Do you consider women that used to be men as women?

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Exactly.

no.

So if a man considers himself to be a woman, then he's a woman ... interesting ... would you then say that if a man considers himself to be Jesus of Nazareth (whom some call, "Christ"), then he's Jesus Christ? How about if a woman considers herself to be Lady Diana; is she then Lady Diana?

What you do not see a problem with is called a "Delusional Disorder", which typically occurs in the context of neurological or mental illness; specifically in psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia, paraphrenia, manic episodes of bipolar disorder, and psychotic depression.

The current treatment of the transsexual delusion (e.g., being born into the "wrong" sexual phenotype) is to indulge the deluded person's dysmorphia and try to surgically modify the appearance of their bodies to conform to the delusional image. By this reasoning, those who believe themselves to be Jesus should be treated by surgically altering their hands and feet to conform to the stigmata - the holes left by the nails that were driven through Jesus' hands and feet at his crucifixion.

^ Don't MtF transsexuals have brains that are more 'feminine' according to scans? This suggests that it's different to delusional beliefs.

Can you provide a link to a reputable medical website that supports this idea?

Schizophrenics often have aberrant brain scans and they're treated with medications for their delusions, not cosmetic surgery.

^ oh well, it's actually somewhat questionable as to whether it has been established or debunked:

http://neuroskeptic.blogspot.co.uk/2011 ... brain.html

I retract my statement. I still think people should be able to do what they want with their own bodies, and that includes sex reassignment surgery.

Same here. Just don't expect me to pay for it, or for me to consider the "reassigned" person to be of their apparent gender. A "reassigned" person will always be (to me) a surgically-altered version of their former gender - an emasculated male, for example.

I'm ok with sex reassignment surgery/hormonal treatment being offered on the NHS because it's the only thing that improves some people's quality of life. When the alternative is them killing themselves or being less productive to society because they are very miserable, then I think it's reasonable to help them get treatment. You can't currently 'cure' transsexualism with anything else.

Have you known someone who is schizophrenic? All those medications don't always do that much good. Finding the right drug is difficult, some turn one into a zombie. There are people who are helped, but it's not an easy thing to treat, and there's certainly no cure. I've known of schizophrenics who were high functioning who went off their medication and could function, but were very different from the average person. I can respect that, since there are so many problems with the medications.

But schizophrenia is considered something that must be treated because it hampers one's ability to live, to function. Being transgendered does not. So you really are talking apples and oranges.

I don't see why anyone, out of simple respect, can't treat someone who feels that they're a woman, regardless of birth hardware, like a woman if that's what the other wants. I knew someone in high school who changed her name when she started her career, just a simple name change to something she felt was more suitable to her work. A lot of people she knew had trouble adjusting. That name change was very important to her, and I respected it. So it was a little difficult to get used to calling her by a different name. No big deal. It's a small adjustment on my part that does a lot for her feeling that I understand and respect her as a person. I feel the same way about someone who is transgendered. If it's important to them, I respect that. End of story.

I don't want people to treat me like an extrovert, when I'm an extreme introvert, yet that's something I've battled all my life, pressure to conform to what's seen as the norm. (Am I deluded, thinking I must be introverted, when obviously most people are extroverted? Please!) So I can understand how it feels not to be treated with respect for who you are INSIDE. I don't want to do that to anyone else.

I've known schizophrenics. I've also known people who were "reassigned".

If being transgendered does not hamper one's ability to live and function, then why go to the trouble and expense of surgical "reassignment"? I think the answer lies in the greed of the people who encourage the surgery and subsequent behavioral therapy.


Because it's like treating a deluded person as Napoleon, Jesus, or some other historical figure, just because they want you to.

I feel normal. People tend to treat me as abnormal. I consider them as abnormal. Who is right?

To me, "Reassigned" people are nothing more than surgically-altered versions of their former selves; nothing more, and nothing less.

The type of ability to live and function that I referred to in someone who is mentally ill is external, their ability to hold a job, follow the laws, and live in society. The things that prompt someone to undertake reassignment are internal and/or personal to them. No one else but them can understand it, that doesn't mean we shouldn't respect it. It's their choice.


Some people treating you in ways you don't like isn't a valid excuse for treating some others in ways they don't like. In fact, I would hope that would cause you to be more understanding. Apparently it doesn't. I'm afraid that says more about you than about any reassigned people you encounter.

Sure, it's their choice, but I don't have to "respect" it - there is no law that says I have to. By this, I mean that I don't have to treat a "reassigned" man as I would a real woman - I do not have to be attracted to him, and I do not have to call him "Miss" or refer to him as "Her" or "She". They're surgically-altered men, that's all; not real women.

Which leads me to ask this question: Why discuss surgically-altered men in the "Women's Discussion" forum? Shouldn't this thread be in the LGBT forum?

Why so self-righteous on this subject, Fnord? It's no skin off your back to treat someone who looks and behaves female, as female, regardless of the gender she started out as. If she feels like she has been cured of a condition that was causing her distress, who are you to say that her own perception of her own brain and body are wrong?

People who think that they're Napoleon or Jesus tend to display behaviors that are at least annoying, and often harmful to themselves or others (trying to walk on water, for example). They're treated not so that they won't think that they're Jesus or Napoleon, but so that they won't go around trying to turn water into wine or start continental wars.

If you don't want to pay for it, fine - afaik, in the States, you don't anyway. But why not give someone a modicum of human respect, if it costs you nothing?

No self-righteousness involved, just calling it as it is.


HE is delusional, and not a woman - only a surgically-altered MAN.


A delusion is still a delusion, no matter what form it takes.


Human respect - no a problem. Reinforcing their delusions - not my problem.

Look, I recently received was called a homophobe by a gay man because I did not think of him as "hot". On another occasion, a woman was angry with me because I did not refer to her as a "lady" ("How dare you not call me a lady?!"). Another man followed me for two blocks from an art show calling me all kinds of names because I referred to his daughter's art work as "nice" when he was expecting grander superlatives ("What's wrong with 'beautiful'? What's wrong with 'fantastic'? What the f--- is wrong with you?").

I'm done with living other people's fantasies and putting up with their expectations of how they think I should behave. People who pretend to be something they are not should not expect others to pretend along with them. If people want to have silicone breasts, spikes, marbles, and other objects implanted in their bodies; if they want to be surgically altered to look like mountain lions; if they want to be carve up to look like someone of the opposite sex, that's nothing I can complain about. But if they expect me to praise them and treat them as 'normal', and then they take offense when I don't -- without having insulted or abused them in any way -- then it is THEIR problem, and not mine.

If men who had gender reassignment surgery and are now women aren't really women and are still men then that would mean I could do the lesbian sex and be straight at the same time.

I'd have some issues thinking of someone as a woman if I went up their skirt and found a penis in there but if we aren't dating and they present as a woman and are working towards transitioning I'd have no problem with treating them like a woman.

I've seen trans people where you would never know that they were trans. There was this one transman I used to watch on youtube where it took me a while to even find out. The first video of his I saw was about a cisgendered males thoughts on lower half surgery and for at least half the video I thought he was the cisgendered male. I saw him topless and you couldn't even tell.

Once in a prison documentery I saw there was a transwoman that until they said otherwise I thought she was a female worker and not a male inmate. She just looked like a completely normal woman, not over the top or like a drag queen.

Yes, it does.


I would.


Anyone can grow breasts; there is enough variation in size and shape that even silicone implants can look reasonably real, so your observation proves nothing. It's "downstairs" where the most surgical alteration is performed (unless he needed facial and pharyngeal reconstruction, as well). One of the transgendered men who appeared on Howard Stern's show, for example, had obvious differences that made him stand out from the three real women in a line-up, and when he stripped down to the buff and started running around the set, his nether parts looked like an accident. Not to mention that he didn't "run like a girl".


Wasn't that the man who received his "reassignment" surgery while in prison at the expense of taxpayers?