I’m an archivist and keeper of the history.
Recent reads and rereads have included: ROBERTA COWELL’S STORY, An Autobiography and Becoming a Woman: A Biography of Christine Jorgensen
Both claimed vague intersex conditions. Neither had those claims substantiated by their physicians.
I mean we can all suspect these sorts of things but I have watched these claims go to ridiculous and unbelievable places. Further in Roberta Cowell’s book she felt it necessary to attack Christine Jorgensen as less valid than herself.
That is sort of what I see happening with all the HBS/Classic Transsexual BS.
Lady Gaga shows more common sense. Why not leave it at, “We were born with transsexualism.” Or… “We were born with transgenderism.” as the case maybe.
To put it bluntly. If you opt to have an operation that changes your assigned at birth sex once you have reached the age of agency you are or at least were a transsexual. All the modifiers are BS and just aimed at being more equal than others.
All the claims of unsubstantiated and improbable if not impossibly contradictory claims of vague and obscure intersex conditions making you special are as harmful to transsexuals as a class being taken seriously as the actions of Norrie May-Welby (I want my identification to show me as neither male nor female) or the “myn” who seem to be competing with Octomom to out do each other in dropping babies. It is stupid and boring as well as undermining the chances of transsexual/transgender women and men being taken seriously at a time when we are struggling to get removed from the DSM, as well as get employment non-discrimination measures passed and marriage equality for all, not just straight people.
03/19/2010 at 8:03 am
The problem with people who are claiming intersex and trying to claim intersex is that each has it’s own ideology, issue or agenda behind that claim. Some claim intersex because they think people will treat them better or some think think that it will give them a leg up in society. I even heard far fetch claims that some think claiming intersex would get them better access. I think that those who try to claim medically intersex equates to claiming a nonexistent disability to get better parking spaces, or claiming a minority identity that you don’t have in order to get a better job in an area with affirmative action laws
03/19/2010 at 8:38 am
Suzan There’s a HUGE difference between someone who’s Transgender and someone who’s Transsexual, and in my opinion one doesn’t “opt” to have surgery if one is truly a Transsexual they are driven to have surgery they will in fact have tunnel vision in they’re drive to have surgery as ONLY the surgery will remove the dysphoria they feel over they’re body. This is due to the fact they were born with female brains and thus a female gender Identity unlike the Transgender who is in my opinion just playing dress up….some do it part time some full time….but they ALL have a male Gender Identity and can’t let the male jewels go.
03/19/2010 at 11:16 am
Perhaps you misunderstand — if you are transsexual, and have SRS, you have done it with agency. You have “chosen” it with full knowledge, full responsibility. In that sense, it is completely different from surgery done to children, who have no say, no choice, no agency.
Please remember, many post-ops have SRS after their children are grown, after making many attempts at living what they see as a “normal” life. When the “pressure” becomes too great, we “chose” to move forward.
The fact many of us are 30, 40, 50, even 60, or older before giving up, before accepting our ultimate truth, means we did manage to function (after a fashion) prior to having SRS.
Yes, the need becomes greater as we progress through the process. Yes, we reach a point where it becomes either continue forward or die (not being dramatic here) — but the fact we have a say, the fact we know what we are doing, the fact we know this is a totally life altering decision, changing our physicality, our being, makes it OUR CHOICE. It is not done TO US — we move forward and do it.
I understand the idea of there not being any choice in the matter is a way to differentiate between those seen as TG, and those seen as “true transsexuals”. It almost becomes a way of judging “purity”, of setting up a series of “classes of transsexuals” — “not so real”, “realer”, “realist”.
The fact a word like “choice” or “choose” is singled out as a divider seems a bit arbitrary — after all, acting with agency, acting while in control of your faculties is CHOOSING to move forward.
The use of those words does not divide the TG from the TS. Use of the word “choice” does not show a dedication to a “TG agenda” — it accepts the reality of our lives.
We do not usually drop everything, abandon our responsibilities, sabotage our educations, careers, and go out to have SRS at 18, 19 or 20 — at least most folks who claim some “enhanced trans-status” don’t seem to have done that.
As I’ve said, in many cases, we try different responses, different ways of coping. Witness all the current post-ops who, at one point or another, have gone through periods of “hypermasculinity”, of engaging in dangerous pursuits to “prove” something or other..
Are you saying only very early transitioners are “true transsexuals”? That has been said before, by many. That just seems to be another way of setting up a hierarchy of “realness”, or “worth”.
If you have a better way of describing actions freely done, actions entered into with full responsibility, full agency, please let me know. I well understand the NEED for SRS, I understand how it separates the “men from the boys” (please forgive my attempt at humor), or the “boys from the girls” (GIRLS? — Girls? — you do mean Women, don’t you?).
The Drive toward SRS, the ultimate NEED, the willingness to move mountains, save, borrow, work, to be able to move forward does differentiate transsexual from transgender.
That said, it’s still a “choice” — you might “choose” to kill yourself if you can’t have surgery — but you are capable of living. You are still a viable organism. Either way, you chose to have SRS.
Being transsexual is NOT a choice — that’s something you’re born with. That’s something you have known almost your entire life.
In some cases, being able to go ahead when you CHOOSE, and have surgery, is a sign of PRIVILEGE. It’s a sign of being of a class where spending a large sum on SRS is possible. Given the current inequalities of wealth in this country (the USA), there are folks who cannot accumulate the twenty or so thousand dollars needed. Some have trouble keeping body and soul together.
Then you have some of the throwaway kids, who have had their lives , educations, disrupted, sometimes destroyed. Some live a very hard hand to mouth existence. They have hard lives, often shortened by whatever they do to deaden the pain. Most in this class will never have the wherewithal to afford surgery. Are you saying this class difference makes them “unworthy”?
Those of us who finish school, are members of the middle class, have fairly stable lives, then go ahead with SRS, with our new lives, often do not realize how privilege has impacted our lives.
In any case, having the ability to afford SRS allows us to choose to move on with our lives in ways some others cannot.
03/19/2010 at 5:51 pm
Tina – loud sound of clapping from northern Canada…
03/19/2010 at 8:50 pm
By the way, it has been pointed out to me that the inexorable drive to surgery is preceded by many, many, decisions, one building on the other.
Each one can be seen as a “check”, as a step that a TG person would probably not take.
We take these steps, one by one, until the only rational outcome is SRS.
Those who are TG will usually stop at some point.
I guess that’s one reason I “did it by the book”. When transitioning/coming out I followed the “rules”. Since I had a history of initial enthusiasm, followed by disinterest, I wanted to be careful — this would not have been the place to make a mistake (say, Doc — errrr, ummmm — you see……………….etc.). In this instance, my enthusiasm just grew and grew (I know there’s a bad joke there somewhere — but……)
Anyway, now there are people who see fit to “educate” me about the realities of “transsexuality” — because, I’m so TG, or something.
Perhaps I just CHOOSE to laugh at folks who are so presumptious.
03/20/2010 at 7:47 am
Gawds! More cheering and clapping from northern Canada…
I too did things by the book. Fought like a tiger at times, but that was part of the clinic process. They were there to stop you and not facilitate you.
You and I are old enough to remember several who went “all the way” only to end in quick suicides. They moved too quickly, went too far, and that was the result. You and I followed the rules as they were and are now happily years post. And, for me, the happiest years of my life.
03/20/2010 at 9:39 am
Willow I think you put way too much faith in the idea that if people follow the rule then they won’t commit suicide.
So much of the oppression of people with transsexualism or transgenderism falls outside the scope of any control over which the medical or psychiatric profession has any ability to change or ameliorate.
For instance they can’t go back and erase a childhood of abuse and a psych profession basing their ideology on the idea that we are a prior mentally ill simply due to being transsexual, transgender or for that matter transvestite is unlikely to want to deal with us as people with long term PTSD or other abuse issues since that does not fit the paradim they have carved out for us.
Further too many see the operation as an answer that magically ends all the bigotry and oppression.
Mostly though like with L/G folks removing the current ideas regarding the various trans prefixed word used to describe various people in the various trans communities would open the door to dealing with all of us as people having problems due to living in an extremely hostile world
03/20/2010 at 12:16 pm
“Extremely hostile world” — that just resonates right now.
I tend to forget.
Being post-op, moving along with my life, has led to my forgetfulness.
I have forgotten much of the past abuse. I’ve forgotten the insane tension I lived under – always wondering “who knows”, “can they tell”, “have I got this right” — stuff like that — all the time. It was the background noise of my life for many years.
When I left grammar school, after 8th grade (we had no middle school back then), I made a conscious decision to “be a boy”. The abuse had to stop. I couldn’t take it.
I lived in Queens, went to school in Manhattan, so it was a fresh start. It was a case of “fake it till you make it”. It was a shitty way to live, and I did it for years.
Transition/coming out, SRS, was so freeing. After being clean and sober for years, I was finally comfortable in my own skin.
After all the many years of living, in effect, someone else’s life, I finally felt as if I had my own.
It surprised me when the very same folks who said stuff like, “follow your dream”, or, “live YOUR life”, said stuff like — “well no, not like that”, or “we really did not expect something like THIS”.
Many folks who supported my “transition” did not support me after SRS. In fact, after SRS I lost an entire NEW group of friends and acquaintances.
That was very interesting.
Then the almost uniform rejection from the sober lesbian community on Long Island, along with the request from some folks that I not attend certain meetings (AA) that I had been going to for over 10 years (I’m currently 27 years clean and sober) was also very surprising.
Today I better understand the concerns some folks had. I understand how shaky their self image. How beset by uncertainty.
Next, I discovered that what I saw as a natural alliance — that between LGB and T was not. There were times when I felt really uncomfortable at the New York City LGBT Center.
Now, the obvious attempts by folks who were working for “trans rights” to incorporate post-ops into their movements — without even the courtesy of a request. The admission by one of “the gatekeepers” that post-ops may well lose some hard gained rights until “all trans folks gained theirs” shocked me.
I realized that a “transgender umbrella” was potential death for post-ops. I also saw how the concept of “non-op”, as well as the act by some men to DECLARE they were women — “just because I say so” was another act of oppression against women. It was another DECISION by the patriarchy, or its supporters, to destroy womens right of self determination.
Truly unfortunate — to say the least.
THEN, we suddenly had all the different folks who began to say THEY were a “different kind” of transsexual. There was the abortive AP, AGP crap — as if any group of HUMAN BEINGS can be so simply defined. Don’t tell me there are no “blended AP, AGP folks”, or folks who fit neither category.
Next we had the ISNA folks who DAMNED transsexuals — while being transsexual themselves.
Now there are the HBS and Classic Transsexual movements — once again attempts to separate “good” from “bad” transsexuals — or straight from lesbian or gay transsexuals..
The fact we are all transsexual. The fact we all (or at least most) of us are post-ops, and had the very same surgery seems lost on these folks.
I am beginning to think some folks cannot live without abuse in their lives — either they receive it, or they dish it out.
Some seem to think that if they join in with the abusers they will be spared from abuse — even though the evidence of their lives proves differently.
Is it possible so many of us have had such difficult lives that we do not know how to live without stress and tension? Are many of us at the point of oppress or be oppressed?
I do not know — but, as I’ve said before, I’m really glad I’m 70, and not 32. I’m also happy that my life experiences have taught me how to live happily without being in a crowd — with a partner, or even alone. It takes learning, as does the understanding that we are ALL human, that nothing is gained by knocking down other folks in order to pretend you’re “better” than they are.
The “internal trans wars”, along with much of the “I’m really intersex” stuff is insulting to others, denies our commonality (NO, NO, no, not “commonality” — I’m NOTHING LIKE YOU”), and is destructive to our quest for equality, for our civil rights.
As I’ve said before — A POX on all your houses!
03/20/2010 at 1:24 pm
Suzan, yes you have a good point.
Not presenting myself as an example, I have PTSD and have continued treatment to this day. I did not assume that SRS would cure all, but you are right that some do.
No one route will prevent all such terrible events, but I do believe that following the book – for some (too many caveats) will minimize that horror. SRS does not end the bigotry by any means. My own opinion is that after SRS, we tend to loose bit by bit the fear that gives us away. We become more confident over time, and as usual, time cures all… (opps! most!).
Eight years up here, and not one – not one negative. Have I become more passable? Perhaps. More likely, I have become more confident and less caring of “discovery”. That means I “present” differently.
03/20/2010 at 1:36 pm
Tina…
Your wrote:
“I have forgotten much of the past abuse. I’ve forgotten the insane tension I lived under – always wondering “who knows”, “can they tell”, “have I got this right” — stuff like that — all the time. It was the background noise of my life for many years.”
Oh yes, even if my memory is of more recent times in my life. The sense of being free was so liberating – and I determined not to return to *any* closet. My way only, not for anyone else.
But the abuse from “sisters” – ah yes, I remember that so well. In that was negativity against G & L, as if to say “We are above all that” and so the negativity was returned, in spades. Petty people using petty biases. Always looking to the small differences instead of the large similarities.
On the whole, I have been hurt more by “sisters” than by strangers. They cut to the quick, knowing where I can be hurt and how to do it. No stranger would dream of calling me “Mr” but a “sister” would; no stranger would fret over what type of TS I was but a sister would – and has. Stupid.
As to IS, there are some, but rare. Too many make the claim as a way – I think – of avoiding any responsibility for their own decisions as well as claiming a supposed superiority. The brain sex thing ties in with that, as if we were poor souls who could not make a decision but rather were captives of some overwhelming force. That we can wait until the time is right shows we can – and do – resist. But whatever this thing is that has us, it differs in degree from one to another. In some the force is irresistible; in others, it can be held off until… things are right. That only differs by degree, not in kind.