Conference turris::womannotes-v2

    Hi Fred.
    
    I can appreciate the questions you're asking, but I'm having a harder
    time with some of the opinions that are coming through.
    
    I don't know if you're aware of this, but there are a number of
    transexuals at DEC, some of whom are readers of this file.  These
    are people who have gone through a very painful struggle around
    their gender identity, and with the help of qualified professionals,
    have made an expensive, painful, and life-changing decision.  I
    imagine there are others who have explored the subject, but who
    have not decided to go ahead with the surgical procedure.  
    
    This decision is never made lightly.  Some of the people I know
    have described various stages of the process including a year-long test
    where they live full time as the opposite sex before having surgery
    approved.
    
    Two good books (autobiographies) are Renee Richards' "Second Serve"
    and Jan Morris' "Conundrum".
    
    Anyway, as I read the base note, it sounded to me as though you
    assumed that people choosing this are "out there" somewhere rather
    than people among us with feelings and painful experiences in this
    area.
         
    Thoughtfully,
    
    Holly
    

    opinion:  yes, it's appropriate here.  Whether Christine was
    genetically male at birth or not, she always maintained that she
    was <word search...can't find one> a woman to the bone and that's
    why she made the change.
    
    
    As for the 'counselling versus mutilation' question.  Well, anyone I
    have known or know of [not via media] had to undergo EXTENSIVE
    counselling, live the life of the internalised gender for and EXTENDED
    period while _still_ being counselled, and then _more_ counselling
    after the surgery.  The counselling involved makes sterilisation
    counselling look like the express-line at the supermarket.
    
    'Mutilation' can cover a large spectrum [I wasn't _born_ with these
    holes in my ears you know] and we need to be careful in applying
    the term lest the boundaries of 'acceptable mutilation' be pushed
    back.
    
    No, I'm not trivialising the procedure by comparing it to piercing my
    ears.  But think.  I wanted to pierce my ears because it pleased my
    vanity -- a light-hearted, but acceptable, reason in the eyes of most
    people.  Christine Jorgensen wanted to become physically female because
    she wanted to live her life as the person she _was_ instead of being
    trapped in a body that denied her.  Looked at in this light, who
    had the better cause to 'mutilate?'
    
       Ann
    

    
   

    I can never even attempt to understand how a gender disordered person
    feels but they do have the right to do what they want with their
    bodies.                                                         
    
    I met a transsexual once who tried to explain her/himself to the
    world. The world didn't understand. I don't know where he/she is
    right now but I sure hope he/she is happy. Ones gender is such an
    intregal part of who we are that it's hard to understand.
    Kate
    

    some related discussions may be found in:

    QUARK::HUMAN_RELATIONS
    329 - transsexuality - transition and concerns
    655 - gender confusion / gender identity
    
    QUARK::MENNOTES
    272 - crossdressing - "sick" or normal
    
    -Jody
    

    Holly, I really like your reply in .1.
    
    To my knowledge, I've never met or talked with anybody who had a
    sex change operation.  But, I'm perfectly comfortable with the fact
    that there are people in the world who feel inside themselves that
    they are not the same sex as their outward bodies, and that they
    want to avail themselves of the medical technology to physically
    become the sex they feel they really are.  The way I see it, it
    must be nature (or whatever you want to call it) that messed up
    (by chance) and I don't see anything wrong with correcting the mistake.
     
    I don't think it's mutilation.  I don't think these people are crazy
    or anything.  I don't see any harm that it's done to the world.
    
    Lorna
     

    People should be left alone to live their lives as best they can.
    Life is tough enough.  We must accept people's decisions about their
    own lives.  We must accept each other for what we are (however the
    individual chooses to define that).
    
    There isn't enough love in the world.  Lets make some more_:-)

    Christine Jorgenson was a women.  She was born in a man's body,
    but she was a women.  She started the path for alot of women
    to follow.
    
    I don't consider mulitation at all.  I do consider unnecessary
    circumsision as though, but that's another topic.  My ex SO 
    was (and still is as far as I know) an account executive for
    Blue Cross/Blue Shield.  They paid for this procedure, but would
    not pay if someone changed their mind and wanted to change
    back.  He never heard of anyone wanting to change back, but
    it was a clause.  
    
    Don't make judgements until you've walked a day in their shoes...
    
    Anna
    

    I read Jan Morris' book "Conundrum" and it was fascinating.  I also
    watched her when she appeared on Dick Cavett's show years ago. 
    What a quietly pretty woman she was, and how beautifully expressive
    she became over her life change.  And what a long, hard and emotionally
    as well as physically difficult road it was.  No one, *but no one*
    would attempt that if it were not some terribly compelling need
    that had to be fulfilled.
    
    What a courageous human Christine was; how much those of us who
    were perhaps naive and a bit narrow-minded learned about her and
    the world of transsexuality.  
    
    M  
    
    
    
    

    I used to work with a person who had undergone a sex-change operation. 
    I'm ashamed to admit it, but she made me somewhat uncomfortable (maybe
    I wasn't the only person who felt this way, but the individual in
    question appeared to have a lot of friends within the group, so I am
    sort of ashamed of my feelings), mostly because she still had (has,
    as far as I know) a deep bass voice, which I found real disconcerting.
    
    No judgements here - life definitely deals some people a much tougher
    hand to play out than others.
    
    /Charlotte

    This is being posted for a member of the community who wishes to
    remain anonymous.  If you would like to send mail to this person
    privately, please send it to me, and I'll be glad to forward it to 
    them.
    
    Again, I remind you of the sensitivity of this issue...
    
    -Jody
    
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
RE: .0

    Human_relations might have been the place as there is a posting there
    (see 329) by a transsexual.  None of this is to be taken lightly as
    there are many that are suffering from gender confusion and they are
    not visible.  We are talking about how we value members of society that
    are functional, do contribute, and most likely are better for the
    experiences of their life despite the pain.  I say this because the
    comments in .0 seem to imply these people are less because of their
    situation in life or because of what they had to do to correct it. 
   
    I have added my comments to the original posting.  I do have an opinion
    on this based on my own situation.  The choices are not trivial, and
    they do affect others. 
    
    
>> 1. Is WOMMANNOTES the correct place to put this note? After all
>>    in the beginning she was a Man.

    She was a male for less than half her life, Her personality was
    feminine.  Don't confuse biology with psychology.  She died of a womans
    disease, breast cancer. I will mourn her, she was important, what she
    did was important. 
    
>> 2. Johns Hopkins University a couple of years ago stopped doing sex
>> change operations because they were considered mutilations rather than
>> a improvement in a persons health.  I agree that they are correct in
>> this opinion. What do you think? 
    
    There were other reasons that were not as sensational (economic). That
    got published over the fact that their emphasis went elsewhere along
    with the resources.  Others have picked up the work and continued.
    Some describe it as a corrective procedure. I do as well when correctly
    applied.  I have met many and the appearance to me did not suggest
    mutilation. 

>> 3. I wonder if these people (people who have a sex change) are happier
>> with their new identity. Wouldn't some form of counseling be better it
>> would certainly be less permanent. How many people had various forms of
>> voluntary strerilizations and later regretted it? Or in other words
>> be careful what you do forever. 
    
    Many are, and they disappear into the world and create, build,
    organize, and love.  Counseling is a prerequisite and at the most
    extensive level!  This is a must because of the pre-existing emotional
    pain and to also resolve the possible future pain.  After all "why
    would they want to be woman, men have all the breaks". See sexism in
    other notes for more on this.  Also consider what has to happen if you
    were to simply change your name, never mind anything else. 

    Once again you confuse sex (referring to biology, procreation) with
    personality (again referring to ones psyche).  One would think of
    sterilization, but it's not the same thing. Note most of these people
    (male to female) wish they could be able to bear children, alas
    something they can never do. 

>> 4. I worked on a site once that had a person who'd had some amount of
>> sex change done and I didn't know that she was a man until I ran into
>> someone else later and we were comparing notes about the people who
>> worked at the site. In this case the person (he who was changed) was so
>> matter-of-fact about the new identity that it would never have occurred
>> to him/her to mention it. Geeze what a complicated world!

	Why should she?

    I know several people that have or expect to make this change, I am
    undergoing counseling for this as well, it will take a long time before
    I know my needs or the form they will take. 

    There are many things about sex and gender that are not understood. We
    are all in some way a little of both masculine and feminine, this makes
    us whole.  The difference for some is when they are mostly feminine and
    the body clearly is not.  For those people there is a life long
    conflict about what they are and isolation that results. For many of
    these people sexual function is crippled if not impossible for the
    genetic sex role they are born to.  Like every thing in life nothing is
    either black or white and there are those who are caught in the middle
    and the solution (surgery) may not be the right answer. 
    

    A few months ago, I read an autobiographical essay by a woman
    (born male) that included a reasonably detailed section describing
    how she dealt with her gender confusion and her reasoning behind
    getting surgery (among the more obvious problems, she had an ex-
    wife and children, all of whom supported her during this time).
    I found it very moving.
    
    Mutilation? Nonsense. Certainly no more so than circumcision or
    any form of cosmetic surgery. In fact, cosmetic surgery is exactly
    how I'd describe it.
    
    (Incidentally, given that I was a little too young to remember
    getting circumcised, I find it hard to think of that as mutilation.
    At least, I don't feel mutilated. As far as I'm concerned, that's
    the way I've always been.)
    
    --- jerry

    There has been great discussion of "nature vs nurture".  No one
    really knows what personality trait is gender based. I have always
    thought of myself as a woman. My psyche or brain is genderless.
    Or so I always thought. I don't understand transexualism. It has
    been explained to me more than once by a transexual. Let me ask
    this question. I just want to understand. If the difference between
    a male brain and a female brain are virtually identical in all major
    functions (reasoning, communicating, loving) than how can transex-
    uality be? 
    
    Respectfully,
    Kate
     

The issue has nothing to do with a "man's brain" or a "woman's brain".  
I has everything to do with who a person wants to be in the world.
The very ideas of "man" and "woman" are constructs of our society, 
quite distinct from any biological or physiological facts.  Even
biology is not as firm about the distinction as our culture is -- there
are many more persons mixing physiologically primary and secondary sexual 
characteristics than we will allow room for in our conceptualization of 
the world.  We cannot live with gender ambiguity because gender roles 
are the foundation of our culture (in spite of such modern developments as 
pants for women and mousse for men).

We assign everyone a gender, and then use this as THE most 
fundamental determinant of what a human being will be.  We cannot even 
speak about a human being without identifying its gender; most names are 
gender-specific and English has no pronoun to describe a human being 
without knowing this vital fact.  Birth announcements tell us the gender 
and destiny of the new human being, and from that moment on gender 
defines what you will be called, whether you will wear pink ruffles or 
overalls, whether your mother will smile at you often or not, whether 
you will be expected to walk bravely and alone, whether you will 
imagine yourself as someone whose value lies in how well you care for 
others or in how well you can whack a ball or score on a math test.
Gender decides so much of what a human being can and will be in our 
society, that many people often mistake gender for something natural and 
innate in human beings.

I do not myself believe that most of what we consider 'masculine' or 
'feminine' behavior has anything to do with having a penis or vagina or 
secreting estrogen or testosterone or anything like that.  We all have a 
mixture of "feminine" and "masculine" characteristics, since the gender 
assignments of all these behaviors are arbitrary.  Most of us manage to 
accomodate to the prevailing characteristics identified with the gender 
to which we are assigned, however.  Women unconsciously work to
emphasize their "feminine" elements and de-emphasize their "masculine"
ones, and men unconsciously work to emphasize their "masculine" elements
and de-emphasize their "feminine" ones.  Most of us are enough of a
mixed bag that we can do this and get by without too much obvious
dysfunction over this kind of personality-tailoring.  For someone whose
natural behavior and emotional characteristics fall too heavily into the
"wrong" gender group, though, this process must be exceptionally painful
and destructive. 

If we lived in a world that did not have such a tight binding between
gender role constructs and genital configuration, then I wouldn't see why
someone with a penis could not be a "woman" or someone with a vagina
could not choose to be a "man" (and that many might choose to be
neither, or something else). However, that isn't feasible in the world
in which we currently live.  Our society requires one to adjust one's
physiology in order to legitimize one's inner nature.  It is not the
surgery that is mutilating -- it is the society that forces human beings
into gender roles, and then tries to cut their hearts and souls to fit. 

    I went to school with a woman named Laurie. She was very mixed
    up, always trying to find herself and understand herself. Therefore
    it was not suprising to me when I asked after her one year and my
    Mom told me that she was now Brad. For a couple of years after that
    I would ask how he was doing. Mom reported back that for the first
    time in his many troubled years he was happy. Last I knew he had
    married a woman with children.
    
    I couldn't be more delighted for Brad to know that finally he is
    happy and has found himself.
    
    nancy

    Very well said.
    

    The following response is from a member of our community who wishes
    to remain anonymous at this time.
    
    						=maggie
    
    ===================================================================

    I feel somewhat qualified to speak on this subject, having had the SRS
    (sex reassignment surgery) a few years back. 

    I read this file pretty regularly but prefer to stay anonymous for
    obvious reasons.  This culture's religious and social fascination with,
    and condemnation of, behavior that deviates from the narrowly
    proscribed gender/sex definitions is a real pain. 

    This inflexible attitude with sex and gender makes talking about this
    subject in an open forum feel very dangerous.  I am not a freak, and I
    do not want to be the object of people's projections and superstitions.
    Actually, I have met many people who are totally at ease with their own
    gender/sex roles and these people have no problems relating when I talk
    about my experience.  In my humble opinion, it's the people who have
    trouble with the SRS and transsexuals that need some expert counseling
    and a good swift kick in the pants! 

    I believe that sex (the anatomy between your legs) and gender (the
    expression of your identity in male/female behavior terms) are two
    independent variables.  Our society enforces artificial limits on
    behavior, rewarding the masculine male and the feminine female, and
    severely punishing those people who do not conform. 

    I get annoyed when people talk about SRS as a form of mutilation. Let's
    talk about the mutilation of the psyche caused by masculine
    socialization!  For me, the process of growing up male was the painful
    process of disconnecting from my inner self, my feelings, and carrying
    a burden of guilt and shame since age 5.  By age 15 I was seriously
    contemplating suicide.  However, I held on for a few more years until I
    was 18 and I discovered drugs.  Drugs made it easier to avoid the
    feelings of suicide and I held on again for another 10 years.  My
    bubble broke when I realized that the promise of happiness espoused by
    our culture - that having a good job, a wife and living in a
    comfortable home - had nothing do with my unhappiness. 

    I started therapy with the idea that the doctors could somehow change
    the way I felt, and I would find satisfaction with my male identity.  I
    found out that they can't change the way a person feels so I decided I
    needed to change my body.  I never told my next psychiatrist that I
    would kill myself in a year if I didn't identify a solution for my
    unhappiness.  Two months before my "snuff it" date, I started the
    process of gender reassignment.  For me the process of recovery from
    the mutilating effects of masculine socialization involved the
    following major traumas: 

    1.  Divorce from the woman I promised to share my life with.
    Fortunately we had no children.  We're still friends although she's
    royally pissed with me because she hasn't found a man who related with
    her the way I did. 

    2.  Sex reassignment surgery plus six more hospitalizations and three
    more operations to correct some complications from the original SRS. 

    3.  Eight plus (I'm not done yet) years of psychotherapy to unwind from
    the mutilating effects to my self image and to rediscover and affirm
    *my* identity. 

    4.  Recovery from eighteen years of drug addiction. Actually, my
    relationship with drugs is a love/hate thing. Drugs made life as a male
    bearable.  After SRS, drugs gave me distance from my feelings until I
    had established my female identity.  Now I need to let go of drugs
    because I've discovered that my life as a woman out of touch with her
    feelings is *almost* as unsatisfying as my experience with being male
    in this society. 

    Was all this worth it?  You bet your life it was!  Being a woman is the
    most empowering experience of my life.  Men want what women have, but
    not every man has to go through SRS to get it.  I have met some
    wonderful and sensitive men.  The unenlightened men still have a lot of
    very hard work to do before they can be free of the destructive
    behaviors that are inherent in masculine socialization. 
                                                           
    

    addendum to .2
    
    lest anyone experience a wrong impression of my use of the term
    'mutilation' in .2.
    
    My use of the word -- consistently in quotes -- was in response
    to the verbiage used by the base-noter.  The word itself can be
    'technically' accurate in this context if stripped of all of the
    negative value loading it carries; however, such dissociation from
    common usage is nigh upon impossible leaving it an ugly word which
    I feel is inappropriate to the discussion.
    
    I was a bit miffed when I wrote .2
    
      Ann
   

    Does anyone know the stats for what percentage of transsexuals go
    from male to female and female to male? It seems to me that most
    (if not all) of the cases I've heard of are the former. Have there
    been any studies that might account for the discrepancy (if there
    is indeed a significant one)?
    
    --- jerry

�                                                       Being a woman is the
�    most empowering experience of my life.  Men want what women have, but
�    not every man has to go through SRS to get it.                  

    I remember a note awhile back that touched on this subject,
    but I don't remember it as being very enlightening.
    
    Having tried both roles, can you elaborate on the difference?
    What exactly do women have that men want?
    
    [and hold the jokes, please... they were all used in the other note]
    
    
    /bruce

    I read somewhere (Second Serve perhaps?) that male to female
    transexuals outnumber the opposite by about 10 to 1.  I also believe
    that I remember reading that the m --> f surgical procedure is easier,
    has a higher success rate, and costs about a third of the reverse
    procedure.
    
    A feminist analysis would also bring to mind the fact that it's
    a lot easier for a male to raise $10K than for most females to raise
    $30K for their surgery, given the respective earning power of the
    sexes.
    
    Someone who had undergone the m--> f procedure let me read a detailed
    description of the actual surgery performed (a couple of pages single
    spaced).  It was totally amazing to me.  Everything is basically
    "re-used" in a different way.  
                               
    Holly

    The way it was described to me throug a friend of a friend who blew
    my mind by exposing his secret one night goes like this:
    
    We all started as female. Males emerged from the female. Tran-
    sexuals changed in body but not in their brains. Many believe that
    gender is "programmed in the brain".
                  
    Kate

    We don't really all 'start as female' the undifferentiated
    fetus *looks* female. This means that the external genitals
    look something like an undeveloped vulva. The gonads are also
    formed up above the kidneys in both sexes. In the male the
    primitive folds close over and form the penis, and the testes
    migrate down into the scrotum. In the female the folds lenghten
    and form the true labia. 
    
    Bonnie
    

    RE:  23
    
    Bonnie, I cut this out of some magazine and have kept it in
    my desk drawer for years because I really LIKED it.  You mean
    it isn't true!?
    
    reprint from some mag:
    
    		WHICH CAME FIRST...THE MAN OR THE WOMAN?
    
    	In the biblical story of creation, God first makes a man,
    decides the fellow needs a companion, and fashions Eve from his
    rib.  The implication, many believe, is that females were a sort
    of second sex, put on earth to be a helpmate to males.  Femaleness,
    some (such as Freud) went on to theorize, was a state of incomplete
    maleness.
    
    	Modern researchers investigating what goes on in the womb
    have found, however, that the basic form of life is female, not
    male.  "For what it's worth as commentary on Adam's rib, the
    female sex is primal," says endocrinologist Estelle R. Ramey,
    M.D. of the Georgetown University School of Medicine.  "The early
    embryo is female until the fifth or sixth week of life, when male
    hormones must be present in utero to suppress growth of the female
    genitals.  All embryos, then, have the innate capacity for femaleness.
    Eve, not Adam, appears to have been the primeval human that God
    had in mind."
    
    	Nice to be able to correct that little error, isn't it?
    

    in re .24
    
    Charlotte,
    
    That was essentially the same thing that I was trying to say in
    my note. That all embryos look the same up until the 5th or 6th
    week and that they look essentiall female. Genetically however 
    they aren't female. So to say that everyone starts out as a female
    and some become male, isn't technically correct. (Tho I must admit
    to having some fun with the idea when teaching Biology.)
    
    Bonnie

re: .26
    
>	 Genetically however 
>    they aren't female. 

I assume this is a reference to the old X and Y chromosomes.  Eggs and 
sperm are haploid cells (having only "half" a set of chromosomes, not 
the usual doubled up pairs that ordinary cells have).  An egg always has 
an X chromosome; a sperm may be either X or Y.  The resulting XY pair in 
an embryo is considered genetically male, and an XX pair is genetically 
female. Since all humans must have an X, while only some humans are
differentiated by a Y,  one can still argue that female is the default. 
Note that there are other chromosomal configurations besides the
standards; it is possible to have such things as XXY and so on, due to 
some chromosomes not being completely haploid.

================================================================================
Note 578.28                  Christine Jorganson RIP                    28 of 28
RADIA::PERLMAN                                        0 lines  14-MAY-1989 23:03
                         -< A perhaps naive question >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    If the world were completely nonsexist, would there still be people
    wanting to go through surgery to change their sex?

This is being posted for a member of the community who wishes to remain
anonymous.......
    
    	-Jody
    
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------

re .28

>    If the world were completely nonsexist, would there still be people
 >   wanting to go through surgery to change their sex?

M to F transexuals are willing to go through surgery in spite of 
sexism. SRS is just one of the many components of the physical change.
There is also a major societal change. Candidates for SRS must have a 
trial period of at least one year in which they live the role of the 
opposite sex. 

I am one who is considering the change. It's a terrifying proposition
that I may never follow through with. All I know is that I am totally
consumed in the idea of becoming a woman. I've learned to live with 
this compulsion probably by my ability to fantasize when reality 
starts to get to me. Drugs work for others. Suicide is the only answer 
for others. 

My life is very important to me. I do the best I can with what God
gives me. We all have our differences...ain't it great? Imagine how 
boring it would be if we weren't!

I realize that this topic is extremely difficult to understand 
because it is a subject that people like Christine Jorgensen and 
others are pioneering in this century. RIP

    Re -.1
    
    I don't think it's totally in spite of sexism that M=>F sex
    reassignment occurs.  Sexism exists both ways.  Women have much more
    freedom in expressing emotions, in fact, feeling them at all than men
    do.  Women have more freedom in picking clothing and hairstyles than
    men do.  Women have historically controlled some areas, men have
    others.  Men, have some obvious advantages, the most notable being
    economic. 
    
    In a totally non-sexist world, I still think some people would want sex
    reassignment surgery.  I think there is more to maleness and femaleness
    than simply attitudes of self and of others.  Some things that some men
    might want that women have would be the ability to produce life from
    our bodies.  In fact, there is research going on to implant embryos in
    men.  From my understanding, the researchers have no trouble finding
    volunteers to have these implants.  But, of course, SRS doesn't allow
    for procreation as the opposite sex (at least, not now). 
    
    Elizabeth

    Sorry for being dense, but I still don't feel I have a tangible
    understanding of "wanting to be a woman".  Feeling emotions or
    wearing particular clothes or hairstyles have nothing to do
    with how your body is arranged, other than stupid societal
    sexism that attempts to fit you into a particular mold.
    
    I think the world has come a long way in terms of sexism.  Pretty
    much all occupations are open to both sexes.  Men are being
    admired more for truly nurturing their children and being
    sensitive and showing emotions.  I see such a variety of
    clothing at DEC, and in my experience computer type people
    are much more liberal about irrelevancies like what you wear.
    It's possible that a male at DEC could get away with wearing
    a dress.  Certainly if large numbers of men starting asserting
    their right to dress as they chose, 10 years from now it would
    be accepted.  Certainly that was true back in the 60's when men
    started having long hair.  It totally blew some people away at
    first (I can't imagine why anyone cares what other people look like),
    but they eventually got used to it, perhaps begrudgingly.
    
    If the only thing you truly can't do in today's society because of
    sexism is dress "like a woman" (and by the way I'm a woman and
    I hate fragile clothes, stockings, uncomfortable shoes, chemicals
    on my face, etc -- so it's really "dressing like *some* women dress",
    not "dressing like a woman") then it seems like a small enough
    disadvantage that SRS seems a bit drastic.
    
    If it's bearing children -- pregnancy and labor aren't a big deal --
    it's being a parent.  Plenty of women can't bear children, and adopt
    instead.  And SRS doesn't allow pregancy anyway.
    
    I truly believe I am not conscious through 99% of my life about which
    sex I am.  I'm better at some things like causing group consensus
    without bitterness than MOST of my male peers, and I'm stereotypically
    female in that I don't follow pro sports.  But I'm an individual.
    My characteristics are because I'm me, not because of where my
    ancestors came from or what I look like.  My background certainly
    helped mold me into what I am, but how I got to being me is irrelevant
    at this point.  If I were to wake up tomorrow and realize my body
    had become male, I don't think it would change my life.
    
    Radia

    I'm reading "The Invisible Partners"  by John A. Sanford.  By the
    time you get done reading that and some of the other texts it refers
    to, you may have the answer to "Why do People Do This?"  It is a
    discussion of the Jungian Psychology's concept that, for whatever
    reason, there is a male and female component to every human.  People
    'project' their image of their opposite-sexed-component into the
    people they have relationships with while what they are looking
    for is the opposite half of themselves (if I read this right). 
    While it isn't on the top 10 list of things I wnat to do, transexuals
    may be so incredibly smart that they see that they can't transfer
    themselves into others so they transform themselves.  A very far-out
    concept.

        re: .13, great reply !

        Who knows what makes a male feel like a  female?  I  think  the
        dresses  and  the  heels are just a small manifestation of that
        greater inner feeling. I have encountered some ts and I  can
        assure you that many of them relate to  that  female  state  of
        being  far greater than the male. The  only  way  they  can  get
        society  to  recognize  those inner feelings is to emulate what
        society expects a true woman to look/act. That  way  they  can
        be  treated  the way society treats its women. It's not a matter
        of whether this treatment is better or  not,  it's  that it  is
        the way they want to be treated. 

        People's  demands  for  a clear cut explanation  for a sex
        change operation reminds  me  of  the  misconceptions around 
        homosexuality.  In  attempting to define homosexuality, the
        unelightened lay person will concentrate on the  attraction to 
        same-sex  physical  organs.  Yet,  with  a  little  further
        investigation, we discover  that  most  lesbians  and  gay  men
        could  easily  have  sex with a member of the opposite sex. The
        difference, I conclude is that the same-sex sex is an act of
        love as a result of a *bond* that happens between two  people 
        of  the  same  sex.  Anything else is just a physical activity.
        From where does that bond come from? I don't  think  there  are
        any  clear  cut  answers  for that either. We just need to take
        people's words for how they truly feel! 

Re .31

<  If I were to wake up tomorrow and realize my body
<    had become male, I don't think it would change my life.
    

What a concept! I haven't thought about this before but my first reaction is
that if I woke up tomorrow and discovered my body had become male - my
life would change dramatically. It would take a definite adjustment.

First of all my relationship with my husband would change. In some undefined
way we relate to each other as male and female - all of a sudden we would be
in a different context. (Sex would be part of it certainly but I think it 
would be more than that.).  As a heterosexual male it would be at least
an adjustment to now be married and living with a man. I am not sure that
would be an easy adjustment - and would include a reorientation with
soceity as well. Again this is not just sexual but somehow would affect the
way we relate to each other.

I also think my relationships with my women friends would change. Somehow
being a man or a woman are part of a person and can't be totally ignored,
and do affect the way we relate to each other. I am not saying the
relationships would be worse (or better) but they would be different.

Thinking about this I would guess that a man (or woman) wanting to make
a sex change relates to the world and other people in a female (or male)
way. The best way to integrate the inside feelings and outside body are
to make them consistent. It is probably much easier to change the body
than change our internal feelings.

Maybe this way of women and men relating to the world and each other is due
to sexism. But I think it is more than that, but I can't explain it well. I
just know that there are different aspects to my relationships with men
than with women. (I am not talking about the way one dresses, or what
one does for a job but something at a gut level.)

Anyway this caused me food for thought.

Muggsie
 

    If I may make a suggestion for reading about how one's life would
    change, try reading a novelette by John Varley called "Options"
    (damn! I forget which collection it's in -- I'll check on it).
    
    It postulates a future in which there's the technological ability
    to tweak a person's chromosomes so that instead of growing a
    (default) same-sex clone, a clone of the opposite sex can be
    grown. The person's mind can then be transferred into the clone,
    and experience life as a member of the opposite sex. The story
    concerns a woman who does this, and how it changes her life and
    that of her partner.
    
    --- jerry

    I see in a few notes that there are some people have drawn correlations
    between transexualism and homosexuality. They are very different.
    Many transexuals are bi-sexual. Many grew up preferring the opposite
    sex. Many lesbians and gay men don't have any inclination toward
    transexualism. This can be confusing to a straight person, such
    as myself. I'm not saying I understand all this but I just hate
    to see other members of the straight community get the wrong idea
    about transexualism vs homosexuality.
    
    Kate
    

    re:.35
    
    The Varley story I mentioned appears in his collection BLUE
    CHAMPAGNE.
    
    --- jerry

        Your point is well taken, Kate. 

        First,  I  think  that  *most*  (you  wrote many) g/l/b men and
        women don't have any inclination to transexualism. 

        But   don't   totally   discount   the strong  relationship  
        between transpersons and the g/l/b community. 

        Many   transpersons   turn   to  the  gay/lesbian/bi community
        for  solace  (not  meant  as  a  derogatory  term;  I couldn't
        come up with a better one). In the g/l/b community, transpersons 
        are often   held   in   high  esteem [see below],  whereas  in 
        the  mainstream heterosexual community,  I  think  they  try  to 
        just  fit  in hopefully, unnoticed. 

        Actually,  according to history it was  crossdressers  and
        transpersons who started  the  gay/les/bi  movement.  Way  back
        when,  men  had  to  dress  up like women and women like men in
        order to  make  statements  about  their  sexual  orientations.
        There   was   no   distinction   between   cross-dressers   and
        transpersons and g/l/b. But that also made them equally the
        target for harassment. One day they  all  got  tired  of  this
        unfair  harassment and decided to strike back. Well, the rest
        is history.

        In fact a gay friend of mine almost got into a  fight  sticking
        up for crossdresser  who was being harassed at a  
        heterosexually-oriented restaurant. 

        The  guys  doing the harassing were calling the cross-dresser,
        "faggot". So, this crossdresser was taking the heat  for  being
        what  my  friend  actually  was [gay].  Since my friend didn't
        have a dress on, they didn't even notice him. My friend  decided 
        that he had had enough and put himself into it. 

        Because  of this frequent misconception, there is a strong bond
        between  the  communities.  I  think   they   are   hated   and
        misunderstood pretty equally .

        Did this make sense???????? :-)

    An anonymous response from the poster of .10.
    
    	-Jody
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    Since there are several anonymous authoresses I am the writer
    of .10.

    The writer of .16 said it regarding multilation of the psyche,
    I'll add this.  The reason in part for SRS is, as Catherine
    suggests, to aid identification and recognition of the person
    as a woman.  It does run deeper than that, we are women despite
    our outward sex.  The same organs that identify us as male 
    also provide the hormones that further multilate us.  This
    distortion creates further dissonance in our lives.  We don't
    look like we feel.

    Several who have asked why become a woman, recognize the point of
    view in the last paragraph.  We are woman either inwardly or
    outwardly.  Cosmetic surgury is needed to correct the outward
    appearance.  

    The worst part of this is, while in transistion, we would prefer
    to hide.  Hide we cannot, we still need to eat, work, and love.
    During all of this we work at learning who we are, what we are,
    and purging old guilt.  We also purge old behaviors that we
    learned at the insistence of society while growing up.

    What is it like to feel like a woman?  I don't know.  I never 
    feel much like a man, not that I don't try to be one.  Maybe
    its the difference between who you are and living a role that
    you learned.  We all have seen or read the story of the cop
    turned criminal to fight crime and the conflicts that arise.
    What faces that cop is every act for the day is thought out and
    runs counter to their feelings and beliefs.  After a while the
    cop can move freely as the person they impersonate, but they
    long to discard the criminal facade because it represents
    everything they are not.  Let me personalize this by scaling it
    down.  How many of us go to work and live the part of the wheeler
    dealer or the great decision maker and then go home and insist 
    that someone else pick dinner.  It's the difference between what
    we can do and what we really are (or prefer to be).

    We all look at ourselves. We either like what we are, or not.
    For some that "not" can drive you to drink, depression, maybe
    suicide. Even if your particular problem is not gender related
    you can understand that if you're not happy with yourself, you're
    not alive.

    To misquote another, becoming a woman is the most empowering
    thing in my life. Why?  because becoming a woman entails taking
    control of your life, and measurable progress toward a goal.
    Those who have had to work to make changes in their lives
    understand what empowerment means.

    Thanks for listening,

    A friend of mine tried to explain, and, in failing to understand,
    I understood.  (Maybe)
    
    "Do you remember how, in kindergarten, you'd say, `I'm a little
    girl.'?"
        
    "No, I don't remember ever saying that."
    
    "Well, at my school, all the little boys would say, `I'm a little boy.'
    and all the little girls would say, `I'm a little girl.' Well, I'd
    think to myself, `I'm a little girl.'"
    
    I never said or thought `I'm a little girl.'  Instead, I always
    thought, `I'm Ann.', and being Ann has always been a bit different
    from being a little girl.  So, although I never had the expected
    thought, I understood because the thought I did have was also at
    varience with the Expected.  I've even accepted the change, which
    I was pessimistic enough to think I would not.  The last time I
    spoke of this person in conversation, I used "she", and that word
    came straight out of my subconscious; I didn't think about it at
    all.
    
    What does impress me is not that this person is willing to undergo
    surgery to make her outside match her inside, but that she is willing
    to undergo general anaesthesia.  *There* is daring!  ;-)
    
    						Ann B.

        To the anonymous pre-ops:

        What gender are you at work? 

        Also,  it  might  be  painful  to read a few of the comments in
        this file, but thank you for being brave  enough  to  send  the
        moderator  your  comments.  The  first  step  to  acceptance, I
        believe, is education. 

        The mere fact that people are now aware that there  are  people
        like  you  at  DIGITAL  has probably caused many people reading
        this file much introspection. 

        And yes, we know the feeling of striving for  empowerment,  and
        I wish you the best of luck!

        					Roger M

        I  think  it's  appropriate  to  sing the anthem adopted by the
        g/l/b from La Cage Aux Folles

        I am what i am
        And what i am needs NO EXCUSES

        I deal my own deck
        Sometimes the ACE 
        Sometimes the DEUCES

        There's ONE LIFE and there's
        No return and No deposit
        ONE LIFE
        So it's time to 
        OPEN UP YOUR CLOSET

        Life's not worth a damn
        till you can shout out..............


        I AM WHAT I AM...............

      Or to quote Jimi Hendrix

      "I'm the one that's gotta die
      when it's time for me to die,
      so let me live my life
      the way I want to."

This response is from one of the anonymous noters:
    
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

re 578.41

>>        To the anonymous pre-ops:

          Please note that one of the responses was from a post-op. I 
          am the author of .29 and am a pre-op. 

>>        What gender are you at work? 

          I look, act, and dress like a male. I know how to pass as a 
          male very well. I hang around like one of the guys. 

>>        Also,  it  might  be  painful  to read a few of the comments in
>>        this file, but thank you for being brave  enough  to  send  the
>>        moderator  your  comments.  The  first  step  to  acceptance, I
>>        believe, is education. 

          It's expected that most people do not understand. I'm happy 
          to see that some are trying to understand and am really 
          pleased with some of the questions; and some of the answers
          made by more informed people have been great. I don't know all 
          the answers and probably never will. I personally think that 
          the reason why I am what I am is in my genetic coding 
          somewhere. I think of it as something special and not a 
          defect. Sometimes I do get frustrated that no matter what I 
          do I'll never be able to be a complete woman. 

>>        The mere fact that people are now aware that there  are  people
>>        like  you  at  DIGITAL  has probably caused many people reading
>>        this file much introspection. 

          I wish I knew what the exact figures were lately. Somewhere 
          I heard the figure of 12,000 SRS operations annually and 
          haven't any idea of the number of people who may remain 
          pre-op their entire lives. I also heard that the number of 
          people who crossdress is over 1% of the population. This 
          means that if you work in a plant with 500 people there are 
          probably 5 who enjoy crossdressing. 

>>        And yes, we know the feeling of striving for  empowerment,  and
>>        I wish you the best of luck.

          Thank you

this from a different anonymous responder than the previous...
    
    -Jody
    
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

>>>What gender are you at work? 

Somewhat feminized male.  I have to remember I'm supposed to be
male and sometimes it's difficult.  Sometime I don't try, like
others I pass well in that role, I learned it well.  I use my 
male name, no one seems to know or are not bothered.

>>>Also,  it  might  be  painful  to read a few of the comments in
>>>this file, but thank you for being brave  enough  to  send  the
>>>moderator  your  comments.  The  first  step  to  acceptance, I
>>>believe, is education. 

It's not as painful to read the comments as it is to hear them.
It's more difficult to listen to it as I can't reply as first
person.  I'd say one of the more difficult things is to say
nothing, rather than give one's self away.  The closet stinks. 

The moderators are the best.

The first step is self acceptance, after that it gets harder as 
you may lose people close to you.  Education is just part of
trying to make the world more habitable.


>>>The mere fact that people are now aware that there  are  people
>>>like  you  at  DIGITAL  has probably caused many people reading
>>>this file much introspection. 

Me - I'm still people. I'm trying to become better people, that's not
gender specific.  The point being that we are all different for
different reasons. Some people because of their problems try to
hang bad things on that, others recognize it and want to know more
because it's interesting or the perspective is interesting.  In DEC
language it's valuing difference, not simply acknowledging it. 

	An anonymous response from yet another reader

    -Jody
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>        What gender are you at work? 

	I have always been female gendered, but up until a little more
	than a year ago I presented as a male.  At this time, I began
	what is called the full-life test.  It is one of the requirements
	when you go through a gender clinic.  I have now been living,
	working, etc, as a woman for more than a year.  I recently was
	told that the surgeon was ready to accept me as a surgical
	candidate.  I'm working on getting my finances in order and look
	forward to SRS (sex reassignment surgery) later this year.

>        Also,  it  might  be  painful  to read a few of the comments in
>        this file, but thank you for being brave  enough  to  send  the
>        moderator  your  comments.  The  first  step  to  acceptance, I
>        believe, is education. 

	A few of the less accepting comments have been a little hard
	to read, but you're absolutely right about education.  The more
	people understand that this is not something considered lightly,
	and how much goes into a decision to make this transition, the
	more they'll understand that it is not something done for a kick.

	I'm sorry that this discussion was prompted by the death of
	Christine, as I knew her personally, but I'm glad it is being
	discussed.

        I  am  writing  a  [short]  speech  which  will be delivered to
        fifteen thousand or so people on the Boston Common on  June  9!
        :-) :-) 

        My  topic  is about inclusion. I want to address including drag
        queens, cross-dressers, pre-ops, post-ops, etc..

        May I refer to you  as  "transpersons"?  Or  is  there  a  more
        appropriate term? 

        						Roger M

Response from the author of .46
    
    -Jody
    
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------
    
>        My  topic  is about inclusion. I want to address including drag
>        queens, cross-dressers, pre-ops, post-ops, etc..

	I suggest that you use the terms "cross-dressers", which covers
	the subgroups of drag gueens and transvestites, and "transsexuals",
	which covers pre- and post-ops.
 
>       May I refer to you  as  "transpersons"?  Or  is  there  a  more
>       appropriate term? 

	I have heard the phrase "transgendered individuals" used.