Gender vs. sex & other transsexual discussions

I really don't get the whole transgender thing. I have no disrespect for them and everybody has the right to live as they want, but the idea leaves me incredulous.

For example, what does Bruce Jenner think is going to be different about his life now that he dresses like a girl? Sure, he gets to be on a lot of talk shows and he makes money doing all his transsexual interviews and photoshoots. He says he likes sex with women, he still has his cock and balls, and has had body sculpting and takes hormones to look like a woman, but HE STILL HAS A Y CHROMOSOME. You can have ANY NUMBER of X chromosomes as a genetic defect, and you may have poorly or undifferentiated sex organs, but you're still a MALE. Likewise, Chastity Bono went from female to male, but Chaz still has a vagina. I fail to see how Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner or Chastity/Chaz Bono can function as heterosexuals--and I have no problem with them being bisexual or homosexual. Just to be clear, I enjoy my occasional romps in the hay with two women I have been with a couple of times a year since I was a teenager--and my husband knows I have these relationships.

Shemales in the vernacular are said to be "chicks with dicks", but in reality, they are guys with tits. Many to most transexuals never have their genitals reconfigured and even if they do, they still are what they are. Some have had beautiful plastic surgery that would make real female women envious of the appearance, but from what I have heard, they have a choice: it can look really good or it can function fairly well, but rarely if ever have both.

Just what to they think will be different about their lives aside from parading around in clothing usually worn by the opposite sex? They already have a life history of being whatever sex they have been, so what's the use? It would be hard to be a male to female transsexual and be a gold digger because you would have to find a special kind of sugar daddy. A female to make transsexual would also have a difficult time finding a woman who wants that special kind of partner. Women and men can do the same occupations with a few exceptions mostly related to necessary body strength. The list goes on.

Gender expression is not the same as gender identity. Gender identity is also not the same meaning as what biological sex you were assigned at birth. Sexual orientation is also different from gender Identity.

http://www.glaad.org/publications/reference

GLAAD is one of many organizations that seek to educate. Be informed.

http://transequality.org/sites/default/files/docs/resources/NCTE_UnderstandingTrans.pdf

BTW - Caitlin Jenner. SHE. Use the person's desired name and pronoun.

Thanks Enemasub, I agree. Susie you seem to be lacking your usual tolerance and perspicacity.

Susie said:

I really don't get the whole transgender thing....

Susie, with all due respect, that first sentence of yours says it all. You should have just left it at that.

The rest of your post makes it painfully obvious that, as you yourself claim, you really don't get it when it comes to this.

Don't get me wrong, you are an expert regarding many topics on this forum, and topics beyond this forum, I'm sure.

But that knowledge does not qualify you to intelligently or even accurately discuss the trans topic until you do as much homework on it as you have on your other areas of study. If you have done any homework at all on this subject so far, you really should double check your references and make sure none of your info came from Fox news.

Liquidsky said

Susie you seem to be lacking your usual tolerance and perspicacity.

I am not intolerant of the idea or people doing it and I have nothing against people who decide to do this. I just can't imagine the need to change what you think you are. I do not see this as being the same thing as getting a nose job or a face lift.

I have to reiterate, "what do they think will be different in their lives" after taking such a step?

What difference does it make if you are male or female or look like one or the other? Both can be equally successful in life.

I will say it is a brave step to take.

I just can't imagine the need to change what you think you are.

I think that's the important point and why most of us will never be able to fully understand why someone would make this kind of change. It's not what you are, but what you THINK you are. If someone is not happy with who they personally think they are, then more power to them if they can find a way to change that.

I think that's the important point and why most of us will never be able to fully understand why someone would make this kind of change. It's not what you are, but what you THINK you are. If someone is not happy with who they personally think they are, then more power to them if they can find a way to change that.

I guess that's where we get into the old psycho babble thing about "perception is reality." Perception is NOT reality. REALITY is REALITY.

As I said before, it is a brave step to take.

I have heard it postulated that sexual identity comes from intrauterine effects of hormones on the fetal brain. Thus no one has a choice about what sexual identity one has. Undoubtedly simplistic but a partial explanation of the phenomenon.

The reality of transgender isn't biology, it's an intangible portion of the psyche. It's realizing that your perception of yourself doesn't match what's in the mirror - but more than simple physical appearance.

As for the number of FtM TG people who don't get 'bottom surgery' (yes, that's how it's referred to), it frequently has to do with cost. It also has to do with function. Spending upwards of $25k for questionably functioning genitals isn't something that many choose to do. It doesn't make them less TG, it makes them more aware of the reality of the state of the art.

My exposure? I lived with 2 TG women for a few years. We had hours of deep, open conversations. I also was accepted by numerous TG friends.

As for the groking of TG, the sage advice from one woman is that you can't truly grok because you're not TG. We can intellectualize but not understand viscerally.

Liquidsky said

I have heard it postulated that sexual identity comes from intrauterine effects of hormones on the fetal brain. Thus no one has a choice about what sexual identity one has. Undoubtedly simplistic but a partial explanation of the phenomenon.

. . . or a cop out explanation if there isn't hard evidence. . . .so you can find fault/blame/responsibility (or whatever term a graduate of est might use) on the mother. (I thought as a Californian, the right age, you might appreciate the est reference!)

. . . As for the groking of TG, the sage advice from one woman is that you can't truly grok because you're not TG. We can intellectualize but not understand viscerally.

OK, I can buy that. So I am redeemed. 😁 😁 😁

Chill Susie I meant nothing disparaging about mothers. It sounds as if Jds has the most personal experience. Other than the long detailed discussion I had with my transgender friend I know little about it. My friend though had studied the subject for many years.

I am always chilled. I almost never lose my cool.

I know you meant nothing disparaging about mothers. I just threw in the fault part because everything has an initiating factor.

More power to you. Sadly I'm not always cool myself. I do aspire to it though.

Did you like the "est" reference?

Oh Werner? But of course and you can't go to the bathroom until I say so!

Susie said

Perception is NOT reality. REALITY is REALITY.

A lot of psychologists, philosophers, sociologists, anthropologists, and other deep thinkers will disagree with you and will argue that objective reality does not exist.

The famous sociologist, W.I. Thomas, said, "Things that are perceived as real are real in their consequences." With that in mind, if a person perceives that he/she is actually of the opposite gender, he/she will not be comfortable/happy/whatever as he/she is and will need, for peace of mind, to change things however it needs to be done.

hankb

Susie said

Perception is NOT reality. REALITY is REALITY.

A lot of psychologists, philosophers, sociologists, anthropologists, and other deep thinkers will disagree with you and will argue that objective reality does not exist.

The famous sociologist, W.I. Thomas, said, "Things that are perceived as real are real in their consequences." With that in mind, if a person perceives that he/she is actually of the opposite gender, he/she will not be comfortable/happy/whatever as he/she is and will need, for peace of mind, to change things however it needs to be done.

hankb

Well, al lot of shrinks are full of crap. That's why they went onto shrinkery.

To say objective reality does not exist is one the the most stupid statements I have ever heard. (I'm not attacking you, I'm attacking the statement made by those people who made it.)

Ah but can any of us really know what reality really is since it's filtered through our senses and our conscious which is unique to ourselves? Sorry I just can't help myself.

There are people who are bonkers and have totally whacked out perceptions of things.

That does not make what they believe to be reality, reality.

It's just their whacked perception.

I admit I don't have a lot of patience with people who don't see things clearly or who filter what they see through wacky colored glasses.

I can't help myself either! 😁

I hope that, on a higher level, this discussion acknowledges that respect is essential.

I was born male and have happily lived my life as a male. Those who identify themselves as transgender commonly report that they were "born in the wrong body" - that is, they acknowledge the genitals they have, but have mild to extreme distress that their genitals do not match how they identify themselves as a person. There have recently been a number of poignant stories and YouTube clips about very young children who insist, at ages too young to be "sexual" (3 or 4 or 5), that they ARE the gender opposite the body they occupy. It is impossible to misinterpret this as a choice, any more than I chose to be a male or a heterosexual. I am what I am and they are what they are. Respect is due - period.

As noted, having surgery to resolve the "mismatch" they describe is still very complex, expensive and (mostly) not insured, fraught in many, many ways and imperfect most of the time. That someone would take all of those risks speaks volumes about the distress they have being in the wrong body - to proceed with what, at best, is a gamble strongly suggests how important it must be to finally occupy a "pretty good" "right" body vs. a "normal" "wrong" body. That's truly brave, in my view.

We are all sexual. Being HERE is all the proof needed. So, too, are transgender people, and their sexual preferences are whatever they are - exactly like the rest of us. Their partner preferences and sexual desires - and kinks (or not), likewise, deserve respect (just as all of us expect for ourselves) and should not be exploited or subjected to disdain or shame. Being transgender does not equal being kinky. Transgender persons may be kinky, or not - that's a completely separate matter, just as it is for straight and L-G-B persons.

This thread began with an honest report of what read to be respectful encounters that appear to have been mutually enjoyable. We can only hope that is true for us all, every time, and that no one is exploited or harmed. We should understand and respect. Who better than those on this site should understand and respect that?

Susie, you said:

Perception is NOT reality. REALITY is REALITY.

While I am the first to agree with that principle, you have applied it incorrectly.

Your views on transgender/transsexual matters are your views, your perception, and yet you claim this perception of yours to be reality.

Your perception, however, contradicts reality- because you insist that a trans woman is a man because she was born with a penis and a trans man is a woman because he was born with a vagina. Gender is not a perception, gender is a reality.

Example: In reality, you identify as a woman. If anyone else identified you as a man, that would be their perception but not reality. When a trans woman, also in reality, identifies as a woman and yet you identify her as otherwise, that is merely your perception. Your perception is not reality, in this case.

Gender is personal, and not assigned to you or to anyone else by other people or by anatomy. There are more than two genders, in fact. Gender is not binary, at least not always. Even if there were some universal and absolute way to determine what is masculine and what is feminine, which there is not, there are infinite combinations and degrees of masculinity and femininity in each individual. These may not even remain the same throughout a person's entire life.

Your perception cannot determine someone else's real gender for them any more than someone else's perception can determine your real gender for you.

Reality is still reality, even when you do not understand it.

While I am the first to agree with that principle, you have applied it incorrectly.

Your views on transgender/transsexual matters are your views, your perception, and yet you claim this perception of yours to be reality.

[color=#000000][b]Your perception, however, contradicts reality- because you insist that a trans woman is a man because she was born with a penis and a trans man is a woman because he was born with a vagina. Gender is not a perception, gender is a reality.[/b][/color]

Example: In reality, you identify as a woman. If anyone else identified you as a man, that would be their perception but not reality. When a trans woman, also in reality, identifies as a woman and yet you identify her as otherwise, that is merely your perception. Your perception is not reality, in this case.

Gender is personal, and not assigned to you or to anyone else by other people or by anatomy. There are more than two genders, in fact. Gender is not binary, at least not always. Even if there were some universal and absolute way to determine what is masculine and what is feminine, which there is not, there are infinite combinations and degrees of masculinity and femininity in each individual. These may not even remain the same throughout a person's entire life.

Your perception cannot determine someone else's real gender for them any more than someone else's perception can determine your real gender for you.

Reality is still reality, even when you do not understand it.

Do you mean GENDER or SEX?

There are TWO SEXES--male and female.

A person's GENDER is seemingly open to whatever they imagine themselves to be. Gender is how you may identify. SEX IS WHAT YOU ARE.

A male who takes female hormones and/or undergoes plastic surgery to be more like a woman is still a male who has undergone various treatments. Likewise a woman who takes male hormones and undergoes various surgeries to look more like a man is still a female. Chromosomes don't lie.

Gender is all about the costume (that means the clothes and shape of our body) we wear in presenting ourselves to the world that we put on when we get dressed in the morning. If a person wants to live their life one way or they other, that's fine with me, but that does not change what sex they are. I am a female (sex) and identify as a woman (gender).

Believe me, I have a two homosexual cousins (gay if political correctness is important to you), a brother/sister pair of second cousins that live together as if they were married, I love them all and I am heteroflexible myself (bisexual if you like), so I harbor no prejudices on the matter.

I am just calling a spade a spade.

Without otherwise weighing in on the discussion, I would say that now both words, gender and sex, can be used interchangeably to describe the biological and legal definitions that refer to the chromosomal condition of a person. So, male or female can be someone's gender or just as well someone's sex.

I'm just looking at this linguistically.

How this has come about? It's perhaps confusing, but there is a very large group of people who would rather never hear or utter the word sex, so they have come to use the word gender to replace it.

This is part of what is making this discussion confusing. Members here are using both words in different definitions, while in the present day, they can both be used interchangeably.

English is a language that changes very rapidly, apparently on a whim. Nor is there any institution that guards over the linguistic purity of the language (luckily!). But that does mean that at times confusion will reign, depending on which geographical or social group one belongs to.

Without otherwise weighing in on the discussion, I would say that now both words, gender and sex, can be used interchangeably to describe the biological and legal definitions that refer to the chromosomal condition of a person. So, male or female can be someone's gender or just as well someone's sex.

I'm just looking at this linguistically.

How this has come about? It's perhaps confusing, but there is a very large group of people who would rather never hear or utter the word sex, so they have come to use the word gender to replace it.

This is part of what is making this discussion confusing. Members here are using both words in different definitions, while in the present day, they can both be used interchangeably.

English is a language that changes very rapidly, apparently on a whim. Nor is there any institution that guards over the linguistic purity of the language (luckily!). But that does mean that at times confusion will reign, depending on which geographical or social group one belongs to.

NO NO NO

The WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION agrees with me. http://www.who.int/genomics/gender/en/

You can also do a google search for "sex vs gender".

They OVERWHELMINGLY agree with my definitions

As the WHO site says, the terms are often used interchangeably. But for all its otherwise considerable prestige, it is not an organization concerned with or in any way specialized in linguistics and language. Many members aren't even native English speakers.

The thing is, there is no institution that has the last say about what constitutes correct English. If we were in France, the Academie Francaise would give the definite answer as to what constitutes correct and proper French. If we were in Belgium or the Netherlands the 'Green Book' published by the intergovernmental Nederlandse Taalunie would give a definitive answer to what was correct Dutch usage. English doesn't have such institutions and is moreover a language spoken by so many diverse groups of people the world over that trying to impose a uniform order on the spoken and use of the language is an impossible task. There are always going to be differences of opinion and differences of usage.

Open an English dictionary and many words have varying definitions with often minority usage that differs from the majority usage in small degrees. There is no way to impose a strict order when so many hundreds of million speak English in one form or another. There is bound to be slippage, differentiation, evolution in how words and terms are used and understood. Certainly when it comes to sexual matters, much is still very new and hasn't been worked out long enough for a definitive consensus. Many people aren't even comfortable with many sexual words and terms and try to come up with euphemisms or less laden words to describe the same concepts.

Also remember that language can be used as warfare, as subversion, as promotion of ideas and customs and norms. Use a different word to describe the same concept and one can slyly and knowingly change or direct a social narrative. Or make people more comfortable with a certain word or help create confusion or aversion ... and all of this can very well happen without anyone being conscious of the process or initiating it ... it just happens ...

Susie, you said:

.....but that does not change what sex they are.

Well, what does a sex change do? It changes a person's sex. What does that mean? It changes a person's sex.

It could not be any simpler than that. So much for calling a spade a spade.

And how can you say that when an individual replaces their male hormones with female hormones, and then they have female hormone levels rather than male hormone levels, their sex is still male? At that point they have the body chemistry of a female, not a male. Anyone with the body chemistry of a female is definitely not a male.

You said:

I am a female (sex) and identify as a woman (gender).

That is a correlation, not a cause. No one's anatomy determines their gender identity. Each person determines their own gender identity. They just might not be aware of this if the gender they identify as coincides with the gender they were assigned by society based on the anatomy that they were born with. It's really just a social construct that female anatomy should mean female gender and male anatomy should mean male gender.

Furthermore, agracier brings up a good point about how the terms gender and sex are confused. I think this happens in another way as well. For example, Susie, it's great that you are open-minded about same-sex relationships, but gay/lesbian relationships are defined more by the fact that both partners are of the same gender, and in this case also has less to do with anatomy than overall identity. A relationship between a cisgender man and a transexual woman is a relationship between a man and a woman. It is not a same gender relationship, and it is not a same sex relationship.

Agracier,

You offer some enlightening explanations about language. Many conscientious people realize that language, particularly the English language, reinforces the oppression of marginalized individuals. If societies are responsible for language, and societies do not understand something, then their language will not reflect the truth about whatever it is that they misunderstand or are not supposed to understand if the status quo of oppression is to be maintained by the powers that be. The only way forward is for the use of language to evolve along with our understanding of the truth. We cannot cling to outdated language as proof of anything presupposed by outdated ideas.

If I dye my hair from brown to blonde, am I a blonde? NO, I'm a brunette that is painted.

The outside appearance is different, but the infrastructure and building blocks remain the same.

I really dislike getting into semantics, so I will simply say that I stand by my previous statements.

Language DOES need stability and more purity than it has had recently. If it constantly changes, how can we possibly communicate if people keep changing what the words mean?

Susie,

No offense but it's painfully obvious that you dislike getting into semantics. But this is more than just semantics. As I explained before, this is not something superficial such as coloring your hair. The analogy does not apply. You are out of your element in this discussion.

Certain outdated uses of language are flawed because they are based on misconstrued perceptions of reality. To allow language to stagnate in that flawed state would be to continue to misrepresent reality. If that happened, then all communication would be a charade.