Harry Benjamin Syndrome and the Trans Rights Movement
It looks like HBS advocates want to join transphobic radical feminists in accusing the so-called “transgender movement” of ruining things for everyone else.
It really helps to read some of the HBS writings to see where they’re coming from with regards to transsexualism and transgenderism. It also helps to read some quotations from actual online discussions. Yes, Drakyn does refer to some HBS advocates as bigots, but look at what they write about transgenderism in general, as well as those who continue to identify as transsexual:
Many of course will continue to see our condition as being transsexualism and many others, for whatever their reasons, will list transsexualism as a sub-set of transgender. Of course that is not correct and never was but for some they found comfort in not being linked to any term with ‘sex’ in it. Now they, those with true HBS, have no reason to make any claim but that they were born with the syndrome. We ask that a competent psychiatrist or therapist dealing with the condition to make a reasonable confirmation that the patient has Harry Benjamin Syndrome. It should not simply be a claim made by someone that they suffer from HBS as has often been done in the past with transsexualism. It should be a verifiable medical condition as is the proper procedure with almost all physical maladies.
Of course there will be some who will continue to use transsexualism and transgenderism to cover and mask what they really might be, sexual fetishists, sex merchants, exhibitionist, cross-dressers, delusional transvestites who ‘go the extra step’ and opt to have a ‘sex change’ so as to enhance their fetishism. They wish to mimic women but do not have the inborn need to be women physically reflective of the brain. Many call themselves lifelong pre-ops and even non-ops and never desire the affirmation surgery. To refer to them as having HBS is not only a misnomer but also an insult to those who actually have the syndrome and to those who have had corrective surgery that affirmed their body to their brains.
HBS advocacy is also tied up in some degree of heterosexism:
Harry Benjamin Syndrome is not in any way connected to sexual orientation nor should it be ever be compared to any deviance. It is a medical anomaly that often is compared to other conditions wrongly thereby causing great stress upon those with the syndrome being put into categories in which they do not and should not be placed. Those with HBS do not change gender and do not suffer from what had been commonly classified as transsexualism. Their brain gender at birth was not in need of correction even if that were possible. And, in reality, those born with HBS do not need to trans their sex since the brain sex was already set and only the genital sex needed correction so as to be affirmed with the brain.
Of course, this stuff is pretty tame as compared to a particular HBS-oriented blog. For example, the blog author sought to criticize a two-part article I wrote back in November:
Recently, while surfing the web I came across a blog in which the author posted a treatise entitled Sex, Lies, Transmisogyny, and the Heteronormativity of BDSM, pt 2. It was placed by the writer under her following blog categories: BDSM, MWMF, Oppression Olympics, anti-transgender feminism, feminism, horizontal oppression, lesbian, transmisogyny, transphobia, and transsexual.
Yeah…that’s what I thought too.
Having no interest whatsoever in reading what is clearly psuedointellectual rubbish, to put it kindly, I did find myself wondering what type of person would read something so contrived and meaningless. Skimming to the bottom of the page, I found to my surprise there were no less than 32 comments by readers who evidently did find the epic worth the effort. I also found out who might be interested.
The author dismisses the article on the basis of the title (based on the article I was fisking, “Sex, Lies, and Feminism” from the Questioning Transgender Politics website) and the tags and categories I used. A casual reading of “Enough Non-Sense” shows that many of the posts show little more thought than this – aimed as they are at attacking the “transgender movement,” delegitimizing it, and presenting it as a pack of pretenders, deviants, and perverts. Read the comments in the above quoted post, where several HBS advocates blame the LGBT movement for society viewing trans women as invalid women:
You are absolutely right when you say that men often leave HBS (Harry Benjamin Syndrome) women “because heterosexual society teaches him that transsexual women aren’t real women, and that being one makes him somehow gay.” I really don’t think anyone would argue that point.
However, though it’s not because the very vast majority of transgender activist use big words, it is because of what they say and their political position. And, I think many people would argue that.
It is all but impossible to find a transgender activist blog or web site that does not make it perfectly clear they fully support the GLB and the associated T. And THE issue is that association of the GLB with the T. It is that association that teaches, to use your term, the heterosexual mainstream.
Of course, looking at the quote in Drakyn’s blog post about “HBS bigots,” you can see an HBS advocate basically laying the blame for any discrimination or bigotry that trans people face at those trans people’s feet – it’s not because society really views trans people as invalid in our proper gender, it’s because we bring it upon ourselves. Transphobia and transmisogyny apparently didn’t exist prior to adding the T to LGBT.
But read the posts on “Enough Non-Sense” and see what HBS advocates bring to the table, and then read Cathryn’s lament on why there’s so much friction between HBS advocates and those of us who do not identify as HBS. For my part, I have little sympathy for HBS advocates because their definitions are restrictive and often bigoted. I have seen HBS advocates describe trans women who have not had surgery as “penis people,” and similar dehumanizing terms. They play gender gatekeepers, trying to establish a “trans hierarchy,” with them at the top as the only legitimate “women.” They insist that any true trans person (defined as HBS) will be able to pay for every aspect of transition – hormones, psychiatrist, surgery, electrolysis, etc – without any serious trouble, and those who cannot are simply not genuine.
Do I hate them? No, but I view them as categorically wrong and selfish. Uninformed and strangely unaware of the realities of living as a trans person, especially a trans person of color, or with low income, or with health issues that make surgery risky. Their viewpoint is black and white: You’re either exactly like them, or you’re a cross-dressing pervert.
And, of course, they’ve provided Heart with inspiration to yet again blog about how horrible trans people are. As is usual, Heart is quick to agree with anyone who is willing to say horrible things about trans people.*
Heart makes it clear she doesn’t even understand the debate she’s trying to comment on:
Evidently the objections of post-op transwomen are resulting in the kinds of no-holds-barred attacks from non-op transpersons (who never intend to “op” nor even live as women most of the time) with which some of us are all too familiar. I mean, what’s wrong with you.
Ignoring the fact that I absolutely loathe “non-op.” “post-op” and “pre-op” because of what they mean (“This is what my crotch looks like”), Heart simply assumes that Cathryn’s characterization is correct – that all trans people who disagree with HBS advocacy are automatically men who wear dresses and nothing more – no hormones, no surgery, and apparently no men who were born female-bodied. This is remarkably convenient for her to believe, since it lets her rush into bathroom panic scenarios, and discussion about how trans women are not and can never really be women like cis women are:
Being a woman is about being mistreated by patriarchy because of our female bodies. That mistreatment — in whatever its form — is what female persons know and share as women. It’s what those who have not lived as female persons and women do not know and so they dismiss what we, as women, say about our lives, our realities, our fears, what we need. Sometimes they don’t just dismiss, they steamroll over us, and so far, there has been little we could do about that.
This paragraph is ironic because Heart talks about trans women dismissing and sometimes steamrollering over her. This is the same cis woman who implied another blogger was guilty of plagiarism because said blogger used goddess imagery and is a trans woman, and who would not allow this blogger to respond on womensspace. She also aggressively moderates her blog to keep dissenting viewpoints to a minimum, and has been known to aggressively edit some of those dissenting viewpoints.
In my opinion, Heart presumes too much. She believes that it is impossible for trans women to understand womanhood, but is also more than willing to describe every aspect of a trans woman’s experience – this is a contradiction, but one inherent to privilege. It’s normal for people with white privilege to tell people of color what their lives are like, for able-bodied people to tell people with disabilities what their lives are like, for heterosexual people to tell gay men and lesbian women what their lives are like, and for cissexual people to tell transsexual people what their lives are like.
But this is a contradiction, a paradox. If a cis woman’s life is completely opaque to me as a trans woman, then I fail to see how a cis woman could possibly understand my life. If Heart wants to make sense, she should either stop describing what she thinks trans lives are like (considering that she’s so tied up in her prejudices, she’s pretty much always wrong), or she should accept that trans women experience more of womanhood than many radical feminists are willing to admit.
I’m not really addressing Heart’s basic argument – most of my early posts already address the foundations of radical transphobia and she literally has nothing new to add on this front, and hasn’t for the six years I’ve seen her online.
The beautiful and talented Queen Emily adds this in comments, which I wish I’d thought to say:
Yeah. The patently obvious problem is this:
HBS people advocate rights for only one kind of trans* person – a post-operative trans person. They not only sneer and disrespect any other version of transgender, but actively campaign against other trans* people having rights before surgery. The comments on Transadvocate, where the HBS Leigh said she’d fire pre-operative transgendered people, report them to the police, and so on are indicative of this.
This HBS woman suggests that a transgendered world would end in paedophilia and constant rape, in the lurid terms fundamentalist Christians use to describe gays and lesbians:
http://ts-si.org/content/view/2872/995/
“Shut the hell up and don’t trouble the gender binary” is the very clear message from HBS. How exactly this fits with Heart’s brand of womyn-identified-womyn radical feminism I do not know. HBS is not progressive, indeed at worst it’s actively opposed to some pretty basic tenets of feminism. As you point out, it’s hugely homophobic.
In contrast, the transgendered organisation I work for supports rights trans* people NO MATTER their surgical status, and we have a very clear feminist ethos. But I guess, the enemy of my enemy is my friend for Heart..
* Heart should be aware that HBS advocates are fond of homophobic posturing, and Bailey has written on eugenics, and wrote a paper on why it’s morally okay to abort homosexual fetuses identified in the womb. Just being transphobic (internalized or externalized) probably shouldn’t be the best reason to rush to their side and join in on the trannie condemnation, you know?
>>You are absolutely right when you say that men often leave HBS (Harry Benjamin Syndrome) women “because heterosexual society teaches him that transsexual women aren’t real women, and that being one makes him somehow gay.” I really don’t think anyone would argue that point.>>
oh, they can fuck right off. Right the way off. Right; and it’s axiomatic that ZOMG Teh Gay Git It Off Me is a natural response, right?
and of course Heart’s engaging these people; they’re her own personal animate scarecrow army.
belledame2222
29 Jan 08 at 9:19 pm
and it’s incredibly fucking gross of her to latch onto this shit as proof of whatever spavined point she has; would she see it if it were, o I don’t know, MRA’s using Phyllis Schlafly to bolster their points about “the feminist agenda?” no, wait, don’t tell me: that’s TOTALLY DIFFERENT.
belledame2222
29 Jan 08 at 9:23 pm
I like how she goes on to say that the trans movement would have ruined her otherwise happy relationship if it existed then.
Heart engages anyone who says horrible things about trans people, and she apparently doesn’t give a damn as to how vile or disagreeable they may be about anything else. Hating the trannies is enough for her love.
Lisa Harney
29 Jan 08 at 9:23 pm
Yeah. The patently obvious problem is this:
HBS people advocate rights for only one kind of trans* person – a post-operative trans person. They not only sneer and disrespect any other version of transgender, but actively campaign against other trans* people having rights before surgery. The comments on Transadvocate, where the HBS Leigh said she’d fire pre-operative transgendered people, report them to the police, and so on are indicative of this.
This HBS woman suggests that a transgendered world would end in paedophilia and constant rape, in the lurid terms fundamentalist Christians use to describe gays and lesbians:
http://ts-si.org/content/view/2872/995/
“Shut the hell up and don’t trouble the gender binary” is the very clear message from HBS. How exactly this fits with Heart’s brand of womyn-identified-womyn radical feminism I do not know. HBS is not progressive, indeed at worst it’s actively opposed to some pretty basic tenets of feminism. As you point out, it’s hugely homophobic.
In contrast, the transgendered organisation I work for supports rights trans* people NO MATTER their surgical status, and we have a very clear feminist ethos. But I guess, the enemy of my enemy is my friend for Heart..
queen emily
29 Jan 08 at 9:29 pm
That’s true – and you know, if any trans people latched onto some vitriolic right wing feminazi bashing just because it was anti-feminist, she’d flip out and froth at the mouth, further proving to her how horrible trans people are.
Because it’s totally different.
But then again, I have to consider the source. I mean, this is the same cis woman who wandered into a thread about white privilege and made it all into a direct and personal attack on her, then flounced off forever a few times in a row:
http://feminazi.wordpress.com/2008/01/10/white-privilege/
Em, yeah, that’s pretty vile stuff. Thank you for that post – it’s stuff I should’ve thought to say.
Lisa Harney
29 Jan 08 at 9:34 pm
I wonder how they purport to do that.
HBS was discussed over on free_speech_ftm/livejournal here:
http://community.livejournal.com/free_speech_ftm/68402.html
jayinchicago
29 Jan 08 at 10:47 pm
can someone explain to me how to quote on wordpress?
jayinchicago
29 Jan 08 at 10:48 pm
You tag the quoted part with blockquote and /blockquote.
Would you like me to edit your post so it’s properly a quote?
Also, I couldn’t find any way to determine how to medically diagnose HBS without the patient’s input. It’s sort of like saying that we can’t diagnose headaches on the basis of someone saying she has a headache.
Lisa Harney
29 Jan 08 at 10:51 pm
Feel free to quote me Lisa if you wanna tweak the post.
A description like “the always amazing Queen Emily” will not be looked upon unfavourably ;)
queen emily
29 Jan 08 at 11:02 pm
That TS-SI post is some weird stuff.
On the other hand, you seem to be wrong, according to one of the nonsense blog owners. Susan insists that:
That’s from a comment on my blog. On the other hand, she’s quick to attack people with “you are not a woman, just an effeminate gay male who crossdresses to attract males”. Not an exact quote, but she does that a lot and so does Leigh, the other poster on the blog. They seem to use “she-male” a bit liberally too, to put it mildly. But maybe they don’t undersand that the way they use those descriptions are offensive to people? ::shrug::
Also, this is a post on the nonsense blog about their view on everything and everyone:
http://enoughnonsense.wordpress.com/2007/12/10/the-castand-our-position/
It actually does sound pretty tame. The truth is that, both Susan and Leigh have recently started trying to distance themselves both from harry-benjamin-syndrome.org and from the general HBS agenda, I think because they freaked out with the backlash their bullshit caused. Their older posts are certainly much more offensive than their recent ones. That one about your own post is typical.
All that said, there’s something I still wonder about: who the hell was Harry Benjamin? Come to that, who was that Virginia Prince person with the umbrellas, and what do they have to do with my life- and that of anyone except the 150 transsexuals who ientify as HBS and gather under its banner. And it’s not really that much of a rhetorical question. There are transsexuals in other parts of the world, you know.
Stassa
30 Jan 08 at 4:13 am
Yes, please fix my quote. Thanks!
I think that if it’s eventually determined that their are biological influences in transsexuality–I won’t be exactly shocked. But HBS is cart-before-horse to the extreme.
jayinchicago
30 Jan 08 at 10:55 am
Yeah Jay, I like the idea of this brain-sex/neural-map theory (minus the adherence to gender/sex roles some folk link to it), but it is no where close to being proven and the few studies done are not conclusive.
And, oddly enough, after writing that post, I read some HBS women who are adamantly opposed to the bigoted views so often intertwined with HBS information. (Like Laura from Laura’s Playground.
Harry Benjamin was the one to coin “transsexual” and was the first in the US to treat trans*folk with hormones and recommend surgery (Magnus Hirschfeld, in pre-Nazi Germany, also treated trans*folk with hormones and certain kinds of surgeries, but his work was lost when the Nazis destroyed his Institute and his work with trans*folk is mostly forgotten by history).
I don’t know much about Virginia Prince, but this seems well-researched.
And Leigh told me I was jeopardizing her legal right to marry. I am still unclear as to how I am doing this (HBS folks categorized under transgender umbrella + ??? = disaster).
drakyn
30 Jan 08 at 11:44 am
You are absolutely right when you say that men often leave HBS (Harry Benjamin Syndrome) women “because heterosexual society teaches him that transsexual women aren’t real women, and that being one makes him somehow gay.” I really don’t think anyone would argue that point.
However, though it’s not because the very vast majority of transgender activist use big words, it is because of what they say and their political position. And, I think many people would argue that.
I may be misparsing this, because reading it too closely makes me feel sick, but it seems to be saying “If we only throw all of those weird ones under the bus, we’ll get mainstream acceptance for sure.”
Nick Kiddle
30 Jan 08 at 12:37 pm
Stassa, the pervert vibe came largely from the piece that Emily linked, which I had read before, but forgot. Also, the stream of pejoratives about “men in dresses,” “deviants,” etc who supposedly fill up the “transgender movement.” In English, when you’re saying deviant, it usually parses right back as pervert.
And the only reason I even posted about this was the big splash on Pam’s House Blend featuring Cathryn not understanding “Why HBS advocates get such a bad rap from other trans people,” or at least implying that they never ever say or do anything to make anyone angry at them before the anger starts up. And that Heart/Womensspace decided it was necessary to cheer that on.
Lisa Harney
30 Jan 08 at 3:41 pm
Hey sport. Sure I know who H.B. was. My point is that I first heard about him when I started looking about trans stuff on the internet. I found the standards of care and they seemed completely loopy and entirely irrelevant to my life and the life of the transwomen I knew. The thing is, if you want to start transitioning in Greece as in many other countries (Thailandia for example), there is nothing stopping you, because there is no medical experts (yet) to get in the way. You can get your hormones from the pharmacy without a prescription and you do your “real life test” willing or not, ’cause, once you start transitioning, it’s hard to fit into a male role ever again afterwards. Surgery may be a bit more complicated, but that’s only ’cause you have to go abroad and so need to produce a certificate from a psych.
But, really, the concept that you have to prove anything to anyone, with respect to being a transsexual, is the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard in any of my lives – and I did use to be Cleopatra, you know. :P Having to prove yourself as a woman, yeah, maybe, but- a tranny? ‘S crazy. Though it has been thrown to me, that I’m just a perv for not finding girls icky. Eh.
Actually, I always get the impression that the root of all the distinctions between ts and tg is care- who’ll get it, how easily and at what price. Also, it was folks like HB and Vincent Price, who started all the classification and stratification. I mean, really. They so look like D&D character classes. Like, “I’m Tanya, a stunning lvl 2 Transgendered/ lvl 3 Transvestite with Breast Implants +1, and a Wig of Passing.”
As I said before, the rest of the world besides America uses “transsexual” as a catch-all term and they include non- and post- ops just fine in it. From the few places I know of, they have a more or less impolite term, such as travesti or kathoey and then there’s transsexual that you can say in polite company, but that’s it.
And HB or no HB, the fact that transsexuals are born that way, is like, common sense (ugh. Soap!). I’m not kidding. I’ve never had to make that point, nor did I ever have it contested, except by my parents who were keen to prove there must be something wrong with my brain. I mean, something besides HBS. But except them, everybody takes it for granted I was born that way and they don’t need to hear technical details about my brain.
Like I said, it’s a whole big world out there and the HBS fruity loops are only a fringe group in America and that’s it.
Stassa
30 Jan 08 at 3:52 pm
Lisa; hey, I know, I understand the context of “deviant” and the rest. My English is not that bad… :( Actualy “transvestite” sounds a lot like “travesti”, which, as I said is not a polite word to say (although there’s worse than it) And I also understand very well the difference between calling yourself one thing and having someone else use it on you.
Susan and her friends gave me the “she-male” treatment and I was livid, though I did use it to describe myself in the past (because it got up the nose of the true trannies™ so easily.) It’s like “nigger”, “faggot” and “Paki”, ja?
Yes, I understand exactly what the terminology used by the HBS sites is doing, it’s insidious and I’m sure they smile little smug self-satisfied smiles when they write that shit, like “we never call them anything bad- why, they call themselves crossdressers, don’t they? We just tell it as it is”. And stuff like that. They even say that “LGBT people should have “some” rights”. Like, that’s proof they’re treating people fair, right? Yeah, well bullshit. But of course, when you tell them that they start arguing terminology and semantics, again in a completely twisted way- and you get nowhere.
Stassa
30 Jan 08 at 4:09 pm
Cathryn trolls again in support of Lisa Vogel and Barney Frank.
I’m surprised she didn’t actually trot out the story of the alleged trans women exposing penises in the MWMF shower.
Also, Nick Kiddle: As far as I can tell, that’s exactly what it means.
Stassa, not that I’m disagreeing with you, but didn’t you once scold me for using “transsexual” that way?
Anyway, as for international applicability, I can’t guarantee every post will apply outside the US or outside the blogosphere – although I would love to have more posts that do apply outside the US and the blogosphere. I don’t think the HBS people are all that big a deal, and would rather not post about them at all.
Lisa Harney
30 Jan 08 at 4:12 pm
Oops, sorry, I wasn’t trying to imply your English was bad. I didn’t read your initial sarcasm properly, though.
And you are totally right about she-male – did you see Megan Julca’s run-in with the HBS people (Susan and a few others) on one of the Susan Stanton threads? They started tearing her down because her blog’s sub-title is “That Fucking She-Male” apparently without bothering to find out where it came from or why Megan uses it.
Fun times.
Also, I thought in France (at least) that “travesti” was their word for ‘transvestite.” At least, that’s the word Eddie Izzard uses when he’s delivering a routine in French and talking about cross-dressing.
Lisa Harney
30 Jan 08 at 4:16 pm
Stassa, can you get Testosterone from the pharmacy?! Because, damn it, it’s a controlled substance here and I can’t find a single website anywhere that’ll let me get it without a prescription. If Greek trans*guys can get it I envy them.
Hehehe, I’m getting into D&D and other role-playing games after being interested in them my whole life…
I have a haircut of passing and a naturally flat chest +3. ^.~
Here, I think it may have something to do with the Puritan origins of the colonies, but everything from being queer to depressed to trans* is seen as a choice and You Could Fix Yourself If You Only Tried (and believed in Jesus enough); so we feel the need to find ways of proving that we don’t have a choice and that it is natural
andpleasejustletmebe.drakyn
30 Jan 08 at 4:17 pm
Drakyn, that “you could fix yourself if only you tried and believed in Jesus enough” attitude is strongly aimed at people with disabilities too. How many of the prejudices parallel for trans and disability parallel surprised me.
That reminds me that I have to follow through on that tag that Shiva gave me.
Lisa Harney
30 Jan 08 at 4:27 pm
OK, to cut them some slack, the truth is that TS-SI, bloody-stupid-nonsense.com and Hairy-Benjamin.org are different sides.
Susan and Leigh, who run the of-stellar-proportions-nonsense.com site, are taking a stance against the other two, maybe only slightly so, but it’s visible enough and I’m sure they’re taking flack from their friends for it. Here, check out this convo:
http://transadvocate.com/nexy/2008/01/24/the-trans-wars/#comments
Where Susan says:
And here:
And Leigh has ventured further afield into the real world, in this post at transadvocate:
http://transadvocate.com/transphobia/with-apologies-to-radical-feminists.htm#comments
And then she goes on to explain what she doesn’t agree with HBS on (and what she doesn’t.)
I’m saying all this because, though I’d like to go pogo on those two particular goons heads with lead boots and then shove my arm down their throats and pull out their spines, they’re actually trying to engage people in what is their very limited concept of a reasonable dialogue and that’s a Good Thing™ for all sides. Some other transwomen who identify as HBS may think “hey, so there’s others who feel uncomfortable with the party line” and then decide to put some space between themselves and TS-SI and Hairy-Benjamin.org and the yahoo groups that Laura links to. Which is a Better Thing™ because those places hurt transsexals in a very evil and disgusting way. They’re Stupid and Evil…!
Again, Susan and Leigh need kicking, hard, but they do have the balls to stand out from their crowd. Probably they find the courage due to the attention their site gets and all, but it’s still a good thing, ™ and ©. They show that you can stand behind HBS without sucking up to the bullies (I haven’t noticed Susan and Leigh bullying, just offending.)
Yeah, and, to answer your obvious question, they just made me mad. Beyond telling. Hey, I got triggers too y’know?
Stassa
30 Jan 08 at 4:36 pm
I don’t know about Leigh, but Susan wasn’t singing this tune on queerty when she was calling Megan a gay male and toting the “transsexuals were perfectly fine until those queers and transgenders got together and ruined it” line (in one sentence on post #66, even!).
drakyn
30 Jan 08 at 4:53 pm
This is from a few weeks ago, but Susan does seem to support HBS, or at least conflates transsexualism with HBS-style politics.
She also conflates my dislike of HBS advocacy with a lack of surgery. I’ve run up against that before – my disagreement with future HBS advocates (HBS wasn’t around then) that womanhood solely and entirely comes with a vagina (I don’t think so) obviously meant that I never had surgery and never planned to have surgery. They just couldn’t imagine a trans woman who’d had (or at least planned for) surgery disagreeing with their “self-evident truths.”
Lisa Harney
30 Jan 08 at 5:06 pm
It would be kind of nice of Susan to say that if she actually meant it – on the other hand, she has kind of posted a number of positive comments at Ts-Si, and she referenced a few guest opeds there on her blog in the recent past.
So it has to be a recent change of heart.
Danae L. M.
30 Jan 08 at 5:31 pm
Huh. See why I hate those people. I try to give them credit and they manage to make me look like an idiot…
No, you’re right Drakyn and I know about that queerty exchange, I read it all and Megan kicked Susan’s and Leigh’s ass (at least I think it was Leigh; she signed as “Leah”, but I figured she’s the same person, because she was using “mainstream” as a first name, like Leigh does… )
The thing is, they’re trying to strike a balance between offending people and engaging them in conversation. In doing so, they keep contradicting themselves. In that post from nexy’s blog above, you can see Susan claiming, first that she never said she is a woman with no qualifiers and then that, yeah, she did absolutely say that she is a woman with qualifiers. The problem is their English is horrible and they don’t understand what they or the others are saying, most of the time. Except when they call you a perv. That they get fine.
Lisa, they do that damn thing all the bloody time. You speak against them and you must be against srs. Then of course people laugh at them and keep their private lives private from the idiots and the idiots go “ha, I knew it” and it’s just a big joke. And if you tell them you’ve had srs, they turn around and tell you it doesn’t prove anything, because you don’t call yourself HBS, which is, like, the true criterion of a true transsexual. . Yeah, ™. Or, because you didn’t have it ten years ago, or your surgeon was crap. It’s crazy- you can’t argue.
Stassa
30 Jan 08 at 5:48 pm
Or you bring up that many of their little theories and statements don’t work for trans*guys (like penis=men’s room and vagina=women’s room) and either they don’t care/ignore you or suddenly they’re contradicting themselves.
drakyn
30 Jan 08 at 5:55 pm
Stassa, yeah, all true. They just shift the goalposts so the standards for excluding you continue to exclude you.
And I have a longish complaint about the obsession with trans genitals, and the belief that anyone has the right to interrogate us about what they look like. After all, I hear cis people tell each other about their genitals in great detail.
Lisa Harney
30 Jan 08 at 6:02 pm
Hah. My hyperactive Data Analysis Gland has detected another logical fallacy, nested deep inside the HBS party line!
The statement:
(The transgendered claim to be women with penises
AND
The transgendered deny us womanhood when they say our vaginas are only inverted penises)
throws out the following exception:
++++ OUT OF CHEESE ERROR! PLEASE FEED THE GERBIL++++
It doesn’t even return false, it doesn’t just not compute, if you try to feed it through any sensible logical circuit, it will get up off its board, take off its flip-flops and slap you around like a bitch with them until you shriek for help.
It makes NO. SENSE! whatsoever. That anyone could claim to be a woman with a penis and deny you womanhood on the basis of you also having one- It’s crap.
And for the record, the stuff about “mutilated crotches”, I’ve only heard them from HBS types, at this point. I’ve never heard anyone saying that- though I bet someone, somewhere is such an insensitive idiot.
Basically, my conclusion is the HBSes don’t know who those “transgendered” are that threaten them. They just throw a message of hate for them in a bottle on the net and when someone reads it and comes to investigate, they figure “ah, so that’s a transgendered” and they start attacking them.
They’re just bloody clueless.
Stassa
30 Jan 08 at 6:16 pm
I’ve seen certain radical feminists talk about mutilated crotches, but these cis women also compare transition to killing a cis woman and wearing her skin, so you have to consider the source.
And your conclusion is probably correct.
Lisa Harney
30 Jan 08 at 6:20 pm
Hah. Yeah. Cis people even set up special pages where they discuss that kind of stuff. Sure, all the time. Like, here:
Drakyn. Trans guys?
Huh? Wassat? More transgendered? I KNEW IT!!
P.S. Am I commenting too much? <_<#
Stassa
30 Jan 08 at 6:21 pm
*turns into a bisexual unicorn and poofs out of existence*
drakyn
30 Jan 08 at 6:26 pm
No, not commenting too much at all.
Lisa Harney
30 Jan 08 at 6:32 pm
oK ^_^*
Stassa
30 Jan 08 at 6:46 pm
the fundamental belief here, sadly, would seem to boil down to
“There’s not enough to go around/it’s no good if I have to share & can’t be SPECIAL”
belledame2222
30 Jan 08 at 8:52 pm
On Transadvocate I’ve taken what appears to be a narrow window of opportunity opened up by Leigh’s HBS apostasy to take a step toward honest examination of actual experience, and past the reflexive prejudice that armors the fundamentalist worldview.
I’m not sure I hold any real hope for the outcome, and I don’t really see this as a conflict to be “won” – another fundamentalist trope – but it is at least helping to perceive the envelope of their perspective and premises… an envelope which, I think, is broader than they themselves want to believe as emotionally committed as they are to simpler certainties.
Oh, and… good to see you back in form, Lisa :-)
gorgonqueen
31 Jan 08 at 5:53 am
Val- the question is, what are you trying to achieve? Are you trying to make them change their views to yours, or just respect yours?
‘Cause I don’t think you have a chance or a right to change their views, but you can manage the second one fine.
Anyway, in view of recent findings, like, I don’t blame Susan or Leigh that much anymore. Even in view of Susan’s underpants tactics. I think the simple truth is we’ve all been trolled to hell. And that’s from, like, a self-confessed troll, right? Look here:
http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/Jennifer_Usher_%28Usenet_Troll%29
Yeah, that’s Dipshit down there, aka Diane “Hairy Benjamin” Kearny, aka Diane Lask, aka Diane Arons, aka David Arons. I did a bit of looking into alt.srs- the views, at least, match perfectly. You’ll also recognise Sue Robins and Just Jennifer aka Jennifer Usher aka Lardo (hah)
Stassa
31 Jan 08 at 6:56 am
Yikes.
Indeed, it seems that while certain self-described “true transsexuals” believe they have been hijacked by “transgenders”, they have in fact been hijacked by a particularly demented little gangwar operating under the pretension of HBS.
I think I’ve seen too much to expect respect, and I certainly don’t have enough hubris to believe that I can persuade anyone of anything. All I can do is be as clear as possible, to not let nuance be erased, and to leave a thread through the labyrinth.
gorgonqueen
31 Jan 08 at 7:36 am
excellent thread and insightful comments. there’s so much going on over the last week or so, and this provides a pretty comprehensive overview, as far as i can tell.
my feeling is that no matter how we divide ourselves as a group (trans/hbs/gay/etc), the world at large makes no such distinctions. we are all the same despite our best efforts for differentiation. i believe our only hope is to come together – there’s strength in numbers – divided we fall. it’s a cliché, i know, but i think it totally applies here.
and for what it’s worth, you can call me a shemale (i lost count of the number of hits i get on my site from search engines looking for “post-op shemales”), a man in a dress, a homosexual, whatever – just don’t call me late for dinner :P
nexyjo
31 Jan 08 at 7:44 am
Diane Lask? Jennifer Usher? Oh, god… I didn’t really see much from Kearny, just heard, but still. Some bad pennies never go away.
Lisa Harney
31 Jan 08 at 8:10 am
Oi! I missed comments 17-20. There was a message about server maintainance? I think. After I posted comment 16. So I waited a while and I missed yours, guys, Lisa and Drakyn.
So, here:
Lisa:
Yeah, I put my foot in it all the time. This time… er, when was it? I may be able to extract the foot… Seriously, I don’t remember the convo…
I know about the queerty post. It made me so mad. It also made me think that Susan must be out of her mind- I mean, she’s 50+ and she linked to pics of hers to compare herself to Megan. Who’s, like, what, is she even 20? Honestly! And then she started accusing Megan of photoshopping her pictures.
About “travesti”, it means “masquerading”, as in “un bal travesti”, meaning “fancy dress party”. The word for “transvestite” is “travelot. It comes from travesti, and it’s a slur-ish form, kinda like “transvestiterer” or something. Travesti is the Greek and Spanish word for transvestite and I think they are borrowed from French. Wow. Listen to me go. I’m like, the new Virginia Prince or something…
Sport:
I’m not sure about the T. I’m afraid it may be harder to get than the estrogens, because the body builders and the athletes use it and it’s got some bad reputation with attention from the press and stuff. So pharmacists may be loathe to sell it. Truth is, I have no idea :( Sorry dude, I don’t speak about transmen, ’cause I don’t know shit about your stuff. Not ’cause I don’t give a shit about your stuff though.
My only transman friend is a Greek dude living in London and I’m not even sure he’s full time and all. He’s a king for sure and a damn hot one at that. He used to have a crush on me when we were at school and he was my best, well, he was my best girlfriend back then, to be honest, but he didn’t know he was going to be a guy when we grew up. Or me a girl. We met much later. Big story. Shit, I have to blog that.
I did try to make a whole tg-themed rpg, at some point, and discussed it at the Forge. But it sucked so much. Even I got bored. :(
I believed in Jeebus when I was young. And all I got was paranoid hysteria, an MIA spirit guide and tits. Well, I don’t mind the tits. But I did specifically ask for them to be big like watermelons. Instead- pah. There is no god. Trust me.
Stassa
31 Jan 08 at 11:07 am
I’d like to point out that while I disagree with some of the stipulations for starting hormone care, i am generally in favor of standards of care when it comes to giving medical health professionals guidelines and rules about respectfully and accurately treating their transsexual patients. I think GID is a crock of hooey, but I still think the SOC is necessary in a nongatekeeper-y role.
jayinchicago
31 Jan 08 at 11:57 am
Ok so I wasn’t going to do it, but I started reading through some of those links. I noticed that trans men were hardly mentioned at all, so I started thinking “oh good, this doesn’t involve me.” nice try.
Um, the focus on genitals/surgery sickens me. Who the hell cares?
I think the biggest thing for me regarding being covered under the label “transgender” is (as I’ve said before) I just think it’s inaccurate for me. I’m big on accuracy–given the gender part of transgender, no i don’t think it fits. something about it just rubs me wrong. i have had it explained to me how sort of binary-ish transsexual people like myself fit under transgender, but I find it hard to agree with because I genuinely think it’s a product of the cissexist world to tell transsexual men and women that their “genders” are necessarily non-conforming, or non-normative.
Maybe I just think that’s a “smarter” argument than “ops vs non-ops”. Smarter doesn’t necessarily equal better, right.
But I would no sooner ally myself with the HBS kooks than I would eat a rock.
jayinchicago
31 Jan 08 at 12:38 pm
Well, my approach to this is going to be a little odd because I’ve spent two weeks thinking about disability and why exactly is it that people who SEE someone with a visable disability assume that is pretty much life long or WHO THEY ARE when in the majority they are not; but people just look and see:”disabled” – so I wondered, why is it that when people say, “I’m gay” people assume, “always gay”, the whole years of feeling of not fitting in and WANTING to please parents and just not being interested in the opposite sex is tossed away as Gay/ALWAYS GAY (people don’t say, “So, you know, back when you were heterosexual”), now the same thing with disability. Yet for some reason, with gender, there is this huge struggle for most of the population. I guess, (this is going to be the naive bit), when someone says, “By the way, I’m female and my body will be reflecting more of that in the future” people don’t go, “Okay.” But I know….they don’t.
Now this HBS group is like so many other groups, including gay groups (like for instance gay male groups that try to say ‘drag queens aren’t actually gay’ or femme guys aren’t what ‘being gay’ is about), and intersex (which itself is fighting language DSD or intersex?), this group has decided that if we remain ourself as the true and pure and medical group, well that will be super and everyone will know WE are the ones to trust. Well, I think everyone has pointed to the logic of the slippery slope of that. I do however have a problem with a) gender theory versus medical standards and b) inclusion v. demarcation.
This again, mostly has to do with disability, since that by default is now something I know more about. There is a group that call themselves Transabled who WANT to have a spinal column injury or amputation and say, “Hey, if those trans people can get operations on perfectly good body parts why can’t we!” First, they know very little about for lack of better agreed phrase, transexxual medical studies including standards of care, follow up studies, pre-screening, and I believe it was something like 82 options available of which surgery is only one. One Transabled person even blogs his letters where he has tried to force people who do SRS to do a spinal operation on him. What does this have to do with this debate? Well, I think that there still is a medical aspect to at least some of those who are transgender, and for those who wish for example hormones, I think there should be protocols and monitored treatment, much like anyone taking HRT. But I don’t think that medical means “Better” it is just I am worried because while I find HBS loathsome, I find the “I want it so I should have it” idea not one that I can endorse either; becuase some of this is about gender expression but then some of this is about medical practice…isn’t it?
Anyway, the other thing I have noticed is the way people who were born with a visable disability are, in my experience, inclusive of people who gain a disability later in life. It is a “we’re all in it together” and “You’re one of us now” sort of inclusion which is nice to have at usually a fairly traumatic part of your life. What I find odd is the way this does not occur within parts of the feminists community who say that T people don’t understand what it is like in a skin within a world where others have privilage. WELL, they do NOW (if they didn’t before). I mean, I live the privilage of an abilist life, and no one has come by and told me, “Hey, you’ll NEVER be a real person with a disability because you haven’t been born or lived 20 years in an able bodied world” – And I guess what I don’t understand (obviously gender and able body v. impairment are different), is WHY is it so different around gender, and around females who hold to the view that no, person this or person that will never be female. Well, aren’t they already, weren’t they before, just not everyone could see it?
Well that sort of went everywhere and ended nowhere – sorry. I’ll try later.
mpshiel
31 Jan 08 at 1:43 pm
“kinda like “transvestiterer” or something”
Travestir :p
Danae L. M.
31 Jan 08 at 1:54 pm
Stassa, it was in the goddess discussion, and I may be misremembering the exact context.
Jay: Yeah, it’s amazing how much trans men are ignored when convenient or propped up as examples when convenient in certain kinds of conversations.
Oh, and Heart is trolling for something. She put up another transphobic post today, apparently. I’ll look into it in a day or two.
Apparently, if a trans woman lets a man sit next to her on a bus, and the man makes inappropriate moves, the trans woman deserves it, because no real woman would ever let a man sit next to her on a bus.
If men are from Mars and women are from Venus, transphobic radical feminists must be from Gor. They say things so far removed from real world experience – where every man is a rapist, where just the image of a penis is psychic rape, and where women are so downtrodden as to lack all agency.
Lisa Harney
31 Jan 08 at 6:06 pm
Also, mpshiel,
I think the thing is that a lot of people are not saying “because I want it, I should have it,” but the HBS literature puts them into that category by laying down false borders so they can declare one side to be true and valid, and the other side to be bad people trying to muddy the crystal clarity of the gender binary.
I also don’t think there’s anything wrong with muddying the gender binary, or that there’s anything wrong with wanting treatments to feminize or masculinize without going all the way – all of this stuff should happen under medical supervision – at least that which involves surgery or hormones – but I don’t think it should be categorically denied.
Anyway, that’s a great post, and I do look forward to your more focused addition later. :)
My next post will probably have something to do with the politics of refusing/accepting trans women as women and characterising trans men as deluded women or gender traitors.
Lisa Harney
31 Jan 08 at 6:45 pm
“If men are from Mars and women are from Venus, radical feminists must be from Gor. They say things so far removed from real world experience – where every man is a rapist, where just the image of a penis is psychic rape, and where women are so downtrodden as to lack all agency.”
i just like to suggest caution in making gross generalizations about “radical feminists”. while some rad fems do say things far removed from real world experiences, some do not, and to me, seem to “get it”.
carry on.
nexyjo
31 Jan 08 at 8:27 pm
I mean a specific group of radical feminists who like to speak at length and with great uninformed enthusiasm about trans people. While I do know some radical feminists who do seem to get it and who do not seem attached to bigoted and hateful politics, I just haven’t seen very many of them on- or off-line.
I edited, though.
Lisa Harney
31 Jan 08 at 8:36 pm
Stassa – while you’re at deconstructing the probable trolls (2 out of your 3 are 100% sure, I agree, and I missed one of them – the other one fits old patterns)… I think rainsong is back as well (elaineh – new account, exact same terminology in the tfeminist blog).
And something about ts-si is really really bothering my intuitions.
Danae L. M.
1 Feb 08 at 7:00 am
I hear you. I’m not dead certain about the third one, either, I admit, but it’s not just the patterns, it’s the recurring affiliation with the other creeps. And the dates seem to fit the hypothesis. To be honest, I was never on usenet, so I have a lot of digging to do. But who’s hurrying? Grab a Snickers.
To be sure, I traced my and Susan’s collision back at Diane. At the point she joined the convo at Susan’s blog, we were at the regular cattiness level of exchange. Petty and all, but no real insults. Then Diane joined in and started calling me a “HE” and a she-male and it went south from there. Yeah, the damn bitch triggered me. I’ll so have her arse for that.
I’m even willing to believe that it was Diane or one of the others who handed Susan my piccie, and told her “where” they found it… and suggested what she should do with it. But maybe that’s just Stockholm syndrome, or something. :0
You too eh? I’m leaving those for last though. It’s a huge site and I can’t afford to read it all. I have a life, or at least, I used to, before the last two weeks.
And I’ll have to infiltrate their secret polar base group fort. That’ll take time. I’ll have to go all sneaky like.
You’re thinking of Travestyr, the norse goddess of transgendered warriors. Puh-lease. Read some history, won’t you? :PP
Hey, what’s your blog btw? I know you have an lj, but I don’t know where it is.
Lisa: The gallae thing, I hope to be able to convince you it’s all a bob, but I need to do my research for that too. I’m at uni and they have a library- and they’re doing nothing to stop me from using it!! :) But, just so you know, as far as I’m concerned, Sister Cybellina has just painted a big, huge target on her own forehead.
I channel shark spirits, baby. Gonna bite her toopid head right orf. Right ORF!! Do you hear me????
AH HA HA HA H AH AH AH AH AH AH !!!!!!!!!!!!)(**&&!@!!!!!!09
::capers away::
Stassa
1 Feb 08 at 8:16 am
Well, considering Cathryn of Pam’s House Blend is the same Cathryn of that website, yeah. She’s whining about the persecution that transgender people are piling on HBS women.
Lisa Harney
1 Feb 08 at 1:28 pm
okay, so I need bed and my logic glands are depleted, but:
“Their viewpoint is black and white: You’re either exactly like them, or you’re a cross-dressing pervert.”
I never really grokked this maligning of fetishists anyway. It’s like “don’t you dare be a STRANGE PERSON” and… why not? why shouldn’t someone?
I mean, I get that a crossdresser and a transsexual woman have different experiences, needs, and lives, but I’m not really sure why that makes the crossdresser some kind of ICKY CONTAMINANT.
Trin
1 Feb 08 at 9:51 pm
Apparently, if a trans woman lets a man sit next to her on a bus, and the man makes inappropriate moves, the trans woman deserves it, because no real woman would ever let a man sit next to her on a bus.
That made no sense to me, so I went looking for the context…and it still made no sense. Heart et al keep saying over and over that the experience of being a woman is being treated exactly like that comment describes, but because it’s a trans woman describing it, suddenly it’s misogyny? Mind you, putting make-up on in the wrong situation is also misogyny, so I guess it’s Heart-speak for “trans woman do it so I am automagically opposed”.
Nick Kiddle
1 Feb 08 at 9:57 pm
Trin,
The logic is that being HBS/transsexual is a legitimate medical condition, while a man who likes wearing women’s clothing has no justifiable reason to want to do this, therefore it’s deviancy or perversion. There’s also this idea that people will confuse and conflate transsexualism and transvestitism, which is supposedly what transgender activists are inflicting on the HBS/transsexual women. In other words, it’s bigoted BS – they’re denying that transphobia exists, and blaming what they do encounter on other people who fit under the trans umbrella.
Nick, yeah – everything a trans woman does or experiences is wrong. For comparison, Heart also offered sympathy to Renegade Evolution for experiencing some seriously nasty misogyny when she was hired to strip.
So – a cis woman who is stripping for misogynist men who hired her to do this = worthy of sympathy. A trans woman who lets a man sit next to her on the bus and finds that he’s misogynist = she deserved it, and is a misogynist who knows nothing about womanhood anyway.
I am not saying that what Ren experienced was justifiable in the least, but I feel this example really highlights just how hypocritical Heart is.
Lisa Harney
1 Feb 08 at 10:15 pm
“I mean, I get that a crossdresser and a transsexual woman have different experiences, needs, and lives, but I’m not really sure why that makes the crossdresser some kind of ICKY CONTAMINANT.”
i think labels can be misleading. for a very long time, i called myself a crossdresser. in the past 10 years or so, i’ve been calling myself a transsexual woman. while one could argue that the experience, needs, and lives are always different between individuals, and my needs may have changed over the years, but my experience and life is just that.
i suppose i’m arguing that i don’t believe, at least on some levels, that crossdressers are so very different than transwomen. or at the very least, the two terms can overlap to some (and even to a great) extent.
perhaps this is why i consider myself a part of the trans community, and i also consider crossdressers a part of the trans community (the now infamous “umbrella”). like so many aspects of life, i just don’t see this clear line between the two. it’s all a multi-dimensional scale.
nexyjo
2 Feb 08 at 9:58 am
Well, I can buy that transsexualism and sexual fetishism are different, but I don’t buy that that means the crossdresser has no good reason. “Why not?” is a good enough reason for crossdressing, IMO. :)
Trin
2 Feb 08 at 11:34 am
From what I’ve seen I think there is a heck of a lot of overlap as well, Nexy. I’ve always found this idea that crossdressers are “all” straight men who are happy in their gender and just like to play now and again to be naive and not match up with reality, at least in the case of the CDs I’ve known.
The vast majority of whom, I find, do see themselves as transgendered in some way, even as they also admit that part of their dressing is about sexual desire. I’ve never been totally comfortable with “there’s THE FETISH and then there’s THE GENDER THINGY!” as a kind of absolute binary. I’m especially suspicious of the idea that finding genderfucking of whatever sort arousing means or implies not having “real” gender identity issues. (Not that anyone here has said this, but I have heard it said, and defended vehemently, and I’m sure HBSers are in this camp.)
I just also think that some transwomen who don’t see a connection between themselves and crossdressers are also making sense when they say “Please don’t conflate me with a man in a dress.”
Trin
2 Feb 08 at 11:40 am
Hey, I’m not defending, just explaining. I don’t agree with it.
And I agree that there isn’t a sharp line between crossdressing and transition. A lot of people who say they’re happily heterosexual cis men who just like to wear women’s clothing end up transitioning. I don’t know what percentage, but it’s enough. It’s pretty common for pre-transition trans women to wear women’s clothing.
And yes, saying “I’m not a man in a dress” is not saying anything bad about crossdressing, but rather saying “I’m a woman, not a crossdresser.”
Lisa Harney
2 Feb 08 at 3:34 pm
And there are transsexuals that do drag or crossdress.
If I ever get a chance to go to an anime con I’ve got most of a costume for a female version of a male character (for Naruto fans, the character is Rock Lee). And if I passed easily I’d be walking around in a skirt as they are quite comfy (and I’d want to be seen as a guy-in-a-skirt/dress); helfires, I’m holding onto one skirt in the hopes that eventually I’ll pass well enough to wear it again.
drakyn
2 Feb 08 at 3:42 pm
Yes, true. I think I’ve heard about more men than women who crossdress post-transition.
On the other hand, I’ve been accused of crossdressing in the past because I wore jeans and a t-shirt…but that was someone who’d be an HBS today if she were still alive, so I take it with a grain of salt.
Lisa Harney
2 Feb 08 at 3:46 pm
“Hey, I’m not defending, just explaining. I don’t agree with it.”
Oh, I wasn’t saying you did, Lisa. :) I know you better than that.
Trin
2 Feb 08 at 3:54 pm
personally, i really haven’t changed the way i dress over the years to a significant degree. i’m still rather androgynous, wearing mostly jeans, tanks, and sandals. at work, i’ll wear slightly more feminine clothes than i did as a man, but i really never wear skirts or dresses except on special occasions.
my issue is that “crossdresser” and “man in a dress” are meant as insults in many cases. i can’t count the number of times i’ve heard transwomen insist they are not “men in dresses” like those “other” people, and their tone and facial expressions are pretty clear in suggesting what they think of those other people.
maybe 10 years ago when i first started pursuing transition, i spent a lot of time in a support group in which most members were self-identified crossdressers. and while i came to realize that i was looking to go fulltime at some point, and saw that as a difference between some of them and myself, others expressed envy that i “went all the way” (in their words). perhaps if they too were going through a divorce, they too would have followed suit toward transition.
a few months ago i was talking to one of the gay men in the pink pistols group i belong too, and he wondered out loud about the “line” at which someone born a man decides to transition, or just stay a gay man (and this was in the context of people like myself who prefer men as partners). it was an interesting conversation, especially as i learned that he and several of his friends sometimes talked about the issue. i suppose there are people who totally see themselves as men (so they wouldn’t transition), and there are people who totally see themselves as women (so they would), but then there are people like me who really don’t see themselves as a particular sex, or maybe just have certain preferences. i have to imagine there are many motivations and combinations of motivations and feelings that contribute to differentiate crossdressers and trans women (and gay men for that matter), but i definitely believe we are all cut from the same cloth. except for those who take exception to that – i like to think i respect those opinions too.
the older i get, the more i believe that a unified lgbt community makes sense.
nexyjo
2 Feb 08 at 7:57 pm
“others expressed envy that i “went all the way” (in their words). perhaps if they too were going through a divorce, they too would have followed suit toward transition.”
yeah, I’ve seen this sort of thing from some CDs as well. Not all, but some.
I remember a presentation on CDs at a kink group. The dominatrix giving it made it clear she thought crossdressers ARE on the transgendered spectrum, but that doesn’t by itself make her right. :)
I remember her asking some of the CDs whether they wanted to transition or not, and one of them half-raised her hand or said something, and the domme smiled and said “…and there’s Melanie*, she’s not sure.”
*name changed by me — but it was a woman’s name. (Oh, and I’m going to use “she” for this person, as it seems to be what she’d want)
And everyone laughed in a friendly way. But I got the clear idea that Melanie wanted to present as a woman as often as possible, and that Melanie was at least as interested, if not more interested, in wearing women’s clothing because she felt more at home in them as/than because she got off on it. And that she went out dressed as often as possible.
I would not be surprised if she started transitioning.
So what does that make her: a pre-medical-transition transwoman who happened to first find the CD community and not really fit within it, or something more complicated, someone who just kept doing what made her happiest and discovered she isn’t very happy as a guy any more (which is the distinct impression I had of her, though again she’s not my best friend so I’m partially guessing)?
I don’t know. But I do think… people are complicated, and so are some people’s genders or understandings of their genders. (Again, not saying anyone here ever denied this.)
Trin
2 Feb 08 at 9:50 pm
I was thinking about what you said Trin and I wonder why a woman can’t have a fetish- for anything. Why does fetishism automatically annul a female gender identity in a male?
I’m a big fan of Oliver Sacks and he says somewhere how his teacher Alexander Luria had a saying: “a dog can have both fleas and ticks. ” He meant that, just because a patient has condition A, doesn’t mean he can’t have condition B.
I think it’s just too wrong to take fetishism so out of context of the general man-to-woman nature of mtfs that it becomes a diagnostic tool to exclude transsexuality. I can see a thousand pathways that would lead from a childhood were crossdressing is an expression of a female identity, or the development of one, through a puberty where erotic desires are all mixed up and fetishism emerges as a result and then on to any pre- or post- transition choices.
To be honest, I always viewed “fetishistic transvestism” as a twisted form of an original and spontaneous womanhood, that you get only when you suppress it and try to deny it and all- and so I didn’t like it, it scared me and it creeped me out. Nowadays I understand it’s OK, really. You can make your peace with your past, accept what floats your boat and merrily sail on towards the future. You don’t have to see it as a feminising episode, you can keep your male identity fine- or, you can go the other way and embrace it as part of what it means to be an mtf transsexual. Unfortunately, in the latter case, you have to suppress it even more, which is so stupid and just creates more and more problems.
As about “just” crossdressing, if that ever happens, a male “just” putting on a dress and being happily hetero and never turned on by it, shrug. I don’t see what’s wrong with it. Clothes are clothes. If you like to wear them- you like to wear them. You should be able to wear whatever the fuck you like and never have your manhood or womanhood questioned- but that I guess blurs the lines too much for everyone involed.
Drakyn:
And if I passed easily I’d be walking around in a skirt as they are quite comfy (and I’d want to be seen as a guy-in-a-skirt/dress);
OH MY GOD!!! HE’S A GENDERPUNK!!!! :P
Stassa
2 Feb 08 at 11:56 pm
Yeah, HBS draws a lot of its “this is what a true woman born with a male body is like” from the way the old gender clinics would exclude some from treatment (fetishistic transvestism, attraction to women, a lack of complete and utter black hatred for the penis, etc).
Even in the 80s, a lot of it was still there. I had to lie about a few things (not many, honestly, but maybe I got off lucky) in order to get hormones…and my doctor wanted to see me in a dress to make sure I’d look okay as a woman before he’d prescribe. Seriously.
I noticed you mentioned The Forge. I’ve been kind of put off of that ever since Ron whatsisname said that playing Vampire gives you brain damage. Am I being mean and judgemental?
Lisa Harney
3 Feb 08 at 12:13 am
Norratall. The Forge is another clique, ‘s all. Even worse ’cause half the regulars in there are Ron Edward’s fanboys and spend half their posting time sucking up to the guy, and treating (not really) his theories as scripture, to abide with or die. As about their hero, his games aren’t bad and he does have his points, but he’s also banking heavily on “I was there in the 70s, when D&D first appeared” and blah blah, how it all declined afterwards, oh the pain. Unfortunately, his fans haven’t nearly got the same amount of experience playing games, so they simply can’t grok any new style of play or system, even though nominally that’s what they’re all about.
Vampire was huge when it first came out; I was there and it blew our minds, even after Call of Cthulhu. It was everything the Indie crowd is trying to do today: something completely different, funky and engrossing, with simple rules (for its time… some were stupidly complex or vague or plain didn’t work) and a complete departure from the usual heroes-hunting-Orcs setting. And Mage was simply teh magic game, everest. Mark Rein Hagen had some really good dealers, methinks.
It’s not just the Forgers who bitch about Vampire though. I was surprised to find that, but it seems, yeah, there’s plenty of players who have some serious prejudice with it. The last party I was involved with, we broke up for that reason: one day I went “Hey, wanna try Vampire?” and they went “Vampire is Gay” then it went downhill from threre. But, we were playing munchkin-style D&D so I should have expected it…
You know, my course is about computer games design, (it’s Computer Science (Games)), but sometimes, when I see the kind of blockhead that populates any sort of gaming forum, for computers or not, I despair so much I want to call for the good people from Software Engineering to come and take me away…
Eh. You like to hear me rant, do you? :)
Stassa
3 Feb 08 at 3:12 am
Is that even good practice?
I think it’s similar in the UK. I mean, I wouldn’t know how it works, but I have this friend from this support group I go and she’s been to see a psych to refer her to Charing Cross, and she says she just fudged the whole sexuality thing over, ’cause the psych assumed she must be hetero, ’cause she’s pretty fem. He didn’t even bothet to ask- just went “and you are sexually attracted to males?” and she got startled and blurted a “yuh-huh” and that was it, pass, referral.
And, yeah, she’s cute and all, I like her, but in the group everybody’s always telling her how she’ll sail as a breeze through Charing Cross and that’s fucking unfair. I mean, the other girls are all fairly atypical women in appearance and in behaviour (it’s a support group, yes?) and, if she’s gonna find it all so easy ’cause she’s passable, that means they’re gonna have to go through hell ’cause they’re not, eh?
I’m seeing proof of that already. One of my other friends, she tried to get a referral to Charing Cross, but her psych “forgot” to forward it and she found out only about a month later, ’cause the clinic was taking too long to contact her and she called to ask what was taking them so long. They just treat you like so much dirt, if they don’t think you can “cut” it, whatever that means to them- and it always means “fuckable”. Bunch of bleeding arseholes. They read too much Bailey methinks.
Stassa
3 Feb 08 at 3:47 am
Yeah, I was there for the beginning with Vampire as well. It was the game I was waiting for because – at the time – I was a huge Anne Rice fangirl. I’d been playing RPGs for about a decade by that point, too, so I was already running games like that in GURPS – not quite the same, and without quite the depth of history.
One person I gamed with at the time was really put out by Vampire. To her, vampires were monsters you killed for xp and took their treasure. There wasn’t any point to roleplaying one, that was just outlandish and weird.
And yeah, Ron Edwards. And yes, his fans are a bit enthusiastic about what he has to say. And Mark – I do agree he had good dealers. :)
Anyway, on the looks thing – I don’t think it’s good practice at all, but it’s what doctors did almost exclusively in America up until the 90s, and apparently still do to a lesser extent now. I’ve seen some of the comments that doctors have written about their trans women patients (in their surgery permission letters), and they could be particularly , er, harsh and judgemental. That was where I really got the sense that it didn’t matter what a trans woman did, it was wrong. Having a “traditional” idea of womanhood? WRONG. Trying too hard! Having an “unconventional” idea of womanhood? WRONG. Not trying hard enough! No middle ground, either.
And yes, it is completely vile that any doctors put any stock into how attractive (I hatehate “passable”) a woman is before passing them along for further treatment. Or, hell, if it is an issue, then add facial feminization surgery to covered procedures.
Lisa Harney
3 Feb 08 at 4:06 am
“To be honest, I always viewed “fetishistic transvestism” as a twisted form of an original and spontaneous womanhood, that you get only when you suppress it and try to deny it and all- and so I didn’t like it, it scared me and it creeped me out. Nowadays I understand it’s OK, really. You can make your peace with your past, accept what floats your boat and merrily sail on towards the future.”
damn, this hits so close to home. i remember reading a thread somewhere, in which one of the commenters suggested that of course young tg m2f people would tend to “crossdress” and masterbate while imagining themselves in the body of a woman (aka autogynephilia) – if one feels themselves to be female, then why wouldn’t that play out in their sexual fantasies. in fact, how could it be any other way? don’t most people who fantasize about sex, imagine they are in the body that feels right to them?
we, as a culture, really need to chill out about sex, and just let consenting adults do what they do, without all the baggage.
nexyjo
3 Feb 08 at 9:33 am
“remember reading a thread somewhere, in which one of the commenters suggested that of course young tg m2f people would tend to “crossdress” and masterbate while imagining themselves in the body of a woman (aka autogynephilia) – if one feels themselves to be female, then why wouldn’t that play out in their sexual fantasies. in fact, how could it be any other way?”
Yeah, that. And well, for me — a lot of the places where I do have some discomfort with my body are most pronounced for me in sex. Does that make me an autoandrophile? :-X
I have no idea, and I don’t really know what to make of myself other than “not fitting overarching womanhood box.” But I find the whole idea that imagining myself more masculinely is most important in sexual interactions means that I’m some sort of pitiful weirdo… sad and annoying.
I mean, I’m not transsexual, whatever I might be, so that complicates things. The feelings are probably different in many ways. But for me, well — in my daily life, how often do I really need to think about my genitalia? Not all that often. But when I’m about to have sex, or thinking about it, the glaring lack of a Goes Into down there is a lot more noticeable than when I’m busy teaching or cooking dinner. (Though I do also get the bodily sense of something not being quite right at other times, too, and want to pack using a sock or something. Freud would love me.) So… yeah, when I masturbate, I’m more likely to be thinking I should have one or pretending I do.
Maybe that means I’m different, or whatever I “have” is “mild” or… I dunno. But feeling wrong in my body tends to show up for me when I’m actually trying to do things with it, rather than when I’m just sitting around.
It wouldn’t surprise, shock, or bother me to discover that for some MTF-ily vectored people, of whatever sort, not being able to experience a certain kind of sex that feels right to them (note that I’m not saying all trans women want, need, or should want vaginas or vaginal penetration) would make the whole issue of sex more important in their minds.
Trin
3 Feb 08 at 10:32 am
Wow, i saw this post when there was one comment, and didn’t get back to it to comment on it until now, and there are 70 comments… so yeah, i haven’t thoroughly read all of them…
In some ways i think this seems like a re-hash of the old “primary transsexual” vs “secondary transsexual” thing. My transwoman best friend (TWBF) uses those terms, but definitely not in any “these are better/truer transsexuals than those” kind of way – simply as value-neutral descriptors of different “types” of transsexuals. (It’s interesting that all the transpeople i know in real life fit the “primary”/”knew from early childhood” pattern, whereas the majority of those i know online are nearer the “I made a choice to do this” end of the spectrum. Not sure why that is…)
Also seems like HBS is a synonym for “woman born transsexual”, the term originated by some transwomen in response to the Adrienne Rich/Michigan-festival-thingy “women born women” term.
TWBF, like myself, feels really strongly that the closest ally and/or parallel for a trans* liberation movement is the disability movement, and thus i have a lot of sympathy for the “it’s physical/congenital, therefore it’s real” argument. However, i think the whole “were you born that way, were you socialised that way, or did you choose to be that way” question is a non-argument really, if you take as your starting point a pro-diversity, pro-liberty attitude that accepts people who and what they are regardless of how they became it (see my post here with reference to sexuality, but IMO the same is true for gender identity).
TBWF also does feel that “primary” transsexuals, at least, are arguably intersex (according to an inclusive definition of intersex); she herself is in fact almost certainly more obviously intersex than those who fit the HBS categorisation, and one of her theories is that many of those who get diagnosed with “gender dysphoria” are in fact intersex people who were either not diagnosed because their genital abnormalities were not externally obvious pre-puberty, or because they were “fixed” (in the wrong direction) without their parents’ knowledge or consent at birth. But she would never regard someone who only started feeling gender dysphoria in adulthood as having any less real or valid a need to transition….
What this really reminds me of is the whole thing in the autism community with “Asperger’s” versus “autism” as a category and “high-functioning” versus “low-functioning” autism, with language distinctions varying but many people with the “Asperger’s” diagnosis acting extremely disparagingly towards other autistics (which is the reason why, despite my diagnosis being “Asperger’s”, i prefer to describe myself as simply “autistic”). Joel Smith has a recent post on this here, and Amanda at Ballastexistenz has written excellent posts about it many times, for example here, here and here (among plenty of others – try looking in the categories “Heirarchies” and “Kinds or Groups of People” at her blog…
So, yeah. I think this is, despite being probably (sort of) well-intentioned, nastily and unnecessarily divisive, and the need that people feel for such a label that separates them from those other trans people, or those other autistic people, or whatever, shows up all kinds of (quite possibly unconscious) prejudices that those people have, which IMO are all encouraged by a “divide and rule” establishment which is all too keen to pit minorities or sub-categories of minorities against each other. The “HBS” people, like many of the “Aspergians” i encounter at forums like Wrong Planet, as well as wanting to create hierarchies and divisions within their own group, seem to have all sorts of prejudices towards other minority groups as well. (Some threads on Wrong Planet have shown horrific transphobia, homophobia and prejudice against people with physical disabilities.)
People need to get into their heads that diversity is not a zero-sum game…
(As a side note, i think, as a libertarian, that all drugs should be available without prescription to whoever wants them, and probably surgery should be available pretty much on-demand as well. I’m not sure what i think about people who want to acquire physical impairments through surgery; i think, in some cases, neural map deficits might be responsible for that, and possibly amputation or severing nerves to a limb might be the best “treatment” for it. It does seem to shade oddly into fetishisation of negative social aspects of disability, tho…)
“we, as a culture, really need to chill out about sex, and just let consenting adults do what they do, without all the baggage.”
Abso-fucking-lutely, and about body shape/appearance too…
shiva
3 Feb 08 at 11:41 am
So, Heart dislikes vaccinations and preaches against them on her blog, but then agrees with someone who demands any “serious” transgendered individual have extensive surgery.
Too funny.
Daisy
3 Feb 08 at 1:09 pm
Shiva, great post!
Most of the women I’ve talked to who would qualify as “secondary” had early life narratives very similar to mine – they knew early on, but they ran into conditions that made it difficult or impossible to go forward with transition (family complications, etc), but aside from that, they’re not much different from me. On the other hand, you have early transitioners like Julia Serano who didn’t have as strong a self-awareness as I did.
I don’t like the primary/secondary split, not because there aren’t trans women who transition early in life and those who transition late in life, and not because there aren’t trans women who know from a fairly early age and those who gradually come to an awareness, but because to me it does imply that age of transition gives some validity when it shouldn’t matter.
Also, your post had enough links in it that wordpress’ spam trap caught it. Fortunately, I could just dig it right out – thanks for the heads up. :)
I have it set to flag on five or so, but maybe it could be higher.
Lisa Harney
3 Feb 08 at 3:37 pm
Ah, it was the links, right. Thanks, really pleased to see it back up…
Re-reading it, to make things a little bit clearer, just because i said “fixed” (in the wrong direction), doesn’t mean I think it’s OK to “fix” intersex babies even if it’s in the “right” direction (ie the one which turns out to fit their actual gender identity) – besides the impossibility of knowing, i think any kind of surgery that is nonconsensual and not necessary to save life is completely ethically impermissible.
Also “despute” should be “despite”, of course.
Re primary/secondary, my friend doesn’t use them to mean transitioned early vs late in life, but those who felt gender dysphoria from as early as they could remember (like both herself, who transitioned in her 20s, and her “surrogate mother”, who transitioned in her 50s), vs those who only started feeling gender dysphoria after puberty, and as i said, for her (dunno about the rest of the “primary” trans women in her trans women’s group) that in no way indicates greater or lesser validity, just a difference that’s significant and worth noting. (She’s a scientist ;) )
And, yeah, agreement with what Trinity said, too.
shiva
3 Feb 08 at 4:51 pm
Yeah, I just don’t like primary/secondary, just as I don’t like “post/non/pre-op” because these are used to establish hierarchies and “I’m better/more real than you” stuff. It’s my own dislike, and I’m not asking you to change your language, just giving my own opinion.
Lisa Harney
3 Feb 08 at 4:58 pm
No, Shiva, sorry but that’s total crap. “My Secret Intersex” is a myth. You can’t be intersex and not know it “because the doctors fixed you secretely at birth”. Intersex people who get surgeries know it, because they have to go back in the operating room multiple times while they grow up and they have to take hormones at puberty. The ones who don’t get surgeris, usually have other health problems that have to be dealt with, throughout their lives so they need to be told allright. That and “fixed” genitals look like shit.
But, don’t take it from me, take it from them as knows:
As about the gender dysphoria experienced by intersex people, I wish everytime someone said that, a small pixie popped up and banged them on the head with a fifty-pound frying pan. Intersex people generally don’t suffer any gender dysphoria, or, if they do, it’s usually because they were assigned in the wrong gender, but in this case they know it for the reasons outlined above.
Your friend, you say she’s “almost certainly more obviously intersex than those who fit the HBS categorisation” I take it you mean she’s obviously undervirilised, as in, she never quite hit puberty, never grew any facial hair, her voice didn’t “break”, her body hair remained sparse and fine, she has long arms and legs, a narrow rib cage and a wide pelvis, she spontaneously grew boobs and so on and so forth- she may have a Partial Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome. In that case, direct her to this site:
http://www.aissg.org/INDEX.HTM
Sorry to tell you though, but chances are she’s deluding herself. There’s far more transsexual people with Wishful Thinking than intersex people with Gender Dysphoria.
Aaaw, that’s awfully kind of her. Well, I sure knew everything there is to know about gender dysphoria before I went to school, I started transition at 24 and I’m officially not intersex. I thought, like your friend, that I might be, because I didn’t know, so I checked. They just take some blood and run a karyotype test. And it’s entirely unambiguous. Mine came back “XY: normal male”. So, yeah, you can be perfectly typically sexed and totally atypically gendered just fine. And you don’t have to keep “suspecting” anything- it’s very easy to find out.
And if you want to get political, “My Secret Intersex” and “Intersex in the Brain” are a combined offensive of absolute insensitivity and ignorance on both intersex and transsexual people’s identities and typical life histories. Have a look at the stuff in here and here and please, stop spreading misinformation across the damn web.
/polemic
Stassa
3 Feb 08 at 6:22 pm
That was with respect to this part of your post btw:
Stassa
3 Feb 08 at 6:24 pm
OK… it’s really fucking late, and i don’t have the energy or concentration to respond to you fully now, Stassa. (I thought you might object to some of my points actually). I’ll reply again tomorrow. But a few really quick points:
1) my friend is pretty sure that PAIS is what she has, and PAIS is an intersex condition. Or at least it’s regarded as such in the UK; the definition of “intersex” might be less inclusive where you are, i dunno.
2) I have sent my friend a link to this thread. She’s not very into commenting on blogs, but i will try to get her to post here herself. Suffice to say that she has VERY strong evidence that stuff was done to her at birth that neither she nor her parents were ever told about, and she’s gathered first hand info from others that suggests that wasn’t a one-off, either. I’d advise you not to deny other people’s realities.
And i’m NOT saying you can’t be “perfectly typically sexed and totally atypically gendered”. A lot of people are. But a lot of people who fall into the category “transsexual” are not “perfectly typically sexed”. They just end up getting treated as such because that’s the way the medical system works.
Anyway, it’s 5am. I REALLY need to go to bed. I’ll read your links and reply again tomorrow.
shiva
3 Feb 08 at 8:42 pm
I don’t want to comment on Shiva’s friend, but, well:
“There’s far more transsexual people with Wishful Thinking than intersex people with Gender Dysphoria.”
This here strikes me as true. I’ve seen people try to claim all transfolk are intersexed… and while that might mean “I’m a proponent of the brain sex theory, therefore this is totally biological, and makes me like ‘the’ other sex” I think it’s really insensitive to insist that other people include you when a big part of what they’re trying to do is make sure people understand what happens to them and why it matters for its own reasons.
And it does sound a little like that’s what Shiva was saying, though I don’t think so now. That reading, though, comes from this sentence:
“TBWF also does feel that “primary” transsexuals, at least, are arguably intersex (according to an inclusive definition of intersex)”
My feeling as someone who isn’t intersex is that I don’t get to make its definition more inclusive. Maybe your friend does, as she is… but she’s one person and it seems to me the overarching opinion is “don’t dilute our realities.” So I’m concerned about the idea that we need an “inclusive definition” (as contrasted with what other sort of definition?)
Trin
4 Feb 08 at 6:37 am
I’m not going to comment on Shiva’s last one, since he said he’d come back with something more thought-out at some point, but I want to comment on this:
I’ve been trying to make a relevant point for some time. This is as good a chance as any. So.
Nothing makes me like the other sex, that is not under my complete and total control. I chose my destiny and the life I live is my choice. I could have stayed a man if I wanted it. It can be done. There’s plenty who do.
You see the early-transitioners and the late-transitioners, but you never hear from the non-transitioners. Well, I’ve seen them. When I was a street girl, they’d come to me and ask me to turn them into girlies. One even told me “I’m like you”. A short, fat, bald gnome of a guy, married with children. “Like me?” Hell yeah. Like me. And in my country, there are no late transitioners. There is no space for them, as there is here. They stay trapped in their closets for ever. So we have at least as many non-transitioners as we have late- ones. That’s plenty.
And, yeah, I could have been one of them. I could have stayed a guy. And I’d have done damn fine at it, ’cause I had the balls to do it, and everything else I wanted to do- proof, I’m the fuckable chick I always wanted to be and nobody made me. I made myself.
And fuck everybody and their families and the extended families of their extended families who’s gonna tell me that, because I had the freedom to make a choice, it was the wrong one. I’m not kidding- anyone who tells me that to my face, in meatspace, should better wear a helmet, ’cause I sure as hell am gonna go pogo on their fucking shithead. And they can cry “girls don’t do that.” I do. I leave skidmarks on idiots faces- and you can take that as a double entendre any time you like.
/hadrcore
Yeah, I know, not everyone is as lucky as me. Many transsexuals have no choice. Well, that’s one thing and being an insensitive egomaniac is another entirely. ‘s a world of difference.
Stassa
4 Feb 08 at 9:00 am
Stassa: Just to be totally clear, I’m not fond of the brain sex theory myself. I do think there is probably a biological basis for some kinds of transness, but I really don’t like the very reductive “there’s a woman-organized-brain and a man-organized-brain” thing. I think there’s a fuckton of a lot we just don’t know about brains. And a fuckton we don’t know about social expectations and how they do (or don’t) color what we take to be immutable evidence.
Trin
4 Feb 08 at 9:22 am
The freedom of choice? Hmmmm. I guess I see some problems with that primarily because the attempted or successful suicide rate is so high amoung untransitioned T individuals. I mean, thoughts of suicide of gay and lesbian teens are reported at 40% but attempts or completed suicide are close to 50% if places like Press for Change are to be believed.
I know that intersex or DSD want to stay as far away as transsexuals as humanly possible and I know that (many) transsexuals would love to have a definative “look, right here” medical explaination. The link to the intersex association of australia shows sort of how, um, medically inaccurate intersex societies can be, simply in their statement about homosexuality and transsexuality in which oddly they would have the support of most right wing churches but not of most scientists (well, except for Michael Bailey).
Progress does continue on the chromosome publication and research front, as is indicated <a href=”http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v427/n6973/full/427390a.html” (gosh I hope that doesn’t come out as garbage, tech is not my bag), as a sort of 3 year old “here is where we are” paper so I don’t have to link to the various Brian biology journals.
Essentially the same criteria is used for both Intersex/DSD and the Henry B. Protocols to determine Gender Identity. Well, except in practice where fitting the idea of gender of the person doing the assessment is often more the case.
The problems I see are this:
1) Transsexuality does not fall under current classifications of intersex/DSD – however, many intersex/DSD groups also don’t want certain intersex/DSD medical conditions listed as instersex/DSD as well (like Klinefelter Syndrome which develop quite late in life)
2) If gender is a chromosome marker, then the reason that essentially the same evaluations for gender assignment are used for intersex/DSD and transsexuals make sense
3) If gender identity is a chromosome marker and NOT a “hormone wash” or even if it is, when either are proved then transsexuals will get the “medical birth condition” they desire (which will unfortunately probably lead to testing and another classification of Type 1 and type 2 transsexuals)
4) If it is not, and we assume that gender identitity is a choice, then it is difficult to explain why so many people with this contradiction between the gender identity of the mind and the gender identity of the body attempt of succeed in suicide, even if they look like short fat bald men. Because saying (in action), I would rather be dead than stuck like this seems to be a pretty dramatic way of expression.
5) Even if you want to ignore the pre HRT aspects for both intersex/DSD AND transsexual conditions, what french biology research has found, for example on heart transplants is that once HRT’d (well, they actually studied transitioned transsexuals) the body will make huge organ adjustments: in this case they studied heart transplants and found that you put a male heart in a female and it shrinks over time to match the arteries, put a female heart into a male, and it doesn’t get bigger, sorry, no giant growing heart, you put a male heart into a transitioned MTF and it shrinks at exactly the same rate to end up with a female sized heart. But the effects of HRT on various biological functions have been well documented.
So at the end of the day I guess I am not sure why instead of sharing infomation or umbrellas so many different groups (including HSB or whatever they are) are always trying to say, “Not like us” – when somone is assigned the wrong gender from an intersex condition from the days of “if it is this long they are a boy if it that long they are girl” assignment, and kills themselves, is that somehow MORE justified than someone kills themsevles and leaves behind a journal revealing they were T? Or would it be prefered that LESS people killed themselves (raises hand). The main difference (and similarity) I see between LGB teens and T ones and suicide attempts is the social sense of other – knowing inside to be different (or often in the case of out LGB, treated as different), while this tends to be resolved in adulthood for LGB it (statistically) only increases for T. I have a hard time seeing that as not a bio marker of some kind. It is just that it is easier often to find T children than LGB children pre puberty (hey, I know we all had crushes in second grade, but we also had huge crushes on teachers and often on pets – I know there are those LBG who KNEW at 6 but mostly all I KNEW what what I was not, which was responding like the same age group around me, and that I was probably going to hell if I couldn’t God to zap me to BE LIKE THEM.)
Elizabeth
4 Feb 08 at 10:55 am
As much as I like being mentioned in the blogs (all publicity is good publicity), I do object when I am misquoted. There is nothing in my column “Imagine The World Turned Transgender: Life Without The Sex Binary ” that even suggests a mention of paedophilia and constant rape. The column does suggest that having males answering a female rape hotline would be a bad idea and would first have to overcome the general male assumption that the raped woman might have been “asking for it” — a common comment heard among males discussing women (other than their immediate family) who have been raped. There is even a specific jury instruction cautioning the jury not to think this way.
In any event, the following allegations linked to my column are a complete fabrication and a distortion. I can only think that the writer is reading their person emotions and reactions into their reading of the column. — but this is just flat out wrong to say I said any of this:
“This HBS woman suggests that a transgendered world would end in paedophilia and constant rape, in the lurid terms fundamentalist Christians use to describe gays and lesbians:
http://ts-si.org/content/view/2872/995/“
Lisa Jain Thompson
4 Feb 08 at 4:16 pm
Ah yes, reading my emotions into the article? And this would be a stark contrast to the completely rational “imagine the most disgusting things possible and attribute them to transgender” take you’ve gone with exactly how?
“perhaps there would be a commensurate increase in the number of paedophiles interested in young girls and adolescent boys”
“imagine male bodies counsellors giving advice to young female bodied transgenders who were raped by male bodied transgenders”
Fine. CONSTANT rape may have been a rhetorical excess–unlike, say, your column, which is perfectly reasonable and not at all ludicrous, verging on hateful portrait of the Doom and Despair Transgendered People Would Cause If They Got Their Way.
However, you blatantly raised the spectre of male bodied trans rapists and paedophilia, and it takes very little to read to that from your column. I couldn’t distort this article if I tried, it’s transgendered politics read through a funhouse mirror with little regard for reality.
I do note that none of what you imagine include a wider safe range of gender expression for everyone, civil rights for people who are transitioning, or gender variant children and teens not getting the shit kicked out them at school for not conforming to the current narrow ones, but, hey who needs that anyway, right?
queen emily
4 Feb 08 at 5:36 pm
[...] posting this because I posted in regards to both issues and that blog in a previous entry. I’m still unhappy with the gross misrepresentation of my [...]
Enough Non-Sense and HBS « Questioning Transphobia
4 Feb 08 at 7:07 pm
You’re not making too much sense, the way you say things, so please take the boxing gloves off while you type. I prefer bare knuckle fighting myself.
Now, on to your points:
Yeah, bullshit.
On, to your actual points.
What is “medically inaccurate” with those “statements about homosexuality and transsexuality” from the AIS Support Group Australia? Again?
I linked to two AIS support groups and ISNA the latter being as inclusive as they come. ISNA explains very clearly that different entities use different criteria for intersex status, but they have just about every condition under the sun listed in their FAQ. They are also not at all hostile to the transgendered, acknowledging that we share problems and we have common goals- not to mention that some intersex people suffer from gender dysphoria and choose to undergo reassignment. All three organisations, ISNA, AISSG Australia and AISSG UK are quite convinced that transsexualism is a brain thing. They certainly don’t see transsexuals as icky, neither do they want to run a mile when they hear the word. That’s the HBS Oompa Loompas you’re thinking of.
The thing is, there is a very clear definition of what intersex is. I’ll give you the ISNA wording, again, because they are the most eloquent ones:
The different definitions apply to what is “typical” in terms of anatomy, so some doctors may not diagnose intersex at birth where others do and so on. On the other hand, transsexual people, our anatomy is fairly typical. At least, to everybody else’s eyes it is.
But not for us. We may be born with perfectly typical and healthy bodies, grow up with perfectly typical and healthy bodies, but nooo, if we’re male to female, our bodies have been “ravaged by testosterone” and our genitals are “repulsive, horrible mistakes of nature”. Even if the only solutions we have, mean we must lose half our will to live (that’s what libido means you know), even if it means we have to spend our lives barren and even though our only option for a surgically created vagina (not to mention phalloplasty) is the same the intersex recognise as a pathetic excuse for a substitute, no- to us “it’s all I ever dreamed of”.
For the record, yeah, I’m talking in the first person because, sure, I’ve been there and said all that myself, ten times over. But I still don’t get it. What’s wrong with having a female brain and a male body? Who says that that means you will abhor your physique? That’s just a sophistry that someone came up with half a century ago as an excuse for the surgery they were demanding of their unbelieving doctor. “I’m really a woman, so I really need a vagina.” Once more, that hallucinogenic focus on the penis and the vagina, the lingam and he yoni, with all the 18h century mysticism it drags behind it.
Here. You browsed the AISSG Australia site, but you overlooked this. It’s a fine example of what I’m trying to tell you:
And they have every right to say that last part. Do you have any concept what vaginal agenesis causes a girl to go through? This part, you better read veeery carefully, if you want to get why intersex people and transsexual people go through completely different taxa of shit in our lives and why we have totally different needs and perspectives:
http://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/book/companion.asp?compID=98&id=13
Yeah, vaginal agenesis indeed…
Stassa
4 Feb 08 at 11:52 pm
Oh and, about the nature article, don’t link to that digest, it talks about rats and birds and fruit flies. Link to the two original studies, that were done on actual humans who were actually transsexual:
A Sex Difference in the Human Brain and its Relation to Transsexuality
and:
Male-to-Female Transsexuals
Have Female Neuron Numbers in a Limbic Nucleus
Those actually prove something. They prove a correlation between a structure in the human brain (not that of rats, birds or rabbits) that seems to be sexually dimorphic (keeping up?) and seems to be sexed according to the perceived gender in transsexual people.
Still, that is correlation, not causation. It says “there’s something in there that seems to be doing something, but we don’t know what.” And we’re not gonna find out any time soon, until we identify the actual gene or cluster of genes, or swarm of galaxies of genes that cause the dimorphism. The alternative, unfortunately, is to take a bunch of babies and try to induce transsexuality to them and that’s like, deeply unethical. You’d better not disagree with that last bit because I am really being polite up to now.
So, until we have a perfectly viable and totally acceptable explanation, for what causes transsexual people to be the way we are, you’d better clench your buttocks and learn to wing it, without any excuses for what you are. At best, your excuses may make people think of you as some kind of weirdo who’s fucked-up in the brain and can’t thnk straight to save her life. They’ll still not like you and there will still be plenty of bigots ready to burn you at the stake, or demand that you stay away from their kids, or go hide your hideous androgynous face somewhere.
Read Press for Change, have you? Well, read about the decisions of the European court of human rights and what they think of us.
That’s enough for “Old Europe” innit? No mention of sex in the brain or in the crotch, no mention of scientific proof (they discuss the lack thereof and the lack of need thereof elsewhere) no nothing but “dignity and worth in accordance with the sexual identity chosen by them at great personal cost”.
No excuses and no insensitive attempts to encroach upon the identity territory of people who also have to invest that great personal cost, wanting or not, to be themselves.
In other words- you don’t have to be a dickhead to make people believe you’re true.
Stassa
4 Feb 08 at 11:53 pm
trin; yeah, I know. I wasn’t yelling at you.
Stassa
4 Feb 08 at 11:57 pm
Thompson.
No it ain’t. People are giving you publicity as dangerous maniacs. ‘Cause that’s what you are.
Stassa
5 Feb 08 at 12:04 am
Oh, Stassa, don’t worry about arguing over the whole Cybele thing. I figure anything Cathryn says is already categorically wrong at this point – after she bought into the radfem line that ENDA would break Title VII, and Barney Frank’s bathroom panic scenario, while blaming trans people for inflaming the MWMF situation and justifying the trans exclusion, anything she supports or advocates is dead to me.
Lisa Harney
5 Feb 08 at 12:51 am
Right, this has gone further and actually somewhat over my head on several points now. (Yesterday was a particularly unproductive day for me, i would have come back to this thread but i didn’t really feel up to putting coherent sentences together.) But i will try to address the intersex and brain-sex stuff…
Perhaps a more accurate/complete version of what i was trying to say by “many “primary” transsexuals are in fact intersex” is that many people who are presently classified as “primary” transsexuals are in fact intersex – because they have things like PAIS or other conditions that mean their genitals are not “normal”, either in appearance or function, for their supposed birth sex, but doctors refuse to believe them about that, or they feel too ashamed/embarrassed to even bring it up in a medical setting, or they have phobias about anything medical (perhaps originating, in some cases, from trauma from stuff that was done to them as babies)… and so, because they have gender dysphoria, they go through the transition process for transsexuals, because in the currently existing medical system, that’s the only way open for them to get from the embodiment that they have to the embodiment that they need.
I think such people ought to be thought of (if they desire to be) as both transsexual and intersex (of course some may only want to be defined as one or the other, or even neither). If you adhere really strictly to the definitions in the AISSG Australia link, then i suppose those people aren’t transsexual, because they have “variations of the reproductive system” – but they have basically exactly the same experiences of both physical/hormonal gender dysphoria and of being raised as the opposite of what they feel they are as “normal” (ie, anatomically wholly their birth sex) transsexuals do. I think that part of the problem here may be that we are using different definitions of the word “transsexual”…
I don’t know. I am having a bit of trouble working out exactly what it is you are objecting to. To assert the lived reality of person X is not to deny the lived reality of person Y. I think there is, or should be, space in a truly inclusive movement for people of all possible identities – those who truly had to transition, those who chose to, those who are anatomically intersex and want to stay that way, those who are anatomically intersex and seek reassignment surgery, those who are anatomically “normal” for their sex of rearing and seek reassignment surgery, those who have identities fitting into a gender binary and those who don’t, whatever terms are used to define each of those groups – if the fundamental basis of that movement is that all people’s identities and physical/mental realities, whether chosen or unchosen, are equally valid and ewqually deserving of being respected. That doesn’t, IMO, have to result in appropriation of any one group’s identity by any other group.
shiva
5 Feb 08 at 8:23 am
Now on the brain sex thing – IMO brain sex doesn’t have anything at all to do with socially constructed gender roles – it’s to do with what kind of hormone balance your brain requires for optimal functioning. An analogy i use is petrol or diesel engines – it doesn’t matter at all whether your car is a shiny, curvy little hatchback or a big, angular, all-terrain Land Rover, if it has a petrol engine and you put diesel in it, it will fuck up the engine, and if it has a diesel engine and you put petrol in it, it will fuck up the engine.
Some people might be lucky enough to have engines that run equally well on either petrol or diesel. Some people may have engines that don’t run optimally on either, or may require a particular proportionate mixture of the two (in fact, this is where a simplistic oestrogen = petrol, testosterone = diesel metaphor falls short, because of course all humans have a mixture, in different proportions, of both oestrogen and testosterone as well… and there are probably other hormones i’ve left out. I’m not the biologist, i’m just the metaphor guy…)
But if you have the “wrong” (or rather an inappropriate) type of fuel in your engine, then things are going to go wrong, both physically and mentally (for example, ever-increasing suicidal feelings even if your family and social situation is completely loving and accepting, which go away instantly when the hormone balance is changed).
This is why i think that even in an anarcha-feminist utopia where there are no socially constructed gender roles at all, no differentiated “men’s” clothes and “women’s” clothes or anything, some people are going to need (not want, need) to transition, or at the very least have hormone therapy and/or removal of gonads if not phalloplasty/vaginoplasty. If the neural map side of things is true, some if not all of these people are going to need the phalloplasty or vaginoplasty as well.
(Whether a society entirely without socially constructed gender roles is possible is, of course, quite a different question, and one i’m not sure if i have the answer to…)
shiva
5 Feb 08 at 8:41 am
Also, i agree with Elizabeth for the most part, but i’m not sure i’d agree that all “intersex or DSD want to stay as far away as transsexuals as humanly possible” – there are those, such as the awesome Emi Koyama (who founded the Intersex Initiative), who are actively and passionately working to build alliances between all sex/gender variant people, and beyond that to all oppressed and marginalised groups (in particular between trans/intersex and the disability rights movement). I know there are some who want to distance themselves tho, and i think it’s for the same old shitty reasons of divide and rule/zero-sum game bollocks i said in my first comment in this thread, just like why some autistic people don’t want to consider themselves “disabled”, and all the rest of it…
Anyway, i think i’m going to shut up now, because i feel like i’m hogging this thread, and don’t want to take it off topic…
shiva
5 Feb 08 at 8:50 am
Here is what I am objecting to:
Yeah, I know exactly what you mean by that, it’s exactly what you said the frist time around and my objection was exactly the same then:
(OK, so it’s not an actual quote.)
To date, I have never come across the “lived realities” of such “intersex transsexual” people as the ones you describe. I have never come across them in the bibliography: even from the days of Hairy Benjamin, there was a clear distinction between “hermaphroditism” and “transsexualism” and this is still the case to date. I have never come across them as online narratives of the life experiences of transsexual people. I have never come across them as real-life narratives of transsexual people in meatspace.
Allow me to reiterate: In the decade I’ve been living as a transwoman, I have never come across such an “intersex transsexual” victim of “My Secret Intersex” as the ones you spend too much bandwidth describing.
What I have come across, is a bunch of insensitive dickwads, who tried to pass this or that “unusual” trait they had (Val‘s, “their dick hangs crooked of they have mantits”, describes it perfectly), or even their complete absence of any such trait, as one of a number of existing intersex conditions, Kleinefelter’s and PAIS prominent among them. Such arseholes, are easy to spot because they are not only mind-bogglingly self-gratifying by many orders of magnitude indeed (like mz vaginal agenesis from the AISSG Australia account above) but also completely uninformed about the conditions they attempt to masquerade as.
Just recently, the author of the harry-benjamin-syndrome.org website discussed in this very post we’re commenting on, has claimed she has cervical and ovarian tissue growing “inside” her, as a result of a “Secret Intersex” condition that was only diagnosed “after srs” (another typical urban myth conjured by that type of fuckwit.) When I asked her what was her intersex condition, she said it was PAIS- a condition that affects XY foetuses, who, as a result of their genotype can never have a womb or ovaries.
In short, because I’ve heard too many of that psychopathetic bullshit in my life, as a result of which my bullshit tolerance has reached -10 on the Fichter scale (Bullshit-Induced Fits), every time someone hits me with that crap, I demand to see their medical records, for real, in damn print if possible, or in electronic form if not, lest I, yes you guessed it, go fucking pogo on their bleeding shithead.
Does that answer your point no. 1?
On to point no. 2.
Or do you have a pont no.2? Let me see, let me see… hmmm… blah blah blah, stupid fucking irrelevant metaphor, blah blah blah, doesn’t even know how engines work, blah blah blah, more irrelevant craptarded metaphoric bullshit stuff, blah blah blah, some clueless bullshit about how the brain works, blah blah blah, someone actually told him transpeople don’t top themselves after HRT, wow, that’s good news! blah blah blah, load of meandering crap that means fuck all, blah blah blah, then a bit more blah blah, then blah and blah.
Nope, no point no. 2 in sight.
But, I have to give that to you kid. You have got crass. You’ve got the gall to try and pretend, in my face, that you are actually learned in the way of things, gender namely, that you haven’t got a fucking clue about, and that obviously are an integral part of my life and everybody else’s life in here but that mean nothing to you except an interesting conversation subject. I’d give you points for being a smart arse, if you didn’t lack the necessary (and occasionally refreshing) attitude. Go back to square one and grow a brain.
As about this:
Oh you think you’re so sneaky, eh? Well, I just spent two weeks of my life embroiled in a futile flamewar against that kind of segregationist idiots exactly -and some of them claimed to be intersex transsexuals exactly for the purpose of setting themselves apart from us mere perverts. While such fuckwits keep trying to slither into either group’s space (and it’s usually the intersexual’s space they’re trying to infiltrate and transsexuals who attempt it) there is going to be no trust between intersex and transgendered and no substantial alliance. So, stuff it. You just don’t know what you’re talking about and you antagonise me because you want to be loyal to your friend. Well, good for you, but she’s full of shit. Sorry boyo. You can pick your friends, you can pick your nose, but you can’t pick your friend’s nose -and now you’re trying to pick her fights. Just let it go.
Stassa
5 Feb 08 at 2:43 pm
Lisa. Wanna say stuffs. Later.
Stassa
5 Feb 08 at 2:45 pm
Stassa: I cannot tell if this is directed at me: “You’re not making too much sense, the way you say things, so please take the boxing gloves off while you type. I prefer bare knuckle fighting myself.”/”Those actually prove something. They prove a correlation between a structure in the human brain (not that of rats, birds or rabbits) that seems to be sexually dimorphic (keeping up?) ”
If so, I am unclear why you include statements which read to be condescending and hurtful.
I presented what I saw, have read, or experienced through interaction.
I continue to have medical problems with the statement and delineation “recognises that transsexualism, like intersex conditions and homosexuality, are all variations of sexual development.” As well as the separation of things like “bisexuality” and “Butch women” into a category “Other.” Primarily because while Bailey’s book “The man who would be queen” makes the exact same assertion; for most other scientists gender identity and sexual orientation are considered quite different things from different sources.
The definition you reprint from ISNA excludes several intersex/DSD conditions, including, as I mentioned above Klinefelter Syndrome. Though you could say that under the long umbrella of ‘reproduction’ it is included. However, a host of ‘reproduction’ health issues from PCOS on down never have been considered intersex conditions (including sterility, or one testicle or three, which is certainly not “typical” – but also not uncommon). But the intersex/DSD societies have marked a certain grouping, ironically often linked to atypical chromosome or hormone use/absorption (Bringing us back to the studies on mammals and chromosomes and hormone use/absorption during life periods of transsexuals). For example, unlike CAIS, an considered intersex/DSD condition, another condition which is affected by androgen is SMA (Spinal Muscular Atrophy) which is transmitted by the X chromosome, is the second highest cause of infant/child hereditary mortality and is not considered an intersex condition (though instead of insensitivity, it is the inability of the androgen to break which does cause dramatic body effects).
But these intersex/DSD groups are still in flux even in terminology. I notice you do not use the DSD term, is that intentional?
I did not use the two studies you mentioned because while interesting avenues, both, but the 12 year old hypothalamus study are not anyway near definitive nor do they allow for an understand of the how or why or even the what type of condition, which are the questions the brain researchers are working toward. While 6 hypothalamus, studied post mortem do show similarities to rat studies, the systematic working at, for instance a chromosome cause, which moves up higher and higher mammal studies (and/or with larger groups) with the same results will answer more of the questions upon which medical care is determined. If they replicated the hypothalamus study again with a larger group, it would be less open to criticism of secondary factors. I am not disagreeing with your conclusion, but the problem is that it is not able to be scientifically supported in a way which would force medical and then social acceptance (or has not in the decade since it was reported).
While I don’t agree with the statement of the European Court of Rights it is actually quite mild in comparison to many of the decisions of the western world (you could for example read the debate from the House of Lords when the Gender Identity Act was being passed, or the survey of UK doctors which asked which three procedures would they have eliminated from medical practice, or the BC supreme court cases’ decision on how there are two types of women; those who cannot be discriminated against legally and those who can). The European Court of Rights is actually defending, in their twisty way, against acts of discrimination on a local or national level by saying that regardless of how it is seen, there is no evidence that Transsexuals pose the threat that those who persecute them constantly claim.
“The alternative, unfortunately, is to take a bunch of babies and try to induce transsexuality to them and that’s like, deeply unethical.” – due to the decades of approved treatment of those with ambiguous genitalia until present (stopped in most countries…at last), that has already been done, and in many cases publicly documented (ala Riemer).
I think the original post was about a group which said, “yes, those other people exist but they are not like us, we are different, because we have reason X and Y on why we are the “true” medical conditions. I felt that while a destructive position, it was certainly not an original.
Also, in note, the first successful SRS occurred over a century ago, and the patient hadn’t continued to do attempt another surgery (something only successful completed last year I believe), a full womb transplant, it is unknown how long they would have lived. But then, genital surgeries of different kinds were a greek medical specialty, at least as recorded in Historians, particularly the reapplication of the appearance of a foreskin to Jewish males wishing to be part of Hellenistic life. How, and the exact procedure, I have been unable to locate. Sorry, I just get distracted when regarding medical history.
Elizabeth
5 Feb 08 at 4:17 pm
Elizabeth, I thought Stassa was talking to Lisa Jain Thompson, but I could be mistaken. Her list of points weren’t posted on this blog originally, but there is a link to LJT’s blog which does have said points. If I am wrong, I’d like to know, because it’s totally not okay to say that to you.
Stassa, I don’t believe that intersex conditions preclude dysphoria, and I’ve seen a wide range of gender identification among intersex people that’s not strictly limited to male or female, nor is it limited to the sex they’re anatomically closest to. I do think some trans people [i]have[/i] coopted intersex identity to legitimize themselves, however, and HBS advocates are of course trying to redefine transsexualism as intersex.
Lisa Harney
5 Feb 08 at 4:34 pm
Also, intersex conditions like mild PAIS don’t look very intersex – I mean, you’re just looking at a small penis (or micropenis), which [i]is[/i] viewed medically as intersex – and I wouldn’t be surprised if there were any trans women who had that, who identify as trans because they just don’t know. I mean, we’re not talking hypospadia here.
I also wonder how many people who had this and was surgically reassigned because of it fit in as women. I don’t think all of them do, but I would be surprised if there weren’t any data out there. Admittedly, I can’t find it.
Lisa Harney
5 Feb 08 at 5:16 pm
Lisa: sure, I was talking to Elizabeth. And I was being very polite, all things considered. 50% flaming rule, yeah? I was way below that actually. It’s Shiva I flamed to hell. But, hey, he should be used to that, being the incarnation of destruction and all.
I still wanted to tell you something about Sister Cybelina, that it’s personal and that it has nothing to do with her primitivist views on the ENDA & stuff. OK, I said it.
Because I am being condescending and hurtful. Duh. Make good arguments, use your language well and I’ll have little chance to do that. Communicate like a ten-year old and you’ll get an arse-kicking, because I have to converse with you on your level and having to regress to childhood pisses me off. Clear? And don’t you go all hurt-feelings on me, ’cause it don’t work and it will piss me off even more.
Anyway, Elizabeth, though I’m loathe to do that, not now please. I must sleep, go to school, attend functions and live life. Tomorrow, hopefully, I’ll be all yours. Still, you really have to get your act together, ’cause you’re making no sense most of the time and no effort to actually read what I’m writing. You’re trying, hard, to think I’m saying trannies should burn in hell, aincha? Would you mind if I slap you silly with this here big smelly trout, while I’m getting my eye-shut for tonight?
(see, that’s flaming with lace gloves, innit?)
Stassa
5 Feb 08 at 8:11 pm
The 50% flaming rule was something on a mailing list I ran at least 10 years ago. I haven’t used it anywhere since, as I think that for that to work, you really need the right community, and I’m not sure a blog where charged issues are discussed is the best place for it.
I also do think you are being unnecessarily harsh on Elizabeth (who, while not trans, is sympathetic and well-informed on a lot of trans issues – not perfectly, but better than many) and Shiva (who, right or wrong, spoke up on behalf of his friend). They’re not here as enemies.
Oh, and Cathryn got personal with you? Not surprised. I just figure anything she says is self-serving and narrow in scope. It makes it difficult to take anything she says or writes seriously when I can see her manipulating the whole “HBS/Transgender” argument to suit/favor her, see her buy into transphobic RadFem party line about how ENDA would sabotage Title VII, see her go on a tangent about how penises in women’s showers is a real threat because trans women are exposing themselves left and right, and that is based on a debunked story spread to discredit trans women in the first place.
Lisa Harney
5 Feb 08 at 8:46 pm
OK, you’re right. I’m overdoing it. I’ll try to tone it all down a bit.
However, anyone who’s insensitive enough to dismiss the wish of a large number of people to be left on their own to identify the way they please and supports a group that is constantly disregarding the same people’s sensitivities and tries to barg in on their territory, with completely outlandish claims (like “I have a womb from PAIS” and “I have vaginal agenesis ’cause I’m trans”) is very much the enemy, in my book.
Anway, more later.
Stassa
6 Feb 08 at 4:41 am
Yeah, trans people who do that are coopting someone else’s experiences to (they think) legitimize themselves, when they have perfectly good experiences of their own – just as anyone else who coopts another group’s experiences.
Shiva’s talking about his friend and Elizabeth’s talking about generalities. They’re not supporting people like Sue and Diane who retroactively declared themselves intersex to legitimize themselves (and label others as illegitimate), or trans women who think that describing themselves as having vaginal agenesis makes sense.
I think Shiva did dispute the idea that someone who identifies as trans cannot have any degree of intersex, and I do believe that this is correct – that having a trans identity does not itself exclude the possibility of also being intersex, or vice versa. But that’s no reason to claim biological impossibilities as fact. I don’t agree with the statement that a large number of “primary transsexuals” are in fact intersex, but I also don’t believe that primary/secondary is at all a useful distinction, whether you define it as precisely when someone transitions or when someone becomes aware of their gender identity.
The definition of intersex is a bit more tangled – Elizabeth’s coming at it from the medical point of view, and ISNA (and you) are from the social point of view – not unlike disability as social vs. medical. Elizabeth’s example of a particular intersex-like disorder that doesn’t actually affect genital development doesn’t really fall into the definition of intersex as given by ISNA simply because no one who has that is likely to be declared a medical emergency at birth and surgically altered, and that’s where the violence done to intersex people happens. “Social” might sound softer, but what I mean is that society does not want to accommodate people with ambiguous genitalia – rather, it forces them to conform.
Lisa Harney
6 Feb 08 at 5:10 am
Lisa has got it exactly right in that last paragraph. The important thing to understand about “intersex” as an issue that’s being worked on right now by intersex people is that the gravest issue facing intersex people in general is the genital mutilation of infants, and recovering from that kind of non-consensual surgery as intersex people grow up. (I put intersex in quotes since I gather there is some controversy over what exactly this constellation of experiences and conditions and bodies should be called.)
And the ISNA is quite clear about infant genital surgery: everyone who has had it knows, or finds out some time during adolescence or early adulthood. Some people’s families keep it more under wraps, and you do hear stories about adult women finding out that they were diagnosed as intersex at birth — there’s an interview with a woman like that in one of ISNA’s educational films, and some of the personal stories of leaders of IS organizations touch on this as well, having to go back and piece together a patchwork of medical records to find out what was done to them. In all cases, there’s solid evidence of infant diagnoses for people who had medical interventions at birth, and there’s other kinds of tangible bodily evidence for folks who have variations of the reproductive system.
Even if there are other people who fall into a grey area sometimes called “hormonally intersexed,” where there’s not necessarily any tangible evidence (the ISNA I think has statistics on their site about the number of people who might be walking around with Klinefelter’s without even knowing it) I think it’s extremely important to let people who have the experience of being nonconsensually operated on as infants organize around that issue, name themselves, and then not have other people gatecrashing in as some kind of attempt to gain legitimacy with a “more real” diagnosis of some sort. It’s totally offensive, appropriative and takes attention away from the real issue.
So I generally agree with what Stassa said on this thread. At the same time, I don’t think these categories are totally cut and dry, certainly not categories like “homosexual” and “intersex” that the AISSG website makes sound like are exclusive! There are lots of IS people who also identify as homosexual, and there are in fact trans IS people too. Here’s the thing — most infants who were operated on for being IS were assigned female. But most people trying to claim intersex as a legitimizer for their transition were assigned male. Huge statistical mismatch. On the other hand, there are definitely quite a few IS people who were forcibly assigned female who were raised as girls and then later decided to transition to being male. Many of them identify both as trans and intersex, even though the “official diagnosis” in the DSM makes these categories exclusive. Raven Kaldera, a fairly well known author on queer subjects, is one example.
In any case, it never really works to pretend that people can be fit neatly into little boxes with nobody who overlaps and no grey areas in between. However, when it comes to an incredibly problematic practice like infant genital surgery, we can be a little more clear: some people have had it, some people haven’t, and those affected need to be able to lead the work and speak clearly for themselves.
Holly
6 Feb 08 at 6:25 am
Meh. I’m trying to come up with something to say that won’t sound totally irrelevant after Holly’s comment, but I can’t.
This bit in particular:
I’m so gonna steal that off you, lady (whoever you are.) ‘Cause it’s what I wanted to say but didn’t know I did.
Lisa, yeah, you’re right, I’m making it sound as if there are medical impossibilities, rigid rules of who is intersex and who isn’t, or, more to the point, what your body can be like and what it can’t. And there’s no such rule. So, sure, there have to be some people with mild PAIS who identify as mtf transsexuals going around. But it seems to me we ‘re talking about a tiny number here. They have to both have the mild-er forms of PAIS, and a female gender identity and be gender dysphoric, all in one. The mtfs claiming to be intersex on the other hand- their numbers are legion, like. Besides, I for once am not at all convinced that a female gender identity in a male body necessarily results in gender dysphoria; it’s too common sense for it to make any sense to me any more. Like, sure, if you are a woman in a man’s body, you gotta be freaked out of your mind, ’cause, like, duh, eh? .
In short:
Quoting myself from nowhere; sure sign of schizoidism, that.
Anyway, the intersex themselves make a huge point about having pretty standard gender identities and very little to do with gender dysphoria. And they’re pretty vocal about the way everyone’s treating them like confused freaks of nature. Which is not at all helped by transsexuals going “I’m gender dysphoric because I was born intersex, how would that make you feel if you were born in the wrong body?” But, yeah, once more, what Holly said.
Elizabeth, Lisa put a few things into perspective regarding your and my comments, but I’m still having trouble answering your points, because you’re totally confused about what I’m saying- and you’ve no excuse to do that, ’cause Lisa and just about everybody else seem to be reading them right.
For example, you think that I quoted the court of human rights to show how society thinks we’re freaks and should burn in hell- the point was exactly the opposite. No, the opinion of that judge wasn’t “quite mild”, neither was it “actually defending, in [a] twisty way” transsexual rights. It went out of its way to make it absolutely perfecty clear that transpeople are entitled to a full set of human rights, with no strings attached and no matter whether transsexuality is a medical condition or not. The quote is a from a decision in favour of two transsexuals claiming breach of their human rights. The court said “yeah, you’re being discriminated upon allright and it fucking sucks arse and we’re not standing for it anymore, ’cause we’re not a society of damn bastards, neither one of scientifically-tuned robots.”
As about the studies I link to, yeah, exactly, what I said was they prove nothing definitively. The same goes for the rat and bird and rabbit studies- no proof that any of that is actually what goes on in the human, especially as we have a much more complex brain (or at least some of us do.) So, yeah, no excuses for being a tranny and liking frilly dresses in there. What’s your point, then? You’re the one who said it’s all a medical condition, that causes a high suicide rate among transsexuals. In fact, that’s even weirder if you’re not transsexual as I thought you said you were- who told you we all kill ourselves and why do you need to know that that is true before you accept any of us? Like, if we’re happy being who we are, and since there’s no definitive proof that something’s wrong with our brains- then what? Do you think we deserve to be treated as second class people? ‘Cause that’s the problem with the medical causes of transsexuality: if it’s proven, it’s supposed to shut up the bigots once and for all, but, if it’s not, then we’re all a bunch of perverts and need burning. Well, that’s a fucking stupid case of carrot if you conform, stick if you can think for yourself, so bugger that for a game of soldiers, I ain’t playing and nobody else should.
But, I’m willing to cut you some slack if you’re not a transsexual. I know it may be very hard to make sense of what’s going on in our minds, or to find a definition of transsexuality that won’t offend anyone, especially by looking around the tg-net, where everybody has an opinion (and some people have more than one arsehole.) So, yeah, sorry for yelling at you, I didn’t realise. I don’t think you’re supposed to know or understand anything. On the other hand, don’t pretend you do, please. ‘Cause that is well annoying.
Shiva, you’ve gone silent, but, one last thing, kid. Yeah, your friend may have PAIS. In which case, she’s still wrong about it being the main cause of “primariness”. Chances are, she doesn’t have PAIS though. In which case, she sucks. That’s what I’m saying.
And I have to be at school in half an hour. Math lecture. Pray for my soul (and excuse the hastiness of my comment.)
Stassa
7 Feb 08 at 1:27 am
Yes, I referred to that as coopting; I’m not defending it.
Also, on the other thing, if we’re talking about people who fit into the transsexual mold – body doesn’t match what the brain expects – it’s pretty straightforward. If someone’s fine with a mismatch because it’s not all that strong or whatever, then my comments probably aren’t in reference to them. I can’t account for everyone every time I say something – I try to account for as many as possible without generalizing too much.
Also, it sounds like you’re saying gender dysphoria is a reaction to being transsexual when it’s another way to describe someone who is transsexual. Probably a poor way, but I was tired and perhaps used infelicitous language.
Lisa Harney
7 Feb 08 at 1:42 am
Ummm…. I think I mean that gender dysphoria is a symptom of the general transsexuality condition. I’m saying, basically, it’s not necessary that everyone will have it, and that it’s a poor excuse for a proof of a genuine female gender identity. Many of us use it that way, but I don’t see why you can’t be female and still well-adjusted in a male body and gender role.
The problem with that is that I haven’t seen it happenning myself, so it’s just theoretical at this point. But I’ve come to believe that this fundamental theorem of transsexuality, that a woman would feel trapped inside a man’s body, is Utter Bullshit™ and we have to reverse engineer it to its basically sexist and ignorant source, if we’re gonna make any progress with knowing where we come from.
Anyway, I don’t understand gender dysphoria very well, truth be told. I never had it- and this isn’t me bragging about how unsur-passable I am, I didn’t even feel dysphoric when I looked like an Albanian mobster. Which of course is why I’m saying you don’t have to be gender dysphoric to be transsexual.
Ahem. On the other hand, I’m talking bullshit again. There was a period in my life when I was intensely dysphoric, but it was all too confusing and I don’t think I’ve made sense of it yet. Meh. It’s complicated. Never mind. I haven’t got a clue, yet…
Stassa
7 Feb 08 at 9:20 am
There are more kinds of dysphoria and more responses to that dysphoria than just one or two terms can really cover, I think. I like Julia Serano’s attempts in Whipping Girl to separate out a bunch of different ideas from each other and forge a more complex and nuanced vocabulary. For instance, maybe there’s a different between “gender role dysphoria” and “body dysphoria,” hm? Some people have one, some the other, some both, some neither.
Holly
7 Feb 08 at 2:16 pm
“For instance, maybe there’s a different between “gender role dysphoria” and “body dysphoria,” hm?”
Sounds right to me. :)
As does the two “engines” analogy.
Trin
7 Feb 08 at 8:00 pm
Good point, Holly.
I wasn’t saying that gender dysphoria is the same as transsexualism, just that it’s used interchangeably. I’ve also been irresponsible in this thread in attempts to avoid using certain terminology and using other terminology that I would prefer to avoid, and sorry for that.
Stassa, I agree – the entire concept of gender dysphoria comes from psychiatrists defining for trans people that we have to hate our bodies and hate sex with our bodies and hate our lives prior to transition.
Lisa Harney
7 Feb 08 at 8:31 pm