Transgender Q & A

[squeekenator]

I do have a question, and I apologize in advance if I offend you or anybody else, but:

If there were a medical procedure or a form of psychological therapy which made your mind feel in tune with your body without major surgery or long term hormone treatment, would you go through with it?

Ugh. Fuck no. I mean, logically speaking it'd be a good idea. Being male and happy with it would be just as good as being female and happy with it, and it'd be a lot more convenient - I wouldn't have to go through the whole transition thing, or deal with all the shitty social consequences. But sometimes logic just isn't enough, I absolutely hate the idea of being male and would refuse to do it anyway. Besides, from a philosophical point of view, I'd much rather change the body to suit the mind than change the mind to suit the body. If you take a magic pill that completely rewrites your mind, you aren't really you any more.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

you will find a chunk of the hardcore feminists absolutely hate people who are transgender so yeah you get alot of us avoiding the feminist comunity. when i say absolutely hate people like me i love being told "you rape females bodies by having that surgery".

That's some fucked up moon logic right there.

Not that I'm surprised, hardcore feminists have always seemed to me to be to be a bunch of bitter, hateful cunts.

 

[tarantula]

Wow, 12 pages now ._.;; I'm a little late...

This isn't exactly about transgender people, but I was wondering how you believed the rate of transsexuality would be affected if our culture were more gender-fluid and stopped enforcing the gender-binary. Do you think more or less people would become transsexual, or would the rate be substantially affected at all?

Secondly (and actually about transgender people this time), I've come across quite a few transgender and transsexual individuals who felt uncomfortable identifying with feminism because they didn't feel like they were being included by the community. So, how can one be a good trans* ally, and what can we cisgender people do to make our spaces more friendly and inclusive to transgender and transsexual people?

I'll totally understand if you don't have an answer for or just don't want to answer either one of these questions. Just in case, though, I thought I should ask .w. This thread is seriously an awesome idea~ I'm sorry about the trolls, though D:

Regarding the first question: 
While i can often be heard babbling about how all the axis of sex are not binary, they are on continuums, it is more accurate to say that they mostly have bimodal distributions. Imagine a bell curve with two peaks and a valley. (insert snarky remark about the sexual imaginings of gamer culture

So, the axes (axises?): 

P: Physical sex: Strongly bimodal, genetics usually works out and we are quite binary as a species, most are definitely concave or definitely convex.

G: Gender identity: As above, driven by genetics, but the two peaks are closer and shallower, and the failure rate is higher. That is, there seem to be more transgendered people than physically intersexed people.

B: Gender behavior: In modern western culture this is almost flat, non-modal, it has to be mapped as multivariant (think n-dimension scatter plots.) OTOH, in fundamentalist cultures, this is enforced to match physical sex.

D: Sexual desire: If the variant is "opposite sex" you get classic gaussian distribution. If the variants are "attracted to male" and "attracted to female" you get a lumpy bimodal. (I might be headed into the weeds, statisticians, help me out here

A: Gender as cultural artifact: some cultures, e.g. american natives, are trimodal, there's a little bump of third/inter sex in the middle. Most are quite bimodal.

All this leads up to the fact that the society you propose would only affect the shapes of B and A, (and possibly D, more bisexuals might come out of their internal closets.) I don't think it would have the slightest effect on P and G, so no change in the number of gender dysphoric 

(I think I missed something important but this is too long already)

The Womyn born womyn argument still persists in old-school separatist feminism, but should fade within a generation or so. More at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_Womyn's_Music_Festival#Women-born-women_policy 

 

[tarantula]

you will find a chunk of the hardcore feminists absolutely hate people who are transgender so yeah you get alot of us avoiding the feminist comunity. when i say absolutely hate people like me i love being told "you rape females bodies by having that surgery".

That's some fucked up moon logic right there.

Not that I'm surprised, hardcore feminists have always seemed to me to be to be a bunch of bitter, hateful cunts.

To be fairer you might want to restate that as a bunch of bitter, mortally wounded, survivors of rape, abuse, and sexism.

I think most of hardcore separatist feminism is just wrong, but they didn't just lick all that hate off the grass.* Lots of us have had nothing but misery from the hands of men, and it has made us very suspicious.

*Though every community has its share of the simply insane too.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

you will find a chunk of the hardcore feminists absolutely hate people who are transgender so yeah you get alot of us avoiding the feminist comunity. when i say absolutely hate people like me i love being told "you rape females bodies by having that surgery".

That's some fucked up moon logic right there.

Not that I'm surprised, hardcore feminists have always seemed to me to be to be a bunch of bitter, hateful cunts.

To be fairer you might want to restate that as a bunch of bitter, mortally wounded, survivors of rape, abuse, and sexism.

To be honest, I have zero interest in being fair to hardcore seperatist feminists.

I think most of hardcore separatist feminism is just wrong, but they didn't just lick all that hate off the grass.* Lots of us have had nothing but misery from the hands of men, and it has made us very suspicious.

I admit/accept that they've got every reason to feel they way they do but what I don't accept, and never will, is that they have any justification to act the way they do.

Of course, I'm white, hetero and male, so what do I know? Good thing I'm not middle class or I'd never have any free time from oppressing people I've never met.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

I can tell you this - no man or woman who calls these physical alterations "rape" has ever actually been raped. I've been raped before, more than once, and its insulting as a rape victim to be told that my experience is equal to somebody getting a fucking boob job. They diminish the value of the term to nothingness.

That reminds me of a few heated discussions I've had with hardcore feminists... they said 'rape', 'oppression' and 'patriarchy' so many times (and in so many varieties of context) the words temporarily lost all meaning.

I've been told by quite a few of these "feminazis", as some people would call them, that I'm a supporter of rapists. I've not only been a victim, but I've put my body on the line to physically intervene in rape.

I had a hardcore feminists 'explain' to me that all heterosexual sex was rape because women were rendered incapable of making informed consent due to socio-cultural imprinting and pressure. Of course ten minutes later I broke one of her fingers for trying to shove her hand into my girlfriend's pants, who definitely wasn't consenting... unless there's a culture out there where tugging on your boyfriend's arm and yelling "Get this crazy **** off me!" is a sign of consent.

If you see one of these people, punch them in the face for me, please.

I'd rather not. It's a quirk I have but I really don't like hitting people unless they've given me a reason to physically remonstrate them.

 

[Jayemsal]

Wow, 12 pages now ._.;; I'm a little late...

This isn't exactly about transgender people, but I was wondering how you believed the rate of transsexuality would be affected if our culture were more gender-fluid and stopped enforcing the gender-binary. Do you think more or less people would become transsexual, or would the rate be substantially affected at all?

Secondly (and actually about transgender people this time), I've come across quite a few transgender and transsexual individuals who felt uncomfortable identifying with feminism because they didn't feel like they were being included by the community. So, how can one be a good trans* ally, and what can we cisgender people do to make our spaces more friendly and inclusive to transgender and transsexual people?

I'll totally understand if you don't have an answer for or just don't want to answer either one of these questions. Just in case, though, I thought I should ask .w. This thread is seriously an awesome idea~ I'm sorry about the trolls, though D:

Your first question.

Things wouldnt change much, its not about being accepted as a masculine woman or feminine man, its about being accepted for your true gender.

Your second question, I'm actually in the process of writing an annotated bibliography on a number of peer reviewed articles on that subject, I'll send you a copy of it.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

I had a hardcore feminists 'explain' to me that all heterosexual sex was rape because women were rendered incapable of making informed consent due to socio-cultural imprinting and pressure. Of course ten minutes later I broke one of her fingers for trying to shove her hand into my girlfriend's pants, who definitely wasn't consenting... unless there's a culture out there where tugging on your boyfriend's arm and yelling "Get this crazy **** off me!" is a sign of consent.

Only one finger? For shame

What happened was it took me several attempts to get to stop trying to shove a hand down my girlfriend's pants and each try I got less concerned about trying not to injure her in the process... final attempt I just didn't give a shit at all, grabbed one of her fingers and wrenched it sideways until I felt something snap. It stopped her. After that my priority was calming my girlfriend down because it freaked her the fuck out... funny how someone trying to sexually assault you can have that effect on people.

I'd rather not. It's a quirk I have but I really don't like hitting people unless they've given me a reason to physically remonstrate them.

Verbal face-punch then? I'd say you could just call them a ****, but then they'd accuse you of raping them.

Honestly, I'd rather just have nothing to do with them at all... like I said to the neo-nazi who thought I was about to clean his clock, "You're already You and that's punishment enough for anyone."

 

[Maevine]

Thank you all very much for the responses~ they were very helpful .w.

Also, I've gotta say, I knew my community included a lot of very angry, misguided women, but I had no idea there were feminists out there saying things like *that*. That sort of behavior is simply dispicable, and those comments are far beyond disturbing. I'm sorry you've had to hear such awful things, especially from feminists. We're supposed to be here to help oppressed groups, not damn them.

@Jayemsal, that sounds awesome! I'd love to read it.

 

[Syndarr]

first of all the obligatory correction: You refer to you friend as 'he' but if she identifies as female, shouldnt you as a friend use female pronouns?

I'd actually given that some thought before I hit "Post", and I decided to use "he" because it was still early on in the process, before any real physical changes had started. Plus he'd never really made it clear which pronoun he preferred at that point. But you're right, I probably should have used "she". Sorry about that. X)

Thanks for your answer! I feel smarter now, and I'm glad you had a (mostly) positive experience with your transition.

 

[Queen Michael]

So go ahead and ask whatever questions you may have on the subject.

Huge thanks. Here's what I'm wondering:

If I understand things correctly, there are two mental genders: Men and women. To keep things clear I'll use the word "Salt" to refer to somebody who's mentally a man. And then we have those who are mentally female. I'll call them "Pepper." What I'm wondering is, what makes the Salts male and the Peppers female? If both biological guys and biological girls can be salts, then it seems to me that we've just got two different personality types that I call salts and peppers, and I don't understand why one of them is classified as female and the other one as male. Why assign genders to the two different personality types? And if there are two different mental genders, then how do you determine which one is which? Biologically you just have too look at what's inside their underwear (sorry for the crudeness), but then what's the factor you use to determine what mental gender you are? What's the mental trait that salts have and peppers lack? You might answer that a person's a woman if that person feels like a woman, but then I still wonder what it means to feel like a woman. What makes a feeling, or a personality, female?

So to sum up my question, what is the difference between the salts and the peppers, and how do you know that the salts are the male ones?

Maybe I seem really ignorant. That's cause I am. Otherwise I wouldn't need to ask.

Also: I'm sincerely sorry if these questions are rude or hurtful. I didn't know how else to phrase it, and if you're offended you have my permissionto call me a stupid poopyhead as much as you like. But it'd be great if you answered, because I have a transexual FtM pal who's getting surgery really soon, and I can't ask him this because it might be rude.

 

[Queen Michael]

Bump-a-bump, 'cause my question ain't answered yet.

 

[Jayemsal]

Bump-a-bump, 'cause my question ain't answered yet.

eek, sorry. 1 sec.

(also, my annotated bibliography is complete, on the subject of multiple articles relating to this subject, if you're interested, just message me for it.)

 

[Jayemsal]

So go ahead and ask whatever questions you may have on the subject.

Huge thanks. Here's what I'm wondering:

If I understand things correctly, there are two mental genders: Men and women. To keep things clear I'll use the word "Salt" to refer to somebody who's mentally a man. And then we have those who are mentally female. I'll call them "Pepper." What I'm wondering is, what makes the Salts male and the Peppers female? If both biological guys and biological girls can be salts, then it seems to me that we've just got two different personality types that I call salts and peppers, and I don't understand why one of them is classified as female and the other one as male. Why assign genders to the two different personality types? And if there are two different mental genders, then how do you determine which one is which? Biologically you just have too look at what's inside their underwear (sorry for the crudeness), but then what's the factor you use to determine what mental gender you are? What's the mental trait that salts have and peppers lack? You might answer that a person's a woman if that person feels like a woman, but then I still wonder what it means to feel like a woman. What makes a feeling, or a personality, female?

So to sum up my question, what is the difference between the salts and the peppers, and how do you know that the salts are the male ones?

Maybe I seem really ignorant. That's cause I am. Otherwise I wouldn't need to ask.

Also: I'm sincerely sorry if these questions are rude or hurtful. I didn't know how else to phrase it, and if you're offended you have my permissionto call me a stupid poopyhead as much as you like. But it'd be great if you answered, because I have a transexual FtM pal who's getting surgery really soon, and I can't ask him this because it might be rude.

Try not to use the phrase "personality types" thats a completely different area of psychology.

There are many different "mental genders" it isnt a binary male/female.
Its a matter of spectrum, if measurable at all.

Even moreso, the brains of transgender men and women have been shown to match (in certain areas) the typical brain chemistry and build of the gender/sex that they identify as.

 

[Jayemsal]

I'm resurrecting this thread.

It provided some great discussion and I feel like it could use a bit of attention.

Sorry for the self bump.

<3

 

[Scyimgeour]

Hi, another transperson here. Although I feel uncomfortable with saying this - since most people tend to tell me to fuck off and say that I'm wrong - I'm agender. Sexes aren't very black and white thing, by the way, but one could say that I was born as female. I'm not going to get any operations apart from a possible breast reduction, but that's for my killer backpain they're causing.

The "reason" that I am agender is because I feel nothing but apathy towards the concept of gender in an introspective manner and I do get dysphoria from being perceived as a certain gender? It's sort of hard to explain, but since there are little of my gender present, I thought it'd be a good idea to throw myself into this Q&A, to spread info about non-binary genders or something.

So yeah, feel free to ask me questions as well or something.