Transgender & Transsexual
07 Feb 2011, 10:51 pm
When I first started having these thoughts, it was roughly about the same time as when I started getting forced into going to church and whatnot - firsthand experiences with religion. So I would sit here, try to picture myself as a girl in my head. And then spend the next hour freaking out and telling myself I'm being wrong and just venture on back to reality.
Kiran
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15 Feb 2011, 7:56 pm
What makes you trans is the desire to be the other gender, whether it be partially or fully. I honestly believe I should have a penis.
Many trans people experience phantom genitalia, which is basically feeling that you have genitalia that you actually don't physically have. It's kinda like phantom limb syndrome. It could explain why you feel the way you do. But maybe you already know all of that and I'm just bringing you yesterdays news
By the way, I'm genderqueer/androgyne/gender-forked/whatever-you-wanna-call-it. All I know is that I just can't fit into normal gender standards. I always get crap for being to masculine but with my super androgynous brain, I had been born physically male, I would probably get crap for being a girly boy. I really can't get anything right
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30 Sep 2011, 9:54 pm
The best book I've read on the topic is Julia Seranos Whipping Girl (look it up, I can't post urls yet)
In the end of that link there is a glossary of terms. One of the major arguments in the book is that there is transgenderism in nature and all around human culture, as it is true that gender binary is a human universal and in large skale there are same patterns everywhere in male and female behavior, it is allso true that exceptions are universal too, there are hidras in india, katoye in thailand, and these often make "third" gender, but essentially it is identification to "other" gended. Serano allso talks how this turns often into gender conflict, becouse the heuresticly true ideas of gender differences are turned into oppositional sets of norms, wich are sometimes violently garded.
That leads to arguments of insintric inclanations and subconsious sex:
1. Subconsious sex, gender expression, and orientation represent separate gender inclinations that are determined largely independently of one another. (This model does not preclude the possibility that these three inlclanations themselves may be composed of multiple, separable inclinations, or that additional gender inclanations may exist as well)
2. These gender inclinations are, to some extent insintric to our persons, as they occur on a deep, subconsious level and generally remain intact despite social influations and consious attempts by individuals to purge, repress or ignore them.
3. Because no single genetic, anatomical, hormonal, environmental, or psychological factorhas ever been found to directly cause any of these gender inclinations, we can assume that they are are qantative traits (i.e. multiple factors determine them trough complex interactions) As a result, rather than producing dircrete classes (such as feminine or masculine ; attraction to women or men), each inclination shows a continious range of possible outcomes.
4. Each of these inclinations roughly correlares with physical sex, resulting in a bimodal distribution pattern (i.e., two overlapping bell curves) similar to that seen in other gender differences, such as height. While it may be true that, on averadge, men are taller than women , such statement becomes virtually meaningless when one examines individual people, as any given woman may be taller than any given man. Most people have heights that are relatively close to the averadge, but others fall in outlying areas of the range (for instance some women are 6 feet 2 inches and some men are 5 feet 4 inches). Similarly, while women on averadge are more feminine than men, some women are more masculin than certain men, and some men are more feminine than certain women.
Becouse these inclinations appear to have multiple inputs and show continious range of outcomes, it is incorrect to assume that those with exeptional sexual orientations, subconsious sexes, or gender expressions represent developmental, biological or environmental “errors”; rather they are naturally occuring examples of human variation.
This opens the cultural field too:
In the very strong level the "subconsious" sex - I'd say halfconsious becouse I don't think it really is possible to repress it totally - will be felt like a phantom libs, and the gender dissonance is strong as hell, sometimes early in the childhood. Important thing to note is that this kind of extremity is the rare form of the transgender spectrum. [i] I used to be afraid to say that im trans, becouse others that talked of the subject seemed to have far more severe experimences, strong dissonance, thoughts of suicide and so on. One must remember that even if there is a pre-birth sense of our gender in the neurogenetical level (obviously, if the transgender is universal and we except the notion that soul is located in the brain, tough if you wan't me to tell you the exact mecanism, I can't) our brain is allso plastic, we allso get used to and start liking things: I do indeed feel that I have some kind of phantom p****, but the feeling is not everpresent. I do allso very dearly love my penis, and thus I identify as a katoy. I do indeed feel more at home using tits, but I don't feel painfull not having them.
This getting used to - I don't want to say habituation becouse that is quite behavioristic, I did not simply habituate, I allso feel home and happy with a penis - is not to say if one can one ought. I may be able to live my life as a male, tough maby a long haired, sensual, dancing hippie and revolting kind but male never the less, the question is, why should I if I don't want to? There the link with autism seems weird, becouse differences in brain plasticity are if I have understud correctly - positive in the autism spectrum, to a point of overplasticity, where becouse the neural patterns carve fast and deep, there will emerge obsessive and ritualistic behavior too. Please correct me if im going in the level of neurobabble here, but I did not invent that hypothesis.
So the question is, as gender is neurological fenomena and autism is, if they correlate, is there a neurological link too?
There is a third factor though, konformity or mirroring, in psychology called the Ach paradigm (see wikipedia article)
People tend to say obviously wrong answer to a simple question, if the others in the group do too, some even perceive the wrong answer. As autists do not mirror to the exctent that neurotypicals do, that might explain why more of the transgender people who are out are in the spectrum. Ofcourse people in the spectrum can try to mirror too, but that is when it is pounded in and the basic feeling of self worth has been injured, but one can't quite do explicitly what neurotypicals are able to do implisitly.
The remaining factor is the identification to the similar, men tend to have more capability in visuospatial thinking than women and less in verbality, but the differences within male are stronger, more idiots, more brilliant minds per group. My cognitive profile is very strongly verbal and relatively weak in the visuospatial (I tend to get lost easily, can't find things that are right in front of me and so on) so I identify with girls allso becouse I can communicate with them better and identify to their intrests. That, tough is totally inadequate way of explaining, becouse there are some men I do identify in some level but not in totality. There is allso the ambiguety between desire and identification: I allso love and admire feminine, hot girls, and as I allso want to be one, it get's complicated. As Sandy Stone said - a question every young transgirl has to meet, when we looked at other girls, did we want to be them or did we want to f**k them?
When it comes to the neurology, I tried to ask my sisters husband if there has been tests with prostheses and mirrors and fMri scanners to confirm or falsify that aspect, but he didn't know if there is, and if there is it's not very well known. If you know, please le me know.
01 Oct 2011, 2:12 am
By the way, there are several different topics in this forum with the same topic. To the moderators: would it be possible to merge them? Some more thigs, alot of people say they are gender-neutral or genderqueer, and genderqueer I guess can mean a spektrum between two things: the genderplay, mixing elements of all genders is simply a masquarade, a drag as there "is no real me" or it can be that both elements are deeply meaningfull, one just identifies with them all, and wants to create a new mythology. One may want to be andygynous or to mix the two "untill the consept no longer makes sense" as Judith Butler put it.
I got this from one of the other AS/transgender-topics:
As for myself, although I am biologically female, I don't particularly associate with the female gender, or with the male gender, for that matter. In some ways, I am a gender of one, with some traits that are associated with both genders and some traits that are not associated with either gender.
In terms of sexuality, going by the relationships I've had, I would be characterized as predominantly straight, although I am equally attracted to people of both genders. Frankly, though, I find that I make even less sense to women than I do to men, which is probably why I've dated more men than women (I have found that the ability to engage in "appropriate" social interaction is more important for women than it is for men, meaning that most NT women just don't "get" me). My current partner of the last four years (a fellow aspie) is male.
I think there are many of us who, like me, don't particularly associate with "maleness" or "femaleness." I classify myself as aspie-sexual, since concepts like "straight," "gay," "bisexual," "pansexual," etc. are too rigid and politicized for me to identify with them. Likewise, "male" and "female" don't really fit me, either, and frankly, I don't really understand what being "male" versus being "female" means.
To answer your question, I think that while one does not have to be aspergian to be bi-gendered, many of us aspies may be bi-gendered in terms of having an alternating or "atypical" (i.e. not neatly classified in a NT way) experience of feeling male and/or female.
My $0.02
~ Caterina
And this goes to desire too, Tony Attwood points that aspergerians are often "age and sexblind", have unconventional relationships and so on.
I think by the way, that there is mixing between the binary and oppositional - the notion that gender consists of two poles of rigidly opposite attributes. I do identify within the binary in the sense that I am a girl, I call myself "trans" or "katoy" becouse I some of my fysicly male body, and lesbians feeling aversion towards penises may feel offended if I dont tell them some things before they maybe have a crush on me in the internet, but I am a girl. I am a feminist, too. I believe that a woman can do anything that a man can. I don't think my girlness is being threatned by carrying heavy objects, or even sometimes havin a beard - if "biowomen" could have a beard, many would. In this very sense of body recognition and some basic feelings, gender is definitely being not doing, I am complitely against the butlerian ideas of taking it all to being a "sosial construction" and so on. It is not a "performative act" to others or even bigOther, but alone in my room, eyes closed, meditating I feel fundamentally the same thing as being with people. Surely I like attention but that is not it. As a person in Sandy Stones anecdote put's it: I am a woman and this is my pipe. The map is not the territory, symbols that refer to gender are not the gender. Symbols are needed surely, but they are up to manipulation.
There is allso a curious thing: the Gid in childhood correlates strongly with homosexuality later. I wonder how does this come about? Is it so, that by prosess of getting used to, the phantoms are tranferrable: I do very strongly consider my anus as a sexorgan, and that feeling is linked to feeling of a phantom vagina. This may say something about the classical effeminate homosexuals - are the same people usually really allso bottom? Or butch lesbians - that correlates with trans-manhood, does it not? This may be a result of conditioning and habituation, becouse as I said that is violent but in many cases can be done - the current system function ofcourse in the way that everything else is tried first and one is being heard when the subject of power absolutely can not conform (but tries, maybe at the expence of suicide or some such thing).
Sandy Stone allso mentions a strange thing: transmen tend to be short and have small hands, transwomen vice verca. This is allso something everybody who pays attention knows, but I don't know if anyone has a qantitaive analysis... so, something in the genes? But what?
I believe that many reasons, the political struggle of autism and queer merge in whole lot of ways, ofcourse trough these correlations but allso trough "what bodies can do", I can't post urls yet but I recommend to see a clip from examined life with Sanyara Taylor and Judith Butler. Good flick, iz in the internez. Namely in youtube.
01 Oct 2011, 9:46 am
On Wednesday in my women's studies (it's really more of a gender studies, but it's from the women's studies department so whatever....) class we we talking about gender and transgender and sexuality and stuff, and the instructor said that there was a difference between "transexual" and "transsexual" and that one "s" was generally preferred within the LGBT community. Can someone explain that to me?
01 Oct 2011, 1:01 pm
Don't get it, I guess it may be an attempt to take the emphasis out of transition, for same reason, "sex change" is not appropriate but you may talk of "gender reassignmen", for some even term like MtF (male to female) is like saying "heterosexual to homosexual" since some have allways known who or what they are, wanted to cut of their genitalia with siccors when they were 7 and so on. That example ofcourse leaves out people who really did go from heterosexual to homosexual or vice verca.
I think this may easily become oversensitivity: emphasis how serious it is for some allso becomes easily repressive, when do you feel trans "enough" to "have a right" to talk about yourself as trans? Surely, not fitting the binary doesn't do that becouse hardly anyone really does, but trasvestic fetish is a kind of transsymbolism.
If you did at some point feel that you are cis-gendered, is it then a problem to talk about transitioning? Not everyone did, ofcourse, and as I thought I was effeminate hippie boy, I guess that knowing more about trans issues early on would have changed that sooner.
Gid should be looked at as a long spectrum, maybe several multidimentional ones, and I don't think there should be a one "politically correct" language to fit each case, and one should customize the emphasis.
Ambivalence
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01 Oct 2011, 1:19 pm
I've no idea. I'd lean towards transsexual, on account of that being how the word is spelled. The prefix is trans-, with an s, so a transexual would be someone who is trans-exual, which is meaningless.
And spelling it right is far more important than whatever stupid point they're trying to make.
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01 Oct 2011, 1:58 pm
I am a transman, and I experience that all the time. I call it "the phantom penis". My brain was made for a penis in mind so when it realizes there isn't a penis there physically, it insists there is a penis anyway. It hurts too.
I guess this is a good time to talk about violence and discrimination toward the transgender community. The violence against transgender people makes me sick. It is a grave injustice because:
1) Transgenderism is not a choice. It has a physical reason for existing. It is caused while developing in the womb.
2) People with transgenderism have intense emotional, physical, and mental pain. It is so intense that about half of people surveyed with transgenderism have attempted suicide (suicide statistics at Laura's playground).
3) Upon transitioning in hopes of getting rid of this pain, society backlashes at you and threatens to kill you. Family abandons you, you loose your housing, you cannot go to the bathroom anywhere, you cannot get a job, you cannot get medical care, and you basically loose your status as a human. People tell you that your "transgenderism" is wrong. Your ability to reduce your pain and suffering is "wrong" because of their ignorance on what you have to deal with.
People who do bad to transgenders are going to create bad karma for themselves because treating a transgender badly due to their status is disgusting. Think about it. It is like beating up a girl who has cancer because she is not "feminine" anymore without her hair.
02 Oct 2011, 4:03 pm
I am a transman, and I experience that all the time. I call it "the phantom penis". My brain was made for a penis in mind so when it realizes there isn't a penis there physically, it insists there is a penis anyway. It hurts too.
I guess this is a good time to talk about violence and discrimination toward the transgender community. The violence against transgender people makes me sick. It is a grave injustice because:
1) Transgenderism is not a choice. It has a physical reason for existing. It is caused while developing in the womb.
2) People with transgenderism have intense emotional, physical, and mental pain. It is so intense that about half of people surveyed with transgenderism have attempted suicide (suicide statistics at Laura's playground).
3) Upon transitioning in hopes of getting rid of this pain, society backlashes at you and threatens to kill you. Family abandons you, you loose your housing, you cannot go to the bathroom anywhere, you cannot get a job, you cannot get medical care, and you basically loose your status as a human. People tell you that your "transgenderism" is wrong. Your ability to reduce your pain and suffering is "wrong" because of their ignorance on what you have to deal with.
People who do bad to transgenders are going to create bad karma for themselves because treating a transgender badly due to their status is disgusting. Think about it. It is like beating up a girl who has cancer because she is not "feminine" anymore without her hair.
1) So what? I mean, in many cases it is not a choice, but if it was or is sometimes, would that change anything? Would people have any less right to choose how they want to hold their bodies and lives? About the causality of transgenderism, alot is simply not known, saying one thing like "development in the womb" is simply untrue.
2) As said of pain, some are, some are not. This does not make the experimence of either any less valid - the problem with the data on transgenderism and suicide is that only a minority of the trans-spektrum come out.
3) It is good to remember that may be a fear-trip. In many cases families and friends may have problems, but they may be far less drastic then one fears, friends won't abandon you or may be offended simply for not being told earlier. Besides the horrorstories this is very common story too. Atleast in where I live - Helsinki - no one has tried to keep me from using wimens bathroom, oh well, two loonies but who cares? Post-op medical problems there are, wich is for a reason that very few cynegologists for example are competent on handling a constructed vagina.
Besides, this may be a good thing. Friends or family, who do not love and recognise you as you are, is not worthy of your love. If they leave, so be it, it was a lie anyway.
Jobs, there may be a problem. But ofcourse jobs are a problem allways. If you study to be either top in your field of doing something intresting, you get to be weird. If your line of work is boring anyway, it's better to be unemployed to begin with.
02 Oct 2011, 9:57 pm
People who do bad to transgenders are going to create bad karma for themselves because treating a transgender badly due to their status is disgusting. Think about it. It is like beating up a girl who has cancer because she is not "feminine" anymore without her hair.
Thank you for reminding some people that actually carrying out to become your actual self is a scary as f**k proposition.
Sure in thought it'd be a fun idea to become female. Except I don't have the 50k in cash or the courage to stand up to abusive as*holes and the likely disowning by my family.
03 Oct 2011, 1:44 pm
I have to say, that I have also grown tired of the talk of preferences of "LGBT community"... since, seriously, there are too many LGBT-people to talk in any sensible way about a "community", that's total nonsense. Even "transcommunity" would be too much. There is a representational problem too: since if in Thailand there is a 5-10% XY-chromosome population of katoys, a place where there is no fysical violence against them. There is a cultural recognition, role models and so on and a visibility in the streets and in media, but there is some stigmatisation, over-representation in prostitution, far less in the powerfull positions of the society and no legal protection against rape wich XX has. Now, if tendency to Gid is neurogenetic, but there is always an amount of repression and filtering, and mirroring, that will drive part of it underground. To some people it is subconsious.
So, how could there even be such a "community"? There may be some "representative" organisations with their own ideas, but do they really even represent but a fraction of people they claim to? There are alot of people totally atomized, and some that have some communities but certainly not with millions of people. Maybe it makes people feel better to imagine a hallucinatory community, or a way to make the voice of some NGO:s to sound "legitimate" as if it would have some grass-root basis. It is propably more honest to say, that some (and if, wich?) organisations recommend to use certain words in order to be PC.
To make this even more complicated: I understand that eating disorders are even more common amongst aspies, than they are amongst the general population. Is there a link too? It would seem natural that there was a link between gender-dysphoria (not always recognised as such) and general body dysphorias? Also, with FtM it may be an attempt to stop puberty.
12 Oct 2011, 5:56 pm
In my case, it is true. I had brain scans which confirmed by brain was shaped like a male's brain. To be more specific, I had an abnormality in my brain in the area that processes hormones. Normal in male-bodied but abnormal in female-bodied. This means I cannot process estrogen as well as testosterone which creates pain.
There are many causes for transgenderism, but I came across some journals at my university library which studied the brain structure of transgenders and, in their sample of transgender people, the majority had some type of abnormality like myself. That is where I got it from.
Attacking someone for choosing to be transgender is very bad too. In my perspective, it is slightly worse to attack someone over something they have no control over. This is something I probably need to have a discussion about since I haven't really thought about it.
Sorry about that assumption. The only trans people I talked to all had some type of pain or discomfort whether it was physical, psychological, societal, or emotional. I did not know there were some people who were trans for the heck of it. I thought there had to be a more compelling reason due to the difficulty of transitioning.
Besides, this may be a good thing. Friends or family, who do not love and recognise you as you are, is not worthy of your love. If they leave, so be it, it was a lie anyway.
Most trans people I know experience hell initially. It is more of a worse case scenario than a fear trip.
Agreed. In the computer science field, they don't care whether you are an alien or not so long as you can get the job done.
12 Oct 2011, 8:37 pm
1.
I should have not said untrue, apparently it is true, and an important fenomena. I should have said it is not that simple. Ofcourse the idea that karyotype is sex is plain wrong, I know there is proof of what you are saying:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_transsexualism
The androgen receptor (AR), also known as NR3C4, is activated by the binding of testosterone or dihydrotestosterone, where it plays a critical role in the forming of primary and secondary male sex characteristics. Hare et al found that male-to-female transsexuals were found to have longer repeat lengths on the gene, which reduced its effectiveness at binding testosterone.[18]
A variant genotype for a gene called CYP17, which acts on the sex hormones pregnenolone and progesterone, has been found to be linked to female-to-male transsexualism but not MTF transsexualism. Most notably, the FTM subjects not only had the variant genotype more frequently, but had an allele distribution equivalent to male controls, unlike the female controls. The paper concluded that the loss of a female-specific CYP17 T -34C allele distribution pattern is associated with FtM transsexualism.[19]
[edit] Brain structure
In the first of its kind, Zhou et al (1995) found that in a region of the brain called the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BSTc), a region known for sex and anxiety responses, MTF transsexuals have a female-normal size while FTM transsexuals have a male-normal size. While the transsexuals studied had taken hormones, this was accounted for by including non-transsexual male and female controls which, for a variety of medical reasons, had experienced hormone reversal. The controls still retained sizes typical for their gender. No relationship to sexual orientation was found.[20]
In a followup study, Kruijver et al (2000) looked at the number of neurons in BSTc instead of volumes. They found the same results as Zhou et al (1995), but with even more dramatic differences. One MTF subject who had never gone on hormones was also included, and who matched up with the female neuron counts nonetheless.[21]
In 2002, a followup study by Chung, De Vries, and Swaab found that significant sexual dimorphism (variation between sexes) in BSTc did not become established until adulthood. Chung et al theorized that either changes in fetal hormone levels produce changes in BSTc synaptic density, neuronal activity, or neurochemical content which later lead to size and neuron count changes in BSTc, or that the size of BSTc is affected by the failure to generate a gender identity consistent with one's anatomic sex.[22]
In a review of the evidence in 2006, Gooren confirms the earlier research as supporting the concept that transsexualism is a sexual differentiation disorder of the sex dimorphic brain.[23] Swaab (2004) concurs.[24]
In 2008, a new region with properties similar to that of BSTc in regards to transsexualism was found by Garcia-Falgueras and Swaab: the interstitial nucleus of the anterior hypothalamus (INAH3), part of the hypothalamic uncinate nucleus. The same method of controlling for hormone usage was used as in Zhou et al (1995) and Kruijver et al (2000). The differences were even more pronounced than with BSTc; control males averaged 1.9 times the volume and 2.3 times the neurons as control females, yet once again, regardless of hormone exposure, MTF transsexuals lay within the female range and the FTM transsexual within the male range.[25]
While MRI images cannot resolve as fine details as structures such as BSTc and INAH3, they can much more easily allow the study of larger brain structures. In Luders et al (2009), 24 MTF transsexuals not-yet treated with cross-sex hormones were studied via MRI. While regional gray matter concentrations were more similar to men than women, there was a significantly larger volume of gray matter in the right putamen compared to men. As with many earlier studies, they concluded that transsexualism is associated with a distinct cerebral pattern.[26]
Phantom limb syndrome is a common, often painful experience after the loss of an external organ. Ramachandran (2008) found that while nearly two thirds of non-transsexual males who have a penis surgically removed experience the sensation of a phantom penis, only one third of MTF transsexuals do so after sex reassignment surgery. Perhaps more remarkably, two-thirds of FTM transsexuals reported the sensation of a phantom penis from childhood onwards, replete with phantom erections and other phenomena. Ramachandran theorizes that transsexualism is an innate form of phantom limb syndrome involving the mismapping of body regions in the brain.[29]
Berglund et al (2008) tested the response of gynephilic MTF transsexuals to two sex pheromones: the progestin-like 4,16-androstadien-3-one (AND) and the estrogen-like 1,3,5(10),16-tetraen-3-ol (EST). Despite the difference in sexuality, the MTFs' hypothalamic networks activated in response to AND, like the female control groups. Both groups experienced amygdala activation in response to EST. Male control groups experienced hypothalamic activation in response to EST. However, the MTF subjects also experienced limited hypothalamic activation to EST as well. The researchers' conclusion was, that in terms of pheromone activation, MTF's occupy an intermediate position with predominantly female features.[30]
[edit] Prenatal androgen exposure
Prenatal androgen exposure, the lack thereof, or poor sensitivity to prenatal androgens are commonly cited mechanisms to explain the above discoveries. Schneider, Pickel, and Stalla (2006) found a correlation between digit ratio (a generally accepted marker for prenatal androgen exposure) and male to female transsexualism. MTF transsexuals were found to have a higher digit ratio than control males, but one that was comparable to control females.[31]
Becouse, as you say, in the early stages of development children are similar, before androgens start to shape the body, and even then there can be weird stuff goin on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgen_i ... y_syndrome
And as you said:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaPsiGutGPQ[/youtube]
I think I share this position. I have not been to fMri yet, but my kognitive profile is typicly female, but in aspergerian way, it is that to the extreme. There is this very doctor-frankenstainian quality to the idea that brains and bodies can be in dissync, but here the mother nature in her infinite wisdom is that doctor, and modern sience knows how to change the body too.
Ramachandran is talking about body-image there, and ofcourse gender is more than that, but it is quite obvious there, that subcounsious sex has a neurogenetic basis.
I would like to know weather there is research on how prostheses - textile tits, binding, and so on is seen on the brain imaging, and can one see difference between identification and desire, becouse trans-gaze is an important thing, I like pornography becouse I see myself in the women and futunari is incredibly liberating.
2.
One has to remember allso, that brains are plastic, and that some people don't seem to have a subconsious sex, or have too, maybe becouse of habituation or maybe becouse of neurology. Problem is, that the model for a transsexual that is predominant, is primary transsexual - that is someone who has been sure from very early age, has not changed despite the attempts of brainwashing from the surroundings, and has kept this position over the hormonal changes in youth. A person who has strong dysforia, and who may be in the danger of killing themselves, but not psychotic, becouse in that case they are labelled just as crasy. These people do exist, but they are not the only way of being transsexual.
I would like to know how many cis-sexuals are primary - as many child is as my mother put it, das child.
Secondary transsexual is someone, who from the youth has started to feel - maybe trough the awakening of sexuality - that there is something strange in their bodies and that they want to be against the gender norm in a very radical way.
I for example do feel dissonance in a certain way, but it is not dysforia. Maybe that is becouse my body is very close to my ideal image. I have mostly positive thoughts about my body and the transition. I just yearn to have boobs but I don't hate by body if I don't. I do think that the hormone treatment is propably the thing for me, but what makes me unsure are the impilications of it, what really is the treatment going to do to my emotional-kognitive functions. Estrogen is a powerfull psycho-active, affecting memory, latent inhibition and so on, I don't know about mirroring, but I would not be suprised, after all ciswomen have stronger tendency for bad mirroring. I don't know where to get good information on this.
It allso worries me, that if my brains are female, what the long term exposure to androgens have done to them?
3.
Apparently it is common for people in autism spectrum to be in transgenderspectrum too - to have neutral gender-identification, trans-type or bigender - I know we talk about expression here, not bodies but we allso know these two are not so radically apart.
Is it then not possible, that a person who is neutral or doesn't feel much meaning, can allso want to become trans just for the hell of it, for the play, that as any other? I think one should have that right, if I become a shemale-bodytyped girl or a hippie, what's that to anyone else? Im not hurting anyone. I think that is uncompromisable right, there is no point arguing who has to.
12 Oct 2011, 8:59 pm
Have to point out that in my case dissonance could just be called pleasant resonance of my body and the ghost, what for many is dysforia, is to me rather autogynefilic, narsistic euforia.
But not to let us get by too easily, there are other points: what may seem gender expression, may not even be really gender (wich may be defined as immaterial sex) expression at all, but rather just not caring about the oppositional sexism, and having clothes and materials becouse they feel good: http://autistscorner.blogspot.com/2008/ ... ch-of.html
One mechanims how a person can have "trans" expression but really be neutral about it.
There is that side to this for me too: I started loving the feminine clothes becouse the way they feel, the wonderfull textures and so on. There is, how ever, allso the very strong symbolic value of dresses, how I see myself in the mirror with them and recognize myself. I have allso tried suits and such, and I allways feel them as something not belonging to me.
14 Oct 2011, 9:36 am
Very possibly so. Some comments on "others" and jobs too.
1.
Ofcourse, it would be elitist to think that everyone can hava an highly paid academic or it-related job, not becouse people are not intelligent enough, but becouse it may not fit their profile.
On this theme of becoming yourself, it becomes very clear with aspergers: you have certain profile of skills, enjoyment, intrests, and the rest may not be a one bit to your intrests. People may say, you should take any job, but that’s silly, if you take a position you are not good at, you make yourself unhappy, and someone else too, who may have had that job and liked it.
To quote Ken Kesey, a "man" has a right to become as big as he feels within him to be. That is, work on the intrest, do what you feel that you are intrested in doing, feed your head and so on. This may lead to a well payed job, but then again, it may not – this depends on your profile and intrest, if you have the Cohens “math and tech genes” that is good for you, and if you are intrested in programming it is very easy to make alot of money, becouse as an asperger you have a good predisposition of being really awsomely better than anyone else around you.
The problem is, your profile of skill, intrest and enjoyment may be words. You may be a good journalist, but there are much more people wanting to be that than there is jobs, you may be an awesome poet, but as known, there is good buck in that business. Now, there the way of becoming as big as you feel within you to be, may not be in the job market at all. You have your computer, your brains, your hands, and so on, and just do it, follow your bliss.
2.
There is gender legitimasy and normativity, wich may vary from people to people – who the hell is “otheres” and who cares what the society thinks. But you may encounter gender normative, gender-naive and plain idiotic people, in the streets and so on. The question is, why should you care? I mean, it is good to try make propaganda to make people realise the basics, but after all, many people are idiots and are never gonna get it. So, get used to it. You are gonna have people to stare you in the street, really, so f*****g what? That is a small price for living your life and not someone elses life.
There is a problem: “others” is very often a simple projection, a part of your own mind. The bigOther. The what-you-think-some-anonymoys-sociall-order-want’s-You-to-do-and-you-feel-compelled-to-do-it-though-there-is-no-them. I think any attemt to make a spesific trait, be it transsexuality or aspergers, bdsm, or what ever appear “normal” is a mistake, it is very clumsy and stupid way to look at it, when the real question is how do you give people tools to be empowered in such a way that they won’t care what is “normal” and what is not, that they don’t care for the kind of others that won’t treat them right.
Then if the “other” is the institutional structure you come across, the unemployment office or the job controll, the sex-change-clinic and so on, there too, how you feel about it, is your realation to this other. You don’t have to “buy it” when they talk of “disorder” or “jobs” and so on. You may need to lie a bit, but you don’t want to do that too much, becouse they may be usefull, and have information you need, and you may not be so good at it as it seems. Often it is just good to say the lines they want to hear, “yeah, I have tried to get jobs, I wasn’t qualified...” and so on. Sometimes you need to just prove them wrong, take an uphold in a situation. This may be difficult with a trained professional, but learn to use the authority of you knowledge in the sience.
If the “others” is the people you are dealing with daily, your family, loved ones and so on, their job is to support you, as well as yours is to support them. If they are not doing it, they are not worthy of being your friends, faminily and so on. This does not mean that there would not be problems and biases on their side, ofcourse there are, parents have often if not otherwise, implicit, fixed gendered schemes on their children – wich my be a wired result of long evolution - but the difference is that they own their emotions, it is their bias, not a problem in you. My experimence has been that that most people are really lovely on this. Now. I had a pediod in my life when I was with wrong people. I walked away.
