What is a re-post of an article originally posted as a note on Facebook. It is the first of what might be very few, or several, previously written pieces which I think might be ap
propriate to add to the archive here. If you are interested in more previously posted material, from either my Facebook page or my old blog, links will follow at the end of this post. I'm throwing this out tonight because I think this information can be foundational to understanding the context of anything I might post here in the future. Following this post, and going up later tonight, I will be adding a piece on my own personal situation, and then, if time permits (and if not, then tomorrow) another on the answers to some obvious FAQs that many of you will have, particularly my non-trans friends.
I hope that the three posts together will provide you with a base of information to consider as you process your own reaction to the phenomena of transsexualism, and your opinion of my own credibility as well as giving you context for whatever you might read in this space in the future.
I will not say this often enough in the future so I am saying it now: I am deeply touched that you take the time to visit and read here and you have my sincere gratitude. comments and questions are very welcome and I hope that if you like what you see, you will share it with others you think may be interested.
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I'd given some thought to doing a bit of a primer on transgenderism for those of you who might find yourself reading this from my Facebook contacts who through no fault of your own really don't know much about the subject, but I confess that it intimidates me to try to do justice to the subject. Nevertheless, I shall attempt to at least cover some broad foundational information here, in the hopes that open-minded people of good will can be better informed both for their own peace of mind (as many of my friends are Christians and quite naturally have a hard time reconciling that which they have always been taught to be sinful with the friend they think well of) and so that they might perhaps inform others they come in contact with.
Perhaps the first thing that the uninitiated come into confusion about is the wide variety of terms that are used by various people within the gender-divergent community. This is partly because there are different things going on, but also partly because even we can't come to a consensus on the language and so end up creating unnecessary confusion. My position is that simplicity is better. I'm going to give you the most prevalent terms and discuss them but in my opinion, there's more confusion here than there needs to be. The following comments represent what i believe to be the most simple and assessable descriptions for the cis-gender (not trans) person to wrap their heads around.
Transgender is usually considered the broad umbrella term that is inclusive of all the subdivisions. That is, itself,more a political usage in my opinion but that's the situation. In broad terms, it covers anything that is either cross-gender in nature, or crossing outside the usual binary gender roles. It is the most common term in the media and is used specifically to be as broadly inclusive of all sorts of gender non-conformity as possible. This, in my view, leads to some awkward situations but it is the overwhelmingly preeminent usage.
Transsexual is a major subgroup of transgender (and is thus often used interchangeably with that word) but is more specific in focus. Many activists and writers consider it an almost archaic word, and it is almost never used in the general media, but it is the only well understood word which makes a necessary distinction. A transsexual is one who feels that there is a disconnect between their mental, some might say spiritual, gender and their physical bodies. That is, the person's brain sex does not align with their genital sex. this should not be understood as a "mental condition." Science has established to a remarkable degree that the male and female brain are physically and functionally different. We know, as common knowledge, that some children are born with birth anomalies which affect their brain, and some are born with anomalies which result in intersex conditions (see below) so there is no logical stretch necessary to theorize that some will be born with anomalies which affect the sex-specific regions of the brain.
Commonly employed comparisons to "the man who thinks he's Napoleon" or "the woman who thinks she's a cat" are wildly inaccurate and illogical. Likewise, no credible medical professional still considers it to be a mental illness on a par with, for instance, OCD.
A male-to-female transsexual (also called a trans woman) should be interacted with, treated as, and regarded as a woman if they are in or post-transition. You should use female pronouns and their chosen name if you wish to be respectful of that persons feelings (I know of course that not everyone so wishes). Likewise, a female-to-male (trans man) should be considered, dealt with, and refereed to as "he" unless he tells you differently. It's simply the same sort of civility you show when you use "Mister" or "sir" or "ma'am." Speaking for myself, you can ruin my day if you call me "Mr" or "sir" (except on the phone or in some other situation where you cannot see me and haven't seen me).
Intersex - Any condition in which a person exhibits some physical characteristics associated with both males and females - for instance, a penis and ovaries in the same person, or an XX male/XY female (they do exist). Depending on how you define it, there is somewhere between 12 and over 30 such known conditions. A very solid case can be made that the transsexual is a subset of this grouping of intersex conditions - that is, that a female brain in an otherwise male body is analogous to having both a penis and ovaries (or vice versa). I believe that in a decade or so that will be the prevalent view among biologists.
Transvestite, or "cross dresser", is the term most people are more familiar with and the common stereotype of the uninformed. A Transvestite (an essentially archaic term) is one who gets an emotional satisfaction, sometimes but not always sexual gratification, from dressing as the opposite gender. It is much more akin to a person who, for instance, like to skydive for the adrenaline rush, or like bondage during sex, than it is to transsexualism. This does not mean they are "less trans" than the transsexual, indeed many transsexuals, in the process of figuring out "what's wrong with them" pass through a stage in which they consider themselves "just" crossdressers. They often precieve it as the lesser of evils. however, it is right and fair to make the distinction that a non-dysphoric man who likes to wear women's clothing, or do drag, on a part time basis does NOT have the same condition that a MTF transsexual has and does not face the same legal, medical, and social hurdles. I realize that some in the community are too sensitive to hurt feelings to address this head on - but it's disingenuous to pretend the distinction doesn't exist.
A cross dresser has no desire to change their physical gender and they are perfectly comfortable resuming their "usual" gender role as necessary to go about their daily life. A cross dresser does not need to find an employer that will let them cross dress - though some may indulge themselves to the extent that they would like it if they could. It is not a matter of "rights" that a cross dresser not be able to dress for work any more than it's a matter of rights that your lawyer can't appear in court in cut off denim shorts.
The biggest fallacy people make is confusing a transsexual and a crossdresser/drag queen. I do not change my appearance because I get a sexual rush or a thrill from it, and I do not feel at all comfortable when circumstances require a less than fully female presentation. In fact, the Standards of Care for transsexual treatment DEMAND a 24/7 presentation among other things.
Let me give you an example - I wrote a baseball blog, and because it started before I came out in real life, it carried a male "persona." This blog is read by and replied to by people who had never seen my real face, either before or after transition. They likely never would. By all reasonable logic, I need not ever go through the hassle of "outing myself" to the guys I interact with there. But I strongly desired to do so. This is an illustration of the difference in transsexual and cross-dresser. No clothing is involved, no appearance is involved, all that is involved is that these people know me for who I am. By contrast, for a cross-dresser, appearance is all.
There is also the category of androgyny. An Androgen is a person who feels they do not fit into either gender role well. These people usually do not desire any specific physical alterations (save perhaps hair removal) but simply do not wish to be defined as either male or female. I confess, I don't understand this feeling - even as my friends cannot understand mine. But I respect their right to self-determination.
Finally, there is that which is being refereed to as "genderqueer." I'll be perfectly frank with you - this is, in my opinion, an unnecessary term within of the transgender demographic. That about it which is real - the feeling of being at odds with the standard binary gender roles - is already covered by more specific terms. That which doesn't fit any of the above listed terms, particularly androgyny, seems to me to be more social protest than condition of being. It seems to me to be more akin to other forms of "deviant" (in the statistical sense) forms of social behavior. To me being "genderqueer" is little different than being "goth" and so I don't tend to recognize that claim as part of the transgender discussion. I know some of my brothers and sisters would be unhappy with me for that description but still, it over-complicates an already complex situation. That said, I fully defend their right to make that determination for themselves. I don't HAVE to comprehend for it to be legitimate, i simply think the simpler our explanation to the cis-gender population, the better we'll be understood.
One other word you need to know - "cisgender." This is a word coined to describe the non-transsexual population in an easy manner. "cis-" is the Latin prefix which is opposite to "trans-". It simply means those who are comfortable in the gender their bodies were born with.It's not a label as such, just a bit of "shorthand" used in trans related discussion to refer to "those who are not transgender."
Once thought of as highly rare - a flawed study in 1968 put the incidence at 1:30,000 for male-to-female (M2F) transsexuals and that rate three time more than for female-to-males (F2M) - the actual incidence of transsexualism is much more common than that. Credible estimates (which are obviously very difficult when so many repress their feelings) range from 1:500 to 1:2,500 for M2F transsexuals. For an anecdotal sample, there are not quite 6,000 males in my zip code, according to the Census Bureau. One might expect that there would then be 2-12 M2F transsexuals in that population (laying aside the local culture and migration patterns and so forth). I am aware of, besides myself, at least 4 others in this zip code. In conversations with others I think that the estimates here are credible. That is roughly the same incidence in the population as cerebral palsy. there is some disagreement over whether F2M is in fact more rare, or simply a function of fewer fully identifying themselves as transsexual because it is easier for a woman to be "manish" or "butch" in our culture than the reverse. One may speculate that many self-identified "butch lesbians" are actually trans, but have found a place of peace without the burden of a public transition. it is not my place to figure out other people's gender identity.
Let me return to the discussion of how transsexuality is not a "mental condition" in the sense of a person who thinks they are Napoleon or some other delusion. First, there's the surface evidence: the vast majority of transsexuals realize their gender incongruity before puberty. Often in preschool. It is almost impossible to imagine the other sorts of delusions one might compare us to tracing back to early childhood. Further, it is difficult to dismiss this condition as a result of environmental factors such as abuse, or porn, or other such factors when there has been no common pattern discovered which is significantly more prominent in transgender people than in cisgendered people.
So if it's not a mental delusion or a product of environmental factors, where does it come from? Obviously science is never conclusive on any subject, but there is a very solid and logical working hypothesis that has held up well to examination, both experimental and logical.
At the risk of repeating myself: We know that there are a number of "intersex" conditions (that which was once called hermaphrodite among them) in which the body is at odds with itself physically in terms of gender - that quite apart from the mental gender. At the end of this blog I'll give you a link where you can read more about these conditions if you like, and of course, Google is your friend. These various conditions are caused, we think, by the interplay of hormones in the mother's womb during pregnancy. there is a "normal" schedule of hormone interplay which if happens as it should produces a "normal" male or female. and just as many factors can go awry which produce many different sorts of birth defects, so things can and do go awry which produce intersex conditions where the child physical body's primary and secondary sexual characteristics are divergent from the "normal" gender binary.
This is not theoretical - these children ARE born - physical living proof that not everyone is born a complete physical male or a complete physical female. if you've ever heard, or made, the argument "God doesn't make mistakes" then you need to reconcile that belief with the fact that children ARE born with birth defects and sometimes those defects relate to their gender.
Now, given that this is undeniable FACT, the obvious question is this - if in fact children can be born with physical inconsistencies in their gender, and if in fact the human brain is a physical organ, and if in fact we know that children can be born with mental "issues" in their brain just as they can be born with physical "defects" (autism, for instance) then by what rational can we NOT arrive at the obvious conclusion that a person inevitably will be, on rare occasion, born with a physical incongruity between their "brain gender" and their "body gender"?
That is not to say that transsexualism is not, in some sense, a mental condition - but it is a mental condition just as autism is, or any other condition of the brain present from birth resulting from a physiological reality.
That being the case, it is as irrational to judge, scorn, or hate a transsexual as it is to judge a child with a cleft palate or spina bifida. While writing this, I erased several more paragraphs I'd written on that thought (concerning judging) because it was overkill. Those of you with the ability to think rationally already see that it is love, and not judgment, that is called for here. Those who do not already see this will not be convinced by more words from me here tonight.
If you wish to read more about these things - and there is a GREAT deal more than what I could practically include here, follow the following link:
Who We Are and Why
That article in turn links to other resources and if anyone has any questions or curiosities they still haven't found an answer to let me know and I'll get you some more resources. In fact, one day in the future I think I'll just do a link list of recommended reading.
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Here are the links I mentioned-
Facebook Notes Page: Tammy Rainey's Notes
Old blog: Betcha Didn't See This Coming
And, for a bonus, my baseball blog if it interests you: The Southpaw
If you are interested in my fiction writing, there are samples of it here: Open Diary - Bits and Pieces
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