LadyEllen
Posts: 10931
Joined: 6/30/2006 From: Stourport-England Status: offline
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Kahri - I think you make a good point; however strong one's female identity, in many cases this is not allowed free rein until such a point in life that one has had to conform for a long time to the birth sex gender, and this has certain inevitable consequences on the psyche. In that way, no its not possible to be 100% or to experience 100% what its like to be a real woman - but then how many real women could describe what its like and agree 100% about it? The best any of us can be is ourselves, and we are all different after all. I remember a television programme on BBC back in the 70s when I was about ten (I think). It was the first of its kind, and followed a guy called George as he became Julia, (its was called "George to Julia"). The doctor had a bunch of medical students in the room and asked Julia about her identity, to which she replied "I feel like a woman". The doctor then asked the single female medical student in the room, "how does it feel to be a woman?" to which she replied "I dont know", which the doctor then used in order to humiliate Julia in front of all of them. That was the way he did things, (he was BTW an absolute shithead to her throughout!), and I cant help but think that a lot of the changes in the way people are handled since then have been a result of the terrible manner this doctor had. I also remember I got into a lot of trouble for reading my dad's newspaper about it all and coming out with the quite innocent comment, that I'd like to do that one day too! (I didnt understand at age ten that this was such an awful sin). One of the things I learnt as things changed for me, was that "women are people too" - not as a slogan, but as a reality. Regardless of how I felt, I was brought up with the same male conditioning that said that women were all the same, and in effect at least, less than men - who of course were real people. The basics of this conditioning are, that women dont have personalities, interests, abilities, intellect, friends or activities - except inasmuch as these relate to their role in raising children, looking after the housework and cooking for their family. That even as a child I just did these things (I am the eldest) without question and without other ambition even, probably says a lot about me! It was really only once I had crossed over that I discovered all these "empty people" (women) were people very alike in character to me and with whom I was comfortable. The only problem now being that things are tilting the other way, and men seem all alike instead! I suspect though that despite all the ranting that goes on in society and on here about this sort of thing, is just a function of men and women mainly keeping themselves to themselves and only mixing in the event of long term relationships and in the context of families. It does also add to a certain mystique about one another that I think is probably important to the whole mating game. I guess if we were able to identify TS people at birth and raise them in the appropriate gender then things might be better for all concerned - but then we have to remember that right now intersex people who were surgically altered at birth to make them fit one sex or the other, are up in arms over the way the medical community decided what was best for them. We also have to bear in mind the Dr Money experiment in raising one of two male twins as a girl following a surgical accident, and which ended so tragically. (and that wanker is still, apparently, claiming his work a success!). Overall, the way things are now with self presenting cases, even with the negative gender conditioning they have received, is probably the best, safest way. E
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