I think asking trans folks of colour would be a place to start.
Probably that would be the most definitive way to answer the question.
Jas it's an interesting idea, but I'm thinking the way your analogy falls down is that the physical differences between people of different races is much, much smaller than the physical differences between men and women.
Whew, talk about a weird discussion. What exactly is this?
Jas it's an interesting idea, but I'm thinking the way your analogy falls down is that the physical differences between people of different races is much, much smaller than the physical differences between men and women.
I don't know, I see the changes that testosterone alone does for ftms in a matter of months. I would think it would be much much harder to lighten (or darken) the skin on one's entire body and to change the colour of hair and the way it grows, in addition to the facial or other surgery.
Also, RTTG, your claim upthread that hormone therapy is reversible isn't completely true in the case of ftms. Certain features that develop with testosterone therapy are permanent, such as voice depth, hair growth (although facial hair may thin over time), hair loss, and the adam's apple.
You analogy fails because in the diasporic context, POC are taught to hate themselves, their skin colour, any physical difference from facial features to other genotypical physical differences...
Maysie, would you not see the link between this and, for example, young female-to-male transgender people who are born into a woman-hating culture and have body and self-image and gender expression issues as they go through their teens - or perhaps their entire life?
Jas it's an interesting idea, but I'm thinking the way your analogy falls down is that the physical differences between people of different races is much, much smaller than the physical differences between men and women.
I don't know, I see the changes that testosterone alone does for ftms in a matter of months. I would think it would be much much harder to lighten (or darken) the skin on one's entire body and to change the colour of hair and the way it grows, in addition to the facial or other surgery.
Also, RTTG, your claim upthread that hormone therapy is reversible isn't completely true in the case of ftms. Certain features that develop with testosterone therapy are permanent, such as voice depth, hair growth (although facial hair may thin over time), hair loss, and the adam's apple.
Yes, basically it's no more or less reversible than going through unwanted endocrinology is. And for anyone who wants to transition back to female, it's the same set of secondary steps: Electro/laser hair removal; hair replacement or wigs or hope that your hair is, like most, the kind that goes dormant for up to 7 years after it stops growing; speak from where you gargle to get to a female range.
Given your stated experience with FtM transitioners, is there something you want to share that was a formative experience for you in feeling this way about how much state support there should be for transition? Because really, what you're describing is less than what it takes for a trans woman to transition. I'm very confused as to what issue exists for women who've transitioned to male and then transitioned back to female, something that is, per capita of transitioners, far less common than those who transition per capita of the general population. Is it butch flight? Let's talk about what bothers you directly.
jas, my understanding of trans identity issues and struggles is that it's less about hatred of the gender that people were assigned, and more about an incompatibility with that gender, as well as a draw towards non-gender/androgyny or the "other" gender. Your theory would not hold for MTF folks.
You analogy fails because in the diasporic context, POC are taught to hate themselves, their skin colour, any physical difference from facial features to other genotypical physical differences...
Maysie, would you not see the link between this and, for example, young female-to-male transgender people who are born into a woman-hating culture and have body and self-image and gender expression issues as they go through their teens - or perhaps their entire life?
Seriously? I mean, wow, I knew I'd heard this song before. How do you then explain me jas? How do you explain all of us femme and butch and everything inbetween and off the scale presenting trans lesbians? That's like saying misandry makes trans women transition. Misandry pisses me off because if anything, having the boundaries of gender policed so strongly kept me in the closet. If I'd been free to express and explore myself I wouldn't have to break through these walls and I could have had the option to slowly go from kinda femme straight boy to what felt right for me without thinking a misstep could land me out of work or in the hospital. I wouldn't have to meticulously plan an escape from forced boyhood. There is, as history has shown, an inverse relationship between sexism and transgender expression. Misogyny doesn't make women into men, it forces trans men to pretend to be women.
My analogy is that of, let's say, a black person who feels that she, internally, is caucasian. She does not identify with the, let's say, particular African culture in which she was raised, and she abhors the way she looks, which is consistent with how others from her region look. She is suicidal because her body does not express who she is internally, and it also, due to discriminatory practices in the field in which she seeks work (let's say acting), seems to be affecting her ability to find the work she wants.
If we agree that what she has is a kind of body dysphoria, in addition to real life discrimination, and those conditions are causing her severe depression and risk of suicide, and she lives in a country where health care is socialized, do you think she should qualify for surgery and other treatments that will bring her internal concept of herself in line with how she looks? This question is not intended to bait or to trivialize transgender issues. I see it as analogous.
Assuming we could do so I think it would be a good idea provided it led to the best outcome. Transitioning happens because it's the best of imperfect options.
I don't think it's misogyny that forces FTMs to pretend to be women. I think it's sexism and heterosexism/heteronormality in general that cause that for both genders.
I wouldn't attempt to explain MTF transexuality and have little understanding of it. I know that there is a mistrust among some feminists of drag queen culture, how it caricatures women, and certainly doesn't seem to like women very much, and I myself wonder how close the relationship is between that culture and MTF transexualism. You may laugh at that, but I know in drag king culture, for some it is performance and genderplay, and for others it becomes a trial for transition.
And since you asked above, no, I'm not concerned about "butch flight" :) but I love that expression. I am concerned about a trend towards easier access and peer encouragement toward transitioning, especially, as I stated before, for young people. People in their teens and early twenties are very much into buying into trends, and I think, especially for FTMs, whose transition generally is easier - i.e., it is much easier to overcome the outward effects of estrogen than it is those of testosterone - that it might just seem a little too easy, like getting other body modifications.
My other feelings on it I will state briefly here as I can't get into them right now, but since you've been honest, I will be honest:
1) the feeling that the transgender person is rejecting (in many cases) a perfectly healthy, good body that their life has given them, and it seeming to me like it's a mistrust of life, and nature, and themselves, in a way. And along those lines, beyond agriculture, I dislike most human attempts to control nature. I think it's arrogant. I don't mean that to be hurtful, but I think you probably already have encountered opinions like that.
2) I don't support public health dollars towards surgical transition - along with many other things, I feel it is unfairly stretching an already burdened system. But some context: I am more and more leaning towards the two-tiered health care model, with basic health care being a right, and with an emphasis on direct care rather than medicalization.
And along those lines, beyond agriculture, I dislike most human attempts to control nature. I think it's arrogant. I don't mean that to be hurtful, but I think you probably already have encountered opinions like that.
This is not very well thought out. I'm already changing my mind as I read it. But it's something along those lines. I'll have to think about that one.
And along those lines, beyond agriculture, I dislike most human attempts to control nature. I think it's arrogant. I don't mean that to be hurtful, but I think you probably already have encountered opinions like that.
This is not very well thought out. I'm already changing my mind as I read it. But it's something along those lines. I'll have to think about that one.
Yes, my fiance said she couldn't think of a bigger 'fuck you' to nature than agriculture. Let me put it thusly jas: I'm listening to my body. The pressure to get ahold of all these gender cues isn't so I can be a 'better woman,' since, when I'm home, with my fiance, I feel very genuine, if upset with my body and its stubborn refusal to behave, but rather to keep employed and be recognized as the person I am instead of a target for violence.
RTTG, what you said in post #61 is my biggest challenge with respect to trans issues: trying to imagine what that feels like. And I can, I think, on an intellectual level, sometimes, kinda get it. Those of us who are cis, I don't think we can really understand what you're talking about. We can try, or we can imagine, maybe, what it's like. I appreciate the patience you've shown and your continued engagement with babblers on this topic.
I personally veer away from any arguments about nature, only because I'm a social constructionist sociologist, old school.
RTTG, what you said in post #61 is my biggest challenge with respect to trans issues: trying to imagine what that feels like. And I can, I think, on an intellectual level, sometimes, kinda get it. Those of us who are cis, I don't think we can really understand what you're talking about. We can try, or we can imagine, maybe, what it's like. I appreciate the patience you've shown and your continued engagement with babblers on this topic.
I personally veer away from any arguments about nature, only because I'm a social constructionist sociologist, old school.
It's understandable Maysie: I can't sympathize with men, cis or trans. I have no idea why anyone would want to be male, or why anyone would want to be attracted to anyone but women, cis or trans. That said, I can intellectually understand that there are deep-seated evolutionary reasons why that would be so, that their situation is analogous to mine, but it's utterly alien all the same. All I can do is respect them and understand that supporting them will cost us less in resources and gain us more in production and creativity and the richness of human expression, than trying to discourage them.
I don't think it's misogyny that forces FTMs to pretend to be women. I think it's sexism and heterosexism/heteronormality in general that cause that for both genders.
I don't personally think that all has to do with culture - at least by the time that it becomes an issue. There are physical differences between male and female brains. It's really hard to untangle what's genetic and what's a result of how culture affects growth in the brain but the differences are there in very young children. An interesting thing is that these differences correlate to psychological gender rather than just physical gender - girls who behave more like boys have brains more like boys and vice versa. It doesn't seem impossible then that some people might end up with a brain reflecting a different gender than the rest of their body and there's some evidence for it from studies of transsexuals. This is kind of a neat example - heterosexual men have their penis as part of the sensory map in their brain and it usually persists after the penis has been removed (it happens for cancer) resulting in feelings of a phantom penis. Transsexual women who have had this done do not report this nearly so often. Even more amazing is that many FTM transsexuals report having had this feeling of a phantom penis despite never having had one.
That said, different cultures do treat such people very differently. Some cultures like ours have offered no particular place or role for them while others - South Asian culture, for example, do offer such a role.
Since we can't as yet change the gender of the brain to match the body (and it's a whole issue in itself whether we'd want to do that!), doctors need to come at it from the other direction.
I wouldn't attempt to explain MTF transexuality and have little understanding of it. I know that there is a mistrust among some feminists of drag queen culture, how it caricatures women, and certainly doesn't seem to like women very much, and I myself wonder how close the relationship is between that culture and MTF transexualism.
There's been a bit of a controversy about that with the point of contention being whether or not transsexuals should be in drag contests. Is it still drag if you've transitioned into a woman? I don't really care either way myself but since there's both men who just impersonate women and men who are on their way to becoming women in the drag scene you can see how that can happen.
People in their teens and early twenties are very much into buying into trends, and I think, especially for FTMs, whose transition generally is easier - i.e., it is much easier to overcome the outward effects of estrogen than it is those of testosterone - that it might just seem a little too easy, like getting other body modifications.
I'm a bit concerned about that myself but I'm told that you have to do a good amount of therapy and spend a year or two living as your target gender before you get referred for surgery. Of course, one can always jet off to somewhere the medical authorities aren't as picky.
1) the feeling that the transgender person is rejecting (in many cases) a perfectly healthy, good body that their life has given them, and it seeming to me like it's a mistrust of life, and nature, and themselves, in a way. And along those lines, beyond agriculture, I dislike most human attempts to control nature. I think it's arrogant. I don't mean that to be hurtful, but I think you probably already have encountered opinions like that.
I'm sorry, but I've never had much patience for that sort of argument since I'd be dead if someone hadn't decided to interfere with nature and so would most people. Transgendered people - at least in our culture - who don't transition don't do very well. Suicide is common.
Speaking of things we could probably do without, there's a new TV show that's essentially Trans Eye for the Cis Girl.
VH1 and Left/Right Inc. have teamed up to create a new breed of fashion makeover show, Transform Me. Each half-hour episode follows the makeover of one woman badly in need of a transformation–on the outside and inside. The subjects quickly find out this won’t be your typical makeover. They’ll be transformed by three transgender women.
Not sure how helpful this really is.to either sort of woman.
Oh, Snap! It's a transphobic version of Queer Eye for the straight guy! Let's all affirm our normalcy by pointing out a new stereotype!
RTTG, I just wanted to say how glad I am to see a thread like this up and running. Everybody, even people in the LGBT community, is reluctant tio talk about trans issues, and as such, people can come off as though they are transphobic, when in actuality they are just a tad misinformed. And, realistically, who can blame us? I mean it looks like Miss Laverne Cox and friends might be the first faces most of us will place to trans individuals, if we ever learn about their existsence at all.
Even after people are able to create seperate categories in their minds for transgender, transvestite, and gay man in drag, it doesn't mean that we understand the experience any better. Your post at 61 was enlightening, it honstly provided me with the best insight into the trans experience I've ever had (which may be a little sad considering I know at least two people who are transitioning atm). Honestly though, it does get sticky when dealing with the APA and their giant-ass-book-of-ways-you-can-be-fucked-up. I think dealing with ANY issue that is still listed as a mental or 'personality' disorder is incredibly tricky, because you have people from all over the spectrum who say
1) I'm fine and it's not a disease, it's just how I am and people need to respect that.
2) I'm sick and in need of help.
Add in the possibility of people not really knowing their own bodies/minds (a common assumption in any facet of modern medicine), as well as the dynamics of gender politics and there's alot of rough terrain to navigate.
My point is, we need to hear from you and people like you RTTG, and we need to keep an open mind to your responses, even if we don't automatically understand them. Keeping that in mind, I have a question for you. Has science reached a point where they can do a vagina transplant for trans women? A bit odd, I know, but I seek to relieve some of my general ignorance on the subject of transititions, so please excuse the weirdness(?) of the question.
Also, I hear alot of refrences here and other places to cis-women, and while I can infer the meaning as such, I'd really appreciate an explanation of this terminology.
Rupert, wish I had time at the moment to give you a more thoughtful reply but I would say that most people who say #2 are saying so because they've been denied treatment and have reached a breaking point of stress, which, if you'd listen to most people who say #1, we would have far less of.
Also Cis is originally chemical terminology for same. Trans means changes from one to the other.
So in terms of nomenclature, cis would perhaps more easily be described as homogendered (having the same gender throughout society, internally and externally), and is just as respectful of each individuals right to construct their own gender identity as heterosexual is. It's a non-judgemental way of describing those who hold the gender identity of the dominant group.
I'd expand on this more, but I need to go to work.
