I read a little piece today, here is a link to it. It’s a little bit self victimisation, but people are sometimes like that. The reason I am posting this is because of one of the commentors, who would appear to be Trans, is oddly Transphobic. I believe she is a Transsexual woman, but she has some rather horrendous views about Transgender people, which oddly should include herself in my view. Any hoo, here is my response to her, which I posting here in case it doesn’t get through moderation.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________
First let me just say that based upon I do think this was just some silly mistakes and ill though out procedures, rather than blatant discrimination.
However I fond some of the views stated in the comments to really claw at me. A Woman, Period, I am guessing from your mention of Transition you, like me, are a Trans woman. Yet some of what you have stated is, in my opinion, essentiallist and bizarrely Transphobic.
Firstly, you make a distinction that Transgender and Transsexual are different. Which I agree with, but not for the same reasons. I view Transgender as a spectrum, in which Trans woman and men sit, albeit only just. As such, while I do not personally understand Androgen, Third Gender, Poly Gender or any of the wide variety of identities within the spectrum, I understand that they are no more choices than my own womanhood is. I didn’t chose to be a woman, and neither did they choose how their minds view themselves. So you see where we differ, as you claim that for Transgender people it is a choice while for us it is a medical reality. You are falling into the exact same pit that many of the LGB did after securing a foothold, pushing another group back.
This can be seen in some of your other comments about the Transgender Spectrum. You call them fetishistic, purely because they did not identify as Trans straight away and instead were cross dressers first. I suppose that makes Laverne Cox a fetishist as she started out as a Drag Queen? This is the exact same rhetoric used by Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists to explain why we should not be given legal protections! You damage all of us when you make sweeping generalisations like that.
Transgender is not a vague term, in fact here is a definition of it for you: “denoting or relating to a person whose self-identity does not conform unambiguously to conventional notions of male or female gender.” Simply put, how a person sees themselves, in our cases as a woman, does not follow what is generally considered normal of that identification, in our cases the fact we were born with bodies that lacked ovaries, womb, vagina and vulva yet had testicles and a penis and our second chromosome was a Y (I am just assuming here, if your were born intersex I apologise). This obviously also encapsulates the other identities as well as they don’t even accept man or woman as identities and form their own. I’ll admit the definition does use “Male and Female Genders” when really man and woman are genders, but I just pulled this right off Google after typing Transgender Definition.
Finally, you get really essentionalist in the final comment I see. You equate getting SRS as the defining characteristic of being Transsexual. I have meant a couple of Transsexual people who do not seek it for a variety of reasons, from believing it will make orgasm’s impossible, to medical conditions that are going to make it too dangerous. By your words they are “delusional” or liars but when I see them I can clearly see a man or woman for who they are, not based upon what equipment they have. Its a horrible that you seem to be suggesting they aren’t “trans enough” and so are lying or delusional.
Your right, Transgender and Transsexual are two different things. One is a spectrum of identities, and the other is one of them. I am just sorry that people within my own identity have such views about others.
In case you are wondering, I am seeking SRS, but that is some way off for me currently for reasons you do not need to know.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
UPDATE
So I received a response, which wasn’t much better, so her was what I responded with.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
I rather wish you would not equate Transsexuality to a medical condition, that aids the stigma against us. To be Transsexual is not a condition, we are what we are after all. It’s the Gender Dysphoria, the feeling of a distress that comes from having a body that does not align with our self understanding. I am afraid that Transsexuality is very much an identity, as there are plenty examples of Trans woman who have gone through the process, and afterwards say they are no longer Transsexuals, for now their body aligns correctly.
I am unsure of what this “Transgender Extremist Agenda” is, because last I knew it was about accepting people for who they are regardless of physical appearance. Honestly it sounds like some Right Wing scaremongering to me.
You keep commenting on Transgener people having a choice, but remember so did we. We both had the choice of either accepting who we were in a world that is generally negative toward us, or to hide from ourselves so that we continued to fit in with this horrible world. I hope you agree that we made the right choice by ignoring the world’s view and being who we are. Transgender people, whether they are cross dressers, transvestites ,poly gender, third gender or androgen (and many more) are really making the same choice. I have a couple of Transvestite friends, and how they have described wearing female clothes goes beyond simply wearing them as a choice, they often describe feeling more comfortable and confident in them. Sounds like the same reasons I started my Transition.
I fail to see where you definition comes from. It is not in any of my dictionaries, nor what pops up when I type in Transgender into Google. In fact I know where it comes from, I’ve heard it spouted from our good friends the Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists!
Do you even realise how much like a TERF you sound by saying “If someone has a penis, and they want to keep their penis, then no, they are not a transsexual, and they are certainly not, remotely, in any sense of the word, a woman?” You are not only hurting the Trans Woman who feel no need for full SRS, but also Intersex Woman who may feel no need have corrective surgery. That same argument is the one being used to deny rights to Trans woman, especially those in early stages of Transition. You are destroying who these people are purely because you feel the need to police their gender, just like those we should be fighting against. Just because you were willing to die on an operating table gives you no right to claim any who aren’t are somehow less than you.
I agree, one is either Transsexual or not, and I never claimed being a woman was somehow quantifiable. If it was I think I would have a very poor score considering my past times and general clothing choice, but we both know being a woman is to do with who we are, not what we do. To be Transsexual you still need to be at either side of the spectrum, identifying as a woman or man, and not sit in between, as many do. I may not understand what it feels like to sit in between, but that does not make it any less real in the same way my identity sits on the opposite end that my appearance at birth should dictate.
Some food for thought here. Seeing as you are pointing out that being Transsexual is medically objectionable I am going to assume you and I both follow the understanding that the brain is sexed. In Transsexuals, the brain sex is the opposite of what the body would suggest. Considering we know the body can be Intersex, or “between” to two commonly accepted sexes, is it not possible that the brain can end up in a similar state? I certainly think so, and so accept my Transgender Cousins (it was a nice androgynous word that didn’t discriminate, its nice not discriminating, you should try it).
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
UPDATE 2
I am going by what the NHS says, which follows pretty close to the WPATH Standards of care, which is that to be Transsexual is NOT a medical condition, its is the Gender Dysphoria that is. Once a person goes through the Transition up until a point they feel happy with themselves, the Gender Dysphoria is said to be cured. Of course that doesn’t stop depression still occurring when people such as yourself call into question who someone is. The T in WPATH by the way stands for Transgender, and considering they are a credible multinational organisation who base their understanding on years of research by countless professors, have shaped the European Health systems views of how to treat Trans individuals and are doing so now in America too, think I’ll take what they say over you.
Yet again you begin to spout alot of TERF rhetoric, about men invading woman’s bathrooms (ah the bathroom meme, you were here for the civil rights movement, the gay rights movement and now you show ugly head here again). I think you’ll find no TERF accepts SRS, to them you are no more than a mutilated, delusional man with a severe perversion that must be suppresed. Sound familiar? It should because it’s exactly what you are saying about some of my friends.
On your last point there, that rights should be base on objective criteria, not behaviors or feelings. By that regard, married couples, the religious and even us two, deserve no rights. How? Well married people feel in love, it is not objective or quantifiable, and love means something different to everyone in even the tiniest sense. Religious people feel a certain god or gods exist, and follow behaviors set out by that god or gods, like eating specific foods, as it is based purely on beliefs, no one bars those who do can truly understand it, and there is no way to tell which is the correct one. We both feel like woman, because we are, but also feel the pain that comes from having a body that does not align with that self image, no one bar ourselves can truly understand that feeling and really it is a feeling brought on by our brain structure, and we transition because aside from lobotomies it is impossible to alter brain structure. You can argue that for all of these you either are or you aren’t, but the same argument can be made for the variety of Transgender identities.
Perhaps this is a generational gap thing, going out on a limb but I guess you are older than me. By how much I won’t guess for chance to offend you. Speaking generally here, the younger you are, the more malleable to ideas you are, with a better capacity for empathy and understanding. Just look at the people who would forcibly detransition us and send us to camps to keep us away, or worse, kill us. The are mostly people in their late forties to sixties. As a Transitioned Transsexual woman, you are in a perfect place to understand what it feels like to have a mind that does not fit your body, because you’ve been there! You aren’t Cis Gender, so you have the experience, the understanding, the knowledge. Don’t fall into the trap of policing others after you yourself were more than likely policed. You may not understand how the various Transgender identities completely feel, but you know little bits. Just because it does not match your own understanding does not make it a perversion , in the same way our transition is not a perversion despite the Cis Gender people who think it is.
Emily's Sanctum 