Transsexuality
Why in any way would it be bad? People who are transgender don't just decide one day "Hm... Well I was born with a penis but i'd rather have a vagina" it's that in the womb the body was made with a female brain and a male body (Or Vice-Versa). I can't even believe there is a thread about this.
no, transsexual men have a lack in male hormones, which makes them want to be a woman. also, transsexual surgery doesn't make them women, it makes their penis look like a vagina. they don't have a uterus. in other words, they are not a woman, they are fake.
http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-ep ... new-vagina
As far as I am aware, there is no medical evidence to demonstrate this etiology for sexual dysphoria (though, I will acknowledge that I am not a specialist in this area of medicine).
As for the results of sex reassignment surgery, you fail to make a distinction between genetic sex, legal sex and social sex. An MTF will continue to have an XY genotype, certainly. But in most jurisdictions her legal sex will be female as will her social sex (the sex that she respresents herself to be to the community).
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--James
so do you think women who have had a hysterectomy are not real women then?
Also when a olympic athlete turned out to have xy chromosomes which she had not known about, experts revealed that an actual significant minority of women have xy chromosomes and its a leading cause of infertility and these women go around living their lives never knowing they had xy chromosomes. So clearly gender and sex is more complicated than what some would have us believe.
I identify with GLBTQ issues and transsexualism is a very serious matter, not a stunt the individuals do. And I have a RL acquaintance that is transsexual and several online friends that are post-op transsexuals. For a few of them, getting surgery was the difference between life and death, as many transsexuals can become suicidal. I favor the government paying for sex reassingment, provided harm-reduction protocols are payed for- actually, one need not legally get surgery in all states or municipalities to become female, in some states all that is required is hormone treatment. ( Calpernia Williams is a semi-famous transsexual woman whose boyfriend was the victim of a hate crime and later worked for PFLAG, and yet she never underwent sexual reassingment surgery (I guess she's a "she-male" but that term is potentially perjorative). It really depends on what the individual can live with without experiencing disabling dysphoria.
I myself have experienced gender dysphoria so i vaguely have an idea what it's like to want to be the opposite sex,, though in my case i don't believe i'm a transsexual, i'm more gender atypical (transgender is a broader category, it includes alot of stuff, not just people who want to have surgery to be sexually reassigned). I have some unusual biomarkers, my hand finger ratios are more female than male, so maybe this accounts for somu of it (this is rare among men, though i've met others that have female-typical index-ring ratios), and is believed to be due to prenatal testosterone.
As far as the question of surgery. It may not be as elective as one might think. During her presentation, Dr. Lea Shaffer, past president of the Harry Benjamin Association, had stated, and I'm paraphrasing because it has been some years, "Some of the untreated transsexual people are among the most miserable people I have ever met."
The subject of surgery is interesting because, if someone breaks their arm, then they will get it mended, and yet (I believe) we are somewhat more sentimental and judgmental when it comes to a persons genitalia. All the sudden, the question of morality comes into play.
I've used this following example before, as graphic as it may be, but if one/you were a male who dropped a running chainsaw in your lap, would you not miss your the configuration of your genitals? Would you not want reconstruction? Before you had reconstruction, you would most-likely retain your gender, your idea of of you are because there are static as well as dynamic aspects to gender. At the same time, you might be want the reconstruction, and so many transsexual people.
There are other mitigating factors. The first being, that generally, the amount of hormones it takes to counter those hormones in a pre/non operative person may be much higher than in a post-operative person, to have the same effect.
[I take much less estrogen than I did preoperative, and the effects on my body are more pronounced. For example, I used to have curly hair, and now my hair is quite straight.]
There is subtle another issue. Often, we as a species tend to make generalizations about people based on sex, and this is quite ingrained. Many people may have a very difficult time accepting a woman with male genitalia or visa-versa.
[Having done this TS-thing for 20 years, I tend to be pessimistic about the human race's potential to overcome this, as many people do not accept people with interesexed states, those with hormone differences, and chromosomal differences, such as with people with Klinefelter and Turners.]
Last edited by BrendaEM on 10 Feb 2011, 12:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
That cracked me up.
This thread reminds me of those crazy people who shout abuse at actors in the street because things their TV characters have done - It's not real!! !! It doesn't work like South Park, you don't go into a 'Rhinoplasty Shop' and get the surgery without knowing what your getting into (at least doing it legally). I would be shocked to learn of any MTF who thought they were going to naturally give birth or have a period.
I agree, but they should make other things like AS diagnosis more cheaply available first.
Not an ideal analogy to make, if you had it before you would miss it quite differently.
Not an ideal analogy to make, if you had it before you would miss it quite differently.
In utero, most of us undifferentiated sex organs or generally, both sets of sex organs. We had gill slits too.
Not an ideal analogy to make, if you had it before you would miss it quite differently.
In utero, most of us undifferentiated sex organs or generally, both sets of sex organs. We had gill slits too.
And we don't miss any of that, hence my point.
I don't know if this was previously mentioned in this thread, but it seemed interesting and somewhat pertinent:
http://aebrain.blogspot.com/2011/01/tra ... penis.html
It's about the phenomenon of "phantom" limbs and phantom limb pain, which apparently happens in about 80-90% of amputation cases. But in MTF trans people it happens much less, not even a majority of the time.
The trouble, though, is that GRS surgery isn't an amputation, so I think the theory, while interesting, isn't as straightforward as it's made out to be.
How about disgusting!
As much as I feel you have a right to state your feelings and your opinion, why specifically did come to a GLBT subforum, enter a thread named "Transsexuality," to do it.
Young impressionable people may read your post and internalize what you have written, and perhaps grow to hate themselves, or feel that what they need to do to survive would be upsetting to some people.
As a title, "LGBT Discussion" seems open-ended, but it would seem that the purpose of this subforum was to help those people on the spectrum who are LGBT.
It is fitting that a person in this subforum should be treated with the same respect that anyone else on the ASD spectrum