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njlauren -> RE: The Transgender Thread (11/14/2011 11:33:04 AM)
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I thought I would throw my 2 cents worth in here, and with the caveat that I am not claiming to speak for all trans people or have any extra special authority, I don't other then being someone who fits that category.
I was very active in the bd/sm community when I was in full transition, was the member of several groups where they knew me only as Lauren (though knew I was m to f trans), and so forth, and I can say that whatever the nature of the group was, whether mostly gay men, gay women, or mixed, I found pretty much nothing but people who took me as I was and the person I hopefully am. Are their bigoted people in the leather community? Wouldn't surprise me, but I ran into almost zero of it (the only people who had problems had nothing to do with leather per se, it was mostly old guard lesbians still caught up in old identity politics from the 1970's, who resent trans people for being poseurs and such.....and they still exist, unfortunately). I have heard stories of some groups not very trans friendly, but from what I understand most of those groups also tend to be very narrow in how they view bd/sm, all caught up in the right way to do things and such, so a lot of bd/sm people aren't welcomed there because they don't fit 'the view' or whatever.
The term transgender itself is one of those terms where there are many meanings (kind of like the old joke among Jews that if you ask 10 Jews what something means, you'll get 20 answers:). There are some IME who use it as a a synonym for the traditional term transsexual ie someone who feels their body in some way, shape or form doesn't match their internal gender identity (I am keeping it vague, I am not saying "male born in a woman's body or woman born in a man's body" because people come in all kinds of packages....). One of the reason people seem to prefer this term is to keep the term "sex" out of it, even though transsexual has 'sex' in it referring to male or female, the feeling as far as I can tell is the perception is that non trans people see that and think this is some kind of fetish (and when you have people like Michael Bailey out there writing books that m to f trans people are either some sort of super fetishists or effeminate gay men who can't deal with being gay, and he supposedly an expert, well...). Plus in one sense transgender is probably more accurate in the sense that if you think about it, you cannot change your genetic sex. Gender, someone's gender identity, can be different then the genetic one (obviously), it is based in the brain and there are all kinds of theories about why this happens, I happen to fall into the group that thinks it may be related to prenatal hormone cycles that go awry...but claim no special knowledge. One thing that every study has come up with, it is not something that seems to be changeable. There was a famous case, known often as 'joan/john' where a young child (infant I believe) had his genitals mutilated (don't remember if in surgery or accident), and the parents were faced with a dilemna on what to do. A famous supposed expert on gender was brought in, and said that through therapy and conditioning the child could be brought up female and would through this process become a well adjusted woman as an adult. The parents decided to bring the child up as a girl, the child went through all kinds of therapy and so forth....and was miserable, never felt right, ended up transitioning to male as an adult and sadly later killed himself. This isn't something that can be 'cured', core gender identity is that strong IMO (yes, there are people who seem 'gender fluid', but I think that is their identity, to be fluid....
Others use transgender to indicate people whose gender expression falls outside what the 'normal' range is. This might include people who see themselves as hybrid of male and female, and either express it through the way they present themselves, it might include people who end up living as the opposite binary gender but don't want to change their genitals, are perfectly happy with that, there are crossdressers and fetishistic crossdressers and stone butch types,etc, etc, who have been claimed as being part of the 'transgender' spectrum, where transgender means gender variant in some ways or the other (again, this is my take).
That term is loaded, some (specifically M to F ) people who want to transition and live as the opposite gender hate the fact that the term is used broadly in this way, that they resent being lumped with crossdressers, fetishistic crossdressers and the like, in part because they believe it 'tarnishes' them in other people's eyes (kind of like gays and lesbians who have a jaundiced view of leather people because it makes them 'look weird' or whatever). This is kind of returned by some elements of the crossdressing community, who to try to gain acceptance, make this big deal that they are 'straight men' with a 'hobby' or whatever, there are crossdressing groups that are very, very hostile to m to f's who want to/are in transition (for multiple reasons, some because they internally equate transitioning people with being gay, and are homophobic, others because they are afraid the spouses might freak out assuming hubby will be tempted to 'go all the way', and so forth). I was once invited to a class a friend was teaching at a local college on gender and sex, and there was this person from a local crossdresser group, and the guy spent the entire time claiming how the members were otherwise 'normal' heterosexual men who had a 'hobby', my friend teaching the class couldn't believe it (meanwhile, when said members are out on their monthly 'girls night out', at the various transgender clubs and such, probaby 40% of them go into full slut mode or want to....). It is kind of sad, and for many M to F trans girls those groups may be the only thing in their area to help them come out of their shell.....
As other posters have said, gender is a very complicated thing, and very few people IME and from what I have read are totally binary male or female, people often have a mix of characteristics that are generally defined as 'male' or 'female'. Most people are mixes of traits, and while most firmly identify as male or female, they express it differently (and yes, there you get into the debate about 'learned' gender roles and 'inherent' ones.....my personal take is there are some things that come from hardwiring, that studies across very different cultures, specifically isolated native tribes in places all over the world, certain things seem common with the male or female gender roles that don't seem to be learned. Others will argue it is all learned, and I don't buy that personally, I think some of it is hardwired in the brain). Thus you can have a very butch woman, who id's fully as a woman (usually gay, but not always), or a very femme gay man who id's as a man. Even among more 'mainstream' people in terms of gender expression, you can have a very alpha type but otherwise very femme woman, or a pretty macho, athletic guy who in some ways is more nurturing and childbearing then his spouse, and so forth....There are also those who don't identify as male or female, who see themselves as something 'other', and some who depending the day seem to change how they view themselves....
Intersex people are different, they are people who are born with the physical characteristics of male and female, from full blown what used to be called 'hermaphrodites' to someone with dominatly one set of characteristics with a few of the other....). They pose a special challenge, because traditionally when faced with this doctors would ask the parents to choose which sex to bring the child up in, and operate. Problem is a baby cannot express their gender, and I have known more then a few intersex people who later because 'transsexual' because their parents chose to make them a boy, and they felt female, and vice/versa. These days there is a big push to let intersex kids figure out once they can express it what to do, and not do anything until then. Some intersex people actually may like being 'both' or whatever, and it should be up to them I feel. It doesn't help that many parents, when faced with ambiguous genitalia, will still to this day chose to raise the child as a male (often it depends on the makeup of the genitalia as well, if strongly f they prob would bring the child up as a girl, so there are other factors). These days from the limited contact I have had with some intersex people the trend seems to be allowing the child to find their own identity before doing anything, but I am sure the old mold still holds in many cases.
"Shemale" is a term that primarily comes out of the porn industry or with sex workers, it usually brings to mind these huge breasted, over the top 'girls' (some of whom quite honestly are stunning, I have seen pictures when not in slut makeup, etc, etc, and many of them are quite good looking), who often have pretty good sized male genitalia and in the films are depicted as always turned on sex addicts or the like. I don't know of too many people who id that way, I have seen some fetishistic types who want to be 'transformed into a she-male sex slave' and tg fiction is full of it,and while I don't doubt some may in fact id with that roles, in fantasy or maybe in real life, most don't. This even includes those IME who transition to live full time, but are perfectly happy with their genitals, some particularly who see themselves as hybrids. The people in the films do a lot to try and keep their male equipment functioning, when you take female hormones in HRT it totally changes things, and among other things ejaculation and erections go bye bye. Many of the people in the films don't do hormones, or take very low dose ones, and a lot of their look is plastic surgery from what I hear......
One thing with transgender people (here I am using the term to talk about those who decide to transition, and live full time as the opposite gender/sex) is that the traditional picture of the person who has absolutely from the time they were little knew they were in the wrong body, had this tremendous need to transition, from a young age demonstrated femme characteristics, etc, etc......and there are people like that, it was the traditional story (and in many cases, it was that, a story; gender programs not too many years ago had all these rigid rules, and if you didn't fit the picture, well, good bye...male to female and didn't like men? See ya later. Didn't play with dolls, absolutely hated your genitals,,etc, good bye..so many people learned to lie really well "Oh, men? I just adore men, i can't wait to get my sex change and date and marry some guy and have a family...). There are people who have all kinds of paths, people who didn't even know what they were struggling with, people who buried it, and it can come out in a variety of ways and at all stages of life, people have tremendous power to bury themselves. Personally, my hope is that peopel questioning their gender identity are able to so so young, but having been a late bloomer myself, I also know it doesn't always work out well (doing it young, you won't have the problem of being 40, applying for a job and having gaps or whatever...)...Sometimes, too, people who are transgender choose for a variety of reasons not to go all the way, and they are transgender, they just found a way to live with it without transition.
I found what other posters wrote about 'the transgender community' and my own feelings resonate with what some wrote, about their own discomfort with it and with issues in it. One of the problems that I saw were people trying to tell others what to do, how they should do it; there were those who thought if you were 'really' transgender, you should be out there at clubs at night dressed like a slut picking up whoever (nothing wrong with having fun, and if that is your boat, well...), others who if you weren't one of the people who had this burning need, 'you weren't real', all kinds of people proclaiming themselves true..and yes, there also were the professional victims, who no matter what blamed everything wrong in their lives with being trans, and it could get tiring. What happened with me and what I found with others is as we got further in the process, while we wanted to help others, we also wanted no part of the identity politics, and for use it became more about trying to live life and do what we enjoyed, and the bickering and such got to be a little bit too much. It isn't helped that the process of finding oneself in this area is a hard one, it can be very lonely, with all kinds of emotions flying around, and it makes things even more difficult. You also find your friends and find out who is there for you when you make decisions, whether it is not to transition or as in my case, having factors in my life that made me on the cusp of going full time pulling back; unfortunately, rather then understanding everyone's path was different, what I found were a lot of people quick to judge, to call myself a copout and a coward (something I am not, not by a long shot) without even trying to understand. Don't get me wrong, there is a tremendous amount of value in trans people being able to come together and share, but it also has some baggage, too.
As far as the burden of 'educating' people, I think that is usually an individual thing. For me, I recognized, especially with people who knew me a long time, that it was difficult adjusting and I cut people slack if they slipped with pronouns or whatever, as long as it wasn't deliberate (on the other hand, I belonged at one point to a very liberal church that attracted people from a full spectrum, and there were a couple of old guard dyke types who insisted on calling myself and other m to f's "he", doing so quite pointedly, and they got no sympathy from me (they ended up being forced to leave, pretty amazing thing, because they hated everyone else, too, didn't like the straight families in the church, the gay families with kids, the femme lesbian couples, you name it), that I wouldn't put up with. Most people actually were pretty cool in my travels, and when they asked questions it was usually pretty polite (though I am still trying to figure out why so many 'straight' men wanted to know if I still had my genitals and if 'they stll worked'..don't know if it reflected their own uncomfortableness with thoughts of someone deliberately messing with what they held dear, or if they were interested sexuallly....:), and I had no trouble with it, as long as it was civil. I had no tolerance for the religious types, trying to tell me I was going to hell but then again, I also had no tolerance for those (generally very,. very liberal) who saw me as a cause rather then a person.
For the poster who said they wouldn't be friends with a trans person, that 'they wouldn't get anything out it but grief', that in a friend they expected to get something back, I find that kind of sad. That isn't friendship, that is a using relationship, friends are people you like for who they are and what they make you feel like. That kind of friendship reminds me of a story someone told me. Her family owned a large, luxury car dealership and as part of that they also had a collection of classic cars. They once got an invite to a party at a well to do couple (whom they really hadn't known well, they knew peripherally through other people) and when my friend called to confirm, the woman got all excited "Oh, I am so glad you could come! Would you and your husband do me a favor? When you come to the party, could you drive the Rolls Royce I have seen at the dealership? It would be so cool to have it out front of the house". My friend realized why they were invited, and told the woman "next time, invite the car, we would rent it out for 500 bucks" and slammed the phone down. If you go through life choosing friends for what 'they bring to you' rather then because you like them and want to spend time with them, or worried about your image, you will find out that a)those people arent' friends and b)probably go along with it because they want something else from you. I found out who my friends were when I decided not to transition, to pull back, and the ones who were my friends, trans and not, said I was their friend, and they wouldn't be much of a friend if they couldn't support me in my life decisions or be there for me when things got rough. I supposed someone from a lower socioeconomic group, or another race, or someone fighting cancer couldn't be your friend either, since those bring baggage, too, in different ways.
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