Transgendered Support
A Primer on Transsexuality
Some people who visit this web site may find some of the information overwhelming. This primer, written for the late grade school - early high school level, should provide a basic understanding of what transsexuality is all about.
Transsexuality is a birth defect. It occurs because of changes in the amount of hormones in the womb. If these changes happen during certain critical times when a child's brain is forming, the cells get the wrong 'signal'. If it is a boy baby, the brain fails to get the signal to become a male brain. If it is a girl baby, the brain gets the wrong signal, a signal to become a boy brain. The body of the baby, however, is not affected very much, or at all. This is because the brain is very, very delicate and sensitive to chemicals such as hormones.
When the baby is born, it appears normal. It looks like a normal boy or girl. However, the brain inside the baby is a brain of the opposite sex. Brains have sex. They have unique circuitry for male brains and for female brains. This is true of all sorts of animals. This birth defect happens to rats, cats, dogs, apes, birds, and every other sort of mammal. We cannot tell if it happens to things like snakes and bugs and lizards and such. Their behavior is too difficult to determine. Humans are animals too. So it happens to us.
When a transsexual baby grows up, it starts showing symptoms at an early age, usually around five or so. Boy babies will act like girl babies, and girl babies will act like boy babies. They act naturally, because that is who they really are, inside, in the brain. The brain is where a person's 'Self' is. The brain IS the person. The body is like a car that the brain 'drives' around. The brain is the driver.
As the young transsexual grows up, they find that it hurts a LOT to have the wrong body. Everything they feel, everything they want, everything they think about, they are told is wrong. If they look like a boy on the outside, they act like a girl -of course- because that is who they really are. They get beat up for that, hit, hurt, hated, rejected, called names, sometimes even killed. The same is true if the transsexual looks like a girl on the outside...inside they are really a boy, and when they try to be themselves, they are insulted, hit, hurt, and told to act like a girl.
To understand this, imagine that you are you, just as you are right now, but that all of a sudden you have a body of the opposite sex. The whole world thinks you have always been this way, from birth. Even so, you know who you really are. Everybody treats you like how you look. You are not allowed to do most of the things you like, or that are normal to you. You are not treated the same, and when you try to be yourself, you get punished. When you try to act like how you look, you find it is a LOT harder to do than you imagined, because it just is not you, and you don't understand it. Worse, you know how your body should be built. You know what parts should be there, and what parts should not be there. Your whole body feels 'wrong'. You know what it should feel like, but it does not. You have to go to the bathroom 'wrong', you sit, stand, and walk 'wrong'. Everything is wrong, and it feels like being a freak and a monster all the time. Finally, as far as you know, there is no way to ever, ever make things right. Your whole life will be one misery and disappointment after another. If you act like yourself, people will hate you. If you act like what you look like, you will hate yourself. And all the time this is going on, your body just plain feels horribly, terribly wrong.
There is more, too. When puberty comes, and your body starts changing into being an adult, sex hormones turn on. These hormones, if you are a transsexual, feel more than just wrong. They feel beyond wrong. If you look like a boy, but are a girl on the inside...what is called a Male-To-Female transsexual (because that is the way you wish your body would change to become correct), then a sudden rush of male hormones feels like a demon is controlling you. It feels all evil and horrible and scary. It makes your body want things and do things that are completely unnatural for you. It is more awful than awful.
For the transsexual that looks like a girl on the outside, but is really a boy on the inside (the Female-To-Male transsexual), having female hormones flood the body is just as bad, in a different way. Imagine any normal boy having to deal with getting a period, growing breasts, and becoming feminine. It would be like an unending nightmare, like being in hell. and all of this is just the beginning.
As the transsexual grows up, parents, family, friends, all have expectations. They expect the transsexual to be a normal man or woman, based only on what they look like on the outside. Now, as they become mature, and sexuality becomes important to them, they are just like any person. This can cause problems for the transsexual, because who they are attracted to can become a big issue to other people. To the transsexual, they are just being themselves, but to the outside they may be considered to be homosexual, which is another thing people hurt people about being. Being homosexual is a different thing than being transsexual, though it is caused by similar means. In effect, being homosexual is being partly, but not completely transsexual. Only part of the brain gets changed, not the whole brain. If that same area is NOT changed in the transsexual, but everything else IS, then the transsexual will be homosexual AND transsexual. This could result in a Male-To-Female transsexual who despite being a female inside, prefers other females. Such a person would be a lesbian, only look like a male on the outside. For the Female-To-Male transsexual who is also homosexual, they would look like a female on the outside, but inside, would have the brain of a gay man.
Some silly people think this should solve the problem. They think things like "well, if you like girls, and you look like a guy, then isn't that just perfect? I mean you could get married, have kids, and everything!". This is an ignorant statement. Transsexuality is not about sexuality. It is about identity, about being one's self. Even if a Male-To-Female transsexual did this, they would still constantly suffer because their body was wrong. If they had sex, they would have to have sex as a male, because that is what their body looks like. That would be all wrong for them. And they could not hope to have a real, honest relationship with their partner, because their partner would always think of them as a guy, and not as the woman they really are. Basically, it is all messed up in so many ways, it is difficult to list them all. It is not perfect. It is horrible too, just as horrible as being transsexual and being straight.
Inside, the transsexual knows what they are, but by this time, even trying to tell anyone is so scary, so horrible, so filled with fear of being hated, hurt, or even killed, that they just try to do their best, and hope to die soon. Some transsexuals are not as tough as others, just like any type of people, and so they just cannot suffer anymore. Many transsexuals kill themselves, because it hurts so much.
However, in the last 60 years or so, medicine and surgery has become very advanced. Now there is hope for transsexuals. if a transsexual can manage to conquer their fear enough, they can seek help. They can be given the correct hormones. The correct hormones change the body to match the brain. The body starts to alter and to turn into what it should be. For the transsexual, this is like a dream come true. Imagine if you thought you were going to be trapped your whole life as the wrong sex, and suddenly there was hope! Hope that you could get your birth defect fixed. Hope that you might finally live a normal life as yourself!
But hormones can only do so much. They can change many of the soft parts of the body, such as skin, and fat, the overall shape of the body. Hormones can grow breasts, but they cannot make them go away. And as for the sex organs, hormones cannot change anything that complicated.
For that, surgery is required. After several years of hormones, the transsexual, if they have enough money, can get surgery. Surgery is the final part of fixing the body and curing the birth defect. Surgery is much more difficult and expensive for the Female-To-Male transsexual than for the Male-To-Female transsexual. Because of this, some Female-To-Male transsexuals never have surgery. It can take hundreds of thousands of dollars, and ten or more operations. That is a lot!
However, the Male-To-Female transsexual has things much easier by comparison. Generally only one operation is needed, and it only takes about two to three hours, and costs about as much as a new car. The result is much better too. The reason for this is because there is more tissue to work with, and because being female is kind of the 'stock' human form. All babies start out as proto-female (kind of female, but more neuter) and some then get mutated into being male. It is easier to change things back to their stock form at our current state of technology. It is much harder to change a female body into a male body, if the mutation did not already occur in the womb. Having hormones, then surgery, is called 'transition'. This is because the transsexual makes a physical transition from one sex to another. Of course, inside their body, their brain always stays the same. The brain does not change, just the body.
This shows an important point. There is a big difference between sex and gender. Sex is all about the body. Sex is how the body is shaped, how it functions, male or female. Gender is the 'sex' of the brain, apart from the body. Gender is the identity of the person inside the body. The two, clearly, can be in conflict. That is what a transsexual is, a person whose sex, whose body, is wrong for their gender, the person inside the body. Sometimes people use the two words as though they meant the same thing. They do not. Sex and gender mean different, but related things.
Now all of this pretty much solves the problem for the transsexual, at least with regard to being transsexual. Because their body is now correct for the brain that owns it, the transsexual is freed from most of the suffering. Now they can hope to live more or less a normal life. This of course all depends on how perfect the change of the body was. If the person still looks partly like what they looked like before, then people will tend to treat them like a freak, and hurt them for being different. If they finish their transition and end up appearing perfectly as the sex they should have been, then they are simply accepted. Thus, in order to avoid being hurt by other people, ending up perfect is important.
This is very sad, because it is very, very hard to end up perfect. The older a person is when they go through transition, the harder it is to come out the other side perfect. It is possible to end up perfect, just less likely. This is because so many years have gone by where the person was exposed to the wrong hormones, and this changes the body. After too many years, these changes can be very hard to reverse sometimes. Some very rare transsexuals can never have their bodies changed to match their brains. This could be because they have heart problems, or even because they simply lack a gene that lets their cells be affected by hormones. This is beyond sad. It is hopelessly terrible. Even so, they often do what they can, as best they can. Of course, this means that people will often be mean to them.
That shows the single biggest problem for any transsexual. The biggest threat to any transsexual -other than despair- is other people. Especially other people who do not understand what transsexuality really is, or confuse it with other things, or just plain are stupid, or mean, or bigoted. Some people harm transsexuals because they think their religion tells them to hurt people. Other people hurt transsexuals because the fact that birth defects happen scares them. It is kind of scary that babies can be born wrong, but there are many birth defects far, far more horrible than being born transsexual. Birth defects are just part of life, unfortunately.
All of this hate towards transsexuals can make transsexuals hate themselves, too. This also causes some transsexuals to kill themselves, when they believe the hatred that other people tell them. This is very sad.
Not everything about being a transsexual is all horrible, though. Strangely, transsexuals seem to have been given gifts by the same mistake that created them in the womb. On average, transsexuals are two standard deviations more intelligent than the average person. This means that they are often about 30 points higher in intelligence than the average person. Many are of genius level intelligence. It is believed that this may be due to the way in which the brain is altered in the womb, gaining some small benefits from both sexes at the same time, but nobody really knows for sure. Transsexuals are also commonly much, much more creative than the average person. This also is most likely caused by their unique brains. Many, many transsexuals become important and famous computer scientists, astronomers, physicists, and biologists. Others become musicians, artists, game designers, and writers. In general, transsexuals tend to follow complex and intellectual fields of work and play. Although it is certainly an accident, it sometimes seems as though Nature tried to compensate slightly for all that suffering. It is fortunate in any event, because being transsexual is so very difficult and full of hardship.
In the end, if a transsexual gets help, or seeks help, and can successfully transition to the correct body for their brain, then they can hope to finally have a decent life. They can hope to be happy, have honest relationships, and be accepted. They can never get back the precious years of childhood that were stolen from them, and this can be very sad for the rest of their lives. They can also suffer because most people have difficulty accepting transsexuality as being real. For this reason, most transsexuals are shunned by their parents, friends, kin, relatives, basically everyone who every knew them before. Losing all of that hurts, especially when one has grown up believing that all those people really loved you. Still, there are new friends, better friends to be found, and it is possible to put together a new family of people who all care about each other, even if they are not related by blood.In the end, over 98% of all post-transition transsexuals report that they are vastly happier, and are very, very grateful for being able to correct their bodies. That is the highest success rate -for any procedure- in all of medicine.That alone is an amazing thing, and clearly shows that proper treatment helps transsexuals.
There are many successful transsexual people in the world, and some of them are famous people you see on TV or read about, only you do not know that they are transsexual. They don't want the world to know, because they have suffered enough, and too many people are narrow minded, filled with hate and bigotry, and would try to hurt them, or destroy their careers. Sometimes this happens, and a transsexual is 'Outed' (somebody makes a big fuss over the fact that the person is transsexual and tells everyone) against their will. This usually destroys their lives. It is cruel. If a transsexual is not open about being a transsexual, it is because they just want to put their birth defect behind them. How would you like to go forever through life being known only as "The man born with a deformed foot!" or ''The woman with six fingers!" and nothing you ever did would matter more than that? It would be awful. Now imagine being fired from your dream job because of it, or refused a place to live, or being beaten up or killed because of it. That is why many transsexuals hide their history as best they can. Unless that choice has been taken away from them by other people.
Some rare transsexuals do not hide. They try to change things, and make them better for other transsexuals. They try to stand up and tell the world that transsexuality is just a birth defect like any other, and that people should be more tolerant of people with birth defects. Some people think these outspoken transsexuals are insane...because human beings are basically rotten, and that nothing will ever change the mindless bigotry and hate in the world. This may be true. However, some transsexuals think it is important to at least try to make things less evil. Even if it seems hopeless.
In the end, with proper treatment, transsexuals can have happy, productive lives. Without treatment, transsexuals just get worse with each passing year, until finally, they either kill themselves, or they seek treatment. Because transsexuals are so intelligent and creative, it is probably to the advantage of everyone that they live, and that means having their birth defect corrected.
What Transsexuality Is: Definition, Cause, and History INTRODUCTION:
Transsexuality, also termed 'Gender Dysphoria' is now reaching the point of being reasonably well understood, though many myths and general foolishness about the subject still abound. This document concerns the classic definition of transsexuality, as defined by Benjamin, Money, Green, and so forth. Intersexuality and transgenderism will not be addressed other than obliquely.
IN A NUTSHELL: This is about standard, classical transsexuality.
SUMMARY DEFINITION:
Gender Dysphoria, literally a misery with regard to gender, is the condition of being in a state of conflict between gender and physical sex.
A transsexual is a person in which the sex-related structures of the brain that define gender identity are exactly opposite the physical sex organs of the body.
Put even more simply, a transsexual is a mind that is literally, physically, trapped in a body of the opposite sex.
IN A NUTSHELL: Transsexuality means having the wrong body for the gender one really is.
GRAND OVERVIEW:
Gender and Sex are very separate things, though the terms are often considered interchangeable by the less aware. Sex is physical form and function while Gender is a component of identity. There can be considered to be some legitimate overlap in that the brain is structured in many sex-differentiated ways, and the brain is the seat of identity. However, with regard to the dilemma of the transsexual, the difference between sex and gender are at the very core of the issue.
A transsexual person, born to all appearance within a given physical sex, is aware of being of a gender opposite to that physical sex. This conflict, between gender identity and physical sex, is almost always manifest from earliest awareness, and is the cause of enormous suffering. It is common for transsexuals to be aware of their condition at preschool ages.
This agony can and does lead to self destruction unless treated. The incredible difficulties that surround achieving treatment are themselves often agonizing, the sum total of which can play havoc with the lives of the gender dysphoric. Indeed, it is apparent that some fifty percent of transsexuals die by age 30, usually by their own hand. This morbidity is known as the 50% Rule
Being a transsexual is not something that can be ignored or suppressed forever. Unlike the fascinations of the crossdresser or the partially altered transgenderist, the absolute compulsion of classical transsexualism is a matter of life and death. Social oppression, culturally indoctrinated shame, self loathing, and bigotry slaughter transsexuals. With treatment and support, comes survival and a successful life. The success rate for the treatment of transsexuals is among the highest in medicine.
Transsexuality occurs roughly equally in both physical males and physical females, and is caused by factors (such as a critically timed hormonal release caused by stress in the mother, or by the presence of hormone mimicking chemicals present during critical development) which interfere with fetal development. Transsexuality occurs independently of sexual orientation, and occurs in humans and in other animals, such as apes, monkeys, dogs, cats, rats, and mice, among those studied.
The standard treatment for a diagnosis of transsexualityis to reassign the transsexual to a physical sex congruent with their gender identity, a process involving the administration of appropriate hormones and surgery. The success of this treatment is exceedingly high, and many transsexuals go on to live successful lives.
Although transsexuality is not the same thing as homosexuality, the two can sometimes occur in conjunction with each other, and there is evidence that both are created by the similar mechanisms, in utero.
Transsexuality differs greatly from the commonly - and erroneously - associated terms "Crossdressing" or "Transvestitism", as well as "Transgenderism".
Whereas transsexuality is concerned primarily with gender identity and the correction of physical form to fit that identity, transvestitism is primarily a sexual fetish that occurs after puberty, and the transvestite has no desperation to redress a physical incongruity. The transvestite gains satisfaction from appearing as the opposite sex only, and the behavior is apparently not rooted in a biological, pre-natal basis, but is learned. Transvestitism, unlike transsexuality, primarily is the activity of males.
A recent term in usage is "Transgenderism", essentially an empty word conjured up as a neutral label for any individual not conforming to common social rules of gender expression. The term was created to help unite very disparate individuals under a vague commonality of interest in gender, in order to provide a basis for mutual benefit and support within an often violently antagonistic society.
Transgenderism can refer to those who crossdress, those who are intersexed, those who live in the opposite societal role of their physical sex, those who play with gender expression for any purpose whatsoever, and transsexuals as well. While there is potentially great survival benefit in this mutual association labeled as 'transgenderism', the primary function is social and political, and not clinical, despite the efforts of some to legitimize this essentially meaningless term.
The exact number of transsexuals in any given population will probably never be accurately known (the best current estimate is one per 30,000). Because transsexuality is most commonly caused by stress-related hormonal changes in the womb, the number of transsexuals in any society would logically flux, based on the current state of affairs within a generation. There is evidence that more transsexuals are born during times during or following war, for instance. Even so, the condition is fairly rare.
Several interesting physical and mental indications have been statistically shown to occur in relation to transsexuality. One factor is intelligence, the transsexual is on average two standard deviations in intellect greater than the base population, and one standard deviation higher than those defined as homosexual. This probability of high intelligence is currently not explained, though there are suggestions that it may be the result of the unique and somewhat mixed brain 'wiring' of the transsexual, who may benefit from a combination of male and female structures or functions.
Another curious correlation is creativity, transsexuals tend to possess a high degree of artistic and general creative ability.
Transsexuals commonly show some physical indications of their condition that may cause trouble for them from parents or peers.
The male-to-female transsexual may be slow to develop male sex characteristics such as body hair, voice change, and overall physical development compared to the general population. The Female-to-Male Transsexual may display evidence of masculinization of bone structure, hair, or voice. These traits are generally very subtle, but often present.
There is tremendous social bigotry -and often outright violence- expressed towards the transsexual, and this often makes the life of the transsexual very difficult. Some transsexuals who have completely successful in transition to the appropriate sex therefore choose varying degrees of secrecy about their state and history. Other transsexuals never succeed in transforming physically to the point of being undetectable as transsexuals, and tend to suffer accordingly.
Transsexuals suffer many hurdles to achieve their required correction of the error of their birth. They must face society, the medical establishment, the common loss of all family and friends, the cost of treatment, the extreme difficulty of the required 'half-way' phase of transition which may last up to two years, and the inner turmoil of self-doubt and conditioned self loathing of their condition. It has been estimated (in 1981) that about 50% do not survive the malady, ending up dead by the age of 30, usually by their own hand. Almost all of this morbidity is attributed to the additional burden caused by the violent unacceptance of society, the rejection of family and friends, and the inability to find decent care.
The drive that motivates the transsexual is essentially a matter of life and death.
IN A NUTSHELL: Transsexuals suffer because they are trapped in a body of the wrong sex. This hurts so much that they are driven to fix that problem, or die trying. Transsexuality begins in the womb and occurs in many animals besides man. Transsexuality and homosexuality seem to share a common prenatal causality, but are not the same thing. Transsexuality is sometimes associated with things it is not really related to, such as crossdressing, for social or political reasons.
The Natural History Of Transsexuality:
Since transsexuality is caused by hormonal alteration of the nervous system of developing fetuses, and occurs in perhaps all mammalian species, it would be reasonable to infer that it has been around for a very long time. Indeed, since birth defects in general are just part of nature, it would be unthinkable to imagine an era of Man devoid of transsexuals. We have always been, and from time to time, history has recorded that fact.
The only clues we have of paleolithic transsexuals would be by considering the societies of aboriginal peoples still living with stone age technologies. The few left remaining on the earth, in the rain forests of South America, or the remaining unspoiled lands of Africa, all have reverential positions for the transsexuals that are born to them. In such societies, Transsexuals are considered magical, kin to the gods or spirits, and possessed of shamanic powers.
Every society in history has had some name, role or way of relating to the transsexual, from ancient Canaan and Turkey to India, even to the present day.
Examples abound. For instance, in ancient Rome existed the 'Gallae', Phrygian worshipers of the Goddess Cybele. Once decided on their choice of gender and religion, physically male Gallae ran through the streets and threw their own severed genitalia into open doorways, as a ritualistic act.
The household receiving these remains considered them a great blessing. In return, the household would nurse the Gallae back to health. The Gallae then ceremoniously received female clothes, and assumed a female identity. Commonly, they would be dressed as brides, or in other splendid clothing.
In India, ritual practices for transsexual individuals continue to the present day. Called Hijiras, this sect also worship a Goddess, and undergo a primitive sort of sex reassignment surgery. The Hijiras are treated in a rather hypocritical fashion within Indian society however, in that they are both despised and revered at the same time. Hijiras often are paid to attend a bless weddings, and to act as spiritual and social advisors, but are also shunned as less than worthy eunuchs. Yet in other circumstances, such as social situations, they are accorded the status of true females.
The Dine, or Navajos of the southwest United States, recognize three sexes instead of only two. For the Dine, there are Males, Females, and Nadles, which are considered somewhat both and neither. While those born intersexed or hermaphroditic are automatically considered Nadle, physically 'normal' individuals may define as Nadle based on their own self-definition of gender identity. The Nadle once possessed far greater respect before the Navaho were conquered and their culture all but obliterated by the forced assumption of Catholicism.
Among the Sioux, the Winkte served much the same function, and individuals could assume the complete role of their preferred gender. Physical females lived as male warriors, and had wives, while physical males lived their lives completely as women. In Sioux society no special magic was associated with this, it was just considered a way of correcting a mistake of nature. Winkte would also perform primitive reassignment operations of a sort, and history records the process used by physical males: riding for days on a special hard saddle to crush the testicles and thus effectively castrate the individual.
Being transsexual in ancient cultures took a special form of courage too, even if society may have been embracing of the Transsexed!
Whether it is the Sererr of the Pokots of Kenya, the Xaniths of Islamic Oman, the Mahu of Tahiti, or even the Sekrata of Madagascar, the story is essentially the same: transsexuality was a fact of life, and a place in society was made for the gender dysphoric to be themselves.
The modern classification of transsexuality and the medical intervention of sex reassignment was first attempted in Germany in 1930. Einar Wegener sought treatment and was operated upon. Afterwards, she lived as Lily Elbe, but alas not for long...the surgery had tragic complications. The first well known, surviving post operative transsexual was American ex-G.I. George Jorgensen, who became Christine Jorgensen in 1953. Christine became the center of a whirlwind of publicity despite an effort to avoid it, and had little choice but to capitalize on the misfortune. Christine became the first 'Media Transsexual' - or as some transsexuals put it 'Transie Martyr' , and suffered both the benefit and curse of fame. Christine starred in several hollywood movies as a result, and became celebrity enough to bring transsexualism out of the closet and into view of post-industrial society.
For decades only the rare individual physician dared treat the transsexual, while the mainstream medical community considered transsexuality to be a mere mental disorder without a biological basis. The first professional to truly try to help transsexuals with compassion and scientific study was Dr. Harry Benjamin. Dr. Benjamincarefully treated and studied the cases of transsexuals, essentially devoting most of his career to the project. The results of his carefully documented studies were published in 1966 in his book "The Transsexual Phenomenon". This work led directly to the benefits that we modern transsexuals enjoy, for it opened the door to serious study of the condition. Currently, the worldwide Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association continues his work, and helps to set standards of care for the treatment of transsexuals by the medical establishment.
Recent study of brain functioning has shed important light on the causes of transsexuality, and surgical techniques as well as overall treatment continue to improve. Society is slowly becoming accepting once again of the inevitable transsexual in it's midst, and it may well be that the future will hold even greater help for the transsexuals born into future ages.
IN A NUTSHELL: Transsexuals have always existed. In the ancient world, transsexuality was both accepted and respected. Throughout the ages, transsexuals have attempted to correct the error of their bodies, with varying results. The modern, technological world at last provides a real chance for the transsexual to finally, truly correct the errors of Nature.
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