them, you can get on with your life.

I am all in favor of SRS on demand. The reason why it will never happen is
that the surgeons use all the paperwork to protect themselves from getting
sued. It is just that simple. On the other hand, please understand, that
Drs. Meltzer, Shrang, Menard Brassard, Granato and the like are all very
nice people. I have met them all. I have no quarrel with them. I empathize
entirely for their need to protect themselves. But I think that once we no
longer need them, we need to speak the truth, let go of the wink and the nod
and admit the lie that the medical system imposes on us, in the name of the
worst of science, the thinly veiled religionism that psychology has always
been.

Its about sex baby, its about sex.

[Celeste]

Yes Diane, I agree with you on many points. I have seen people whose
probable inability to cope with and appreciate something like SRS might not
make it appropriate for them. But I'll leave those judgments about SRS
candidates to the people who think they are experts on that subject. As I
was also trying to get across, I actually empathize with the surgeons, but I
can see the other side of the issue. The aspect of my article your pointed
was a minor footnote. It was a moot one as well, because I would never
expect the surgeons, or the rest of the pre SRS medical system to change the
way it does things. From their point of view, they encounter strangers from
out of nowhere and feel obligated to assure themselves that they are not
making a mistake prior to giving their support of someone seeking SRS.

But what you talk about is also a continuum. From the psychological one that
progresses to the physical. When you do so, you beg the question,

"Should people who cannot pass well be
allowed by the medical establishment to have SRS"?

If anyone here took such a position, imagine the howling, the screaming, the
moaning, the fisticuffs that we would hear from voices asunder about the
concept. In the old days some people who could not pass well were turned
away by the medical establishment. I vaguely recall that passing was an
issue with the Long Island psychiatrist that Roberto Granato Sr used.

It seems that maybe the medical community is a lot closer to surgery on
demand these days than it has been in years past. If emotional and
psychological stability are their primary concerns, then don't you agree
that they are asking very little?

But we both digress. You have said nothing about the central thesis of my
article. My article was meant to cut to the quick about the definition of
transsexualism. It is all about physical, physiological sexuality I think.
Those who turn it into some kind of gender thing have confused the issues.
Gender and social conformity are the weak premises on which some people's cr
iticism of transsexuality begin. They have even created new vocabulary with
which obfuscate the issues and to bring irrelevant concepts into the
picture.

Along the way, the gender politicians have forgotten the fundamental point
of transsexualism, in the interest of their own irrelevant issues. A
transsexual is someone who thinks they were born with the wrong sexual
apparatus who wants to get their genitals and secondary sex characters
fixed. Once fixed a transsexual ought be very happy. What they do with their
application of so called masculine and feminine social conventions is
another matter altogether. Some might try to mix up the two things, but the
concepts and issues and understanding are far simpler when they are kept
separate.

[Celeste]

Very few insurance companies have ever paid for SRS and even fewer do these
days. Not only that, but all the current SRS surgeons require cash
prepayment, whether someone's insurance company "says" they will pay for it
or not. In any event most people headed for SRS seem like they had some idea
that was where they were headed, even if they put it off for many years.
Having met many of the surgeons around these days, they seem like pretty
nice, concerned guys. For example, Dr. Meltzer closed up shop and brought
his entire office staff to the HBGIDA meeting last summer. I sat with them
at the closing dinner and everyone was very friendly.

[stephe]

>
> If you've seen any of the above (or something similar) yourself then I
> have to ask you that would it not be a genuine disservice to such
> people if we granted what they wanted at the moment rather then giving
> them the time needed to explore their true feelings?
>
well I can see a waiting period or something like that, but agree that
all the "psychiatric evaluation" is to protect themselves from lawsuits
and for therapists to get their hand in the pot.. I don't need some
shrink to tell me whether *I* want to be a girl or not.. If I decide to
have SRS one day it will be because I know I do, not because someone
else says they think I should.. I have no insurance and so would have to
pay for it myself and even if I could afford the surgery, all the crap
that goes with it right now would make it out of the question.. That's
BS.

It's like: I had a knee problem that three surgens wouldn't do anything
about with out first doing an MRI scan (adding $1500).. I paid another
to do exploratory scope surgery and he fixed it ($2400 total).. He
bypassed the MRI (unneeded as *I* knew something was wrong) and that way
I could afford to have the surgery done and my knee fixed.. The others
were scared if they found nothing I would sue...

I feel like these SRS doctors are "scared" to do this surgery without a
"scan" as then they are making the final call.. Or everyone "should"
have insurance (fewer and fewer people do) so they have to have a
"reason" to do it.. What about people that are willing/have to to pay
for it? Should we be denied so others can have it under insurance as a
"fix" for a mental problem? And alot of insurance companies are saying
they don't cover this right up front, whatever the reason, so this is
just going to get worse.. I feel one day I might be there and hope
things change so it might be possable.. right now it wouldn't be..

--
Hugs Stephe

Stephe's T* Home http://www.geocities.com/WestHollywood/Heights/8187

[Celeste]

Whoops, sorry Diane, I didn't write part of that last bit well enough. I
think you misunderstood me.

Diane <as...@slip.net> wrote in article
<35413a93...@news.slip.net>...

> On Mon, 20 Apr 1998 22:20:56 -0700, "Celeste" <cele...@usa.net>
> wrote:
>
> >But what you talk about is also a continuum. From the psychological one
that
> >progresses to the physical. When you do so, you beg the question,
> >
> >"Should people who cannot pass well be
> > allowed by the medical establishment to have SRS"?
>

> Don't see the connection with what I said and your question above
> Celeste. To me the only real question is "Should people without the
> capacity to make an informed decision about SRS be allowed to do so?'
> And of course the answer is "No." To me this has nothing at all to do
> with how well one passes.

Well I agree with you, that people without the capacity for informed
consent probably should not have SRS. But that something I will leave to
the medical professionals.

I was talking about the general notion of the decisions of any sort that
the medical profession may or might have used to exclude people from SRS.
They have at times excluded people that they didn't think could pass,
because they didn't think they could pass. I don't recall the books, but I
vague imagine that John Money, M.D. or Richard Green, M.D. wrote about this
in one or another of their books.

>
>
> >If anyone here took such a position, imagine the howling, the screaming,
the
> >moaning, the fisticuffs that we would hear from voices asunder about the
> >concept.
>

> Hmmmm.. well maybe on a slow day ... <g>

And on some busy days I have seen around these parts.

>
>
> >But we both digress. You have said nothing about the central thesis of
my
> >article. My article was meant to cut to the quick about the definition
of
> >transsexualism. It is all about physical, physiological sexuality I
think.
>

> So you'd be happy to have a vagina if you had to dress, act and emote
> like a man? No? Hmmmm.. why not?

Well, (gr), but having a vagina gives me a license in this society to wear
a skirt, if and when and only if and when I feel that is what I want to
wear that day. Having a vagina makes it not a big deal. Nobody cares,
except maybe someone who might compliment me that day, but they might do so
just as easily when I wear pants. In any event, I have worn Annie Hall
clothes, in other words, a man's suit, and it doesn't make any difference.
A vagina, breasts and CQ/PQ defy clothing.

>
>
> >Those who turn it into some kind of gender thing have confused the
issues.
> >Gender and social conformity are the weak premises on which some
people's cr
> >iticism of transsexuality begin. They have even created new vocabulary
with
> >which obfuscate the issues and to bring irrelevant concepts into the
> >picture.
>

> You know I really agree with most of what you say - it's just these
> pesky details.

Yeah, aren't details fun? (big grin)

>I see transsexualism as encompassing issues of *both*
> sex (physical) and gender (expression). I see part of the reason for
> changing one's physical sex is to gain the societal permission to
> adopt the female gender role. Remember I said *part* of the reason.
> But I do see the two aspects as being part and parcel of a greater
> whole.

I hear you. But, how about if we put the gender (expression) on as an after
thought, just part of making the whole. The core issue the physical one.
Once a person solves that problem they are free to do as they please. (see
Annie Hall reference above)

>
>
> >Along the way, the gender politicians have forgotten the fundamental
point
> >of transsexualism, in the interest of their own irrelevant issues. A
> >transsexual is someone who thinks they were born with the wrong sexual
> >apparatus who wants to get their genitals and secondary sex characters
> >fixed.
>

> Yes absolutely - but I gotta tell you - if I wasn't allowed to dress
> sexy once in a while or to cry or to be vulnerable (yea that's right -
> I said vulnerable - what are *you* lookin at?!) once in a while then
> frankly I'm not sure just how happy I'd be with things. This is my
> experience anyway.

Yes I hear you again, but if one has a vagina, breasts and other female
secondary characteristics, you can be as butch or fem as you want, and
nobody will care much, you will still be female, meaning they will still
recognize your vagina, breasts and secondary characteristics. Think for
example about the last time you were naked in a locker room at the health
club. Situations like that strip away the pretenses. Being female, one's
physical sexuality is all that counts to make the place and experience
legitimate. One's behavior, manner, or otherwise is secondary and probably
insignificant. A pushy woman is simply seen as a bitch on wheels, not a
man, right?

>
> >Once fixed a transsexual ought be very happy.

> So could a cocker spaniel - ouch!

Yeh, yeah, nice reference!

>
> > What they do with their
> >application of so called masculine and feminine social conventions is
> >another matter altogether.
>

> What they do with their conventions I would agree is mostly irrelevant
> but what about the question of what they are *allowed* to - vis a vis
> before and after the change?

Yeah, so having the vagina, breasts and secondary characteristics is the
ticket! You have made my point. Once someone is physically female, we have
the freedom to do, be and act as we wish. But you have just reinforced that
everything begins with anatomy. The rest follows.

>
> >Some might try to mix up the two things, but the
> >concepts and issues and understanding are far simpler when they are kept
> >separate.
>

> Yes they are simpler - but are they any closer to the truth if we
> separate them?

Yes, I think so. It was a great watershed for me when I understand that. It
clarified everything. It helped me to understand that the rest, the
feminine/masculine stuff is consequent NOT antecedent in my experience and
opinion.

[Celeste]

Wow Michelle, that is excellent news. There is hope. Roberto Granato Sr.
did the same. All I had to do was present commitment letters from
Traveler's Insurance and no cash was required. It is wonderful to hear that
surgeons still do it. You have just provided yet another reason to trust
and respect them. Without the surgeons, we would have nothing, right?

[Werewomon]

>
>>You can have a hot job, a hot lover and a hot apartment - but you only get
>two of the three.
>>A. Maupin (Mona's Law)
>
>

Had a hot apatment already, lived in a basement one with steam pipes all over,

for me this would be fixing my lovers hot tub.

One can always get around the three wishes bit.
trooley yers,
Molly duCoeur
"If I could turn you on, if I could tell you, if I could drive you out of your
wretched mind; I would let you know."-R.D.Laing, The Politics of Experience

[Celeste]

>>Diane <as...@slip.net>
>> "Celeste" <cele...@usa.net>

>>
>> Yes absolutely - but I gotta tell you - if I wasn't allowed to dress
>> sexy once in a while or to cry or to be vulnerable (yea that's right -
>> I said vulnerable - what are *you* lookin at?!) once in a while then
>> frankly I'm not sure just how happy I'd be with things. This is my
>> experience anyway.

I hear you, (you sounding like that Jodie Foster line in Contact)

"Me confrontational, huh what do you mean!?!?!?"

I hear you again, must admit that an evening out in a little black cocktail
number, knowing I'll stop traffic, gives me a pleasure that reminds me of
Dax from DS9 a while back, remarking to Kira that she had forgotten the
amount of attention we women get. But, BUT I don't have too, people think
I'm cute anyway, ya'know, ya'know? (smiling in jest)

>> >Once fixed a transsexual ought be very happy.
>> So could a cocker spaniel - ouch!

But, this fixing left the right things working babe.
And it didn't that much, and it was over pretty quickly, everything has been
just marvy since unpacking day, you know that endless gauze trail trick they
do?

[Zarah]

Dear Celeste,

Celeste schrieb in Nachricht <01bd6cf4$4f0a0a40$1feaa6cd@atma>...

>I was talking about the general notion of the decisions of any sort that
>the medical profession may or might have used to exclude people from SRS.
>They have at times excluded people that they didn't think could pass,
>because they didn't think they could pass. I don't recall the books, but I
>vague imagine that John Money, M.D. or Richard Green, M.D. wrote about this
>in one or another of their books.
>

I guess it was Robert Stoller in 'The Transsexual Experiment' (1976), where
he tried to elaborate his concept of 'core gender Identity', who went into
detail about questions of passing and the consequences and problems of
living 'stealth'. He went as far as to say the most humane way to proceed
(in the treatment of TS)would be to 'restrict sex change to the most
feminine of males', who will then 'pass silently, completely, and
permanently into society as women'.

In a way it's an amazing book. Though his attempts to provide empirical
evidence for his psychodynamic theory to explain the etiology of
transsexualism are tautologic (as most of such attempts are), and his (and
his associate's Green) reports of the 'successful treatment of transsexual
boys' makes me shudder and are unethical at least, he's a pretty good
observer.

His observations regarding passability and living 'stealth', eg. the
problems caused by the fear of detection, along with the adressing of some
incongruencies of the self concept after srs (the partial male biography)
are still readable, though his conclusions (transsexuality will be a major
problem throughout your life) may be depressing for some. I don't share this
view, but I also recognize that he has adressed some important issues of
post srs life. Some of the discussions in this ng are proof of this.

Furthermore, reading such a book more than 20 years later opens the eyes for
a fact that is hardly adressed by medical 'experts'. It is that the medical
conceptualisation of transsexuality and its treatment standards are
connected very close to the more general believes of a society concerning
sex and gender(the distinction between sex and gender itself can be viewed
as a belief, btw). And as those believes change, treatment standards along
with the whole concept change.

Cheers

Zarah

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[Grrlpetal]

Shh! Secret Squirrel wrote:

>
> ...then "Celeste" <nospam....@usa.net> wrote:
>
> >
> >Diane <as...@slip.net> wrote in article

> >> So you'd be happy to have a vagina if you had to dress, act and emote
> >> like a man? No? Hmmmm.. why not?
> >
> >Well, (gr), but having a vagina gives me a license in this society to wear
> >a skirt, if and when and only if and when I feel that is what I want to
> >wear that day.
>

> And what about if you had to act like a man?

Then I'd use Burma Shave.

[Celeste]

Hi Squirrel. Your words were thoughtful. This topic is a difficult and
abstract one at times. I will try to take care. I very much want to banter
about these thoughts while keeping understanding going that my original
monologue was simply about thinking through the meaning of transsexuality,
at least as some experience it, and knowing that it might not fit the
picture for everyone.

One of the concepts put forth in the early days, by Stoller and Greene and
those guys was the notion of primary and secondary transsexualism. When I
was describing what I went through I was focusing I guess on what they
called primary transsexualism and its roots. What I meant to focus on is
the root, the core, the meaning of it all. Somewhere our there might be
some gender issues, but at the core, at least in my experience, and I
believe at the core of the Stoller definition was a focus on physical
sexuality as a transcendent simplification of the transsexual issue. This
focus also helps to realign the debates we see so often about the some kind
of continuum between crossdressers, crosslivers and transsexuals. I was
trying I think, to break the continuum and say that a transsexuals core
reasons for their actions differ from the crossdresser or the crossliver.
The transsexual wants first, foremost and essentially, a repair of their
genitals and secondary physical characteristics. In contrast the
crossdresser wants desperately to be a physical male, while acting out the
socially constructed, socially defined conventions of femininity. What
would the crossdresser or crossliver do if the cultural conventions
suddenly disappeared? In contrast, as a transsexual, I care much less about
social and cultural convention. From the beginning, I wanted my vagina,
breasts and other female physical characteristics. If at any time I wore
clothing that just happened to meet with cultural convention, it was much
less an expression of gender stereotype and a whole lot more a way of
saying that I wanted the physical structures that went with them.

Can you see that I am describing, trying to focus on, core concepts here? I
am describing core thought processes. Can you see how different the
thoughts of the transsexual are from those of the crossdresser? Please
understand that there is nothing wrong with people who crossdress. I am not
criticizing them in any way. I fully support their freedoms. But I am
hoping that as a primary transsexual, I knew from the start that it was
about the body parts. I wonder, what were and how did the first thoughts of
crossdressers and crosslivers begin? Shouldn't I imagine that their
feelings, fantasies and the inner meaning of their actions are
fundamentally different from those of the transsexual.

As such, having focused on the core meaning of my thinking early in life,
and having the confidence, thank goodness through the help of others, I was
able to pursue that core goal and understand the basic meaning of my
thoughts and actions before my girl with a penis childhood, turned into
adulthood. In the process of beginning an adult, I became the girl with a
vagina I always knew that I should be.

Shh! Secret Squirrel <spa...@farkle.com> wrote in article
<353daf22...@news.newsguy.com>...

> ...then "Celeste" <cele...@usa.net> wrote:
>
> > My article was meant to cut to the quick about the definition of
> >transsexualism. It is all about physical, physiological sexuality I
think.

> [...]

> >Gender and social conformity are the weak premises on which some
people's

> >criticism of transsexuality begin. They have even created new vocabulary

> >with which to obfuscate the issues and to bring irrelevant concepts into
the
> >picture.
>
> It's too bad that this is the basis for criticism of us, but
> gendershift *is* very important. Are you making some distinction of
> that process from the process of physical feminization/masculization?

But again, maybe it is important for some people. But yes I am making a
very big distinction. And I am hoping that some people will think about the
difference between physical sexuality, the reality of transsexualism I
think, and cultural masculine/feminine social, behavioral stereotypes. I
think this is all the more important because we live in a society that is
gradually going to transcend at least some of those stereotypes. As our
society progresses in that direction, the question of core physical
sexuality versus gender behaviors will be brought into stark relief for the
"would be" transsexual. I hope also that it gives people pause for thought.
I hope that those who think they are transsexuals step back and then about
their core reasons for wanting SRS as a result. Do you really want to
correct a physical flaw and then live whatever life you can make from that
physical manifestation, regardless of social convention? Or is your quest
simply the acting out of a desire to live a social convention? Aren't those
very different thought patterns?

>
> The sustained need for a physical transformation is what distinguishes
> the transsexual from a crossdresser, for instance.

Yes that is correct. That is the core issue. Transsexuality is first and
for most, at least I believe underlying the core concept of the primary
transsexual, about repair of a birth defect of physical sexuality. That is
the transsexuals focus. Those whose focus are other things may be what the
first researchers already recognized as what they termed secondary
sexuality. They listened really carefully to a lot of people and discovered
two distinctly different perspectives on the core desires of the people
they worked with.

But TS women had to
> live at least a little while as boys and young adults, and had to get
> by. There's nearly always a gendershift that goes along with the whole
> process.

Yes but, my thinking from the beginning was that I was a girl with a penis.
My childhood was about waiting, biding my time until I might be able to
control my own destiny. As I have written, that came into strong focus to
others by the time I was fifteen. I then spent two years in analysis, and
by the time went to college I was determined that not another day would go
by. I had my freedom and I was going to use it to exercise control over my
body and my physical destiny. Sorry if I sound militant.

Sure I played along with gender conventions, but that is all they are. They
could change tomorrow, like so much fashion, and the change in social
convention would change my core understanding that what I did and who I am
is about my physical sexuality, not about gender.

>
> The "accepted" path to transition (as usually relayed to us via
> therapists and doctors) involves gendershift before a change of body
> parts.

Well for my self I began with working on changing the body parts. I started
HRT first and foremost. Why because that was what it was about for me. Then
therapy and all that was simply about getting permission to have SRS and
waiting, the god awful multi-year wait until the insurance on a job I had
provided the finances for the surgery.

> That's simplifying a bit too much, I know. However, one of the
> ways that our gatekeepers/caregivers can come to feel comfortable with
> our need for SRS, is by seeing whether we can be satisfied (at a
> minimum) or happy and accepted (ideally) in a gender role that's
> acceptably in the range of what women in our culture are like.

We can reverse this. The therapist knows that current social conventions
exist and someone with a vagina will be expected to acknowledge at least
some of them or have a tough row to hoe in this society. What about the
notion of seeing their efforts as simply asking us whether or we can find
our way through that.

>
> In terms of "first causes" I don't see how you can separate out the
> two needs -- the physical from the social. IME every transsexual has
> both.

Well said what I have been trying to elaborate is FIRST CAUSE. The primary
transsexuals quest, the meaning of a primary transsexual's need is
physical. If all the social conventions of changed change tomorrow, I could
give a rat's derriere. At this point it is so clear, having lived with a
vagina for almost twenty years, its seems so simple. It was always a relief
to understand transsexuality on these simple terms. Doing so puts all the
arguments and Janice Raymond types to rest. If anything it might be the one
gestalt that could enlighten someone like her to the real meaning of
transsexuality.

>
> > Once fixed a transsexual ought be very happy.
>

> This makes a good thought experiment: Take a male who expresses a
> desire to transition, and is say 25 and het and usually accepted by
> his pals as another guy. Send to E2000 and get face hair off pronto.
> Start on HRT, but also immediately give a boob job. And throw the SOC
> out the window and give the kid SRS right away. So now we've got a
> person who's ostensibly female but with no female socialization skills
> and who has never expressed a feminine gender in public.

Core problem, they experiment only works if you start earlier at say 15 or
18 with someone whose physique fits within the norms of female body type.
And it only works if the subject states from the beginning the original
premise, "are they a woman, first and foremost a woman, who just happens to
have been trapped in a body with a penis". If so, they were never a boy to
begin with. The person was simply a girl with a penis who needs a little
repair surgery for a birth defect. Now start that person on HRT
immediately. Wait until the people in that person's social environment
start to see that person as female, despite the problem between the legs.
Then provide the SRS. I think the recipient would adjust very quickly. The
force of social convention is very strong. People are quite flexible in
this regard. And in today's world, that female could dress like Annie Hall
till the cows come home and she would still have her vagina, breasts etc.
and somehow people recognize the subtle effect of estrogen on the physique.
I think that person would be immensely happy. I know I was and I am, hugs
to Dr. Granato.

Wow, I understood it correctly along, "just a girl living in society", how
does that song go?

[Celeste]

Thanks very much Zarah for the clarification and bibliographical note. Now I
won't have to dig through fuzzy memories of books read 25 years ago.

[Techno-babe]

But El, why would =anyone= want to do that? :)

--
Amanda - Mad Blonde of the East Bay
http://www.amandajaye.com/
http://www.geocities.com/WestHollywood/Village/5037/
Reply to: ajw...@slip.net

Shh! Secret Squirrel wrote in message
<353dcb6...@news.newsguy.com>...
:...then "Celeste" <nospam....@usa.net> wrote:
:
:>
:>Diane <as...@slip.net> wrote in article
:>> So you'd be happy to have a vagina if you had to dress,

act and emote
:>> like a man? No? Hmmmm.. why not?
:>
:>Well, (gr), but having a vagina gives me a license in this
society to wear
:>a skirt, if and when and only if and when I feel that is
what I want to
:>wear that day.

:
:And what about if you had to act like a man?
:
:
:

[Celeste]

This has turned into an interesting discussion.

> Grrlpetal wrote:

>So when you say:

>> society progresses in that direction,
>

>I believe this to be a flawed assumption. What has been changing are the
>ways in which we value sexual differences in Western Society.

Thats okay. I should have limited by use of society to western society. The
notion of SRS as we know it, not shaman and such in India, is something
limited to western society and the social systems that make it functions I
think.

>
>> the question of core physical
>> sexuality versus gender behaviors will be brought into stark relief for
the
>> "would be" transsexual. I hope also that it gives people pause for
thought.
>> I hope that those who think they are transsexuals step back and then
about
>> their core reasons for wanting SRS as a result. Do you really want to
>> correct a physical flaw and then live whatever life you can make from
that
>> physical manifestation, regardless of social convention? Or is your quest
>> simply the acting out of a desire to live a social convention? Aren't
those
>> very different thought patterns?
>

>No they're quite interrelated, actually.

But humor me and think for a moment what happens when the relationship is
severed at least temporarily. By focusing on physical sexuality, we can set
aside issues that confuse the very meaning of transsexuality and confuse
non-transsexuals who might try to understand transsexuals. I am trying to
help us see ourselves more clearly as the women I think we are. This point
of view gives us credit for ourselves, and relieves of any responsibility
for current social convention and values. changing social convention is the
very argument that the social conventionist make to refute the transsexual
concept. It is the argument they use to mutate towards the completely
different concept of transgenderism. If on the one hand, we are willing to
live within social convention when we feel like it, that is fine and genetic
women also have the ability to chose who to express themselves in terms of
social conventions. Lesbianism and butch/fem concepts are the perfect
example. These people firmly view themselves as females and understand that
their femaleness does not depend upon conforming to social convention. They
are female because they have vaginas, breast, etc. and their blood vessels
gush with estrogen. So if we understand a transsexual on those same terms,
"girl born with a penis" or vice versa. That transsexual is free to conform
or deviate from social conventions after surgery and that transsexual is
free to choose whatever partner they like after surgery. This breaks us the
very chains that the gender socialists would like to tighten around us. The
very questions has been raised here, "who would get SRS and not want to
adhere to social convention", has been put forth in so many words. Well
since when does being female require that one adhere to social conventions,
see the butch/fem lesbian concept above.

>And again it comes down to
>questions of value- personal value based on a sense of Self. Trusting
>Selves is the most productive form of gatekeeping that
>Psychology/Psychiatry can do for Trans people. With that trust comes a
>requirement and responsibility of honesty about one's Self. The problem
>with the way you're thinking about this is that your logic can be
>extended to *exclude* lesbian transsexuals from SRS/GRS, and especially
>exclude the possibility of non-op or metioidiplasty as an acceptable
>expression of FtM Maleness. And I know that's not your intention.
>Anytime we search for lowest common denominators we create exclusions.

My definition of transsexuality was not meant to exclude any other concepts
or modalities. There are apparently people with other modalities, living out
their lives based upon those modalities and whatever they would like to call
them and however they would like to define them.

But for the transsexual, and I am only talking about transsexuals, the very
simplification of the concept allows the transsexual to clearly identify
their issue, "they are a girl with a penis" and they just want to get it
fixed. What that repaired girl does with her life beyond that is up to her.
She becomes as free as any other girl to function as a girl inside and
outside of western society and its conventions. She is free to do as she
pleases, as any other girl. She is free to choose whatever sex partners she
likes. She is free to behave as she likes. She is free to dress and present
herself as she likes. None of those activities changes her physical female
sexuality. She still has her vagina and breasts and estrogen still pumps
through her vessels and veins.

But to raise another issue. And to address a different aspect of this. I
believe that sex hormones are as responsible for behaviors as they are for
changing physical characteristics. Even tests of rats have shown that to be
true. I have observed vast portions of my emotional and behavioral plane
shift under the influence of 25 years worth of estrogen. The entire "girls
cry" thing is entirely hormonal. We transsexuals are the perfect lab test of
that. It is neither nature or nurture, it is chemical balance.

>
>I don't think we need to know why someone is the way the are to accept
>the way they know themselves to be.

I agree. None of my theorem addresses such an issue and was not meant to. I
have no idea how it was that "I was born a girl with a penis". That is up to
some scientist to figure out. I just know and trust myself that I was, and
took appropriate steps to rectify the situation eons ago. That is the core
of my thesis.

>
>> >
>> > The sustained need for a physical transformation is what distinguishes
>> > the transsexual from a crossdresser, for instance.
>

>The need for transformation is actually a hierarchical terming of a set
>of needs which include but is not limited to sexual expression of the
>Self, sexual reciprocity which is acceptable to the Self, non-sexual
>behavioral expressions and behavioral interactions that affirm one's
>sense of Self. There are significant ways in which oblation of the
>testicles and HRT without vaginoplasty aid and abet a transformation to
>the same effect as vaginoplasty. I would term those who fall into either
>camp as transsexuals. The *only* difference is the ability to have
>*vaginal* intercourse. But then there are a variety of ways that women
>achieve sexual pleasure and satisfaction *outside* of sexual intercourse.
>Complete physical castration, with or without vaginoplasty leads to the
>same degree of physical transformation.

But I would beg to differ and see people who are willing to do that and live
that reality as a different situation. It is just as valid a situation, but
nonetheless a different one. You have defined what has become the
transgenderist. Their focus is on gender and living their social lives
through current gender conventions. That is all and good, but maybe they
aren't transsexuals. Maybe they are something different or the concept of
secondary transsexual as Stoller defined, and not primary transsexuals as he
also codified.

By the way, as a concequence of seeking SRS, I had to live with breasts,
secondary female characteristics and a penis for far too long for my tastes.
That I couldn't stand it for any longer than I had to, which was years, is
the hallmark of the difference between the primary transsexual and all the
other shades and degrees of things that get talk about in various related
usenet news groups. I felt no greater relief than the day I could shower
naked in the phys. ed. center locker room and lay for a while naked in the
sauna, during my college graduate years. That kind of relief also defines
these differences.

>
>>
>> Yes but, my thinking from the beginning was that I was a girl with a
penis.
>> My childhood was about waiting, biding my time until I might be able to
>> control my own destiny. As I have written, that came into strong focus to
>> others by the time I was fifteen. I then spent two years in analysis, and
>> by the time went to college I was determined that not another day would
go
>> by. I had my freedom and I was going to use it to exercise control over
my
>> body and my physical destiny. Sorry if I sound militant.
>

>No, more like fortunate, You were given the trust of your Self. Too many
>of us have to fight for it. Some of us loose that fight- you'll find
>those sisters in cemeteries.

Yes, I recognize the fortune in my life. But I also recognized from the
beginning from my earliest consciousness that I was "a girl born with a
penis". It was such an internal focus of my childhood psyche, despite the
fact that I didn't talk to anyone about it for years, that it was paramount
that I act upon that conviction at the first available opportunity.

I would like to call upon others who had this experience to share theirs
with us? Were you, "a girl born with a penis", from your earliest thoughts?
Did you act on that conviction as soon as you could in your life? What have
the results meant to you. What is your life like now? Do you see what you
did as having different antecedents that the transgender conceptions that
seem popular today?

>
>That's the difference between someone like you and someone like me. I
>*don't* need any FIRST CAUSE, any self-justification. *I* trust myself
>and my needs. It's Janice Raymond who doesn't trust *me.* I don't need
>any terms to understand my transexuality to accept it and enjoy it. I
>just do. I am what I am- a human, Being.

But we are on the same wave length really. I trust myself to know that, "I
was a girl born with a penis" and that I am now an adult, female, woman with
a vagina, breasts and other female characteristics.

>
>Believe me, non-Trans people never go to bed thinking about why they
>*aren't* transsexual. In this way, there's no need for me to give anymore
>thought to my existence as a gendered body than they do. They are no
>more human than I am.

I don't either. I have no idea why I was a transsexual, and haven't even
attempted to answer that question. I do know, "that I was a girl born with a
penis" and I trust myself to understand that truth and to have acted upon so
that I am now an adult female with as many of the physical parts that I
could fix. Dr. Brassard has been doing research on how to fix more of the
problems.

>
>These discussions you've opened are very enlightening on a personal
>level. It makes me realize that all the time I've given to thinking and
>discussing issues like this have not gone to waste.

Thank you very much. It is really wonderful to see that some people can
character on discussions like these in an engaging manner. It is so much
nicer when people understand that by saying something it doesn't mean that
we are trying to change another person's mind. We are just stating
something. We don't all have to agree to function together and discuss
issues together.

Please clarify for me though, so that I can understand where you personally
are coming from. Are you a transsexual or a transgenderist. Have you had
SRS, or do you even have any desire for SRS? If not that's okay, but it
helps to understand the life experiences and perspectives from which you
write.

Pursue Happiness Always ...

[Grrlpetal]

Yet their are clearly different behavioral styles and tendencies between
male and female human beings, differences that are found across
cultures. I think what ellie is pointing out, and what I'm taking the
liberty to elaborate upon, is that *regardless* of cultural
definitions, there are social differences which do count, and there are
ways of existing that will or won't make sense to our Selves that are
interpreted through understandings of Gender. We homo sapiens are social
animals, and the variety cultural schemas of "man" and "woman" only
speaks to our creativity- our adaptablility as a species. As social
creatures we create culture- artifacts for shared use or task
specificity, task specificity being performed as a role in a society. We
always require basic levels of understanding to share these artifacts or
assign them to a specific task and the person(s) who fullfill the role
accorded that task. In this way there are hierarchies based upon
sameness *and* difference. In the last ten years research done in the
social sciences by feminist women have obviated the differences between
the sexes. What any society does is organize these differences and
others into hierarchies (power arraingements) for better or worse. All
of this is also at the core of being human.

So when you say:

> society progresses in that direction,

I believe this to be a flawed assumption. What has been changing are the
ways in which we value sexual differences in Western Society. The
differences remain, the values are changing as they always do. Example:
One of the main reasons why there is an interest by the Pentagon in
promoting sexual integration in the military is not because we have
feminist war planners- rather there are roles in the military which have
evolved that call for the kind of behaviors that females tend to
exhibit- behaviors which are more adaptive to the roles required. This
is especially true in areas of support, communication, etc. The kind of
weapons we are developing place more emphasis on cooperative and
evaluative skills than on physical strength, tendencies toward violence,
etc. Did you know that women, on average, are better able to correctly
identify and hit targets *regardless* of the weapon being used? As
technology moves us towards robotic/non-person contact warfare, the
innate behaviors and skills that women posess have greater *value.*

> the question of core physical
> sexuality versus gender behaviors will be brought into stark relief for the
> "would be" transsexual. I hope also that it gives people pause for thought.
> I hope that those who think they are transsexuals step back and then about
> their core reasons for wanting SRS as a result. Do you really want to
> correct a physical flaw and then live whatever life you can make from that
> physical manifestation, regardless of social convention? Or is your quest
> simply the acting out of a desire to live a social convention? Aren't those
> very different thought patterns?

No they're quite interrelated, actually. And again it comes down to

questions of value- personal value based on a sense of Self. Trusting
Selves is the most productive form of gatekeeping that
Psychology/Psychiatry can do for Trans people. With that trust comes a

requirement and responsibilty of honesty about one's Self. The problem

with the way you're thinking about this is that your logic can be

extended to *exclude* lesbian transexuals from SRS/GRS, and especially

exclude the possibility of non-op or metioidiplasty as an acceptable
expression of FtM Maleness. And I know that's not your intention.
Anytime we search for lowest common denominators we create exclusions.

I don't think we need to know why someone is the way the are to accept

the way they know themselves to be.

> >

> > The sustained need for a physical transformation is what distinguishes
> > the transsexual from a crossdresser, for instance.

The need for transformation is actually a hierarchical terming of a set

of needs which include but is not limited to sexual expression of the
Self, sexual reciprocity which is acceptable to the Self, non-sexual
behavioral expressions and behavioral interactions that affirm one's

sense of of Self. There are signifigant ways in which oblation of the

testicles and HRT without vaginoplasty aid and abet a transformation to
the same effect as vaginoplasty. I would term those who fall into either

camp as transexuals. The *only* difference is the ability to have

*vaginal* intercourse. But then there are a variety of ways that women

acieve sexual pleasure and satisfaction *outside* of sexual intercourse.

Complete physical castration, with or without vaginoplasty leads to the
same degree of physical transformation.

>

> Yes but, my thinking from the beginning was that I was a girl with a penis.
> My childhood was about waiting, biding my time until I might be able to
> control my own destiny. As I have written, that came into strong focus to
> others by the time I was fifteen. I then spent two years in analysis, and
> by the time went to college I was determined that not another day would go
> by. I had my freedom and I was going to use it to exercise control over my
> body and my physical destiny. Sorry if I sound militant.

No, more like fortunate, You were given the trust of your Self. Too many

of us have to fight for it. Some of us loose that fight- you'll find

those sisters in cemetaries.

>
> Sure I played along with gender conventions, but that is all they are. They
> could change tomorrow, like so much fashion, and the change in social
> convention would change my core understanding that what I did and who I am
> is about my physical sexuality, not about gender.

Any change in gender conventions would change the way you both gender
and are gendered. That's not playing along though. That's some of what
we do and experience as human beings. We Gender in terms of performing
and we are Gendered in that Gender is something that is performed upon
us by others who (attribute or confere gender). Gender is *not* fashion-
it's serious, deadly business. It's the difference in feeling
comfortable or uncomfortable about one's Self, one's life. It's the
difference between Marlon Brando, who never has to answer about his
gender and Brandon Teena who was raped and murdered because of his.

By your logic here, Laura Blake's assumption about male Women and female
Men is the only valid one that can be made.

> > In terms of "first causes" I don't see how you can separate out the
> > two needs -- the physical from the social. IME every transsexual has
> > both.
>
> Well said what I have been trying to elaborate is FIRST CAUSE. The primary
> transsexuals quest, the meaning of a primary transsexual's need is
> physical. If all the social conventions of changed change tomorrow, I could
> give a rat's derriere. At this point it is so clear, having lived with a
> vagina for almost twenty years, its seems so simple. It was always a relief
> to understand transsexuality on these simple terms. Doing so puts all the
> arguments and Janice Raymond types to rest. If anything it might be the one
> gestalt that could enlighten someone like her to the real meaning of
> transsexuality.

That's the difference between someone like you and someone like me. I

*don't* need any FIRST CAUSE, any self-justification. *I* trust myself
and my needs. It's Janice Raymond who doesn't trust *me.* I don't need
any terms to understand my transexuality to accept it and enjoy it. I
just do. I am what I am- a human, Being.

The acceptance of the humanity of all individuals voids the requirement
of meanings, which are the percipitants of justifications. Such
acceptance is the foundation for equality and liberty. If I truely know
my Self to be the equal of anyone else based upon our humaness, then I
can enjoy and accept my difference with anyone else without ever needing
to know why I am different. This is a better measure of Self Acceptance
because it only requires that I accept myself, without explanations.

Believe me, non-Trans people never go to bed thinking about why they

*aren't* transexual. In this way, there's no need for me to give anymore

thought to my existence as a gendered body than they do. They are no
more human than I am.

These discussions you've opened are very enlightening on a personal

level. It makes me realize that all the time I've given to thinking and

discussing issues like this have not gone to waste. My education brought
me to those places beyond
*why,* beyond the need to explain myself and my differences. My life has
been an extremely hard one in some ways, but very beautiful, poetic in
others. Despite my travails and handicaps I've overcome in ways that
have let me see things, truely *see* what very few people ever get to
see, appreciate or understand.

Cindy

[Celeste]

Shh! Secret Squirrel wrote in message <3549840f...@news.newsguy.com>...

>...then "Celeste" <nospam....@usa.net> wrote:
>
>>This topic is a difficult and
>>abstract one at times. I will try to take care. I very much want to banter
>>about these thoughts while keeping understanding going that my original
>>monologue was simply about thinking through the meaning of transsexuality,
>>at least as some experience it, and knowing that it might not fit the
>>picture for everyone.
>

>I'm okay; hope you don't mind me always arguing with you :) *Do* be
>careful though, and not for my sake: there are lots of people's
>identities really tied up in these definitions, and the Way is
>littered with toes (Eeewww.)

My dear, we aren't arguing , we are discussing. There is a big difference.
By the way, my toe collection is almost as big as shoe collection. Those who
take also this stuff personally need to lighten up, I think. We are just
talking about concepts.

>
>> What I meant to focus on is
>>the root, the core, the meaning of it all.
>

>Yup, I noticed...

>
>>The transsexual wants first, foremost and essentially, a repair of their
>>genitals and secondary physical characteristics.
>

>I don't have any issue with this, and I certainly agree. It's been an
>overwhelming urge throughout my life. But the question everyone's
>dying to know: WHY? WHY do transsexuals want this?

I have no idea. I don't know if I care anymore. Its like wondering why the
universe exists. It gets boring after a while and it doesn't make any
difference. The universe is still here and some people think its expanding,
while others think its staying the same size, but that's the cosmological
constant and Einsteinian nuclear physics.

Why do we need to focus on why? Why is why important? Why isn't it just good
enough to know that the original statement is true and simple? A transsexual
is "a girl born with a penis who wants it fixed" or vice versa.

>
>I think people bring to bear the twin concepts of gender identity and
>gender expression in an effort to answer this. Maybe they're off the
>beam. (Or maybe not... )

So why do so many people have to bring gender into it? What is wrong with
leaving it with sex, like the term implies, transsexual? Once a person has
the sex organs they think are right for them, they can then do whatever they
like with them. They shag either guys or girls, wear whatever they like, do
whatever work they like, love whoever they want. What else matters?

>
>>In contrast the
>>crossdresser wants desperately to be a physical male, while acting out the
>>socially constructed, socially defined conventions of femininity.
>

>Like I'd know. I crossdressed from puberty, but almost always in the
>privacy of my room, and the only place I ever acted out social
>conventions was in my mind. And I was *very* cross to find myself
>ineluctably male.

Is that why you were cross dressing (ha ha). I was pretty cross about the
dressing I had to do as a kid too. But the entire time I just wanted the
right genitals. I was cross after I started having sex too. Every time I
fantasized that I had the vagina.

>
>>What would the crossdresser or crossliver do if the cultural conventions
>>suddenly disappeared? In contrast, as a transsexual, I care much less
about
>>social and cultural convention. From the beginning, I wanted my vagina,
>>breasts and other female physical characteristics.
>

>I see your point. It's a funny thing though, and it's probably due to
>our very different sets of life experiences: I remember very clearly
>(prior to transition) wanting primarily to live as a woman; however,
>now that I can and do take that for granted, my focus is very much on
>my physicality. Being physically female, working up that ol' CQ, are
>really high on my list.

>
>>Can you see that I am describing, trying to focus on, core concepts here?
>

>Sure. You gotta expect a *little* flak though :) I mean, the main
>thing I'm wondering is whether your model of things explains enough.
>How do you explain your existence as "a girl with a penis" without
>delving into concepts of gender? How did you know you were a girl? I
>mean, let's get epistemological!

Its a simple birth defect and I don't know the cause. Why should it matter?
Maybe science just isn't advanced enough yet to detect the cause. Scientists
don't yet understand the root etiology of cancer, muscular dystrophy, or
multiple sclerosis either now do they?

I trusted myself to be able to identify myself that way. Even if it was mere
delusion, its is one that this wonderful like has allowed me to turn into a
reality. Once reality the antecedents don't seem to matter, I'm happy with
the result.

>
>
>>I wonder, what were and how did the first thoughts of
>>crossdressers and crosslivers begin?
>

>Why don't you ask them? (sorry, couldn't resist)

They can chime in whenever they want.

>
>(Think of me as Stress Testing your theory :)

That is okay I think it can hold up under very little disk space and after
you allocated all the memory, it can run fine from cache.

>>
>>[squirrel sed:]

>>>
>>> The sustained need for a physical transformation is what distinguishes
>>> the transsexual from a crossdresser, for instance.
>>
>>Yes that is correct. That is the core issue. Transsexuality is first and
>>for most, at least I believe underlying the core concept of the primary
>>transsexual, about repair of a birth defect of physical sexuality. That is
>>the transsexuals focus. Those whose focus are other things may be what the
>>first researchers already recognized as what they termed secondary
>>sexuality. They listened really carefully to a lot of people and
discovered
>>two distinctly different perspectives on the core desires of the people
>>they worked with.
>

>Haven't they abandoned that set of concepts? I thought that the whole
>'primary transsexual' / 'secondary transsexual' model had been voided.

I don't think so. There were some talks that addressed these issues at the
HBGIDA meeting last summer. But for the most part, the HBGIDA types have
stopped talking much about cause. They seemed very focused on treatment and
its improvement.

>
>>>But TS women had to
>>> live at least a little while as boys and young adults, and had to get
>>> by. There's nearly always a gendershift that goes along with the whole
>>> process.
>>
>>Yes but, my thinking from the beginning was that I was a girl with a
penis.
>

>Yes but, you were constrained from being as 'girly' as you wanted.
>When you transitioned, your gender *expression* could finally match
>your gender *identity* of "girl". You shifted your gender expression.
>Gendershift.

Not really my dear. I was gendering however I felt from high school on,
except that for while I was afraid I met get kicked out of high school if I
ever wore a dress. I got away with David Bowie style living as a compromise.
It didn't really matter though, by senior of high school I was already done
with two years of analysis and was dead certain what I wanted out my
situation. I shut up worked on getting into college and once there embarked
on the journey toward the goal. Again its about sex baby, its about sex, as
the song goes.

>
>>Sure I played along with gender conventions, but that is all they are.
>

>Don't minimize it!! It's precisely this point that causes so many
>people such awful pain! It fucking HURTS, Celeste, to be left out,
>left behind, forced into the other camp from where you feel you
>belong. Jeez I hated puberty the first time!

Your right, it probably isn't fair to minimize it. But I did have outlets
that apparently other people did not. I grew up in a very permissive social
environment, with the psychedelic era in full swing, anything went. By high
school I was going to bars where I could dress as I liked, my super cool
older brother helped me get fake ID.

>
>(not to go off, or anything...)

Its all right dear, we are all copasetic here.

>
>>> This makes a good thought experiment: Take a male who expresses a
>>> desire to transition, and is say 25 and het and usually accepted by
>>> his pals as another guy. Send to E2000 and get face hair off pronto.
>>> Start on HRT, but also immediately give a boob job. And throw the SOC
>>> out the window and give the kid SRS right away. So now we've got a
>>> person who's ostensibly female but with no female socialization skills
>>> and who has never expressed a feminine gender in public.
>

>The real question (I realized later) isn't "Is this person happy", but
>
>"Why or why not?"

Why isn't the question "Is or isn't this person happy", who knows why some
people find satisfaction and other don't. Could it be a reflection of their
level of honesty with themselves and no one else? For the person who really
was "a girl born with a penis", getting their SRS should bring them a lot of
joy. But then having a happy life requires dealing with many issues that
have nothing to do with they sexuality.

>
>Under what conditions would this make someone happy? Or conversely,
>what kind of person would find this completely cruel and unusual? How
>do you tell the difference between these two kinds of people (other
>than seeing how they react to this situation)?

I think that the person who honestly states, "I am a girl with a penis and I
want it fixed", demonstrates quickly afterward whether or not they were
honest. They got what they asked for, if they really wanted it then they
will probably be very happy.

>
>I'm just restating your premise as a question.

>
>>Core problem, they experiment only works if you start earlier at say 15 or
>>18 with someone whose physique fits within the norms of female body type.
>

>Naw, that's optimum, but not necessary. I got news for ya, even 40
>year olds can pass 99% of the time. But for the sake of our
>gedanken-experiment, let's assume that Our Subject is just babelicious
>as can be.

But in this case doing the experiment under optimal conditions is the only
way to rule out other variables, like lack of babeliciousness. In the end
though the most babelicious post SRS woman on earth with a job still just
takes home a pay check like anyone else.

>
>>And it only works if the subject states from the beginning the original
>>premise, "are they a woman, first and foremost a woman, who just happens
to
>>have been trapped in a body with a penis". If so, they were never a boy to
>>begin with.
>

>Let's say that we don't know for sure whether this is the right thing
>for the subject to do, but zie insists (at least beforehand) that it
>is what zie really wants.

Right and wrong are judgement of the observer that seem irrelevant. Lets
just assume that transsexualism is about fixing a physical problem and
forget about the irrelevant (for understanding the definition) social,
cultural, and varying religious rules that people try to wrongly impose on
the problem.

>
>>I think the recipient would adjust very quickly. The
>>force of social convention is very strong. People are quite flexible in
>>this regard. And in today's world, that female could dress like Annie Hall
>>till the cows come home and she would still have her vagina, breasts etc.
>>and somehow people recognize the subtle effect of estrogen on the
physique.
>>I think that person would be immensely happy.
>

>What's inside the person that makes them happy? Is it just a
>preference for being female?

They are happy that they got their physical anomaly repaired. Whether they
are happy in the greater sense with their lives is a separate and irrelevant
issue.

>
>Suppose this person really liked being physically female, but really
>hated being *socially* a woman. Suppose this person decided that
>regardless of hir physical form, zie would live in a conventionally
>male role, and would dress in a fashion that hid hir breasts and other
>curvy places, in traditionally male attire.

It is unheard of for genetic females to have this very attitude about
society. Put it in that context and think about it. You can look to butch
lesbians and separatist feminists for examples.

Why or why not might be your question, but it was part of my definition. I
was trying to define transsexualism from its core. Everything else is
secondary. Simply stated a transsexual is someone who presents saying with
all internal honesty and self truth, "I am a girl with a penis and I want it
fixed", and once they have gotten the repair they should be satisfied and
move on with their lives in the best way that they see fit.

To worry about why transsexuality exists is a separate issue. Let's save
that for a different thread, okay? Meanwhile, I have no idea why it exists.
At this point in my life, why should I care? I solved the problem. I no
longer have a vested interest in the question.

[Celeste]

> Shh! Secret Squirrel wrote:
<354d923c...@news.newsguy.com>...

>...then "Celeste" <cele...@usa.net> wrote:
>>
>>But for the transsexual, and I am only talking about transsexuals, the
very
>>simplification of the concept allows the transsexual to clearly identify
>>their issue, "they are a girl with a penis" and they just want to get it
>>fixed.
>

>(Satori!) You're looking for a single, critical test that questioning
>young people can apply to themselves.

Nice thought but it was NOT my intent. My intent was the original thread
title defining transsexualism. To define something is to codify its meaning,
period.

I had become really impatient with the rising cry of gender politics. Yes
some people might not like that statement. There may be some people who seek
SRS for reasons other than "they are a girl with a penis" but then they are
something else, not a transsexual. Maybe they are the term they seem to like
to use, transgendered, seeking GRS, another term they like to use. That is
all well and good, such folks should seek and attain their SRS for whatever
their reasons. But then they are something else, not transsexuals. I am not
criticizing them. Those who get SRS on those terms are fine by me. I fully
support their efforts. But are they trying to tell us that they are
something other than transsexuals? You are right that this is a touchy
subject. I think people erroneously think that their intentions are being
questioned. I am not doing that. But we can all do ourselves some favors by
defining what, and using terms that define accurately what we are. What I am
saying is that maybe there is a real difference between the transgendered
seeking SRS and the transsexual, who by my definition is fundamentally and
specifically someone who seeks SRS, because "they are a girl with a penis

who wants it fixed" or vice versa.

>Good motive, but I
>can guarantee you that there will be people who should transition and
>pursue SRS who cannot relate to this phrase.

Yes, see my note above. I recognized that. That there are such people around
is quite apparent. I have tried to understand and respect their motivations
and antecedents. But I thought it was to bring transsexualism back onto the
discussion table. I got SRS because I was a transsexual. I thought about
what that meant to me, what thought process got me there and it was, "I was
a girl with a penis" and now I am a girl, well an adult woman, but
mademoiselle at least in the beginning, "a girl with at vagina", problem
solved, way cool.

>
>There's only the slimmest difference between "girl with a penis" and
>"woman trapped in a man's body", and lemme tellya, *that one* never
>made sense to me. Yet here I am, *way* happier and more successful as
>a woman than I ever was as a man.

Well maybe the difference is the age of the person saying it. But I would
bet that they started out saying the former too themselves if they were a
primary transsexual. If the concept never made sense, well then we do have
something to talk about. Because it is that very concept, "girl with penis
who wants a vagina" that is the very issue that transsexualism is all about.
It is about approaching a medical professional and requesting surgery. One
is not a transsexual is their eyes until one does.

>
>>
>>But to raise another issue. And to address a different aspect of this. I
>>believe that sex hormones are as responsible for behaviors as they are for
>>changing physical characteristics. Even tests of rats have shown that to
be
>>true.
>

>You just LOVE them slippery slopes, don't you? :)

Oh yeah girl, its all about slippery slopes and pesky details, remember I
program for a living. Ever heard of bug free software? NOT, its a primo
oxymoron.

>
>>I have observed vast portions of my emotional and behavioral plane
>>shift under the influence of 25 years worth of estrogen. The entire "girls
>>cry" thing is entirely hormonal. We transsexuals are the perfect lab test
of
>>that. It is neither nature or nurture, it is chemical balance.
>

>Emotions ARE hormonally based (aren't they?). *Behavior* OTOH is not
>entirely based on our emotional structure. I'll get back to you in 22
>years, ok?

okay ....

>
>>
>>Please clarify for me though, so that I can understand where you
personally
>>are coming from. Are you a transsexual or a transgenderist. Have you had
>>SRS, or do you even have any desire for SRS?
>

>Transsexual, Meltzer, due this September. <salute>.
>

=====

whole knew topic:

Dr. Meltzer is a very warm and present guy. He and I talked at length in
Vancouver, B.C. last year. May I make a suggestion? Would you discuss with
him a certain surgical complication that I have seen from both Meltzer and
Shrang patients? May I suggest that you get his assurances that he won't
make the mistake on you? The problem is that he sometimes leaves too much
tissue around the urethra. This can be adjusted during labiaplasty, but I
have seen someone up close and personal who is having to return to Meltzer
at major expense (hospital, travel, etc. - no doctor fee) because of the
problem.

The symptom basically looks like a penile stump left behind. It is very much
a BIG problem because it engorges with sexual arousal and get REALLY big.
What girl wants to have a beautiful vagina marred by a stubby wide penile
stump? Please make certain he doesn't leave you with that flaw. He can and
will fix the error if he makes it, but it will cost YOU big time in
hospital, operating room, and travel charges which apparently is does not
pick up. Sometimes I think he should pay for all of making that kind of
mistake. He seemed very sweet when I conversed with him, but maybe the
capitalist takes over when he gets down to business.

Review the photos on Anne Lawrence's web site, read the captions carefully,
and let me know what you think okay?

[Toni Roome]

Celeste wrote:
>
> Shh! Secret Squirrel wrote in message <3549840f...@news.newsguy.com>...

> >I think people bring to bear the twin concepts of gender identity and
> >gender expression in an effort to answer this. Maybe they're off the
> >beam. (Or maybe not... )
>
> So why do so many people have to bring gender into it? What is wrong with
> leaving it with sex, like the term implies, transsexual? Once a person has
> the sex organs they think are right for them, they can then do whatever they
> like with them. They shag either guys or girls, wear whatever they like, do
> whatever work they like, love whoever they want. What else matters?
>

My understanding is that the distinction was introduced to stop the
implication that a transsexual changes from a male to a female sexual
identity. So your gender stays the same after treatment (though perhaps
more fully expressed), just your secondary sexual characteristics now
more closely match your brain sex.

Which is not to deny that the term 'gender' hasn't been hijacked by
others since. In the above sense one thing transsexuals are not is
transgendered, this would only be possible for someone with a fluid
rather than fixed brain sex.

> >>In contrast the crossdresser wants desperately to be a physical male, while
> >>acting out the socially constructed, socially defined conventions of
> >>femininity.
>

Strictly speaking the term Crossdresser describes a behaviour, not a
mental state. The implication is that they are transgressing their
normal mode of expression. People crossdress for different reasons. I do
sometimes wonder about what constitutes the 'feminity' of some
crossdressers, which is not to say that some other people who crossdress
don't have problems with their gender identity/expression too.

> >Like I'd know. I crossdressed from puberty, but almost always in the
> >privacy of my room, and the only place I ever acted out social
> >conventions was in my mind. And I was *very* cross to find myself
> >ineluctably male.
>
> Is that why you were cross dressing (ha ha). I was pretty cross about the
> dressing I had to do as a kid too. But the entire time I just wanted the
> right genitals. I was cross after I started having sex too. Every time I
> fantasized that I had the vagina.
>

From talking to other ppl as well as from my own experience these are
common experiences. It was something I had to live with all through my
years of denial.

> >>What would the crossdresser or crossliver do if the cultural conventions
> >>suddenly disappeared? In contrast, as a transsexual, I care much less
> >> about social and cultural convention. From the beginning, I wanted my
> >> vagina, breasts and other female physical characteristics.
>

Most crossdressers seem to want to perpetuate cultural dress
stereotypes, hence their preferences for high heels and dresses rather
than flats and jeans, only some of them also adopt female social
characteristics. I don't think most ts could care less about
presentation as such (except that being too andro can makes passing more
difficult, if that is an issue, while looking attractive can help in
finding partners), however most have a characteristically female
mind-set, which is part of the brain sex that defines ourselves.

hugs,
--
Toni
"One should, each day, try to hear a little song,
read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it is
possible, speak a few reasonable words" (Goethe)

[Celeste]

Nice writing Toni.

>Toni Roome <To...@erewhon.u-net.com> wrote:

> Celeste wrote:
> >
> > Shh! Secret Squirrel wrote in message
<3549840f...@news.newsguy.com>...

> > >I think people bring to bear the twin concepts of gender identity and
> > >gender expression in an effort to answer this. Maybe they're off the
> > >beam. (Or maybe not... )
> >
> > So why do so many people have to bring gender into it? What is wrong
with
> > leaving it with sex, like the term implies, transsexual? Once a person
has
> > the sex organs they think are right for them, they can then do whatever
they
> > like with them. They shag either guys or girls, wear whatever they
like, do
> > whatever work they like, love whoever they want. What else matters?
> >

> My understanding is that the distinction was introduced to stop the
> implication that a transsexual changes from a male to a female sexual
> identity. So your gender stays the same after treatment (though perhaps
> more fully expressed), just your secondary sexual characteristics now
> more closely match your brain sex.

Yes, you understand I hope, that my statement was polemic? In the end it
realy stops mattering once its all over. It has been over for me for a
couple decades, for my adult life. (background provided because your name
is not familiar)

>
> Which is not to deny that the term 'gender' hasn't been hijacked by
> others since. In the above sense one thing transsexuals are not is
> transgendered, this would only be possible for someone with a fluid
> rather than fixed brain sex.
>

I agree, but the very problem that my definition was meant to address, is
the problem of transsexuals, even posts SRS transsexuals calling themselves
transgendered. The non-op crosslivers call themselves the same thing.
Conseuqently they have generated confusion obfuscation and at least a
couple years worth of arguing over termiinology in some other t* news
groups. It si so refreshing to see this discussion develop in such a posive
way in this news group. What a contrast.

> > >>In contrast the crossdresser wants desperately to be a physical male,
while
> > >>acting out the socially constructed, socially defined conventions of
> > >>femininity.
> >

> Strictly speaking the term Crossdresser describes a behaviour, not a
> mental state. The implication is that they are transgressing their
> normal mode of expression. People crossdress for different reasons. I do
> sometimes wonder about what constitutes the 'feminity' of some
> crossdressers, which is not to say that some other people who crossdress
> don't have problems with their gender identity/expression too.

> Strictly speaking the term Crossdresser describes a behaviour,

I think I like that concept, but what are the mental states, desires,
intentions or whatever that are its antecedents? This is a hypothetical,
possibly rhetorical, question.

The most interesting aspect of the crosslivers who have misappropriated
this term is that the rest of the world uses the term gender to refer to
physical sexuality. It seems important to me that they have redefined an
important term and appropriated its mutated definition for their own use.

>
> > >Like I'd know. I crossdressed from puberty, but almost always in the
> > >privacy of my room, and the only place I ever acted out social
> > >conventions was in my mind. And I was *very* cross to find myself
> > >ineluctably male.
> >
> > Is that why you were cross dressing (ha ha). I was pretty cross about
the
> > dressing I had to do as a kid too. But the entire time I just wanted
the
> > right genitals. I was cross after I started having sex too. Every time
I
> > fantasized that I had the vagina.
> >

> From talking to other ppl as well as from my own experience these are
> common experiences. It was something I had to live with all through my
> years of denial.

I hope you got my meager attempt at humor above. I was trying to make a few
puns. In hind sight I was very lucky, most fortunate, and got things over
with as soon as was practical in my life.

>
> > >>What would the crossdresser or crossliver do if the cultural
conventions
> > >>suddenly disappeared? In contrast, as a transsexual, I care much less
> > >> about social and cultural convention. From the beginning, I wanted
my
> > >> vagina, breasts and other female physical characteristics.
> >

> Most crossdressers seem to want to perpetuate cultural dress
> stereotypes, hence their preferences for high heels and dresses rather
> than flats and jeans, only some of them also adopt female social
> characteristics. I don't think most ts could care less about
> presentation as such (except that being too andro can makes passing more
> difficult, if that is an issue, while looking attractive can help in
> finding partners), however most have a characteristically female
> mind-set, which is part of the brain sex that defines ourselves.

I don't know about most. It seems like it would be neither impossible to
gather any reliable statistics about transsexuals, especially post SRS
women and men. We quickly woodwork ourselves away from the medical
establishment and become loath to give them any information of that nature.
I remember signing a promise to the group of therapists I saw before
surgery, to participate with future surveys. But the group didn't last long
enough fortunately, to ever get around to that, thank goodness.

If I may ask, would/could you tell us something about your background and
the perspective from which you wrote what you did? Do you understand that I
write from the perspective of a long term post SRS woman?

[Karen A.]

Shh! Secret Squirrel <spa...@farkle.com> wrote:

> Transsexual, Meltzer, due this September. <salute>.

What part of the month? I'm scheduled for August 28th (insurance
permitting <fingeres crossed - i's in the hands of the clerks now -
Meltzer's office has already submitted a pre-approval request)

-Karen A.

[Zarah]

Dear Kiira,

unfortunately this has grown into a longer reply...

Kira D. Triea schrieb in Nachricht
<_x6%.416$fP4.4...@news-read1.qis.net>...

>
>One thing I would want to ask is what is most important to TS people?

To be honest, I don't know. This is because I have a bit of a problem to
speak of transsexual people as if it were a homogenous group when it comes
to the motivation for and the purpose of changing one's sex.

Transsexuality is more or less the conceptual framework, which modern
western societies provide to change one's sex. And since this is a medical
framework, TS is thought about in medical terms. Which means the disorder
has to have an etiology, it must produce symptoms that can be diagnosed,
there must be some kind of therapy which can be evaluated in terms of
success and failure and so on. This line of thinking also sets the rules and
the path ('treatment guidelines') one has to follow to change one's sex. And
it homogenizes people who want to change their sex to people that can be
diagnosed as transsexual.

But this is highly artificial. There are no common etiologic factors for TS
found up til now, and I doubt there will ever be found a common etiology for
'transsexuality', for I can think of several very different reasons to
change one's sex, including socio-economic factors in some societies or
subcultures. There's no set of 'hard' symptoms that allow TS to be
diagnosed, TS always has been a self diagnose and for the 'medical experts'
a diagnose by exclusion. Which means if the wish to change one's sex cannot
be attributed to other 'disorders', it has to be TS. And there are no
unquestioned, means 'objective', measures for success or failure of any
treatment of the disorder. All in all, TS lacks all what makes up a proper
disorder.

So the 'disorder transsexuality' is the playground on which those who want
to change their sex and those who provide the means to do so meet. It
defines a set of rules for changing one's sex in modern western society. In
' The Empire strikes back' Sandy Stone pointed out how nicely this game is
played on both sides. 'Experts' want to find and define a disorder called
transsexuality to justify their actions, nice, we help them and tell them
what they need to hear, and in return they do what we expect from them. At
least in principle. I am pretty aware how inadequate the 'medical
management' of sex change in reality is, and that we have our share in
continouing this rather sad situation.

Having said all this, I doubt there is something like 'transsexual people',
because I can't see no such thing like a definable medical disorder called
transsexuality. There's only people who want to or had changed their sex for
whatever reasons. So I can only talk about what I wanted most, but I can't
sincerely speak about the reasons of other people who changed their sex. I
sometimes have the impression that there are as many ways and valid reasons,
as there are people who changed their sex.

For me changing sex was something that simply put the framework right.
Living in a female body and being perceived as female gives me the freedom
to just be me. I can relate to other people and can also express myself
sexually in a way that comes natural and that is understood and reflected by
others. It's now, like it should always have been, like feeling at home in
the world and in my body.

I don't like the distinction between sex and gender too much, anyway. It
seems somehow artificial. How are both concepts related? Where does sex end
and where does gender start. What about gender is determined by sex or vice
versa, and does this distinction really make sense when it comes to changing
sex. In German we only have one word 'Geschlecht' which includes somehow
both, sex and gender. And when I changed my sex, I think I actually changed
my 'Geschlecht'. It changed the way how I am perceived by other people, and
it changed the way I perceive my body. And both was necessary for me to be
able to relate to the world as me. So I can not say which is more important.
It's more or less two sides of one coin.

>I love being a female

me too :-)

>but part of this is just that it is an adaptive
>strategy.

Sometimes I find it kind of hard to tell what about sex and gender is
'real'. For me being female feels somehow very real, but maybe it's a bit
like a friend of mine once said: I really don't know what I am, but life for
me is much easier, if I live as a woman. And perhaps this is so for most of
the 'normal' people. They're male or female and it fit's just good enough,
that they can find themselves in the sex that was assigned to them, and they
never have a strong reason to question or even think about it.

>I read about people here having SRS, doing dilation and I
>just cringe. I've never had sex with a man and doubt I ever will...
>I do however have "feminine" style sex with my partner.... meaning that '
>I am "reactive", etc. But I look like a female, and cannot pass
>as a male so my outlook is skewed.

>
>My best friend is transitioning... we had gone up to NY to do some
>work on the IS movie documentary and (s)he was talking to me and the
>two women who are involved in this project with us. And zie was saying
>that zie was afraid to death of losing her "membership" so to
>speak... her ability to sit in the living room with three women and be
>"one of us", to have she and I unfold the sofa bed and jump in with
>our underwear on and not have me be nervous... or sleep on the floor as
>I would if this person were a "man". I really don't blame her
>
>
>If it were really about "women's culture" in this way entirely it
>would be easier... bio-males can easily be "one of the girls" as anyone
>who has had a gay friend knows. But there is a barrier that exists
>as aculturation and also maybe because someone has a penis?

I think there is this barrier. Maybe it's about perceiving someones sex as
same or different. This may happen on a much more fundamental level than
only being able to blend in the other 'gender culture'. I guess it's a very
fundamental categorie of human social perception. After all, the very last
thing you forget about a person is the sex of that person. Those
perceptional categories are probably to a large degree defined by culture,
so that self assignment and how one is assigned by others in a given culture
is coherent. Though the criteria (eg. assumption of penis=male) for
assignment may be different in another culture, for me as an individual who
has this specific cultural background, it is hard to distingish what is
natural about this assignment and what is cultured. And in actual daily
living this distinction is also somehow not very important, it usually works
good enough that an interaction partner and me come to the same conclusion
about sexual sameness or difference.

Though the breakdown of this reciprocity for some time during transition is
absolutely necessary, it is also probably one of the biggest problems during
transition.

[Celeste]

Nice writing Diane.

Diane <as...@slip.net> wrote in article

<354033f3...@news.slip.net>...

> On Wed, 22 Apr 1998 01:32:35 -0700, "Celeste" <cele...@usa.net>
> wrote:
>
> > What I am saying is that maybe there is a real difference between the
transgendered
> >seeking SRS and the transsexual,
>

> That's an interesting and scary turn of phrase - the "transgendered
> seeking SRS". On soc.support.transgendered I'm making a mild stink
> regarding a crossdresser who is trying to blur the lines between
> transsexual and transvestite via the transgendered label. So I am
> making the distinction -- but now I see you may be trying to go a step
> farther and this beginning to worry me - there is a danger in
> separatism.

I think it would be a really sad mistake, one made often by certain very
insecure people who post in some related news groups to infer that by
defining difference someone aims to divide people. I have so such intent.
Clarifying that there are differences between people has no inference of
separatism or lack of comradeship. For example, to acknowledge racial
difference is to acknowledge genetic fact. It is only the racist on the one
hand or the "color blind bleeding heart liberal" on the other who turn the
existence of racial difference into problems, in other words racism on the
one hand and denial on the other.

We are talking about differences that the people who have them can express
and explain, and often do. These clarifications need not be critical of
their etiology, or antecedents.

>
> What exactly is a "transgendered seeking SRS". I wasn't clear from
> your writings what you defined this as. I was more or less under the
> impression that a person seeking SRS was an ipso facto bona fide
> transexual. I am worried now, especially with the references to the
> dreaded "primary transexual" that you may be trying to narrow the
> field a bit further.

At no time have I been implying anything related to exclusionary attitudes
towards people seeking SRS for whatever reason. Only the perverse use such
definitions for exclusionary purposes. I thought you had read enough of my
writing to know that I am an absolute believer in freedom. My use of the
term "primary transsexual" was not meant to refer specifically to past
definitions of transsexualism.

Let me clarify a step further. I have actually had some post SRS people I
know face to face tell me that they sought SRS because of gender issues and
social convention, and living out roles and all the rest. I respected those
people. But as you so aptly pointed out this is a touchy subject. I wasn't
sure what I thought then, and I have only begun to rethink my understanding
of these issues, having listened to them. It began to dawn on me that there
were some really big differences in my experiences, the antecedents to my
SRS and the antecedents to theirs.

The only concepts I could think of that relate to this were the notions of
primary and secondary transsexual. Maybe they were sort of on the right
track, even if some of their ideas weren't quite right. But I can see how
much I must tip toe around these words since they are so pregnant with
assumptions and implications in most people's minds. Those assumptions and
implications vary so much from on to another because of the obfuscation and
word games played so much with these terms in recent years that the topic
becomes all the more difficult to talk about.

So, by "transgendered seeking SRS", I mean someone who comes to the process
of seeking SRS through some desire to live out what they see as gender role
in western society. Although I can respect the notion, if anything that is
what scares me. Such a concept plays directly into the arguments of the
Janice Raymond types of the world. I respect the "transgendered seeking
SRS", and the transgendered NOT seeking SRS for that matter. But it is also
an experience that I do not share with them. Thus far, these concepts and
experiences have come from people who sought SRS later in life. I wonder,
where are the early transitioners with such ideas? That is one of the
things that led me back to the primary secondary transsexual concept. Even
the early researches saw distinct differences in the behaviors and
motivations of those who presented at early ages and those who managed to
get deep into adult life before acting upon their need and desire for SRS.

>
> Sooo.. tell me I'm wrong - at least tell me why or how a person
> (without mental disqualifiers) seeking SRS could not be or should not
> be classed as a transexual?

First let me clarify that I don't think that every person seeking SRS need
be classified as a transsexual in order to receive. I am trying though to
point out that there appear to be at least two sets of general motivations
presented by those seeking it. I am beginning to think that there might be
some corollary between age of presentation to the medical establishment and
the antecedents to the requests those people make.

But back to my original thesis. The core transsexual as I understand is
someone who says, "I am girl born with a penis and I want it fixed" plain
and simple. Forget all gender stereotypes and everything else. Such people
present a profoundly simple and logical proposition. The focus of such a
person is distinctly different from someone whose first interest, most
likely in adult life, is to live out what they see as a gender role,
usually based upon someone physical sexuality, but as we know is not
dependent on it.

[Celeste]

Hi Andrea, nice writing, but it gives the impression that you have taken my
statement out of context, without having placed it within the context of my
original thesis and the subsequent discussion on this and the mutated Being
There thread. (why did you mutate it Diane).

Andrea Bennett wrote in message <35454a95....@news.mindspring.com>...

>"Celeste" <cele...@usa.net> said:
>
>>I am all in favor of SRS on demand. The reason why it will never happen is
>>that the surgeons use all the paperwork to protect themselves from getting
>>sued. It is just that simple.
>

>If we lived in a perfect world where everyone was free of hangups up
>gender, I'd be more inclined to favor surgery on demand.

Andrea I was speaking theoretically not in any practical sense, and only on
the most abstract theoretical terms. I agree with the fundamentals that you
state. Not only that I have no expectation that the current medical
establishment which controls access to SRS is about to change, nor do I care
to influence any change among them.

But by your very mention of the word gender, you give me the impression that
you missed the beginning of this thread. It all started with my positing the
notion that core transsexualism is not about gender at any fundamental
level, it is about physical sexuality it is, "a girl with a penis who wants
it repaired". The presupposes two concepts, that despite all imperical
evidence the speaker is a girl and that fixing her in time would allow her
to simply be a girl and grow into and adult female. From there the resultant
adult female would be free to do whatever she wants regarding gender, like
any other female.

>Internet) regarding transgender identity and the options that are
>available to people who don't feel that their sense of personal or
>physical identity fit within narrow molds of male and female.

Again I can only assume that you haven't read the whole thread, I have
purposefully steer clear of the, IMO, confusing and obfuscating words

"transgender identity"

I for example and NOT transgendered and never have been. I certainly don't
want the term used to identify me. Nor do I want the term GRS used regarding
the vaginoplasty and breast augmentation I had year ago, that was SRS. As
someone else here said, what would GRS be, some kind of brain surgery? I am
a girl and always was one, I just had a stupid penis for while, get it?

>
>For people who have long felt discomfort about who they are, the
>approach to transition can be a highly emotional time. Often they've
>been closeted for years, and subject to less than fully thought out
>ideas regarding what they should do about actualizing their feelings.
>In years past, a lot of the information regarding transsexualism and
>transgender identity has come in the form of sensationalized and
>distorted press accounts, from therapists and physicians who have
>focused on medicalized solutions, and from literature that proceeds
>from a flawed and polemicized perspective.

Yeah, yeah we know. We've been talking about it. But not everyone comes to
these things without knowing what it is that they want. I would posit that
it is primarily those who put off getting SRS who are subject to such
problems and the damage it does to their lives.

>
>It seems to me that at this point in time, it makes sense to have a
>"cooling off" period where people can take a little time to explore
>their feelings in an open and enlightened context, and consider
>options other than a complete gender shift accompanied by rather
>radical surgery and other body modifications. I don't favor rigid
>time guidelines applied across the board, for there will be
>significant variations with each individual. Some people will have
>strong feelings and well-considered positions, and in those cases
>there is little reason to deny them ready access to the procedures
>they seek. Others may find a level of comfort with less sweeping
>changes, and an all-or-nothing approach may not be in their best
>interests.

You have moved onto a different subject altogether, which was not what this
discussion was about. Its a nice discussion to have, but could we do it in a
different thread? Also, some of your statements further give me the
impression that you haven't read the beginning of this thread. Will you?
(smile)

>
>The rub, I think, comes when healthcare providers try to apply the
>standards of care in cookbook fashion, and fail to take into account
>the significant individual variations in people who seek to access
>their services. Rigid guidelines that take away the freedom of
>transsexual and otherwise transgendered people are simply wrong, and
>it is erroneous to approach the problem with the idea that everyone
>has the same needs and will benefit from the same solutions.
>
>The problem with the relationship between transgendered people and the

Again I wasn't talking about transgendered people. Most of the time I can't
even get a clear definition of that term out of the people who use it. The
purpose of this thread was to talk about the etiology of core
transsexualism. That etiology is something that I am beginning to think may
be something only experienced by those who transition young. As I pointed
out elsewhere on this thread, it is those who transition later in life who
seem focused on "gender", and social roles and social conventions and
stereotypes, all concepts that are not the focus of the core transsexual in
my experience. Again, a discussion of the medical establishment would be a
nice one, but it would drift this thread off its topic. I would be happy to
start a different thread to discuss it with you though.

Rather than comment on the rest of your statements, I will wait for you to
approach the topic by creating a new thread. Okay? (smile)

[Grrlpetal]

I believe I agreed with this. I suppose I was being cautionary in that
disconnection between sexuality and gender has been the way people have
argued against trnasexual existence.

Well, I would say that the vaginoplasty is the most signifigant
difference- and it
*is* a world away in a certain sense, especially if you've had one, like
I did :)
I would say sub-species rather that species, I wouldn't go with primary
and seconday because that's hierarchy, and I dont see being a transexual
as better or worse than any other thing to be. I would say that a
transgenderist who has had physical castration is the *closest* thing to
a post-op TS. I would say that one who has had no physical restructuring
of the genitals is *not* a transexual. I wouldn't call a castrated
non-op a TG, though. But then I talking MtF when measured against
hetero-sexist norms, but I still find FtM problematical in that
technology seems to be way behind in the area of phalloplasty, which has
much much higher failure rate than vaginoplasty. And then the phallus as
social totem....whew! Is the FtM who gets Metioidoplasty so different
than the one who attempts all out Phalloplasty? They both have had
hysterectomies, and both have the vaginal canal closed. And that's why I
go back to the non-op TS who has oblated testicles and say there is
something analogous to the FtM situation.

>
> By the way, as a concequence of seeking SRS, I had to live with breasts,
> secondary female characteristics and a penis for far too long for my tastes.
> That I couldn't stand it for any longer than I had to, which was years, is
> the hallmark of the difference between the primary transsexual and all the
> other shades and degrees of things that get talk about in various related
> usenet news groups. I felt no greater relief than the day I could shower
> naked in the phys. ed. center locker room and lay for a while naked in the
> sauna, during my college graduate years. That kind of relief also defines
> these differences.

I *know* what your talking about here :)

<snip>

> >
> >No, more like fortunate, You were given the trust of your Self. Too many
> >of us have to fight for it. Some of us loose that fight- you'll find
> >those sisters in cemeteries.
>
> Yes, I recognize the fortune in my life. But I also recognized from the
> beginning from my earliest consciousness that I was "a girl born with a
> penis". It was such an internal focus of my childhood psyche, despite the
> fact that I didn't talk to anyone about it for years, that it was paramount
> that I act upon that conviction at the first available opportunity.

But the Trust of Self issue is what keeps many from obtaining SRS until
years later, especially if the money's already there. There are so many
ways that our culture, in the past, has ripped that trust from TSs, from
our earliest years, in may cases. I've noticed a tendency to create this
hoop od self doubt, like a firey hoop that is hyped as almost too high
for mere mortals to jump through. I mean Benjamin's whole High Intensity
Transexual measure might have excluded you, because he listed suicidal
tendencies as an indicator, and hopefully, from what I gather, this
horror *never* invaded your landscape. nor should it ever. :)

>
> I would like to call upon others who had this experience to share theirs
> with us? Were you, "a girl born with a penis", from your earliest thoughts?

Yes. I didn't know it at the time though. It's only in looking back,
remembering, that the problems people had with me were because they
demanded I *not* be a girl- they gendered me, and then faulted me even
though *they* were wrong to begin with- I was one of those "look like,
smile like, cry like, walk like, talk like, sit like, act like a girl"
girls. A girl with a penis. I'll acept that shorthand:)

> Did you act on that conviction as soon as you could in your life?

In negative ways before positive ones. I made suicide attempts beginning
at age twelve, but this was also because there was so much violence-
sexual, physical, social, psychological violence perpetrated against me.
I told my parents at age 17 that I didn't want to turn into a man, but
that was after I
was dashed against the rocks with a head full of drugs. I mean puberty
was absolute Hell! So I attended psychotherapy for two years, which just
became a holding pattern. I had no energy and wear-with-all to asert
myself, until I was 22. Then I did HRT for two years.
But the psychological damage of long term abuse was never addressed. I
lost myself again at age 24. It wasn't until two years ago that I just
couldn't take it anymore. I started HRT again 18 months ago. Surgery
with Menard in almost four months. And during my transition I was forced
to deal, to process all those demons and terrors i compartmentalized-
and I ended up hospitalized with PTSD and Major Depression for my
troubles. I was diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder. In trying
to look back at my past i realized that that my consciousness was split
into many compartments, only to be accessed as personality states ( DID
used to be caled Multiple Personality Disorder, but this retired
descriptive was not accurate, and thanks to pop conceptualizations like
"Sybil" the disorder, based on chronic trauma occuring before age 6 and
continuing through childhood, most people who've developed it were never
properly diagnosed and treated.). I managed to overcome even this. God,
Celeste, it's been a roller coaster ride to hell and back. I feel strong
now, but I wouldn't wish what I just had to go through on anyone.

Anyway, this is why I can't see my transexuality as anything divorced
from sexuality or genitalia.

>What have
> the results meant to you. What is your life like now? Do you see what you
> did as having different antecedents that the transgender conceptions that
> seem popular today?

Well, I've had to process a lot but it's meant healing and emerging as a
complete person, all things considered.

I do not believe in "transgendered spectrum." I don't think that we as
transexuals actually share much in terms of our gender situation with
other "gender variants"
except that to non-transexuals we are "variant." I think categorizing as
such is a matter of convenience for the non transexual.

I think the disability model,( or "differently abled" to put a positive
spin on it) is probably the more accurate way to look at our condition.
And that this disability can be remediated, ameliorated.

>
> >
> >That's the difference between someone like you and someone like me. I
> >*don't* need any FIRST CAUSE, any self-justification. *I* trust myself
> >and my needs. It's Janice Raymond who doesn't trust *me.* I don't need
> >any terms to understand my transexuality to accept it and enjoy it. I
> >just do. I am what I am- a human, Being.
>
> But we are on the same wave length really. I trust myself to know that, "I
> was a girl born with a penis" and that I am now an adult, female, woman with
> a vagina, breasts and other female characteristics.

Oh. Okay. I just though you were disregarding *all* the things that come
along with our "package" ;)

>
> >
> >Believe me, non-Trans people never go to bed thinking about why they
> >*aren't* transsexual. In this way, there's no need for me to give anymore
> >thought to my existence as a gendered body than they do. They are no
> >more human than I am.
>
> I don't either. I have no idea why I was a transsexual, and haven't even
> attempted to answer that question. I do know, "that I was a girl born with a
> penis" and I trust myself to understand that truth and to have acted upon so
> that I am now an adult female with as many of the physical parts that I
> could fix. Dr. Brassard has been doing research on how to fix more of the
> problems.

That's interesting! Can you say what?

>
> >
> >These discussions you've opened are very enlightening on a personal
> >level. It makes me realize that all the time I've given to thinking and
> >discussing issues like this have not gone to waste.
>
> Thank you very much. It is really wonderful to see that some people can
> character on discussions like these in an engaging manner. It is so much
> nicer when people understand that by saying something it doesn't mean that
> we are trying to change another person's mind. We are just stating
> something. We don't all have to agree to function together and discuss
> issues together.

.

I'm Post-Op by almost four months, Celeste :)
>
> Pursue Happiness Always ...

You know it, luv :)

[Karen A.]

Diane <as...@slip.net> wrote:

> But it's perfectly possibly to live out that gender role without SRS
> as several transgenderists I know of have proven to me. Why would
> anyone seek SRS if they did not want to function sexually as a woman?
> I do not understand this Celeste.

IMO, While SRS enables one to have sex as a female, that is not the
primary driving force for many (well at least me). I've always felt that
this body was simply wrong. SRS will fix, to a degree, part of the
problem - unfortunately I have a lot of other physical issues that it
won't fix.

While SRS enables female sexual function, the driving force is simply
congruence. I can live without sex but I can't live without a degree of
physical congruence.

The bigest reason that I'm having so much trouble accepting my poor HRT
results. While passing is important socially, what I see in the mirror
undressed is just as, if not more important, then the social part - and
I'm not just refering to genitalia...

That's why, even though:
1) stealth is not likely
2) a sexual relationship is just as unlikely
3) I don't know if I will ever realIy fit the female gender role after
living 42 rears in the male one

I will have SRS. It's so I can be as comfortable as I can possibly be in
this godforsaken body - and I hope it's enough.

-KAren A.

[Toni Roome]

Celeste wrote:
>
> Nice writing Toni.
>
Thanks for the compliment :)).

> >Toni Roome <To...@erewhon.u-net.com> wrote:
> > My understanding is that the distinction was introduced to stop the
> > implication that a transsexual changes from a male to a female sexual
> > identity. So your gender stays the same after treatment (though perhaps
> > more fully expressed), just your secondary sexual characteristics now
> > more closely match your brain sex.
>
> Yes, you understand I hope, that my statement was polemic? In the end it
> realy stops mattering once its all over. It has been over for me for a
> couple decades, for my adult life. (background provided because your name
> is not familiar)
>

Yes, and it's a point you have made a number of times. I suppose it does
tend to matter more when you are still in transition when ppl tend to
still remember how you were before and more so for someone like myself
who had been in denial, and hence presenting male, for so long.

> >
> > Which is not to deny that the term 'gender' hasn't been hijacked by
> > others since. In the above sense one thing transsexuals are not is
> > transgendered, this would only be possible for someone with a fluid
> > rather than fixed brain sex.
>
> I agree, but the very problem that my definition was meant to address, is
> the problem of transsexuals, even posts SRS transsexuals calling themselves
> transgendered. The non-op crosslivers call themselves the same thing.
> Conseuqently they have generated confusion obfuscation and at least a

> couple years worth of arguing over terminology in some other t* news
> groups. It is so refreshing to see this discussion develop in such a
> positive way in this news group. What a contrast.
>
I think there *is* a qualitative difference (between transsexuals and
self-identified transgenderists), though as Zarah has also posted maybe
there are 'trasnsexuals' out there who even go so far as seeking SRS for
reasons other than knowledge that you have the wrong body parts as such
(like the old saw "I suppose you did it so your jeans fit better?").

While I can't claim to be a primary transsexual in any sense (one thing
that stopped me identifying as ts, when I considered transitioning when
I was 23, was my lack of early memories of female identification, though
I have so few early memories, and I do know from others that I had lots
of problems at that time, that I suspect selective amnesia). But even
during my denial years I always had a problem with penetrative sex since
I needed to see myself as female to achieve orgasm (real doublething,
but others have reported the same).

One thing that started to happen since hormones is that I began to start
to feel at home in my body, before there was always a dissonance. And
when I tried to justify to myself why I wanted SRS (an exercise I did
prior to getting my 2nd referral) the top reason has to be: because if I
imagine having what I want down there it just seems right and what I
have now just feels wrong.

Which is not to say that I was not also a lot happier once I could also
start to live as a woman. Even if I couldn't get surgery for some reason
I wouldn't want to change back.

> > Strictly speaking the term Crossdresser describes a behaviour, not a
> > mental state. The implication is that they are transgressing their
> > normal mode of expression. People crossdress for different reasons. I do
> > sometimes wonder about what constitutes the 'feminity' of some
> > crossdressers, which is not to say that some other people who crossdress
> > don't have problems with their gender identity/expression too.
>
> > Strictly speaking the term Crossdresser describes a behaviour,
>
> I think I like that concept, but what are the mental states, desires,
> intentions or whatever that are its antecedents? This is a hypothetical,
> possibly rhetorical, question.
>

After my male shell broke down and I got to the point of going out
dressed and met other ppl who were ts or tv (up till then I'd lived 45
years and never met anyone else) it soon became clear that I couldn't
really understand tv's. What always fazed me is the way the one's I met
were able to switch to male at the end of the evening. For me I was
still the same person whether I was dressed or just in my then normal
andro mode.

> The most interesting aspect of the crosslivers who have misappropriated
> this term is that the rest of the world uses the term gender to refer to
> physical sexuality. It seems important to me that they have redefined an
> important term and appropriated its mutated definition for their own use.
>

I did write an earlier post about this that I mistakenly sent to your
fake email address rather than news in which I pointed out that we
seemed to have just two shorthand terms 'sex' and 'gender' to cover
three concepts: the physical sex we were born in (sexual phenotype), our
brain sex (sexual identity) and our sexual orientation. In popular usage
I don't think the terms sex and gender are even differentiated, since
for most ppl all three ideas are consonant.

> > From talking to other ppl as well as from my own experience these are
> > common experiences. It was something I had to live with all through my
> > years of denial.
>
> I hope you got my meager attempt at humor above. I was trying to make a few
> puns. In hind sight I was very lucky, most fortunate, and got things over
> with as soon as was practical in my life.
>

Got the pun, a real groaner I'm afraid. I'm glad for you that you were
able to sort yourself out so long ago. My problem was taking the then
stereotypes too seriously. Rather than accept my own identity and lie to
the pshrinks I accepted that because they woudn't class me as
transsexual that I wasn't. This time (23 years on) the ones I saw were
perfectly happy to give me hormones and refer me for surgery.

> > Most crossdressers seem to want to perpetuate cultural dress
> > stereotypes, hence their preferences for high heels and dresses rather
> > than flats and jeans, only some of them also adopt female social
> > characteristics. I don't think most ts could care less about
> > presentation as such (except that being too andro can makes passing more
> > difficult, if that is an issue, while looking attractive can help in
> > finding partners), however most have a characteristically female
> > mind-set, which is part of the brain sex that defines ourselves.
>
> I don't know about most. It seems like it would be neither impossible to
> gather any reliable statistics about transsexuals, especially post SRS
> women and men. We quickly woodwork ourselves away from the medical
> establishment and become loath to give them any information of that nature.
> I remember signing a promise to the group of therapists I saw before
> surgery, to participate with future surveys. But the group didn't last long
> enough fortunately, to ever get around to that, thank goodness.
>

You're right in that I know little about post-operastive experiences. I
do know some women who are post-op but apart from one acquaintance who
is 13 years post-op the rest are one to three years at most.

> If I may ask, would/could you tell us something about your background and
> the perspective from which you wrote what you did? Do you understand that I
> write from the perspective of a long term post SRS woman?
>

Celeste, yes I know where you are from, having read, and occasionally
posted, from the inception of a.s.srs.

As to me, I'm 47, a University Lecturer in the UK, still married to my
partner of 27 years, with two kids, first thought about transitioning
when I came out to my wife at age 23, but decided I couldn't be ts so
just tried to control it. Got more and more screwed up and started to do
something about it August '96. Began hormones May '97, transitioned July
'97, got my 1st and 2nd referrals Jan-Feb '98 and am scheduled for
surgery with Mr Royle July 18th this year.

[Celeste]

>Toni Roome wrote:

>Celeste wrote:
>>
>I think there *is* a qualitative difference (between transsexuals and
>self-identified transgenderists), though as Zarah has also posted maybe
>there are 'trasnsexuals' out there who even go so far as seeking SRS for
>reasons other than knowledge that you have the wrong body parts as such
>(like the old saw "I suppose you did it so your jeans fit better?").

Yes, well kind of sort, I did. I have some jeans with zipper on the side,
even a pair of leather pairs with the zipper on the side. I have been
enjoying those better fitting jeans for the couple decades I mentioned
previously.

>
>While I can't claim to be a primary transsexual in any sense (one thing
>that stopped me identifying as ts, when I considered transitioning when
>I was 23, was my lack of early memories of female identification, though
>I have so few early memories, and I do know from others that I had lots
>of problems at that time, that I suspect selective amnesia). But even
>during my denial years I always had a problem with penetrative sex since
>I needed to see myself as female to achieve orgasm (real doublething,
>but others have reported the same).

Lack of early memories. But isn't that the very hallmark of the core
transsexual etiology?

>
>One thing that started to happen since hormones is that I began to start
>to feel at home in my body, before there was always a dissonance. And
>when I tried to justify to myself why I wanted SRS (an exercise I did
>prior to getting my 2nd referral) the top reason has to be: because if I
>imagine having what I want down there it just seems right and what I
>have now just feels wrong.
>

Well then, in the end your statement agrees with my original thesis.

>I did write an earlier post about this that I mistakenly sent to your
>fake email address

But my dear, the email address is REAL. You must remove the nospam.
substring from the nospam....@usa.net address. Isn't this a well known
usenet convention. If one does not does this one starts getting UCE email
spam from programs that search the news archives for email addresses.

>As to me, I'm 47, a University Lecturer in the UK, still married to my
>partner of 27 years, with two kids, first thought about transitioning
>when I came out to my wife at age 23, but decided I couldn't be ts so
>just tried to control it. Got more and more screwed up and started to do
>something about it August '96. Began hormones May '97, transitioned July
>'97, got my 1st and 2nd referrals Jan-Feb '98 and am scheduled for
>surgery with Mr Royle July 18th this year.

You have identified one of the causes of great angst. You felt so obligated,
such the loyalist to your relationship, even made babies. But it is
something laudable, even there are so many people who come to these news
groups with similar experiences, quietly kicking themselves, and trying
desperately to cope with what appears to be the far greater and more
difficult task of doing SRS at middle age.

[Stefani Banerian]

> First let me clarify that I don't think that every person seeking SRS need
> be classified as a transsexual in order to receive. I am trying though to
> point out that there appear to be at least two sets of general motivations
> presented by those seeking it. I am beginning to think that there might be
> some corollary between age of presentation to the medical establishment and
> the antecedents to the requests those people make.
>
> But back to my original thesis. The core transsexual as I understand is
> someone who says, "I am girl born with a penis and I want it fixed" plain
> and simple. Forget all gender stereotypes and everything else. Such people
> present a profoundly simple and logical proposition. The focus of such a
> person is distinctly different from someone whose first interest, most
> likely in adult life, is to live out what they see as a gender role,
> usually based upon someone physical sexuality, but as we know is not
> dependent on it.

I don't think one can take the premise of the existence of a corollary
between age of presentation and the antecedents. In my own case my
therapist asked me (before HRT i believe) if i wanted to do this even if
i kept living as i was, no great lifestyle changes. i said yes. As it
is, most of the time i still wear the same clothes i had before
transition, jeans and a t-shirt, no makeup; gender role presentation is
much less important. sure i like to dress up now and then, but that
wasn't the reason i transitioned. (as an aside, before this therapist
would write my hormone referral letter, he wanted me to come to one
session "dressed" - usually i rode my bike to his office, so i'd be
there in bike clothes - it seemed he did not take me seriously about
wanting to change without necessarily donning the typical female attire
at least once for him - kind of pissed me off, too)

another set of incidents which bothered me early on. i went to the
local support group a few times, and felt very much left out. my
therapist opined that it was because i didn't go there "dressed." i was
the only TS there who wasn't dressed. maybe i am not as much into the
gender role presentation. maybe i have a good enough PQ and CQ so i
don't need to do much.

I guess what i might be getting at is that there may be *expectations*
of TS people, and that those expectations may modify how TS's behave, or
speak. Which in some circumstances might result in statements about
gender roles.

hmmm.

[Celeste]

>Stefani Banerian wrote:
>I don't think one can take the premise of the existence of a corollary
>between age of presentation and the antecedents. In my own case my
>therapist asked me (before HRT i believe) if i wanted to do this even if
>i kept living as i was, no great lifestyle changes. i said yes. As it
>is, most of the time i still wear the same clothes i had before
>transition, jeans and a t-shirt, no makeup; gender role presentation is
>much less important.

yeah girl, but you have primo CQ and PQ.

>another set of incidents which bothered me early on. i went to the
>local support group a few times, and felt very much left out. my
>therapist opined that it was because i didn't go there "dressed." i was
>the only TS there who wasn't dressed. maybe i am not as much into the
>gender role presentation. maybe i have a good enough PQ and CQ so i
>don't need to do much.

Oh gosh you were ahead of me I wrote before I read ....
(above)

[Karen Elizabeth A.]

Michelle Steiner <mich...@michelle.org> wrote:

> Not true. I know that Toby Meltzer will do SRS without upfront payment if
> he receives a prior commitment from an insurance company.

If they get that assurance two months before the date of SRS - otherwise
it's cash up front.

Karen A (Who is anxiously waiting for to hear from the insurance company
and is 4 months away from SRS).

-Karen A.

BTW - if I remember correctly from his presentation Schrang also does.

[Karen Ross]

Shh! Secret Squirrel <spa...@farkle.com> wrote in article
<353daf22...@news.newsguy.com>...

> This makes a good thought experiment: Take a male who expresses a
> desire to transition, and is say 25 and het and usually accepted by
> his pals as another guy. Send to E2000 and get face hair off pronto.
> Start on HRT, but also immediately give a boob job. And throw the SOC
> out the window and give the kid SRS right away. So now we've got a
> person who's ostensibly female but with no female socialization skills
> and who has never expressed a feminine gender in public.
>

> Will this person be happy?

I would have been - except that I'd started HRT six months previously to my
25th birthday and had done my own electrolysis. Had I been able to
transition as a teen, the hormones could have come later and I'd have done
just as well, I suspect. As it was, I went 24/7 with virtually zero
experience
in public as Karen. It worked remarkably well from day one. I'd have been
ecstatic had I been able to start with SRS, too.

As a child I had always seen myself as a girl. When I transitioned, it
wasn't
to be someone else, it was to reveal the real *me*. It was to bask in the
joy
of no longer hiding who I was. To hell with logic! It was never about
logic.
I always *felt* I was really a girl. Finally the rest of the world saw it
too.

OTOH, YMMV.

-- Kare

[Mrs. Peel]

You know, I feel kinda weird, being all femme and stuff.

I was once told (by a TS woman) that I couldn't be TS, because I didn't wear
"jeans and a t-shirt and no make-up".

Because EVERYONE KNOWS that being TS is about having a
pooter but still dressing like a guy who works as a programmer.

Screw it, I enjoy being a girl.

-Mrs. Peel, WQ

In article <6hmhrc$8v2$1...@gte2.gte.net>, "Celeste" <cele...@usa.net> wrote:
>
>>Stefani Banerian wrote:
>>I don't think one can take the premise of the existence of a corollary
>>between age of presentation and the antecedents. In my own case my
>>therapist asked me (before HRT i believe) if i wanted to do this even if
>>i kept living as i was, no great lifestyle changes. i said yes. As it
>>is, most of the time i still wear the same clothes i had before
>>transition, jeans and a t-shirt, no makeup; gender role presentation is
>>much less important.
>
>yeah girl, but you have primo CQ and PQ.

San Francisco is a mad city-inhabited for the most part by perfectly
insane people whose women are of a remarkable beauty.

Rudyard Kipling: "American Notes" (1891).

Visit my website: http://www.pressenter.com/~maggieo

[Mrs. Peel]

Mrs. Peel lives in North Beach, where she is the Queen of Grant Avenue.

Just ask the Squirrel.

-Mrs. Peel and her big-ass head

In article <353ec7ba...@news.slip.net>, as...@slip.net (Diane) wrote:
>On Thu, 23 Apr 1998 02:55:45 GMT, spa...@farkle.com (Shh! Secret
>Squirrel) wrote:
>
>>I have been wanting an X-Men t-shirt for the longest time.... I keep
>>hunting the Haight for one (size small -- for the CQ, yknow), no far
>>no luck.
>
>You live in SF as well? Say aren't there several of us on here who
>liver there?
>
>Maybe we should all get together at the Baghdad Cafe for a coffee or
>something? Up for it?
>
>
>
>You can have a hot job, a hot lover and a hot apartment - but you only get two
> of the three.
>A. Maupin (Mona's Law)

[Mrs. Peel]

In article <35416f85...@news.slip.net>, as...@slip.net (Diane) wrote:
>On Wed, 22 Apr 1998 12:46:59 -0700, "Celeste" <cele...@usa.net>
>wrote:
>
>>...the mutated BeingThere thread. (why did you mutate it Diane).
>
>Hey I could start my own Mutant League!
>Maybe I could call it the X-Men?

Hey!

I'm the eX-Man!!!

- Marvel Girl

nee, Mrs. Peel

[Dale Elisabeth A.]

arb...@mindspring.com (Andrea Bennett) writes:

> > Nor do I want the term GRS used regarding
> >the vaginoplasty and breast augmentation I had year ago, that was SRS. As
> >someone else here said, what would GRS be, some kind of brain surgery? I am
> >a girl and always was one, I just had a stupid penis for while, get it?
>

> Yes, I understand what you are saying. The problem with the phrases
> "SRS" and "GRS", however, is that they both refer to reassignment. As
> I understand you, your objection is not so much as to whether the
> surgery is called sex reassignment or genital reassignment, but that
> it's denoted "reassignment" surgery of any sort. I gather you would
> prefer that it be viewed as corrective or improvement surgery.

Many of us agree. In some circles, the acronym GRS has been
reappropriated to mean Genital Reconstruction Surgery.

Makes sense to me.

- Dale

Sincere replies only to chimera "at" home "dot" com. The sender of any
UCE to this address will be billed at the rate of U.S. $100/kilobyte.

[Celeste]

>Kira D. Triea wrote:
>
>What is "PQ and CQ"?
>

Those are some funny humorous terms I coined

Cuteness Quotient (CQ)
Petiteness Quotient (PQ)
Babe Quotient (BQ)

where upon:

BQ = CQ * PQ

(smile)

[Celeste]

Whoops I think I started this mess. Someone once send to me, "My gender
reassignment surgery", whereupon I thought that GRS meant just that. I never
liked the notion, and had decided to throw it, to shred it.

I don't have any problem with GRS standing for genital reassignment surgery,
but I think that people would run into SERIOUS communications problems using
the abbreviation since there is no universal expansion for it. I will stick
with SRS, few people get confused by that acronym.

[Karen Ross]

Mrs. Peel <femme@I_wear_dresses_a_lot_and_like_it.com> wrote in article
<6hmopg$r...@news1.newsguy.com>...

> You know, I feel kinda weird, being all femme and stuff.

> Because EVERYONE KNOWS that being TS is about having a

> pooter but still dressing like a guy who works as a programmer.

Ouch!

-- Kare

[Karen Ross]

Celeste <nospam....@usa.net> wrote in article
<01bd6e24$073454b0$1feaa6cd@atma>...

> Let me clarify a step further. I have actually had some post SRS people I
> know face to face tell me that they sought SRS because of gender issues
and
> social convention, and living out roles and all the rest. I respected
those
> people. But as you so aptly pointed out this is a touchy subject. I
wasn't
> sure what I thought then, and I have only begun to rethink my
understanding
> of these issues, having listened to them. It began to dawn on me that
there
> were some really big differences in my experiences, the antecedents to my
> SRS and the antecedents to theirs.

(Well, I haven't stepped into the horse pucky lately, maybe it's time.)

There are several reasons people seek SRS. Most will do OK if they get
SRS, but some won't. Why you want it can be critical. I know of a couple
of cases were the individuals started as classic het TV and incorporated
the idea of getting SRS into their sexual fantacies. In their middle years
(after 40), each jumped through all the SOC hoops and got SRS. After
living post-op (6 mon for one, a year for the other, I believe), each
regretfully came to the conclusion that they made a big mistake. Last time
I heard, neither is attempting to revert, but they are not at all happy
about what they did.

Personally, my reaction is "So?". Each was an adult and knew what they
were doing. I'd rather see a few have regrets that some who really need it
get refused.

-- Kare

[Celeste]

Oh my gosh peachy puff!

I confess, I like dresses, I like makeup, I can't resist a pair of Charles
Jourdan pumps, and blast it I like being as cute as I can be. But it doesn't
rain every day, so do I have to wear something with a skirt every day?
(giggle)

So, come on, 'fess up, where are your leggings and long sweaters, what about
your leotards and body suits?

By the way, "those were Gloria Vanderbilt stretch jeans and the t-shirt was
a pretty deep scoop neck that no guy I know would be caught dead in", I
whimpered and pouted, but you did graze me enough to make it sting.

And by the way, why should you have to care or feel weird, since when do you
have conform to convention, you are a peachy puff!

But, wasn't there a rumor going around that you would soon be coding hard
core html some place in the valley?

[Stefani Banerian]

Mrs. Peel wrote:
>
> You know, I feel kinda weird, being all femme and stuff.
>

> I was once told (by a TS woman) that I couldn't be TS, because I didn't wear
> "jeans and a t-shirt and no make-up".
>

> Because EVERYONE KNOWS that being TS is about having a
> pooter but still dressing like a guy who works as a programmer.
>

> Screw it, I enjoy being a girl.
>
> -Mrs. Peel, WQ

It is ok to be femme, and my friends think of me that way, and i don't
mind it. I was only referring to the thread, and Celeste's proposal
that maybe older TS's are seeking to fulfil gender-role whereas younger
TS's are strictly seeking the physical change. I don't think it is
true for me.

I'm not (yet) a programmer, so I can't really speak to those issues.
But I wouldn't mind trying on the Peachy Puff "uniform" -

so why didn't I meet any of you when I was in SF in February? Where
were you?

[Deborah]

In article <3547493a...@news.slip.net>, as...@slip.net (Diane) wrote:
>My personal experience tends to lead me to believe that the
>observational differences between presenting at various ages are
>flawed. Certainly in my case, with my family situation, I realized
>at a very early age that there was no chance at all of my changing
>gender - even when I realized such a thing was possible. So I
>resolved to hide the issue as best as possible from those around me as
>well as myself. It wasn't until my late 20's that I was able to shake
>off my self imposed conditioning. Perhaps those that present at later
>ages are guilty of nothing more then being better survivalists?

This is my experience too. I started feeling the need to be female sometime
between the ages of 6 and 8. I was not willing to go against the messages I
was getting from my peers about boys who acted like girls or who wanted to
be one. I internalized all this negative feedback, and hated myself for
having the feelings. I dealt with it by suppressing my emotional and social
side. Though I did have outbreaks from time to time, and it was almost
always in the back of my mind, I lasted this way until my mid-thirties,
about five years ago. At that point, I couldn't stand the emotional and
social isolation any more, and I started trying to open up. My gender
problem promptly reappeared, got steadily worse, and here I am: age 40 and
in transition (though not far along).

I tend to think that the main difference between me and TSs who present
young is that I did not accept my feelings, in fact rejected them, and that
I stubbornly held on until I just couldn't stand not being a woman any more.
If I had known then what I know now...

>>But back to my original thesis. The core transsexual as I understand is
>>someone who says, "I am girl born with a penis and I want it fixed" plain
>>and simple.
>

>Perhaps a certain simple mindedness on my part has presented me from
>making this distinction. I have always recognized the distinction
>between my body and my mind. Until transition I never called myself a
>girl because it was obvious to me that I was not - in the physical
>sense, because that is how I had always defined it. At the same time
>I knew that, though I wasn't a girl - I wanted to be one.

I feel the same way; I never thought of myself as a girl, I just wanted to
be one. And to me, the important part about being a woman is fitting into
the role and into the way that women interact with the world emotionally,
not mostly about SRS (don't worry, I want that too!) I haven't thought of
myself as a woman mentally, either; I know I don't behave the way GGs do. I
think you have to live as a woman for a while before your mindset changes to
the point where you're mentally female as well.

I don't think I really believe in "primary" and "secondary" transsexuals. My
theory is that the problem is the same, but people's way of dealing with it
is as varied as people are.

My two bits of philopsophy... :-)

Deborah
deb...@ibm.net

[Stefani Banerian]

Celeste wrote:
>
> >Stefani Banerian wrote:
> >I don't think one can take the premise of the existence of a corollary
> >between age of presentation and the antecedents. In my own case my
> >therapist asked me (before HRT i believe) if i wanted to do this even if
> >i kept living as i was, no great lifestyle changes. i said yes. As it
> >is, most of the time i still wear the same clothes i had before
> >transition, jeans and a t-shirt, no makeup; gender role presentation is
> >much less important.
>
> yeah girl, but you have primo CQ and PQ.

<blush> thank you !

three years ago i wouldn't have believed it possible.

<dep breath> even so, there are good days and bad. some days no matter
how hard i try i couldn't pass for anything. other days no effort is
required. i just don't get it - how is that?

[Stefani Banerian]

Diane wrote:

>
> On Thu, 23 Apr 1998 06:34:01 -0700, "Celeste" <cele...@usa.net>
> wrote:
> >
> >where upon:
> >
> >BQ = CQ * PQ
>

> Oh really??? Know any models under 5'8"" ?
>
> Better revise that formula/

not really. you could propose another formula, the MQ (model quotient):

MQ = CQ * (fill this in)

but this brings up a question.

where are the *quotients*? just what is CQ = ? and PQ = ?

[Celeste]

Cheryl you do have some years on me. You are also correct that I group in
the midst of a sweet spot as far as information about transsexuals was
concerned. I arrived at high school just in time for the psychedelic
revolution. It was not all that long after I phoned in my first illegal
estrogen prescription that all the people you listed became public figures.

It must have been hard for you in that generation early. Wasn't that a time
of rampant conformism and conservativism as indoctrinated via the pabalum
of Donna Reed and Father Knows Best? Thanks for giving me something else to
feel lucky about. Without a sense of being able to make something possible,
I can see how it become ever more difficult to act upon.

>che...@cruzio.com wrote:

> > "Celeste" <cele...@usa.net> wrote:
> >Again I wasn't talking about transgendered people. Most of the time I
can't
> >even get a clear definition of that term out of the people who use it.
The
>

> It's not a term that I care to use either. There are at least three
> or four mutually contradictory usages of the term that I'm aware of,
> and a myriad of individual interpretations, so effectively it is
> semantically meaningless. Among other things, inclusion of
> transsexuals in this nebulous group makes unwarranted assumptions of
> congruity from what may be merely accidental similarity.

>
> >purpose of this thread was to talk about the etiology of core
> >transsexualism. That etiology is something that I am beginning to think
may
> >be something only experienced by those who transition young. As I
pointed
>

> I think that may be an overgeneralization not uncommon to your
> generation.

I think it is bound to be, after trying to distill things down to a brief
definition, especially now that I have clouded definition of transsexuality
that I posited, with so much elaboration.

>I assume you're somewhere around forty or so, given that
> you were in high school at the time of David Bowie. Transexuality was
> in the air at that time, with the coming out of people like Wendy
> Carlos, Jan Morris, Renee Richards, and so forth, during your
> development years. Though much of SRS was cloaked in secrecy and
> misunderstanding, at least there was the awareness that it was
> possible. The generation of ten to fifteen years earlier didn't even
> have that. We may or may not have heard of Christine Jorgensen, but
> that was way back in 1953, when I was six, and throughout the 50s and
> 60s there was no public discussion whatsoever of transsexuality.

Yes, see my comments above and below.

> A minor point, actually. Celeste, I don't wish to appear to take you
> to task, but sometimes it seems as if you treat your early transition
> as especial virtue, without fully understanding the vicissitudes of
> other people's transitions. I know your intent is good and that
> you've done marvelous work for the newsgroup. It's not you in
> particular, but it seems to me that others who have transitioned at a
> young age are unaware of the circumstances under which those of us
> slightly older have transitioned. Time and chance in all.

Well I am probably not very good at writing in a way that stresses those
sensitivities to readers. It would be difficult to read this news group for
long over the past year or so and not read in detail the emotional distress
that transition at 40 creates for people.

May I say that I don't think I am strong enough to have been able to handle
either the waiting or the doing it at forty. From one perspective that
leaves with an admiration for the strength of those who could do whatever
they did to survive during years, of what I can only surmise are some kind
of intense suppression, a suppression that apparently is are to accomplish
and leads at least some to drugs and alcohol when attempt to salve the
wounds. But may I say that for myself, and I might assume some others to
got SRS young that we are left perplexed? Even though I read about the
events that people progress through I don't read enough about the inner
emotional process that made those events possible. What I am trying to say
is, what do people who wait do with their feelings? I have a hard time
trying imagine what the process must be like emotionally. If some of those
who went through would be willing to share how they felt and how they dealt
with their emotions through that process, maybe some of the us early types
could better understand.

Can you understand that for the early types, at least for me, the
compulsion was so strong that it was do or die against all odds,
consequences be damned? The sense I got from the medical community was that
it was expected of us anyway. Going through transition then taught me
determination, a determination I now use in the rest of my life, and
patience, the patience I learned in the years between transition and
surgery, working jobs that weren't bad but hadn't been a part of my career
plan, and biding my time hunting relentlessly for the way out, like the
first time through a computer game when all its secrets are not apparent,
working through a maze hunting for the key that opens the locked door to
the way out.

Please forgive us, we don't mean to seem either insensitive or unempathetic
to the experience of late transitioners. We need help from those who
transition late to understand the emotional landscape that makes that life
path possible.

[Celeste]

Cheryl you do have some years on me. You are also correct that I group in
the midst of a sweet spot as far as information about transsexuals was
concerned. I arrived at high school just in time for the psychedelic
revolution. It was not all that long after I phoned in my first illegal
estrogen prescription that all the people you listed became public figures.

It must have been hard for you in that generation early. Wasn't that a time
of rampant conformism and conservativism as indoctrinated via the pabalum
of Donna Reed and Father Knows Best? Thanks for giving me something else to
feel lucky about. Without a sense of being able to make something possible,
I can see how it become ever more difficult to act upon.

>che...@cruzio.com wrote:
> > "Celeste" <cele...@usa.net> wrote:

> >Again I wasn't talking about transgendered people. Most of the time I
can't
> >even get a clear definition of that term out of the people who use it.
The
>

> It's not a term that I care to use either. There are at least three
> or four mutually contradictory usages of the term that I'm aware of,
> and a myriad of individual interpretations, so effectively it is
> semantically meaningless. Among other things, inclusion of
> transsexuals in this nebulous group makes unwarranted assumptions of
> congruity from what may be merely accidental similarity.
>

> >purpose of this thread was to talk about the etiology of core
> >transsexualism. That etiology is something that I am beginning to think
may
> >be something only experienced by those who transition young. As I
pointed
>

[Celeste]

[T. E. Kallandra]

Stefani Banerian (nospam...@eskimo.com) wrote:

> <dep breath> even so, there are good days and bad. some days no matter
> how hard i try i couldn't pass for anything. other days no effort is
> required. i just don't get it - how is that?

Read "Zen in the Art of Archery"...you have to learn not to get
in your own way, not to "watch" yourself to the point where
you become self conscious, and to just let what must do, do itself
through you.

Alternatively, a slug of Bushmills is nearly the same thing....
But this is a general note, unrelated to passing any more than
to ANY human task which encourages tension and self-criticism.

Passing is COMPETITION: you are trying to best others' pattern-
recognition software, and your own habits. When it stops
being competition, only then can you achive perfection. Then
you and the target become one, and how can the arrow miss?

Theoni

[Kira D. Triea]

Stefani Banerian (nospam...@eskimo.com) wrote:

x-no-archive: yes

+---
| > Stefani Banerian (nospam...@eskimo.com) wrote|
| > +---

| > | another set of incidents which bothered me early on. i went to the
| > | local support group a few times, and felt very much left out. my
| > | therapist opined that it was because i didn't go there "dressed." i was
| > | the only TS there who wasn't dressed. maybe i am not as much into the
| > | gender role presentation. maybe i have a good enough PQ and CQ so i
| > | don't need to do much.

| > +---
| >
| > Also it may be perceived at a TS group that you don't need any support
| > because you have gotten surgery and your appearance is
| > quite female congruent. The mythology of transexuality now states that
| > you are "cured" and can go living your life as a woman. I very
| > strongly do not to subscribe to this model for intersexed people...
| > it is actually destructive and quite cruel. There *are* some things
| > which can be extrapolated to TS experience thoug hand I think this is
| > one of them. If you have a led a different life and have had some very
| > different and difficult experiences... it is human nature to want to
| > share your experiences with others of your kind.
|
| actually these events happened well before surgery, when i was in the
| process of coming out. I had zero CQ at the time, PQ wasn't in the
| figures. As it was, I went to the group a month after surgery, in much
| the same clothes as three years previously, and the reception was *very*
| different. The atmosphere was quite receptive.
+---

I apparently misread at least some of what you were writing (and am now a
bit confused) - re: "zero CQ" and "PQ wasn't even in the figures".

Does "zero CQ" translate to "did not pass as a female"? I am taking
Celestes translation of this at face value.... or does that mean, as it
would in my frame of reference, that you were not "cute".

"PQ" I guess is a bit fuzzy since she defined that as "Petite Quotient"
and I positively fail to see how the height of anyone has any bearing
on what we are discussing.

And these assesments changed after you had your surgery? Is that what
you are telling me - in addition to patronising colloquialisms like
"Perception is way important." and advice to the effect that I should
read Anne Bolin. Just curious.

Kiira

[Celeste]

Oh Kira, our humorous moods caused you great confusion.

Here goes again:

CQ: Cuteness Quotient
Quite literally, one's degree of cuteness. This has nothing to do with
"passing" (cringe), I have numerous girlfriends with zip for CQ. Also, CQ
is sometimes not just about looks its about manner and expression. Some
people are just more cute or come off more cute to the world.

PQ: Petiteness Quotient
This attribute has nothing to do with height or lack thereof. It is not a
little thing, but more of an aesthetic. Its about being small, medium or
large boned. For example I no a girl who is 5'11" with an extremely high
PQ. Everything about her is dainty and slight. She is barely a wisp of a
woman. Apparently guys really go for this. They practically fall at her
feet. Sometimes I have even asked her if uses some kind of pheromone scent
or something.

BQ: Babe Quotient
Maybe this ought to be re-thought, but all kinds of woman have babe
quotient, it seems regardless of the above. for example, last night I
watched DragonHeart on DVD. It has Julie Christie in it (rarely seen on
film these days). She radiates, but she never did have CQ or PQ even as far
back as Shampoo with Warren Beatty. She always seemed like some kind of
rare substance. I gather that she is in her daily after all. But she has
major, ruling class, babe quotient galore. Sorry, I am very enamoured of
her.

I hope you found this treatise entertaining ...

[Mrs. Peel]

In article <35401069...@eskimo.com>, nospam....@scn.org wrote:
>
>so why didn't I meet any of you when I was in SF in February? Where
>were you?

Huffing and Puffing.

Alternately providing consessions to the bar and club patrons of
San Francisco ("Puffing") or home, sick as a dog in my bed ("Huffing")
with influenza or pnemounia......

-Mrs. Peel

San Francisco is a mad city-inhabited for the most part by perfectly
insane people whose women are of a remarkable beauty.

Rudyard Kipling: "American Notes" (1891).

[Mrs. Peel]

In article <6hognt$p4f$1...@gte2.gte.net>, "Celeste" <cele...@usa.net> wrote:
>Oh my gosh peachy puff!
>
>I confess, I like dresses, I like makeup, I can't resist a pair of Charles
>Jourdan pumps, and blast it I like being as cute as I can be. But it doesn't
>rain every day, so do I have to wear something with a skirt every day?
>(giggle)

Yummy!!!

Gimme Shoes!!!! (Actual store name in SF.....)

>So, come on, 'fess up, where are your leggings and long sweaters, what about
>your leotards and body suits?

Nope. No leggings. No long sweaters. No leotards.

Lots of dresses. Pretty, pretty dresses.........;^)

OK, I'll cop to some palazzo pants and some silk harem pants.

I have been know to wear a pair of butt-flattering trousers, made of this
yummy stretch crepe and a pair of wool gaberdine slacks that are also
wonderful when stretched across my tuccus.

Oh, and I am "Margaret of Forest Green Pantsuit".

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>communication elimination<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

>And by the way, why should you have to care or feel weird, since when do you
>have conform to convention, you are a peachy puff!

Uh, yep.

Tho' I wouldn't mind working a convention! "Hello Nurse!" Doctor?

>But, wasn't there a rumor going around that you would soon be coding hard
>core html some place in the valley?

Shhhh!<P>
<table>
<td>
OH!

Saw me with my code down!

I'm still waiting to hear........

[Zarah]

Dear Kiira,

Kira D. Triea schrieb in Nachricht ...
>
>Zarah (nospam....@bigfoot.com) schreib:
>
>|
>| Transsexuality is more or less the conceptual framework, which modern
>| western societies provide to change one's sex.
>+---
>
>I strongly agree... in the same perceptual framework there is the
>social sequence of perception,medicalization and familial interaction
>which results in the framework called intersexuality. It has *nothing*
>to do with "sex and gender". IMO this is simply the cognitive
>structure by which our culture describes these phenomenon. It is profoundly
>destructive to intersexed people and I believe that it is at last
>harmful in some ways to TS people also.

That's how I see it too, both IS and TS are conditions which according to
this culture's sex and gender doctrin (which is closely related to its power
structure)shouldn't exist. The fact that they occur, lead to the
medicalisation of those conditions. And the medical system serves as
guardian of those doctrin. For IS this means that the 'disorder' must be
extinguished by the scalpel and hormones. Not for the good of intersexed
people (they're not even asked), but for the purity of the sexes. This is
what I consider to be fascism in its purest form.

For TS this means that the medical system serves as gatekeeper, and that we
have to play by their rules (means the rules of transsexuality) when we want
to change our sex. Which also means the transsexual experience is devaluated
to a kind of mental disease (to clarify, I do not want to express that a
mental disease devalues a person, but to categorize something as mental
disease individualizes the experience, and therefore devalues this
experience as a valid cultural occurance) and is denied to be an acceptable
way to aquire one's sex. And this is harmful for TS people, since treatment
standards (HBGDA or the German eqivalent) do not serve the needs of
transsexual people, but the needs of the medical system (as they provide
means of control).

>| others. It's now, like it should always have been, like feeling at home
in
>| the world and in my body.
>+---
>
>So it "works" for you... is an "advantageous" way of changing
>things. Difficult but advantageous.

It was something I did, that I think was right for me. Can't really explain.
It always felt right and still does. I do not know if it was advantageous
(this somehow depends on the criteria), I simply can't think of me in any
other way.

I am very often asked if "growing
>up as a boy' was hard for me (it wasn't... until puberty a bit )) ...
>I reply that yes it was at times hard (especially appraoching puberty)
>but that I would not have wanted the difficulty I overcame in my life
>to have been perceived as something which could have been arbitrarily
>removed by some surgeon telling my parents he as going to "fix" me.

Me not either. What made my transsexual experience for me very valuable, was
that the way I dealt with it was based on my decissions, my perception of
myself and my emotions. The steps I took were based on my self definition,
on what I feel is me, and not on the decissions of somebody telling me
what's good for me, or the adaption to a normative set.

I guess the possibility to come to your own conclusions about the way how
you deal with your situation, is one of the main differences between the
experience of most IS people and those of TS people. IS people very often do
not have this possibility, they are medicalized as children, mutilated and
have never been asked, sometimes not even been told what was done to them.
Whereas TS usually have to justify their way and their decissions to every
institution involved, to be accepted. And very often this difference is a
serious source of misunderstandings between IS and TS.

Last september I comoderated a workshop in Berlin together with an
intersexual activist (one of the two I know of in Germany) and another
transsexual woman, where we wanted to explore the possibilities of common
political action. To be true, it turned into a medium desaster. Most of the
attendants were TS during or short after transition and very involved in
this justification process of why they are 'entitled' to be, what they are
and so on. Some went as far as to state they'd rather be IS because they
then could have the treatment without all this psychiatric and medical and
juridical justification requirements.

Personally I found this statements very disgusting, because the IS moderator
had told the experiences with medical treatment and abuse as IS during
childhood and adolescence in a very personal and moving way. And I was
really shocked by the reactions of some TS.

The other side is that I feel that sometimes IS people find it kind of hard
to understand, why somebody would ask for a treatment 'voluntarily', that
was forced upon them and that has caused endless harm.

I
>had some difficult times as a female XX intersexed person living as a
>"boy, and I am rather proud of the manner in which I overcame those
>difficulties....I would hav preferred that all these "experts" bent on
>changing my body had actually dobne something to help.

There are similarities to the treatment of TS. The whole treatment is
centered around body modification (gates before hormones, gates before srs),
and not the actual needs of transsexual people. These needs are often much
more complex than just having srs and may also further exist after srs, due
to the complicated life situation of many transsexual people. None of these
needs are adresed in any treatment standards.

>
>| I don't like the distinction between sex and gender too much, anyway.
>
>:-) Nor do I and I actually challenge students that I speak to to at
>colleges to delineate the two.... all takers fail.
>

language is such a mighty organizer of reality :-(, hard to change the way
of thinking when the language itself suggests 'easy solutions'.

Cheers

Zarah

_______________________________________

For mailing, please remove the '.nospam' header:
nospam....@bigfoot.com
Um zu antworten, mußt Du das 'nospam.' aus der
email-Adresse entfernen
_______________________________________

[Kira D. Triea]

kd cowan (nospam...@gte.net) wrote:

x-no-archive: yes

+---
| Kira D. Triea wrote|
| >
| > 3) were some kind of "gender smorgasbord" self-synthesis who had decided that the
| > word "intersex" sounded about right.
|
| I recall a time when I wanted to reject the TS paradigm in
| favor of IS, based on the premise that I was born this
| way, therefore, "there must be some physical cause, even
| if not well documented or testable at this point in time."
| It may well be the case, but if so, it's not well grounded
| in research at this time.
+---

Well I certainly don't blame you for wanting to reject this
culture's "TS paradigm"... at all. It seems pretty crummy to
me and seems to share with this culture's "IS paradigm" the
quality of just not being very good for people.

The treatment modality for intersexed children is based on a very
testable "cause"... and what has that gotten for any of us?

If there is some identifiable physical marker for Ts I hope that the
world is a kinder place before it is found. Otherwise we will get
what we do not want... more CISAE, ISNA GMSSn and AISSG members. I
myself believe that a better world would not be looking for the
"causes" of things but would be instead focussing on how to better
help children who may have been born with "different"
problems.

Kiira

[Celeste]

Shh! Secret Squirrel wrote in message <3540a3c...@news.newsguy.com>...
>...then "Celeste" <nospam....@usa.net> wrote:
>
>>[M]ay I say that for myself, and I might assume some others to

>>got SRS young that we are left perplexed? Even though I read about the
>>events that people progress through I don't read enough about the inner
>>emotional process that made those events possible. What I am trying to say
>>is, what do people who wait do with their feelings?
>

>It's kind of a pain in the ass.Think of it like "Close Encounters"
>where Louis Malle is trying to explain why all these people have a
>totally illogical compulsion to climb that mountain: some people get
>the signal and know where to go (early transition); other people maybe
>don't the entire signal, or maybe they get it but don't understand
>where to go, or exactly what it means....

>
>>Please forgive us, we don't mean to seem either insensitive or
unempathetic
>>to the experience of late transitioners. We need help from those who
>>transition late to understand the emotional landscape that makes that life
>>path possible.
>

>What's missing most from your posts, and I assume from your thoughts,
>is the simple realization that "there but for the grace of god go I".
>You've been fortunate, I know you realize that.

Darn, I thought I was constantly plugging in those little tributes. I use
words like gratitude, appreciation, thankfulness for fortune. There have
been times when I have shrugged, thinking that those who don't see that in
my writing must be just so caught up in their own pain, that to read about
someone without it having them seeing too much red to see the nods in their
direction that I sprinkle through my writing. I think that this was the
problem that Mother Chroiza (sp) had. She got insulting and demeaning and
that is something I just don't tolerate. It makes any real communication
impossible.

>I have no pity for myself. I wonder why I had to wait so long, in
>either personal or metaphysical terms, and I don't have an answer. I
>guess I simply wasn't ready. I had to deal with a lot of issues,
>resolve tons o inner conflicts and make enough money, before I could
>Do the Dew.

To the best of my recollection you have found your resolution. But for many
who have not, the pain they endure clouds their ability to feel anything but
envy when reading the experiences of those more fortunate. I cannot help but
think that if the issue were money and not transsexuality, the expressions
that I can't help at time interpret as envy, wouldn't be very different. As
a matter of fact, there have been threads of whining from those less
financially fortunate in this news group, berating and trying to make those
with a couple bucks back to back feel guilty, simply because those fortunate
souls could afford surgery, while they angrily pressure for a hand out
rather than a hand up. Such people have no idea what hard work many of us
may have endured, what dedication and determination we exercised, how many
McJobs we passed through on the way to something better, to accomplish what
goals we have.

Human revolution is a personal, individual responsibility in the religion I
practice, even to the extent that it teaches us to show people the direction
toward the strength they need to pull themselves up, rather than a dollar
for a cup of coffee today. How does that old adage go, "give someone a meal
today and they'll return tomorrow, give someone a plow and seeds today, and
they will feed themselves tomorrow", or something like that?

[Kira D. Triea]

Celeste (cele...@usa.net) wrote:

x-no-archive: yes

+---
| Hi Again Kira:
+---

Hi again Celeste

+---
| BTW
| (what news reader do you use that inserts all the fancy quoting stuff?)
+---

I use elm, tin and emacs. The quoting stuff thingies are elisp
functions bound to [24~ and [20~ in emacs.

+---
| Please excuse my mixed humor and serious here, but since when does
| transsexuality or intersexuality have anything to do with culture?
| (seriously)
+---

Well I won't try and define transsexuality here because I am not transsexual
but I will sure tell you why IS is a cultural concept.

An "intersexed person" is medically defined as someone whose phallus at birth
was between .9 cm. and 2.5 cm. What doctors do is get out a little ruler and measure
a babies phallus ( general term for "generic genital protuberance") and if
it is < .9 cm. they will be raised as a girl and if it is > 2.5 cm. they
will be raised as a boy and if it is in-between they will have surgery as an
infant or child.

I know a fair number of women who have had their clitoris removed here in the
United States because it was over .9 cm. when they were born. They are called
"hermaphrodites" in their medical recards. I am actually one such person too -
thoug I had surgery at 14 years instead of younger.

Now... our culture could call us "hermaphrodites" if our clits were
1.1 cm. ... or also if our clits were .6 cm. But it doesn't. It calls
us hermaphrodites if our clits are over .9 cm. When you meet a woman
on the street do you have any idea how big her clit is? Do you care?
Does anyone care? Some cultures care that women have clits *at all*...
so they simply try and remove all of them. They require no "medical
rationalization". "Culturally" speaking... clits on women are bad. In
our society we have a size thing going. Clits bigger than .9 cm. are
bad.

Here are the words of an "hermaphrodite", our friend Annie:

"Thirty two years have passed since my clitoris was taken from
me. Though I was too young now to remember the event, I feel that I
will be grieving the loss for the rest of my life. Every day my
thoughts touch on what it would be like, what it would feel like, what
it would look like, if this had not happened to me. I have only one
connection to the clitoris that I was born with: a pathologists report
on the bit of tissue the surgeon sent him for analysis:

'The specimen consists of a soft pinkish piece of tissue measuring
2.8 cm. in length and 1 cm in average outside diameter. The distal
1.2 cm. of the specimen is covered with wrinkled, pinkish tissue
resembling prepuce. Section shows the the specimen to consist of
2 soft, pinkish-white, somewhat shiny, half cylanders, each outlined
by by a thin rim of shiny whitish tissue and the entire complex
is covered by a thin rim of shiny pink tissue."

It sounds beautiful doesn't it? I imagine it, my clitoris lying in the
cold metal specimen tray. I can't help but to think how sad - this
warm, alive, vascular, beautiful, sensitive organ, removed from the
warm body of this precious child. My body. How tragic that this child
will would now grow into a sexual being who will never know oragsm
. How heartbreaking that so many years of a child's life would be
filled with anguish, confusion and shame."

Kiira

[Zarah]

Dear Kiira,

Kira D. Triea schrieb in Nachricht ...

>x-no-archive: yes
>
>
>Zarah (nospam....@bigfoot.com) schrieb:
>
>
>+---

>| and so on. Some went as far as to state they'd rather be IS because they
>| then could have the treatment without all this psychiatric and medical
and
>| juridical justification requirements.

>+---
>And so on. <sigh>

<sigh> too!

>
>So was this Birgit-Michal (now Michal) or my partner Heike Boedeker
>you moderated with? :-) Yes sure I am Heike's partner of two years
>now. :-)

It's a small world, isn't it? :-)) It was Michel. It was somewhat funny,
because we knew quite a lot of each other through a common friend, had
extensive email contact for a while and Michel's AGGPG is a member of a
human rights lobbying organisation where I'm quite involved. But this was
the first occasion we met face to face, and though the workshop itself was
rather annoying (actually it was my last attempt to do some work within the
'T*community', just too frustrating on the long run), it turned into one of
those long Berlin nights afterwards:-).

>
>Have you written to her? She is in Koln. Goddess I wish that she wasn't but
>she still is. :-)

No, I had no direct contact with her yet. But I think I've seen her on a
German discussion board, where I posted from time to time.
And yes, I think the Atlantic can be way too big if your partner is on the
other side

>
>
>+---
>This is one of the reasons that most all intersexed people shy away from TS
>people... many seem so fixated on their own problems and the need to see
>*our* problems in *their* terms. I call it bitmapping. I have been told
some
>aweful things in light of my extended stay of abuse at the "Treblinka on
>Wolfe Street". It is so hurtful.

I believe it is, and I would call this bitmapping pure *ignorance* and
*self- centeredness*. I really admired Birgit-Michel for how s/he dealt with
it. The other Co-moderator, my friend Elke, went so furious about this
reactions that for a while I thought I had to break off the whole workshop
(would have been better for my nerves anyway).

>
>Again <sigh>. Yes... it is a barrier to understanding from this side
>of the fence. I will only go to a doctor when it is an
>emergency... wouldn't *consider* in any way at all surgery except to
>save my life and I am actually a bit doubtfull about that even. If one
>of them were to suggest genital surgery to "correct" my "fucked up"
>genitals then we we can have at it mano y mano to see whose genitals
>get operated upon.

Again, I understand this very much. During the last years I've come to talk
to several surgeons who perform srs. To be honest, I've talked to very
concerned and honest people, but also to pure criminals and liars,
especially when it comes to FtM surgery. But what also is dehumanizing is
the system itself. I felt very released, when I didn't need to see any of
those 'TS experts' anymore, who were given the right to decide when and what
I can do with my body (letters of approval here and there), as if I were not
able to make my own decissions about myself.
It is somewhere beyond my capability of imagination, what this abusive
system does to intersexed children, and what harm this causes.

>
>This is the predictable sequelae from being medically tortured.. to be
>a recipient of "iatrogenic sexual abuse". The cure is anger, expression,
>and truth. If you met Birget-Michal or Heike you have heard all this.

Yes I did. And it makes perfect sense to me. What made me quit the whole
T*support scene (among other reasons), was that there is so much
identification with the system which denies us basic human rights. It's this
unquestioned identification of the abused with the abuser that makes me
sick. Sad enough the largest T*organization in Germany promotes exactly this
policy.

>
>The difference here is though that while I have heard *hundreds* of TS
>people say that they would "want to be intesexed" ... I have never
>heard one intersexed person say that they would want to be TS.

This is true. Though some IS, when changing in adult life, face some of the
same problems as TS.

I am still hopeful that there will be a constructive diaolgue one day. I
guess it will require a discussion that goes away from medical terms and
questions of identity to common political and social issues, and this is
according to my past experiences somehow hard to establish within the 'T*
community'.

[Kira D. Triea]

Julie Haugh (j...@bga.com) wrote:

X-No-Archive: YES

+---

| > The difference here is though that while I have heard *hundreds* of TS
| > people say that they would "want to be intesexed" ... I have never
| > heard one intersexed person say that they would want to be TS.
|

| You and I have talked about this before. For us we have no such
| record of childhood genital surgery. There are no clues, no
| external signs of being the "wrong" sex.
+---

But IS people are not "the wrong sex". We were labeled the "wrong sex"
and had our genitals removed. Forever. We have clues out the wazoo...
and what does this buy? I want my genitals back... I want my childhood
back and I want my family back and I want the self respect and
capacity for trust and love I *had* before a bunch of cold hearted
fucking SOBs at Hopkins decided I was "an interesting case" and put me
up in front of a tile wall with my eyes blanked out to take my
picture. I actually don't give much of a damn about "what sex I am"...
whatever the hell people want to assume is ok with me at this point.

+---
| I was my mother's middle son. By all accounts, I was her =favorite=
| son. Then I dared to change sex and damnit, she wants an answer.
| Except that there =is= no answer. At least if I could point to some
| form of intersexuality I =might= just have an answer for why her
| little boy died.
+---

See below. I hope it works.

My mother has all the damned answers in the *world* why her "little boy"
died ... it is in my medical records that I am an XX person who was
exposed to progestin. This does not enable her to love me... no.

My family was literally blown apart at the seams because of my
intersexuality. Do you think that my mother and stepfather went "well
gee we have an intersexed child and that's that". ?? No they
didn't. Before puberty my stepfather cared about me, took me to ball
games and tried to be a good father... like a "real" father. After I
had surgery he bagn to verbally abuse me in front of my mother and
sisters... and hit me with his closed fist. Do I need to go on? I
really don't think so because I bet this all sounds *very* familiar to
many people on this NG. When my mother left him she said "Come on
girls". And left me in the house with him.

What do my ovaries buy me here...? what does my XX karyotype get me?
or my "diagnosis" as exogenousely virilized female? It counts for
*nothing* at all since I am not a "real" girl. You see, when getting
the love that you deserve simply as your parent's child depends upon
being a "real girl" then you can never be quite real enough. I am not
even in the running.

+---
| Can you _perhaps_ understand why so many of us want =something= we
| can point at and say "See, this is why I had to change sex."
+---

YES! I *can* understand why you feel this way. I really can. But *I*
have a reason for being "intersexed"... all IS people do. I've been
down the road of thinking they should love me and that it wasn't my
fault and maybe things would get better after I let Hopkins do surgery
and the whole sad twisted terrible bit.

So Julie tell your mom that you are Brader Level I PAIS or that your
surgeon did a biopsy on your suspicious gonad or whatever and found
tubule dysgenesis or Sertolli only Syndrome. Hell I will write the
apporopriate medical language down for you. I hope it helps... really
I do. If this will get your mom to care some about you then by all
means I think that you should go for it! If any of this helps then
maybe *your* mom could call *my* mom and do something to help *me*
with my fucked up family Ok?

sincerely,

Kiira

[Zarah]

Dear Kiira,

Kira D. Triea schrieb in Nachricht ...

>x-no-archive: yes
>
>
>Were there other survivors in addition to you and Michal? I guess a
>long Berlin night was well earned. :-)

At least me was in desparate need of it after that day. Yes we were 4 who
left the scene for good, Elke, Michel, a swedish TS activist (who probably
wore the only TS-Menace T-shirt around in Germany:-)) and me.

>
>
>I will provide an introduction if you ever wish to write or meet.
>

Fine

>are ok now. Good protective gear is a must. :-)

This among other deficits probably made me a lousy activist, I guess :-)

>
>Was this with Transidentitas? I heard they had fractured from internal
>difficulties recently.

I'd never actively participate in a TI conference, since they usually put a
'professional' as 'co-moderator' in every workshop, so the whole event turns
more or less into a 'selling session' for medical services. Something I do
not really appreciate.

Yes they fractured. The former NRW section in Cologne and the core-TI in
Frankfurt communicate through their lawyers nowadays. Maybe they should
consult their favourite shrinks for moderation :-)

The event I participated was organized by the TS-section of the Sonntags
Club in Berlin. It's an annual event in September (the TI is in April) and
is usually more interesting because it is not centered around the 'experts'.
They are actually not invited, nor welcome :-)

>
>My TS sisters and brothers have my respect in their fights. I wouldn't
>trade shoes. Well maybe if someone has some 2" blue pumps in a size
>7N to match my Navy wool cullottes. :-)

A shoe style that I like, but unfortunately not my size , so we have to go
on walking in our own shoes, I guess :-)
Seems like this turns into alt.shoe.lesbians.moderated :-)

>
>
>| sick. Sad enough the largest T*organization in Germany promotes exactly
this
>| policy.

>+---
>Aiii...

I was talking about TI :-(

>Well I'm probably going to get over to Koln toward the end of summer and I
>suggest that we get together with you and some of your friends and Michal
and
>Heike and we will go out on the town one Berlin night and raise some hell
and
>constructive dialogue until we drop.

That's fine with me, and I'm looking forward to it. I really love hellish
constructive dialogues on long Berlin nights in Cologne or where-ever :-). I
hope I'll be there, because I'm probably going to spent some time in London
later in the year. But it is not sure yet when exactly, and it may well be
that I am in Germany at that time.

Give me a short note if this is a valid email adress of yours. I'll give you
my permanent email adress then. Though this bigfoot account works, I'm going
to change it as soon as spam or anything else gets too much.

oops, gotta hit the road.....

[Celeste]

Kira you expressed the deepest most fundamental pain that a transsexual
feels, in the same way that you felt your pain, and in the way in which it
was inflicted on your emotions. It is clear that you recognized the
similarity it has to experiences we see written about here frequently. I
hope very much the extent to which you and other intersexed people are
kindred spirits in that regard. You described at its essence, this very
notion of being real, of genuineness denied you in every direction. Its
clear that if you were one of the "girls" in your mother's mind you would
have been with them out the door. I got it, I hear you completely. I see
clearly how your existence transcends the two squares holes that they
couldn't put your round form into.

[Karen Elizabeth A.]

Michelle Steiner <mich...@michelle.org> wrote:

> Let me rephrase that. It is debatable whether I have a CQ higher than zero.
Assuming the scale consists of non negative real numbers I probably am
the best living definition of the zero point for both PQ and CQ. Having
seen your website, using that definition, I can assure you that your
postion on the scale is significantly above 0.

-Karen A.

[Mother Choriza]

Celeste, this is an attempt to make things very clear. I have, in the
past, directed criticism and sarcasm, towards you. I have yet to be
"demeaning" or "insulting".
Being critical is questioning your motive and ability to define
transexuality. OTOH, insulting would be if I called you a pompous ass.
See the difference? No?
OK, how about my sarcastically commenting that you seem to know every
correct way to conduct a happy and successful TS life. But, if I was
demeaning, I would be saying that your dogmatic declarations are as
idiotic as a few other self described TG saviors. I hope I have made my
self clear.
To make a point on MY happiness in my life; I would like to state that
perhaps the only problem I have is not getting more than enough sex. You
see, before I transitioned I worked out any doubts I had. I developed
several career choices. I made peace with my Maker. And I did not
foresake any responsibilities.
Just to rub it in a little, I am indeed good looking and have not been
read in years. Also dear Celeste, to harp on one of your favorite
subjects, I am considerably younger than you.
I live a life of realitive happiness and unlike you, I do not suffer
any doubts as to any of my decisions.
You see, the main difference between you and me, is that I do not hold
myself up as an ideal TS, but rather as one example.
Mother C-H-O-R-I-Z-A
Oh, just in case you have mistaken me for some one who cares about your
seemingly endless stream of writing; someone else pointed out your
mis-spelling of my name.

[Celeste]

wounds. But may I say that for myself, and I might assume some others to

got SRS young that we are left perplexed? Even though I read about the
events that people progress through I don't read enough about the inner
emotional process that made those events possible. What I am trying to say

is, what do people who wait do with their feelings? I have a hard time
trying imagine what the process must be like emotionally. If some of those
who went through would be willing to share how they felt and how they dealt
with their emotions through that process, maybe some of the us early types
could better understand.

Can you understand that for the early types, at least for me, the
compulsion was so strong that it was do or die against all odds,
consequences be damned? The sense I got from the medical community was that
it was expected of us anyway. Going through transition then taught me
determination, a determination I now use in the rest of my life, and
patience, the patience I learned in the years between transition and
surgery, working jobs that weren't bad but hadn't been a part of my career
plan, and biding my time hunting relentlessly for the way out, like the
first time through a computer game when all its secrets are not apparent,
working through a maze hunting for the key that opens the locked door to
the way out.

Please forgive us, we don't mean to seem either insensitive or unempathetic

[Karen Elizabeth A.]

Celeste <nospam....@usa.net> wrote:

Actually I've written about my expereince before but it was proabbly
buried in the pain I'm going through in the present. I'll try and
explain how it was for me.

As a young child I knew I should have been a girl. I started "cross
dressing" before kindergarten, as achild my only friends were my female
cousins, I was sensitive non-agressive little boy who was picked on
incessentaly by the bullies (even though I was larger). In the early
grades I had this daydream that the women in my family would get
together and through some magical cerimony induct me into their circle
and make me one of them. When I was in the 7th grade I would take my
mother's wig and get dressed and go out in her clothers at night because
I *had* to show the world I was a girl... crazy , particularly
considering the neighborhood we lived in, but true.

In the background though was the fact that I was in a single parent
(mother) working poor family. My mother was severly alcoholic and slowly
deteriaorated from the time I was in grade school. I lived through a lot
of uglyness that I hesitate to share here. She finally lost her job when
I was in college and eventually became indistinquisable from a street
person.

In a addition I was a large child and when I hit puberty I grew very big
(not just tall but big boned)...

Being TS, being big, in an economically distressed, uneducated,
dysfunctional family took it's toll. By the time I reached high school
(1969) I has totally withdawn into myself emotionally and I hated my
body so much I tried to distance myself from it by padding it with food.
When I graduated from HS I was 280lbs and still rising.

My uncle (a priest) got me a scholarship to an all male prep (boarding)
school he taught at. Besides being withdrawn into myself I was also
isolated from the world. This was in the middle of no place and we had
little contact with the ouside world and little access to television. I
never heard anything about TSism... With the reality of my build and
lack of information, I convinced myself that my desires to be a girl
were crazy and tried to bury them along with all the rest of the painful
emotions surrounding my life.

By the time I got to college I was an emotional cripple. I was a
automatom doing what I had to do to survive - but little else. I spennt
most of college parked in fromt of a TV or at the ping-pong table. I had
no real friends or much real contact with the eorld at all. Though I did
not know it I was clinically depressed and was for amny years. I
stumbled through college and graduated by the skin of my teeth. By then
I had pretty much burried the TS stuff that I did not think about it -
but I really did not think about much else then what I had to to get
through the day.

I stumbled through a couple of jobs and really had no life at all. I had
no friends except for my roomates (who told me they thought I was
clinically depressed...) and no social life. I rarely went out and did
anything with them and just sat in front of the TV. Truth be told I was
waiting to die. At some point I decided to go back to scholl part-time -
wich is how I got my masters's degree in Chemistry (I've always been
fairly bright luckily). I again stumbeled through that with no real
direction with it.

I went to a therapist - but this was an HMO and they were into
behavioral stuff as it is cost effective and put me into a social skills
group. It was quicky obvious that that was not the real problem and it
did not help at all.

Slowly I started to heal a bit emotionaly. The loneliness and emptiness
of my life became unbareable. I had buried so much I no longered
connected my longings to be female with the state I was in.

I started to break out of my shell a bit and on my 27th birhday (Aug 21)
i did something unheard of for me - I joined a public sailing club and
learned how to sail. I quickly became good and by the following
seasonstarted teaching new members (members teach menbers there). That's
how I met my wife - giving her a lesson (she never did learn how...). We
were instantly comfortable together but for me it was primarily a
friendship. We became very close, and even though i knew somethng was
wrong with the chemistry - there was no passion on my part. Even so she
brought so much into my life that I had never had that I asked her to
marry me and she accepted.

As I healed a little more emotionally the belief that I should have been
female began to re-imerge. That was at about age 30. Soon after that I
found Genderline on Compuserve. HEre I found people who had the same
feelings I did and were doing something about it - HRT abd SRS! - But I
believed it was impossible for me because of my size and lack of self
confidence. The internal battle started in earnest, the fear the I
could not make it because of my body, the love for my wife, my drive to
want transition and SRS, and my lack of belief in myself were all in
conflict. If fought that battle for 10 years and it broght me to the
brink (and a bit over if the truth be told) of a breakdowm at age 39.
The state I had gotten myself into cost me my job.

This time though, through an online contact, I got the name of a good
therapist with 20+ years of experience with TS's. And after two years of
therapy transitioned.

The reason this was so hard for me is because it *IS* about the
physical. My body is not and never has been feminine or even androgenous
once I reached puberty. I coul not square what i saw in the mirror with
what I felt inside. I still don't.

After find the strength to transition having HRT not work for me is very
hard to take...

You asked:

> What I am trying to say
> is, what do people who wait do with their feelings? I have a hard time
> trying imagine what the process must be like emotionally.

It was by an emotional death. I killed my emotions. I survied by numbing
myself to everything. Most of my life was not worth living and in a very
real sense I did not live...

That's why I'm finding my current prediciment so hard to handle. I
finally found the strength to overcome the fears and damage done early
on - and then HRT does not work...

For me it's not just role but it's also largely physical - and there is
so damm little I can do about that.

In a lot of ways I feel being TS, with this body, stole my life from
me. It's why I can't just accept and can't settle. In the end it may be
what kills me.

Till I reached high school age my feelings and actions have a
significant overlap with what I've heard of the lives of many who
transitioned young. The difference seem to come with the effect puberty
had on me inconjunction with the horrendous family life. Actually I no
of no one who who was built as I was as a teenager and transitioned
young...

Celeste, if, at 17, you were 5'11" and built bigger (bone structure)
then most adult men you saw (I was bigger then all of my male high
school teachers), would you still have found the courage to transition
as a child even with all your economic advantages and access to
hormones?

Most who transitioned young were of average build or slighter from all
I've been able to gather... That alone can have a strong effect on what
you believe is possible...

- Karen A.

[Rikki]

Mother Choriza wrote in message
<6hufpt$7kq$1...@newsd-144.iap.bryant.webtv.net>...

Well said Mom ;)

Love Rikki

[Celeste]

Thanks Diane. You know that old saying, you can't please everybody. I
greatly appreciate the overwhelmingly supportive emails and follow-ups
people have given me. One of my goals these past few weeks of intense
actively was to take back this news group from the grousers, the negative,
the trollers and off the wall. From all appearances everyone has contributed
marvelously to rekindling the spark that was this news group way back in its
infancy when I had to bottle feed it with articles so that ISPs would add it
to there feeds, and not think it was a stillborn. With the recent daily
article counts over one hundred, this news group is looking better than
ever. It was like a take back the night march, and we won.

If only the newly refurbished atmosphere would attract the return of some of
those who presence has over the long hall lent an extra special air of
authority to this place, with the likes of Beck Allison, Anne Lawrence,
Kristin Hayward and the like. But thank goodness the local lawyer and
investment banker have weathered the storms along with numerous people who
have been posting to this news group since its inception.

Pursue Happiness Always ...

[kd]

Celeste wrote:
>
> Well I am probably not very good at writing in a way that stresses those
> sensitivities to readers. It would be difficult to read this news group for
> long over the past year or so and not read in detail the emotional distress
> that transition at 40 creates for people.

I can't even imagine what it would have been like to wait 40 years
before starting all this, but then, many got caught up in the family
lifestyle, have kids, etc, and I don't really know what that is all
about either.

> Can you understand that for the early types, at least for me, the
> compulsion was so strong that it was do or die against all odds,
> consequences be damned?

I recall consciously stalling myself when I was 16. I was taking
stolen hormones to force my version of balance, and then I stopped -
I didn't want to, but I was afraid of myself... i hated myself. If
I had had competent counseling, I would have continued on, but
instead I had some jackass that told me consistently I would likely
grow out of it -- years later as a psychology student myself, I was
mortified to learn that he was flat out lying to me, surely, as he
had to know (what I should have trusted in me) was that my gender
identity was established during my formative years, and very very
unlikely to change.

> The sense I got from the medical community was that
> it was expected of us anyway.

I guess it's a change in medical perspectives - my experiences were
more in line with the Age of Caution. 16 year olds know nothing of
their selvs, my opinions were useless. At some level, I wanted to
buy into the Concept of Average. It didn't happen. Instead, I have
learned to be above average.

[Toni Roome]

Celeste wrote:
>
> >Toni Roome wrote:
> >I think there *is* a qualitative difference (between transsexuals and
> >self-identified transgenderists), though as Zarah has also posted maybe
> >there are 'transsexuals' out there who even go so far as seeking SRS for
> >reasons other than knowledge that you have the wrong body parts as such
> >(like the old saw "I suppose you did it so your jeans fit better?").
>
> Yes, well kind of sort, I did. I have some jeans with zipper on the side,
> even a pair of leather pairs with the zipper on the side. I have been
> enjoying those better fitting jeans for the couple decades I mentioned
> previously.
>
Funnily enough I can never understand why males in present westenn
society wear trousers (particularly tight jeans). I suppose it must be a
matterof sexual display, though in past times codpieces were much more
effective. With normal male anatomy, jeans, and indeed most male
trousers and underwear are just plain uncomfortable. Once I started
transitioning I found that using a tuck women's jeans fitted much better
than what I had before, particularly once the hormones started to shrink
the genitals and kept the penis nice and small all the time. But I'm
sure, as you say, they'll be even more comfortable when I've had my op.
:))

> >While I can't claim to be a primary transsexual in any sense (one thing
> >that stopped me identifying as ts, when I considered transitioning when
> >I was 23, was my lack of early memories of female identification, though
> >I have so few early memories, and I do know from others that I had lots
> >of problems at that time, that I suspect selective amnesia). But even
> >during my denial years I always had a problem with penetrative sex since
> >I needed to see myself as female to achieve orgasm (real doublething,
> >but others have reported the same).
>
> Lack of early memories. But isn't that the very hallmark of the core
> transsexual etiology?
>
Nobody told me that at the time, in fact its not something I've really
seen since. Have you got any references?

> >One thing that started to happen since hormones is that I began to start
> >to feel at home in my body, before there was always a dissonance. And
> >when I tried to justify to myself why I wanted SRS (an exercise I did
> >prior to getting my 2nd referral) the top reason has to be: because if I
> >imagine having what I want down there it just seems right and what I
> >have now just feels wrong.
> >
>
> Well then, in the end your statement agrees with my original thesis.
>
Yes - it was intended too, I do support the direction of your thesis. I
suppose the only difference from my point of view (that of someone who
is older, and still pre-op rather than someone like yourself, 20 years
post-op, who transitioned before testosterone had done its worst) is
that I perceive it more as a whole body thing rather than just 'tits and
fanny'. The first changes I noticed (apart from breast growth) was in my
arms, in skin texture, hair character and fat distribution below the
skin. I could lie there in bed and look down and think 'those are my
arms', because they were now female, in a way that I had not felt since
pubery started to do its worst.

O course I've still to find out what it feels like to actually have the
correct genital, though it does seem the right thing to have.
>
> >I did write an earlier post about this that I mistakenly sent to your
> >fake email address
>
> But my dear, the email address is REAL. You must remove the nospam.
> substring from the nospam....@usa.net address. Isn't this a well known
> usenet convention. If one does not does this one starts getting UCE email
> spam from programs that search the news archives for email addresses.
>
That wasn't the problem - I just pressed the wrong type of reply key and
failed to check the headers before I posted (please see my Organisation:
header).

> >As to me, I'm 47, a University Lecturer in the UK, still married to my
> >partner of 27 years, with two kids, first thought about transitioning
> >when I came out to my wife at age 23, but decided I couldn't be ts so
> >just tried to control it. Got more and more screwed up and started to do
> >something about it August '96. Began hormones May '97, transitioned July
> >'97, got my 1st and 2nd referrals Jan-Feb '98 and am scheduled for
> >surgery with Mr Royle July 18th this year.
>
> You have identified one of the causes of great angst. You felt so obligated,
> such the loyalist to your relationship, even made babies. But it is
> something laudable, even there are so many people who come to these news
> groups with similar experiences, quietly kicking themselves, and trying
> desperately to cope with what appears to be the far greater and more
> difficult task of doing SRS at middle age.
>
I think we face a genuine cause of mixed feelings here. I know in my
case I put off doing (even thinking) about transition because of loyalty
to my partner. In the end it was only becuase she told me that she had
had so much difficulty with my sexual identity, even though I was
suppressign it, that she had already had to find men elsewhere, that I
came to a realisation that there was no need for me to keep up a
pretense that wasn't working any longer.

However I did treasure our opportunity to have family. I was always
reckoned to be very maternal when our kids were born and when they were
small (though something of a rotten male role model since). I know many
friends who have transitioned early who deeply miss their ability to
mother children. At least I had some surrogate for that, and I 'm sure
its an unconcious factor for many of us.

hugs,
--
Toni
"One should, each day, try to hear a little song,
read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it is
possible, speak a few reasonable words" (Goethe)

[boed...@netcologne.de]

Hi Julie, Kiira, Zarah, All,

... Kiira (in response to Julie Haugh) ...
+------

| | Can you _perhaps_ understand why so many of us want =something= we
| | can point at and say "See, this is why I had to change sex."
| +---
|
| YES! I *can* understand why you feel this way. I really can. But *I*
| have a reason for being "intersexed"... all IS people do. I've been

...
+------

If I ever had a reason I must have forgotten it completely during the period
of constant trauma from my 4th to my 14th year of age. The reason I went for
re-reassignment after that was not simply b/c I was "IS", and neither
surgery, nor failed HCG tests nor following attempts at testo replacement had
been able to solve my problems. The reason was I needed to do *something*,
b/c I felt just *miserable*, and I couldn't identify w/ the crap I had been
showered with. I also had a *vague* sense of my life having once been a *bit*
better at least before my 4th year. I didn't need to use being IS as some
"legitimation". Actually, no one wanted to waste too much words about it. My
wannabe-parents just went on w/ their strategy of denial, the pshrink I had
expected to help me said I was a case for a sexuologist and wished me luck.
The sexuologist I saw no more than 3 times. One surgeon kicked me out telling
me he could do absolutely nothing for me, the other hardly every talked to me
at all. After surgery I left hospital and nothing really had changed in my
life. I had went from one nothingness into another.

I can't predict if your mother will be better satisfied by some "white lie"
(in cases like these the Church grants dispense, ya know :-)). Transpeople
have been trying to pursue this strategy since the 1950s, it may have worked
in some cases, but it surely wasn't what changed societal attitudes at large.

I find it *sad* that you have to resent to such a strategy since it won't
lead to your mother *really* understanding you. Biology isn't everything. But
I don't need to tell *you*...

My expectation of an IS/TS coalition, should something like this ever emerge,
was less helping transfolk to pass as interfolk, but working toward a
(non-liminal) full-scale integration into a society hopefully changed for
better also in lots of other respects.

... Zarah (responding to Kiira) ...
+------

| >So was this Birgit-Michal (now Michal) or my partner Heike Boedeker
| >you moderated with? :-) Yes sure I am Heike's partner of two years
| >now. :-)
|
| It's a small world, isn't it? :-)) It was Michel. It was somewhat funny,
| because we knew quite a lot of each other through a common friend, had
| extensive email contact for a while and Michel's AGGPG is a member of a
| human rights lobbying organisation where I'm quite involved. But this was

+------

Hey! Are you a member of Monika Gerstendoerfer's et al. Lobby fuer
Menschenrechte? I always had wanted to contact you! Can you give me some more
info on it? Best via private email to not waste too much bandwidth in here.

+------

| >Have you written to her? She is in Koln. Goddess I wish that she wasn't but
| >she still is. :-)
|
| No, I had no direct contact with her yet. But I think I've seen her on a
| German discussion board, where I posted from time to time.

+------

My email address is: boed...@netcologne.de :-)

+------

| And yes, I think the Atlantic can be way too big if your partner is on the
| other side

+------

It is... <sigh>

+------

| >This is the predictable sequelae from being medically tortured.. to be
| >a recipient of "iatrogenic sexual abuse". The cure is anger, expression,
| >and truth. If you met Birget-Michal or Heike you have heard all this.
|
| Yes I did. And it makes perfect sense to me. What made me quit the whole
| T*support scene (among other reasons), was that there is so much
| identification with the system which denies us basic human rights. It's this
| unquestioned identification of the abused with the abuser that makes me

| sick. Sad enough the largest T*organization in Germany promotes exactly this
| policy.

+------

Yeah, but it's the same shit w/ most IS groups which still are run by parents
mostly, and the member of the executive boards of which often include
representatives of the MIC.

+------

| >The difference here is though that while I have heard *hundreds* of TS
| >people say that they would "want to be intesexed" ... I have never
| >heard one intersexed person say that they would want to be TS.
|

| This is true. Though some IS, when changing in adult life, face some of the
| same problems as TS.

+------

One of the founders of this split off Transidentitas, Deutsche Gesellschaft
fuer Transidentitaet und Intersexualitaet in Gruendung or something like
that, has been diagnosed True Hermaphroditism. She once told me that she felt
herself to be more of a TS. She also is transitioning in her late 30s. There
seemingly is some psychodynamic cut-off point between childhood and
epipubertal changes and later ones. No matter whether "motivated" by IS or
TS.

+------

| I am still hopeful that there will be a constructive diaolgue one day. I
| guess it will require a discussion that goes away from medical terms and
| questions of identity to common political and social issues, and this is
| according to my past experiences somehow hard to establish within the 'T*
| community'.

+------

Hmm... I hope that people some day will realize that this was very much more
beneficial

+------

| I guess the possibility to come to your own conclusions about the way how
| you deal with your situation, is one of the main differences between the
| experience of most IS people and those of TS people. IS people very often do
| not have this possibility, they are medicalized as children, mutilated and
| have never been asked, sometimes not even been told what was done to them.
| Whereas TS usually have to justify their way and their decissions to every
| institution involved, to be accepted. And very often this difference is a
| serious source of misunderstandings between IS and TS.

+------

These misunderstandings ironically are arising from having been
misunderstood. Like it was obstructing a real understanding. Also of one's
own.

+------

| Personally I found this statements very disgusting, because the IS moderator
| had told the experiences with medical treatment and abuse as IS during
| childhood and adolescence in a very personal and moving way. And I was
| really shocked by the reactions of some TS.

+------

They don't know what they are asking for even if they've been told b/c it
just exceedes their imaginative capacities.

+------

| The other side is that I feel that sometimes IS people find it kind of hard
| to understand, why somebody would ask for a treatment 'voluntarily', that
| was forced upon them and that has caused endless harm.

+------

Maybe if one-sidedly focusing on the physical aspects. But then there's also
the common issue of a self-determinded life.

+------

| >| I don't like the distinction between sex and gender too much, anyway.
| >
| >:-) Nor do I and I actually challenge students that I speak to to at
| >colleges to delineate the two.... all takers fail.
| >
|
| language is such a mighty organizer of reality :-(, hard to change the way
| of thinking when the language itself suggests 'easy solutions'.

+------

Simply don't let yourself be enslaved by one language only... :-) Apart from
the fact that the relationship between language, "reality" and
society/culture is more complex.

In the Yumtzilob paper mentioned recently I have argued that on the
object-level (etic) some cultures (like Navajo) display a very much more
sharp and historically more deep-rooted distinction between (what they define
as) sex and gender than contemporaray Angloamerican culture. Others are
"lacking" (well, they don't exactly experience this as a lack! :-)) it
completely (like Blackfoot).

How to approach it on the subject-level (emic) is pretty much unclear. So far
no one has succed at coming up w/ a convincing (near) universal definition of
sex/gender both as a categorial space, as well of the categories included in
it. I think most engaged in gender studies aren't even aware of how far they
are leaping behind even if at the same time they are representatives of more
"progressive" branches of anthro. They are too deeply enmeshed b/c sex/gender
is one of the most basic and earliest learned cognitive categories along w/
spatiotemporal extension (long/short, big/small etc.).

All the best,

Heike

-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
http://www.dejanews.com/ Now offering spam-free web-based newsreading

[Suzan Cooke]

Celeste wrote:

> Whoops I think I started this mess. Someone once send to me, "My gender
> reassignment surgery", whereupon I thought that GRS meant just that. I never
> liked the notion, and had decided to throw it, to shred it.
>
> I don't have any problem with GRS standing for genital reassignment surgery,
> but I think that people would run into SERIOUS communications problems using
> the abbreviation since there is no universal expansion for it. I will stick
> with SRS, few people get confused by that acronym.
>
> >Dale Elisabeth A. wrote:
> >Many of us agree. In some circles, the acronym GRS has been
> >reappropriated to mean Genital Reconstruction Surgery.

I had heard GRS meant Gender Reassignment Surgery for years and my comment
always was that gender is between my ears and I didn't have brain surgery. I'd
vote for SRS. Why? Because that is what I had. Surgery that changed my penis
and scrotal sack into my labia and vagina.

I likewise have trouble with the term Transgender (BTW Virgina Prince did
not coin the term she stole it) I was involved with a consciousness raising
group in the mid 70's and we started using it to describe the perpetual pre-ops
who would never get surgery and for the 'shemales' for the drag queens (a term
that then was not perjoritive in the way it has become with the flood of
heterosexual transvestites [another perfectly good term debased to mean
fetishists] ) Those of us who started usnig the term never meant for it to be a
catch-all term.

As a catch-all term it sucks big time. I live in LA where we have the
Transgender Menace and I'm sort of pressured to get with the program and buy one
of the LA t-shirts. I'm not transgendered. I'm transsexual.

So much of this goes back to Virginia Prince and the make cross dressing
respectable and non threatening and non-sexual. There's so much crap about how
for heterosexuals crossdressing is for 'gender expression ergo pure
motivations' and homosexual crossdressing is for the attracting of a male sex
partner 'such base motivation'.

It all stricks me as desexualizing whole major aspects of our being.

Growing up I knew I was different. I knew in my heart and in my mind that I
was a girl with a screwed up body. I thought that in time someone would realize
this and the Drs would fix it. Well when I grew up to be a young woman of 21
and on hormones and full time by 22 and post before 25. They changed the shape
of my sex organs not my gender if the had been able to change my gender like my
parents wanted I'd have grown up to be a man.

This paradigm works best for those of us who transitioned young.

TranZGrrlla
Suzy
====
= 8< ]) )
====
Who really was born a little grrl trapped in a boy's body.

[Suzan Cooke]

Shh! Secret Squirrel wrote:

> ...then Suzan Cooke <sco...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>
> > I likewise have trouble with the term Transgender (BTW Virgina Prince did
> >not coin the term she stole it) I was involved with a consciousness raising
> >group in the mid 70's and we started using it to describe the perpetual pre-ops
> >who would never get surgery and for the 'shemales'
>

> Did you guys come up with it, or did you hear it from someplace else?
> (Just curious).

It was kicked around I think the first place it may have appeared in print was
the Reniasance News Letter. BTW the you Guys group included Jude Patton, myself,
Joanna Roberts an d Sister Mary Elizabeth. Out people and others I won't mention
because they aren't really out.

In the early 70s a lot of people who later became IFGE split with VP and I'm sure
a couple of them were involved in these conversations. I am pretty sure it started
here in LA.

> > As a catch-all term it sucks big time.
>

> Lots of people have trouble with it.

OTOH it is a perfect term for those who walk the same path as Laura.

> I have to agree. I think that whole line of reasoning, or terminology,
> or whatever, stems from the fear many het men have of being perceived
> as homosexual. I may be back too far for a reason, but it certainly
> explains why sometimes people take such great pains to differentiate
> themselves from others who appear similar to the uninitiated.
>
> The reason I never had an issue with the term "transgendered" was
> because although I didn't change my gender identity, I *did* change my
> expression of it.

But as a transsexual the changes to gender presentation are only a part of the
package. Ah the original pitch. Transgendered people stop at the point of having
changed genders. Transsexuals change sex.

The catch all aspect came quite a bit later.

As an umbrella term I'm starting to use just Trans or Tranz or transfolk etc or
T.*

TranZGrrlla
Suzy

"I really felt like I was a little girl trapped in a boys body."

[Zarah]

boed...@netcologne.de schrieb in Nachricht

<snipped words of truth and wisdom>

>... Zarah (responding to Kiira) ...
>

>Hey! Are you a member of Monika Gerstendoerfer's et al. Lobby fuer
>Menschenrechte?

Yepp, I am one of the 'et al.'s and one of the co-founders of the Lobby.

>I always had wanted to contact you! Can you give me some more
>info on it? Best via private email to not waste too much bandwidth in here.

Yes, I'd be glad to give you info about the Lobby. In fact we had the annual
member's meeting (we, the 'active members' meet more often) this weekend,
and IS was an issue.

>| But I think I've seen her on a
>| German discussion board, where I posted from time to time.
>+------
>
>My email address is: boed...@netcologne.de :-)

ah, so it was you :-) I was the one who had this nice little discussion with
TS molestor Alex recently.

>
>Yeah, but it's the same shit w/ most IS groups which still are run by
parents
>mostly, and the member of the executive boards of which often include
>representatives of the MIC.

snafu! (I guess you know the illuminati trilogy? :-) )

>
>One of the founders of this split off Transidentitas, Deutsche Gesellschaft
>fuer Transidentitaet und Intersexualitaet in Gruendung or something like
>that, has been diagnosed True Hermaphroditism. She once told me that she
felt
>herself to be more of a TS. She also is transitioning in her late 30s.
There
>seemingly is some psychodynamic cut-off point between childhood and
>epipubertal changes and later ones. No matter whether "motivated" by IS or
>TS.

When I wrote this, I actually thought of C. It still makes me wonder a bit,
why she's involved with the dgti. I'd have my problems with that for more
than one reason, being TS or IS.

>
>These misunderstandings ironically are arising from having been
>misunderstood. Like it was obstructing a real understanding. Also of one's
>own.

I agree.

>They don't know what they are asking for even if they've been told b/c it
>just exceedes their imaginative capacities.

this is most probably true. It somehow scares me to death if people are
promoting pre puberty treatment of TS, or hope that TS can be 'physically
diagnosed' in childhood one day. This would bring us into the same abusive
situation as IS, which I'd consider in no way to be an improvement.

I'll sent you an email as soon as I have a little more time.

[boed...@netcologne.de]

Hi Zarah,

+------
| >Hey! Are you a member of Monika Gerstendoerfer's et al. Lobby fuer
| >Menschenrechte?
|

| Yepp, I am one of the 'et al.'s and one of the co-founders of the Lobby.

+------

Saustark! ("sow-strong" for those of you who don't know German slang, which
is an expression of extreme appreciation :-))

+------

| >I always had wanted to contact you! Can you give me some more
| >info on it? Best via private email to not waste too much bandwidth in here.
|

| Yes, I'd be glad to give you info about the Lobby. In fact we had the annual
| member's meeting (we, the 'active members' meet more often) this weekend,
| and IS was an issue.

+------

Cool... I'm looking fwd to hearing more about it. :-)

+------

| >| But I think I've seen her on a
| >| German discussion board, where I posted from time to time.
| >+------
| >
| >My email address is: boed...@netcologne.de :-)
|

| ah, so it was you :-) I was the one who had this nice little discussion with
| TS molestor Alex recently.

+------

Neat. :-) Yeah, he and Andrea (whom I alas have come to know personally...
yech!!) are miserable wannaf***s who fetishize trans- *and* interfolk. Andrea
also is a wannabe. She has claimed to be cryptic CAH, then she has claimed
she was a gay (!!) f2m TG... Alexander is is a very special sort of wannabe,
too, claiming that he would have transitoned if he hadn't had "hands like
toilet lids" ('Haende wie Klodeckel') which he now projects onto each & every
newcomer to the web BBS. Guess people who hand themselves over to
trannief***ers must be awfully desparate.

+------
| >Yeah, but it's the same shit w/ most IS groups which still are run by
| parents
| >mostly, and the member of the executive boards of which often include
| >representatives of the MIC.
|

| snafu! (I guess you know the illuminati trilogy? :-) )

+------

Illuminati Trilogy? You mean "Die 3 Emms -- Monster, Mumien, Mutationen" -?
:-) ["The 3 M's -- monsters, mummies, mutations"]

+------ | | >The difference here is though that while I have heard *hundreds*
of TS | | >people say that they would "want to be intesexed" ... I have never
| | >heard one intersexed person say that they would want to be TS. | | | |
This is true. Though some IS, when changing in adult life, face some of the |
| same problems as TS. | +------ | | >One of the founders of this split off
Transidentitas, Deutsche Gesellschaft | >fuer Transidentitaet und
Intersexualitaet in Gruendung or something like | >that, has been diagnosed
True Hermaphroditism. She once told me that she | felt | >herself to be more
of a TS. She also is transitioning in her late 30s. | There | >seemingly is
some psychodynamic cut-off point between childhood and | >epipubertal changes

and later ones. No matter whether "motivated" by IS or | >TS. | | When I

wrote this, I actually thought of C. It still makes me wonder a bit, | why
she's involved with the dgti. I'd have my problems with that for more | than

one reason, being TS or IS. +------

Helma Alter of DGTI is still better at handing over people to the MIC than
Cornelia Klein of TI. The latter is just naive, her recipe for success being
the same as Helmut Kohl's: "Alles aussitzen!" [waiting out just everything].
The former is so obsessed w/ writing utopias about what a doc-patient r'ship
should look like that she has become unable to see what really is going down.

C.'s life story is one of the most sad of this genre that I ever have been
told. It is a story of extreme neglect and denial on part of her parents and
the MIC. Yet, she told it to me, downplaying, commenting: "It wasn't all that
bad..."

+------
| >They don't know what they are asking for even if they've been told b/c it
| >just exceedes their imaginative capacities.
|

| this is most probably true. It somehow scares me to death if people are
| promoting pre puberty treatment of TS, or hope that TS can be 'physically
| diagnosed' in childhood one day. This would bring us into the same abusive
| situation as IS, which I'd consider in no way to be an improvement.

+------

There is a classy paper addressing the issue of a better than the current
standard treatment paradigm (CSTP) of IS:

Diamond, Milton/H. Keith Sigmundson (1997a): Commentary: Management of
Intersexuality: Guidelines for dealing with persons with ambiguous genitalia.
- In: Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine 151/10, Oct. 1997,
1046-1050; available at http://www.afn.org/~sfcommed/mdfnl.htm.

Mutatis mutandis most of it is easily applicable to TS, too.

I think this was a goal I'd pursue were I a TS activist... :-)

Looking at how the *horribile dictu* "coming out" of *bona fide* TS kids was
managed in most N. American Native Cultures also leads me to be confident
about ideas how to treat kids aged like 4 - 8 resonably.

I don't know about physical causes of TS. If Teresa Binstock is right about
her immunological perception of self and others hypothesis, and it should
turn out to be caused by some virus infection this fershur wasn't the finding
that most TS had been praying for. The hypothalamus obviously is a more noble
body-part.

But then, to be true, in my case I am not wondering too much what made me
loose a Y chromosome in quite some cell-lines...

... but should I ever have to do it again, I'd make sure I'll get rid of it
in virtually all cell-lines!! :-)

+------

| I'll sent you an email as soon as I have a little more time.

+------

Looking forward,

[Suzan Cooke]

I was in contact with Sister Mary Elizabeth late last fall. One of our brothers
was looking for her to discuss some of our past history. While her health is not at
it's best she is still going on. After all we are all getting older and developing
various physical problems.

She is running an AIDS information service supported by grants.

TranZGrrlla

che...@cruzio.com wrote:

> On Sun, 26 Apr 1998 23:52:48 -0700, Suzan Cooke <sco...@pacbell.net>
> wrote:
>
> > It was kicked around I think the first place it may have appeared in print was
> >the Reniasance News Letter. BTW the you Guys group included Jude Patton, myself,
> >Joanna Roberts an d Sister Mary Elizabeth. Out people and others I won't mention
> >because they aren't really out.
> >

> Suzan,
> Have you heard anything of Sister Mary Elizabeth lately? I know she
> was having trouble with her eyesight, and her health may not have been
> too good. 'Preciate any info.
>
> Thanks,
> Cheryl

[Zarah]

Dear Ellen,

Shh! Secret Squirrel schrieb in Nachricht
<3549583b...@news.newsguy.com>...

>Nor would I. It's ironic how one generation's struggles can often lead
>it to perpetrate new oppressions in the course of trying keep the
>things that bothered them from happening again.

yes, it reminds of a line of an old Springsteen song:

'you're born into this life paying
for sins of somebody else's past'

>while I see certain correlations between IS people and TS people, it's
>clear that the world screws us up in different ways.

At least the world tries hard sometimes :-)

>
>At one point in my struggle to understand myself I thought I might be
>IS, it seemed to explain me to myself. But of course I was working
>from a complete misunderstanding of the medical terms involved, and it
>didn't take me very long to admit how idiotic I'd been.

I can understand this though. 'Being IS' seems to explain so much for
oneself and in addition it could serve to justify that something has to be
done about the body, since those feelings of belonging to the other sex
could then be attributed to something physical. Something hard and
'objective' in contrast to the potential insecurity of 'subjective' feelings
or statements. Like a proof to the world and to oneself that the claim to
belong to the other sex is not delusional.

It is somehow obvious that this search for 'proofs' has nothing to do with
being IS or with IS reality, but everything with being TS and the conditions
of being TS in this cultural framework.

[Sweet Noddy]

I have now read your primary article in this thread, and thought I'd
lob in a few thoughts.

"Celeste" <cele...@usa.net> wrote:

>But what you talk about is also a continuum. From the psychological one that
>progresses to the physical. When you do so, you beg the question,
>
>"Should people who cannot pass well be
> allowed by the medical establishment to have SRS"?
>
>If anyone here took such a position, imagine the howling, the screaming, the
>moaning, the fisticuffs that we would hear from voices asunder about the
>concept. In the old days some people who could not pass well were turned
>away by the medical establishment. I vaguely recall that passing was an
>issue with the Long Island psychiatrist that Roberto Granato Sr used.

Well, it would certainly contradict your idea of changing only
physical sexual traits.

>It seems that maybe the medical community is a lot closer to surgery on
>demand these days than it has been in years past. If emotional and
>psychological stability are their primary concerns, then don't you agree
>that they are asking very little?

Yes. The issue is what they take to consitute stability in this
context.

>But we both digress. You have said nothing about the central thesis of my
>article. My article was meant to cut to the quick about the definition of
>transsexualism. It is all about physical, physiological sexuality I think.
>Those who turn it into some kind of gender thing have confused the issues.
>Gender and social conformity are the weak premises on which some people's cr
>iticism of transsexuality begin. They have even created new vocabulary with
>which obfuscate the issues and to bring irrelevant concepts into the
>picture.

>Along the way, the gender politicians have forgotten the fundamental point
>of transsexualism, in the interest of their own irrelevant issues. A
>transsexual is someone who thinks they were born with the wrong sexual
>apparatus who wants to get their genitals and secondary sex characters
>fixed. Once fixed a transsexual ought be very happy. What they do with their
>application of so called masculine and feminine social conventions is
>another matter altogether. Some might try to mix up the two things, but the
>concepts and issues and understanding are far simpler when they are kept
>separate.

This is certainly primary for me. At the same time, I think it would
be difficult, very difficult, if people kept perceiving me as clearly
male. I'd probably adjust, but I'd sure as hell rather not have to.

I feel like my primary issue *is* physical. I *cannot* honestly say it
doesn't matter how I am perceived. I certainly live a weird life now,
and cope mainly because I have friends around who don't see my
weirdness as my central or defining features. I choose the environment
in which I live and work. It doesn't protect me from bad
reactions/responses, but it provides a distinct counter-experience.

I believe I could be reasonably happy with people not certain I was
male. If I was physically female (as close as HRT & SRS can get), it
would be possible for me to simply say, "your perception doesn't
change my sex" and shrug it off on the way to the women's changing
room. If people are surprised, that's their business.

I would have a *very* hard time if people all were certain, from hte
way I looked, that I was male. I don't think I'd have the same level
of courage in trying to carry off the role, and inner confidence is a
huge factor.

<whispering>
"I'm not really Mr and Mrs John Q Smith!"
"That's all right! I'm not Joe!"
"..And he's not Ed!"
Firesign Theatre.

And I'm not Noddy or even Big-Ears. Please respond on the
newsgroup if you want me to write email.

[Sweet Noddy]

"Celeste" <nospam....@usa.net> wrote:

>Yes I hear you again, but if one has a vagina, breasts and other female
>secondary characteristics, you can be as butch or fem as you want, and
>nobody will care much, you will still be female, meaning they will still
>recognize your vagina, breasts and secondary characteristics. Think for
>example about the last time you were naked in a locker room at the health
>club. Situations like that strip away the pretenses. Being female, one's
>physical sexuality is all that counts to make the place and experience
>legitimate. One's behavior, manner, or otherwise is secondary and probably
>insignificant. A pushy woman is simply seen as a bitch on wheels, not a
>man, right?

Right. And a balding, heavily bearded person with a vagina naked in a
locker room is a balding bearded woman, but we're stretching things.

The issue is, while I basically agree, we are *not* always naked in a
locker room. A pushy woman or a butch woman is *perceived as a woman*.
That usually happens while she's dressed. If she's dressed, that
perception is socially mediated. As you note, SRS is not required to
be perceived that way. TSs generally want to physically be that way,
though surgery is something people make informed, and *different*,
decisions about. But how many people wanting SRS would be happy
without at least the level of social _gender_ recognition that meant
they were seen as a butch dyke, or a femme, or a very androgynous
girl, or whatever?

>> What they do with their conventions I would agree is mostly irrelevant
>> but what about the question of what they are *allowed* to - vis a vis
>> before and after the change?
>
>Yeah, so having the vagina, breasts and secondary characteristics is the
>ticket! You have made my point. Once someone is physically female, we have
>the freedom to do, be and act as we wish. But you have just reinforced that
>everything begins with anatomy. The rest follows.

Pretty much. But anatomy is more than genital surgery. There's hair
(scalp, facial and body), bone structure, and a host of other
*physical* cues. HRT is often more important than surgery for being
*perceived* as female. That may even apply in large measure to
self-perception. How many pre-ops feel they are not female? Being
percieved as female is not as inconsequential a thing as you seem to
be making it.

[boed...@netcologne.de]

Hi Zarah, Ellen,

+------

| >Nor would I. It's ironic how one generation's struggles can often lead
| >it to perpetrate new oppressions in the course of trying keep the
| >things that bothered them from happening again.
|
| yes, it reminds of a line of an old Springsteen song:
|
| 'you're born into this life paying
| for sins of somebody else's past'

+------

Or, as you literally can read already in the Rg-Veda (and, as someone who is
a Christian told me, in the Bible, too): Sons will have to pay for their
fathers' sins. Or maybe German author Gottfried Benn has been more closely
approximating the problem's source by stating: "Gut gemeint ist das Gegenteil
von Kunst" -- well mean it the opposite of art.

+------

| >At one point in my struggle to understand myself I thought I might be
| >IS, it seemed to explain me to myself. But of course I was working
| >from a complete misunderstanding of the medical terms involved, and it
| >didn't take me very long to admit how idiotic I'd been.
|
| I can understand this though. 'Being IS' seems to explain so much for
| oneself and in addition it could serve to justify that something has to be
| done about the body, since those feelings of belonging to the other sex
| could then be attributed to something physical. Something hard and
| 'objective' in contrast to the potential insecurity of 'subjective' feelings
| or statements. Like a proof to the world and to oneself that the claim to
| belong to the other sex is not delusional.
|
| It is somehow obvious that this search for 'proofs' has nothing to do with
| being IS or with IS reality, but everything with being TS and the conditions
| of being TS in this cultural framework.

+------

Also MIC members just have this predisposition for searching for somatic
causes. They are *socialized* into this behavioral pattern during their time
at medschool. Those who are critical of it tend to either drop out or having
their theses rejected. Thusly, it's the whole of this cultural framework, not
just attitudes toward TS. BTW, an IS person refusing to accept hirself as
affected by some kind of "sexual handicap" was displaying behavior of
pathological value according to this paradigm, too.

(But still, even according to its own standards it leaves us "impaired" after
surgery. But the complementary strategy of denial must be good for something
at least, eh? :-\)

I personally still have an account to settle w/ the MIC mostly b/c of the
treatment of my wannbe-mother, however. As a stigmatization avoidance
strategy she told everyone she was suffering from an "endogenous depression",
i.e. her "odd" behavior was said to have an organic cause, "it wasn't her
fault". Familiar pattern huh? Fact was, she is suffering from a
therapy-resistant paranoid psychosis, which can't be blamed on her 'acourse
(what I do blame on her is that she insisted on raising a child according to
standards purely derived from her delusions), but clearly has very much to do
w/ how she has been raised. This also explains why the family had a vital
interest in sustaining the "endogenous depression" myth. The only one who
publicly dared to say that all this was nothing but BS was 6 YO Heike, and it
probably won't take too much phantasy to imagine that they did everything to
shut me up.

Love,

[Anna]

[snip]

>
> It was by an emotional death. I killed my emotions. I survied by numbing
> myself to everything. Most of my life was not worth living and in a very
> real sense I did not live...
>
> That's why I'm finding my current prediciment so hard to handle. I
> finally found the strength to overcome the fears and damage done early
> on - and then HRT does not work...
>
> For me it's not just role but it's also largely physical - and there is
> so damm little I can do about that.
>
> In a lot of ways I feel being TS, with this body, stole my life from
> me. It's why I can't just accept and can't settle. In the end it may be
> what kills me.
>
> Till I reached high school age my feelings and actions have a
> significant overlap with what I've heard of the lives of many who
> transitioned young. The difference seem to come with the effect puberty
> had on me inconjunction with the horrendous family life. Actually I no
> of no one who who was built as I was as a teenager and transitioned
> young...

[snip]

>
> Most who transitioned young were of average build or slighter from all
> I've been able to gather... That alone can have a strong effect on what
> you believe is possible...

You write your story exceedingly clearly. It is moving, indeed
motivating. And not unusual in many respects.

The lesson, surely, that this must teach those who should learn, and
which could give you one consolation, is that in kids must be
diagnosed and treated before puberty kicks in. Only thus can such
dilemmas be prevented. Yes, there is much education of parents,
schools, medics, shrinks, insurers, politicians, moralists, writers, and
sundry others, needed before the provision is secure. But it must come.
And you could help, very positively.

At what age, if you can recall, did puberty start to adversely affect
you?

And, for a second positive note: I have never heard of someone totally
immune to the effects of hormones. There must be a combination or
path which would work for you. Keep trying, if you can.

Kind regards,

Anna

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[Kira D. Triea]

Shh! Secret Squirrel (spa...@farkle.com) wrote:

+---
| ...then "Zarah" <nospam....@bigfoot.com> wrote|

|
| > It somehow scares me to death if people are
| >promoting pre puberty treatment of TS, or hope that TS can be 'physically
| >diagnosed' in childhood one day. This would bring us into the same abusive
| >situation as IS, which I'd consider in no way to be an improvement.
|

| Nor would I. It's ironic how one generation's struggles can often lead
| it to perpetrate new oppressions in the course of trying keep the
| things that bothered them from happening again.

+---

That's why you will find intersex activists getting a bit rabid when
folks start talking about early diagnosis and surgery for TS people
based on some "biological delineation". We are trying to put ourselves
out of work.

+---
| I've been following with interest the discussions about being IS, and

| while I see certain correlations between IS people and TS people, it's
| clear that the world screws us up in different ways.

+---

Yeah in sone ways the *specifics* are a bit like mirror images but in the
end a political analysis finds similarities and we would hopefully be
able to converge on a meaningful paradigm which would enable all to
have a fairly good chance to get what is most needed, whether surgery and
counseling, or perhaps just counseling and some will want a train ticket
out of town anyway.

+---

| At one point in my struggle to understand myself I thought I might be
| IS, it seemed to explain me to myself. But of course I was working
| from a complete misunderstanding of the medical terms involved, and it
| didn't take me very long to admit how idiotic I'd been.

+---
Also it's not simply biology. If you took a non-intersexed person and
subjected them to surgery they would then become intersexed by virtue
of that experience. Intersexed people are simply all over the map
biologically yet we share this one socio-cultural exigency - a sharing
that is so deep that it overshadows completely our very considerable
differences.

As I've written before, a common profile for an intersexed person is a
female who was exposed to progestin and was born with a clitoris that
is deemed "too large" in our society. So it is removed. There is no
difference however between that person and another woman whose
clitoris was smaller, who had it removed as a neonate as well. I have
received emails from women who are going "Kiira I have always had a
very large clitoris from birth. I was born in 1946 and have had a
great sex life all my life... was I lucky?"

+---
| I have however been known to promote the idea that by undergoing HRT
| and having various surgeries, TS people become *voluntarily*
| intersexed, by which I mean we eventually come to have physical
| characteristics of both sexes. OTOH I've never tried to perpetuate the
| idea that our condition, that whatever physical reason we have for
| being TS (and I think there must be one), equates to being IS.
+---

Again it isn't the end place but how one gets there. Who we are is not
simply a matter of our biology but of the interface of that biology
with culture, with the world and what that biology "buys you" in
terms of medicalization and cultural positioning.

It isn't biology... it is what our society does with or in our case, to
that biology. Basically... intersexuality does not *really* exist. It
is a social construct.

+---
| Can I ask a dumb question? Is it pretty much the majority opinion that
| you're appalled at the violence done to you and would really rather
| have been allowed to decide for yourself how to live and how you
| wanted your body to be?
+---

This is the opinion of all of the world's intersex activists who I
know personally... which includes everyone except those in Japan. I do
not personally know any Japanese IS activists.

We all sunscribe to the Reccommendations for Treatment put forth by
Mickey Diamond and also the ISNA RFT.

+---
| Are there lots of people that you're aware of
| who feel that they knew exactly which sex they "should" be and the
| doctors either got it right or wrong? (Not that that has anything to
| do with violating one's helpless infant body; and not that "majority"
| has anything to do with the validity of one's feelings...)
+---

Mostly this "doctors got it wrong" paradigm is a bit inaccurate. It is
partly a factor in some IS lives... who may sort of "reposition"
themselves *after* they have come to a certain level of understanding
and recovery from trauma. Remember, most IS are not even "out of the
closet" to other IS people. And to engage in any further
medicalization most will need to recover quite a bit.. and recovery
often requires therapy... etc. So you see the vicious circle we get in
and why we are all *SO* dependant on each other.

Mostly though, what happens after unconsented surgery and a lifetime
of shame and secrecy is that people do not even get to the point of
recovering *enough* to say "I'll improve my life and exert some
"identity" by doing X". So the complaint would not be "Why couldn't
they have made me a boy instead of a girl" (90% are assigned female)
but "Why couldn't I have been left alone and not hurt so much".

Hoped this help explain some and I thank you for your sincere
interest.

Kiira Triea
CISAE/GMSSN

[Karen Ross]

Andrea Bennett <arb...@mindspring.com> wrote in article
<3540b4eb....@news.mindspring.com>...

> Hm, a good many people have written here in considerable detail about
> their emotions and their reasons for delaying transition. In my own
> case, the main factors were (1) fear of loss and rejection, (2) a
> perhaps misguided sense of duty and (3) the vague belief that I would
> either "get over" my feelings or find some less radical way of
> accommodating them, or that I ultimately would transition when
> circumstances seemed more propitious.

And as you mentioned before, fathering a child.... One of those decision
points - events that completely alter the path of a life. I was sterile.
You were not. Different events, different paths.

Hugs,

Kare

[Karen Ross]

Celeste <nospam....@usa.net> wrote in article
<6hp6si$hb2$1...@gte2.gte.net>...

> It must have been hard for you in that generation early. Wasn't that a
time
> of rampant conformism and conservativism as indoctrinated via the pabalum
> of Donna Reed and Father Knows Best?

I was a few years ahead of you Celeste. The fifties and sixties were an
information vacuum. I was a bit too young to have heard of Christine
Jorgenson at the time she hit the papers - but my older brother knew. The
first I ever read the word "transsexual" was in 1968 and I instantly knew
that that was what I wanted. But it didn't seem possible for a kid from
the heartland. Yet a few years later Istruggled uphill until I
transitioned and got SRS. I had a friend I met along the way who was
twenty years older. She had tried to come out when the Jorgenson story
hit. Instead they pumped her full of testosterone. It didn't help and
really damaged her for when she later managed to transition anyway.

For most of us, I feel that what happens is a complex mix of happenstance
and tenacity. For each of us there are decision points where events and
small choices can radically change the path taken by our lifes.

... But may I say that for myself, and I might assume some others to

> got SRS young that we are left perplexed? Even though I read about the
> events that people progress through I don't read enough about the inner
> emotional process that made those events possible. What I am trying to
say
> is, what do people who wait do with their feelings? I have a hard time
> trying imagine what the process must be like emotionally. If some of
those
> who went through would be willing to share how they felt and how they
dealt

> with their emotions through that process, maybe some of the us early
types
> could better understand.

I feel the same. For me, had I not been able to transition, I would not
have lived to be forty. I very much doubt I'd have seen thirty, either.

> Can you understand that for the early types, at least for me, the
> compulsion was so strong that it was do or die against all odds,
> consequences be damned?

This is exactly as it was for me.

... The sense I got from the medical community was that

> it was expected of us anyway. Going through transition then taught me
> determination, a determination I now use in the rest of my life, and
> patience, the patience I learned in the years between transition and
> surgery, working jobs that weren't bad but hadn't been a part of my
career

> plan, and biding my time hunting relentlessly for the way out, ....

Yes, been there, done that.... It is indeed a different frame of
reference.

-- Kare

[Zarah]

Dear Ellen,

Shh! Secret Squirrel schrieb in Nachricht

<3549771a...@news.newsguy.com>...
>
>bodies... I dunno. From what I've been reading from you-all lately, IS
>struggles center around the trauma of being surgerized against your
>will. Nobody is doing that to TS people. We're struggling and saving
>to *get* surgerized.

Yes and no. I would agree that we have surgery voluntarily, and are not
forced into it. But mutilation can be more subtle than hat. I know FtM's who
had 20+ surgeries because of phalloplasty, and yet this specific surgeon
doesn't mention this problems when promoting his technique either to the
FtM's themselves or to collegues during congresses.

I've attended medical congresses where surgeons presented their srs
techniques and the results. I've yet to see one who didn't present the very
best results s/he had obtained and therefore built the impression that this
results are standard. Though I am pretty aware that this kind of presenting
half truths is somehow standard in academic life (it comes with the system,
eg. who
would publish a failure, or get it published at all?), the consequences are
serious.

This usually means that if someone has problems with srs results, it is
attributed to 'unrealistic expectations' or insufficient post op care or..
in general, the fault is attributed to the patient at first (I do not want
to say that this can not be true), but sometimes there are also problems
caused by the surgery itself.

In addition there are surgeons who *are* ignorant butchers. I've talked to
one about his technique (MtF) who frankly told me, that a clitoris or inner
labia are not necessary and only a source for 'complications', and that
unfortunately it is not safe to make a vagina deep and wide enough for
intercourse, since the risk of hurting the rectum when cutting the
Denonvillier' Facie (which is necessary to procede beyond the prostate, and
is standard for at least the last 25 years) would be too high and were
subject to academic disussion right now. That was in *1997*. I consider such
ignorance to the state of the art srs techniques criminal, and this kind of
surgery mutilation. This surgeon still performs and is allowed to perform
srs.

The difference between us and IS children is, that we have the possibility
to make our own decissions about the kind of treatment we want, and that we
can make informed decissions about the treatment alternatives. However, we
are not invulnarable to being lied at, experimented on, or being treated by
incompetent butchers. And furthermore, since srs is still considered to be
experimental surgery, we have no legal protection from incompetent
treatment.

Cheers

[Zarah]

Dear Heike,

boed...@netcologne.de schrieb in Nachricht >

>Also MIC members just have this predisposition for searching for somatic
>causes. They are *socialized* into this behavioral pattern during their
time
>at medschool. Those who are critical of it tend to either drop out or
having
>their theses rejected.

It took me almost 3 semesters to realize how far this brain-washing goes and
consequently to drop out of medschool :-)

But then that was in Berlin at the very beginning of the 80's. When
'Frontstadt Berlin' (Berlin front city) was probably one of the hottest and
most lively places in the western hemisphere, when AIDS was still a distant
rumour, state authorities virtually lost control of parts of the city, and
'new wave' was rolling over the city like a thunderstorm. So I had much
better things to do than filling my brain with physiology and anatomic
details anyway (eg. trying to find a way to transition, unfortunately in
vain then) :-)

[boed...@netcologne.de]

Dear Zarah,

+------

| >Also MIC members just have this predisposition for searching for somatic
| >causes. They are *socialized* into this behavioral pattern during their
| time
| >at medschool. Those who are critical of it tend to either drop out or
| having
| >their theses rejected.
|
| It took me almost 3 semesters to realize how far this brain-washing goes and
| consequently to drop out of medschool :-)

+------

I was sick & tired of being expected to allow myself being corrupted in
gymnasium already. I finally showed up occasionally only, and judging from
they way I *really* looked dismally miserable no one even bothered to ask
whether I had been sick or whether I only was skiving off. Not too difficult
to imagine that my grade point average was not exactly sufficient to only
allow dreaming of ever being admitted to medschool. :-) (Apart from the fact
that I had different plans anyway :-)) In one of the final exams, for which I
had been completely unprepared 'acourse, I just answered one question, then
got up to go downtown instead, have some ice-tea, buy a few nice things such
as perfume and a Chinese notebook. Which I indeed enjoyed, promenading on a
sunny & mild day in spring while them folks were sweating over those stupid
questions. :-) The only things I really was willing to put any effort into
was rehearsing as much as ever possible and reading large amounts of Sanskrit
texts and books on Comparative Indo-European, intermingled w/ phases of
severe depression in which I just couldn't go on w/ anything.

+------

| But then that was in Berlin at the very beginning of the 80's. When
| 'Frontstadt Berlin' (Berlin front city) was probably one of the hottest and
| most lively places in the western hemisphere, when AIDS was still a distant
| rumour, state authorities virtually lost control of parts of the city, and
| 'new wave' was rolling over the city like a thunderstorm. So I had much

+------

Oh sheesh... this Neue Deutsche Welle ('New German Wave') craze pretty much
f***ed over my 70s alternative scene biotope into which I had been trying to
retreat after I had managed to drop out of the treatment program at age 14 by
becoming just too nuts to them daring to touch me any longer. The extinction
of so many bands in late 1979 really was *eerie*. ["alternative" in this very
context not meaning what is understood by Alternative now, it partially was
motivated politically still in the wake of the late 60s student revolts,
including events like the Umsonst & Draussen festivals and the
April/Schneeball label which was completely in musicians' hands, while, in
fact, the German scene of the 70s largely was *dominated* by fusion and prog
bands. To get an idea of what I was doing, if you can play MIDI files, you
can download my "Glueckliches Haus der Stimme" ('Happy Home of The Voice') at
http://www.sonic.net/~boedeker/lit/whitekni.htm, which was written as late as
spring 1982, however, and probably therefore sounds a bit like "Missus
Beastly goes Dream Theater", although it is a typical illustration of my
modal rather than functional harmonic thinking.] Anyway, I became more and
more withdrawn during the early 80s... There just was *nothing* that only
*remotely* worked for me...

+------

| better things to do than filling my brain with physiology and anatomic
| details anyway (eg. trying to find a way to transition, unfortunately in
| vain then) :-)

+------

B/c of the TSG's age limit of 25 that still was effective back then?
Sheesh... I hope it is statue-barred by now, anyway, I indeed "transitioned"
using this (back then) new law (the strictly IS version of transitioning is
decree-based only, I didn't even know of it, and even if I had, I couldn't
have got the process going myself as it is strictly MIC-controlled)...
obviously it was *too* new to them clergyfolks too... I mean, if you have a
look at my passport photo included w/ my bio at Kiira's Real People Page
(http://www.qis.net/~triea/real.html) you will agree that I really didn't
even remotely look like 25 :-)

Cheers,

[Robin]

Hi All

I came across this article yesterday which may be of interest to some.
Prof Grace Tang is my endoc, by the way!

love

Robin

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A natural transition for women

Stress: menopause can be difficult, but better treatments are being
found in the East and West.

by ELLEN LIANG

While millions of Western women use hormone
replacement therapy (HRT) to combat the
symptoms of menopause, few Chinese women feel
the need to try it. Compared with 30 per cent of
women in the United States, it is estimated only 0.6
per cent of women in Hong Kong use HRT and
even fewer use it on the mainland.

Though some doctors believe this has a lot to do
with differing attitudes it is becoming apparent the
use of traditional Chinese medicine may play a role.

"Why have Hong Kong women rejected HRT for
the past 10 years?" asks Grace Tang Wai-king,
professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at the
University of Hong Kong. "Maybe there is no need
for it because they have herbal alternatives."

About 30 per cent of Hong Kong women take
some form of Chinese medicine. Many have been
doing so since their 30s, to recover from
child-bearing, to help with menstrual problems, and
as general health tonics.

Studies are beginning to determine exactly how
Chinese herbal products may affect female
hormonal levels. However, conducting research in
this area is difficult because herbs are usually taken
as a mixture and not always on a consistent basis.

Together with the tendency to use traditional
medicine for treatment of female ailments, the
severity and type of symptoms experienced by
Chinese women going through the menopause is
different from that experienced by caucasian
women.

Surveys conducted by both the University of Hong
Kong and the Department of Health in 1993 and
1997 showed that among the 40 per cent of
Chinese women who experience menopausal
symptoms, only seven per cent are bothered by hot
flushes, compared with 70 to 85 per cent of
caucasian women.

The symptoms which bothered Chinese women
most were headaches and insomnia which occurred
in 21 to 26 per cent of those surveyed.

"It is quite clear that different women go through
menopause differently," says Professor Tang. "For
us it may be nervosity more than hot flushes. We
have to re-evaluate the way we look at it."

Professor Tang suggests many women do not see
the symptoms as enough of a complaint to warrant
taking long-term treatment such as HRT.

The transition to menopause, usually occurring in
the early 50s, can be compared with a bumpy
stretch in a road lasting from a few months to a few
years during which decreasing hormone levels
cause menstrual periods to become irregular and
scant, though in some cases they stop abruptly. A
year of no periods marks the onset of menopause.

The ease of transition into menopause depends
largely on both physical and emotional health,
constitution and lifestyle. Women with a stronger
constitution tend to have a later menopause. Studies
indicate that extended fertility is an indicator for
longevity and can provide protection against some
diseases, possibly because the women have a
longer exposure to naturally occurring estrogen.

A parallel concept exists in Chinese medicine, in
which jing, best described as vital essence and the
creative force, maintains life functions. it is believed
everyone has a fixed amount of jing when they are
born and its quality is maintained largely through
diet and low stress levels. It is damaged by
chemicals and unhealthy lifestyles.

"You mess around jing when you take the pill, for
instance," says Chinese medicine practitioner Maria
Berry, who also believes that HRT is harmful to the
quality of jing.

Statistics show phytoestrogens, or plant-derived
estrogens, such as soybean products and green tea,
nurture or supplement jing so that the supplies do
not get depleted as quickly. Although
phytoestrogens have been well documented as
positively affecting the menopausal transition among
various Asian women, the level needed to replace
lost estrogen has not been scientifically determined.

However, researchers in Italy recently tested the
benefits of soy protein on 104 women who were
experiencing at least seven hot flushes a day and
were not taking HRT. After 12 weeks, the half who
took soy extract experienced a nearly 50 per cent
decrease in hot flushes, while those taking a
placebo recorded that theirs dropped by about a
third.

Some of the foods and herbs commonly used to
strengthen the reproductive system are Chinese
yams, lotus seeds, dang shen (codonopsis), huang
qi (astralagus), dong gwai (angelica), licorice root,
ginseng and White Phoenix pills.

Instead of the estrogen creams used to relieve
vaginal dryness after menopause, herbs such as
dong gwai, wolfberry, birds' nest and white fungus
are taken for this problem.

Though used less often, acupuncture can also bring
relief to pre-menopausal problems by stimulating
pressure points for the kidneys, which store jing,
govern the reproductive system and regulate
hormones.

Likewise, stimulating the liver which regulates the
flow of bodily substances and affects emotions can
help.

In 1994 Ms Berry conducted a blind five-week
study of this method on 86 women attending a
British hospital for treatment of hot flushes, restless
sleep and moodiness. A control group which
underwent a "treatment" consisting of superficial
needling at different points, recorded up to a 10 per
cent drop in hot flushes. But those who underwent
the real treatment recorded a 50 to 100 per cent
improvement and sustained benefits months after
treatment.

According to another traditional Chinese medicine
practitioner, Helen He Yuan-fang, acupuncture can
help prevent osteoporosis - bone loss - because the
kidneys control bone growth. Ms He says it can
also be used to treat infertility by unblocking tubes,
regulate ovulation and follicle-stimulating hormones
and improve the lining of the uterus.

"Theoretically, acupuncture should work [to treat
menopausal symptoms] as it has been used to
induce labour, but not enough studies have been
done," says Professor Tang.

Meanwhile, while there is little doubt HRT is
effective, women are confused about its benefits
due to conflicting reports about synthetic hormones
and breast cancer. Those at a high risk of breast
cancer or who have been treated for breast cancer
are generally advised to avoid HRT.

While its herbal alternatives are favoured by
Chinese women, HRT has definite benefits, points
out Professor Tang. "The rate of bone loss is fastest
after menopause - there is a marked drop at about
50 to 54 years of age. You can hold this back by
taking HRT to maintain bone density but it has to
be taken for 10 to 15 years."

Though there are natural ways to prevent bone loss,
such as exercise and improving calcium intake
through dairy products, bean curd and leafy green
vegetables, the lack of estrogen after menopause
makes it more difficult for the body to absorb
calcium.

More than 80 per cent of women in Hong Kong
think they know what to expect at menopause, says
Professor Tang, but only 27 per cent of women are
aware of the risks of osteoporosis, despite
numerous TV campaigns.

HRT also provides protection against heart disease
and Alzheimer's disease (which affects women
more than men).

"A woman needs to be informed of the pros and
cons of HRT and they may have to try various
preparations; for instance one kind may produce
too much breast tenderness and transdermal ones
[skin patches] have been known to produce
rashes," says Professor Tang. "There are individual
responses to each one."

Meanwhile, solutions appear to be in sight with the
development of new drugs in the US. For instance,
Raloxifene, one of a new class of drugs called
selective estrogen receptors, increased bone
density by two to three per cent in clinical trials,
greatly reducing the risk of bone fractures. It also
helped lower blood cholesterol levels, according to
the manufacturer, Eli Lilly.

Raloxifene mimics the effect of estrogen in some
parts of the body (bones and cardiovascular
system) and blocks its action in other parts (breast
or uterine tissue), though there is evidence about 10
per cent of women on the drug can develop hot
flushes. Approval in the US is expected within two
years.

Another new drug, Estratab, a low-dose form of
estrogen derived from soybeans and yams, works
in a similar manner, providing the
bone-strengthening benefits of higher-dose estrogen
drugs without the negative side effects, according to
a study conducted at the University of California,
San Francisco.

"I should think that in the next decade, these newer
compounds will enable women to have a wider
choice of the forms of HRT that are most suited to
them," says Professor Tang.

The research in herbal medicine is expected to yield
significant findings too. Though it is debatable
whether women will experience menopause any
differently, the transition for women going through it
during the next 10 years could be smoother than for
any previous generation.

Published: South China Morning Post, Wednesday April
29 1998

[Nicole Hamilton]

Shh! Secret Squirrel <spa...@farkle.com> wrote in article
<3549ded6...@news.newsguy.com>...
> FTM surgeries are a lot less sophisticated than MTF surgeries. Does
> anybody know why? Is it that much more difficult, or is there
> something endemic which keeps doctors from learning what they need to
> do in the first place? (I guess that's more a rhetorical question than
> anything else)

The fundamental problems are finding tissue from which the penis can be
constructed and making the result functional and sensate. Think about this
just a moment. Where's the tissue supposed to come from? How is an orgasm
supposed to be achieved? I understand the most common procedures are done
with grafts of tubes constructed, in a series of surgical procedures, of
skin and tissue taken from elsewhere, and some of the same techniques
(stiffeners and inflatable devices) devised for impotence are used to
simulate an erection, but the result is certainly not going to have the
desired sensation or overall functionality. I'm told even the appearance
leaves a lot to be desired.
--

--Nicki Hamilton

[Karen Ross]

Nicole Hamilton <hami...@hamiltonlabs.com> wrote in article

> The fundamental problems are finding tissue from which the penis can be
> constructed and making the result functional and sensate. Think about
this
> just a moment. Where's the tissue supposed to come from? How is an
orgasm
> supposed to be achieved? I understand the most common procedures are
done
> with grafts of tubes constructed, in a series of surgical procedures, of
> skin and tissue taken from elsewhere, and some of the same techniques
> (stiffeners and inflatable devices) devised for impotence are used to
> simulate an erection, but the result is certainly not going to have the
> desired sensation or overall functionality. I'm told even the appearance
> leaves a lot to be desired.

Personally, I've always wondered why they don't invert the vagina. My
understanding from discussing it once with a gynecologist is that it should
work. He noted that fron time to time a vagina will emerge to the outside
(I forgot the term he used) and with time takes on the characteristcs of
external skin. At the same time, it retains the great expansion potential.
All-in-all, that seems like the ideal tissue from which to construct a
viable penis - at least for the external tissue. What to use for an
erectile core is another issue.

-- Kare

[KristalC]

>>I disagree (so what else is new?). I can speak only for myself, and
usually only about myself. Having SRS for me was not in any way for social
acceptance or permission. It was so I could have a cunt, and be able to
have certain specific types of organic items inserted therein.

Socially, I could have lived as a woman sans SRS; I didn't need SRS for
social reasons.<<

This is basically the reason I seek SRS. Except in my case I would not rule out
inorganic items as well. I would be wary of doing it for any other reasons.

hugs, Kristal

[Jeannette]

I once read a book called: "1001 things to do with a cucumber or why is a cucumber
better than a man"

It went along the lines of :

1. A cucumber will always respect you in the morning.
2. You don't have to cuddle a cucumber afterwards.

etc... etc... up to 1001.

I would like to find it again.

--
Jeannette

- " If there is a God, (S)He is an under-achiever ! " Woody Allen -

(No offense meant to those of you who believe (S)He is doing a great job)

[Anna]

These are all excellent points, but actually stem not from anything
specific to TSism. The problem is common to virtually all forms of
medicine, and certainly all surgery.

It most certainly should _not_ be the case. And it would be in the
interests of all people if full information was available to all
potential patients, their relatives and advisors, including audited
information on outcomes for previous patients.

I am sure that this will eventually happen in the more advanced centres,
but I don't see any strongly coordinated pressure for it, as yet,
anywhere.

I speak with great feeling on this, due to having had to shop round for
serious surgery (not related to TSism) two years ago, and recently
finding my surgeon tending to distort the assessment of the results of
his work on myself for reporting purposes.

[Anna]

spa...@farkle.com (Shh! Secret Squirrel) replied:

> ...then "Zarah" <nospam....@bigfoot.com> wrote:
>
> > It somehow scares me to death if people are
> >promoting pre puberty treatment of TS, or hope that TS can be 'physically
> >diagnosed' in childhood one day. This would bring us into the same abusive
> >situation as IS, which I'd consider in no way to be an improvement.
>
> Nor would I. It's ironic how one generation's struggles can often lead
> it to perpetrate new oppressions in the course of trying keep the
> things that bothered them from happening again.

Please explain why you believe abuse _necessarily_ follows diagnosis of
TSism during childhood.

Surely these are two quite separate issues, which can be kept isolated?

[Jeannette]

Michelle Steiner wrote:

> In article <354C114B...@slip.net>, Jeannette <ja...@slip.net> wrote:
>
> >I once read a book called: "1001 things to do with a cucumber or why is a
> cucumber
> >better than a man"
> >
> >It went along the lines of :
> >
> >1. A cucumber will always respect you in the morning.
> >2. You don't have to cuddle a cucumber afterwards.
>

> I but I want to cuddle in the morning. Sometimes, all I want is cuddling.
>

Actually, In my book, the cuddling is the best part, by far!