I Don't Care

[bennyboy]

But talking about them in that way and treating them that way is dehumanising.

Not equating trans women with biological women isn't dehumanizing. It's a biological fact-- different DNA, different equipment. A doctor might, as you've argued, make an extremely good facsimile on the outside-- but there's no womb, no ovaries, no period, and so on. . . and those are all physical features of females of the human species.

Now, if you are talking about gender roles or expression, that's completely different. If I knew you in person, I'd be perfectly happy calling you Ms. Matilda. I'd tell you how lovely you look in your church dress. If you were my secretary, I'd buy you flowers on secretary's day.

But if my not wanting to engage in sexual intercourse because trans women aren't my thing is dehumanizing-- well, I've been dehumanized in that way by plenty of women in my life. I don't think anybody gets to demand this of anyone else.

I wrote a post about this very subject on AD. I don't want to repeat myself so I shall just copy and paste a couple of paragraphs of relevant text here.

If there's one thing that trans people are good for it's to be fodder for other people's idle debates about their very existence. Very basic things that everyone else just takes for granted get debated as if it's some pressing issue when it is not. Like where they can go to the toilet, whether they can have sex without having to reveal their medical history, whether they can get married or adopt, access medical services, where they change their clothes or use the showers, whether they can take part or compete in sport, whether they should be given help from rape crisis centres or women's refuges, or change their name or birth certificate to something that won't lead to them being openly discriminated against, or whether they should be allowed to be put in a prison that won't get them raped on a daily basis. Generally the message is, yes, we'll allow you to exist because we can't actually kill you off, but don't you dare think about actually living because we consider you to be deluded, psychologically ill and pretending to be something that you are not. It is because of this that trans people talk about being erased. Because their very lives and core identities are being negated.

Why would your sexual identity be the core of your humanity? I don't know you very well since it's an internet forum, but I'm pretty confident that however important your gender identity is in defining your life narrative, it's not even 1% of what you are as a human being.

I think you SHOULD be able to marry, adopt, get medical services, get help in women's refuges, change your name and so on. 100%.

Trans-women are different from other women. But you could also make the same argument about cisgendered women who have undergone FGM, or cisgendered women who have been sexually abused as children or any other radically different childhood. Trans-women were denied the upbringing that cisgendered women generally take for granted and this does affect how they have developed as people. How can you feel comfortable hugging other women and being as equally tactile with them for example if you have had a history of being physically beaten up at school and told from a young age that other girls see you as different? Same way some trans-men are not sure what it means when another man punches them affectionately in the arm. But as I said earlier, this is not exclusively a transgendered problem as it applies to any person who has had their life interrupted by traumatic events.

That's right. There are plenty of cisgendered women who don't act according to the social or species norm. And I wouldn't endorse dehumanizing them, either.

All humans are a mixture of nature and nurture. There is how our brains have developed in a way that doesn't change. But also our environment which continues to influence how our brain re-wires itself. This is why counselling doesn't get rid of transsexuality, or body dysmorphia, in the same way counselling does not stop someone being autistic or a sociopath (not saying they are the same). But in the same way, a person's environment can either exacerbate or ameliorate how they have naturally developed. So living as the gender that you feel yourself to be, being seen and thus being treated as that, helps shape the rest of your brain to be consistent with the parts that cannot change.

Recognition of this is why the definition of dysmorphia in DSM has changed, I think-- it's no longer defined in terms of biological origin, but in terms of the cognitive dissonance and psychological distress in individuals. I'm quite sure that you must agree with the changes to DSM, right?

But gender dysmorphia isn't always of the category you are describing: the realization that the physical phenotypes and emotional reality (add social reality) don't match. There are sometimes serious psychological issues around it that can be dependent on abuse or developmental issues. Fully and automatically embracing every idea people have about themselves as a right isn't necessarily doing them favors. Different people are different.

Transsexuals transition to reduce the divergence between their natural development and their nurture. This isn't just physical. This includes repairing the damage from having the wrong upbringing and trying to live the life that is wrong for how you have naturally developed. And you can't do this if everyone is debating whether you should even be living as the person that you really are.

Living as something, and being the thing in all possible regards, aren't identical. I live in Korea. I can, potentially, change my citizenship. I can get legal status as a Korean, and have it printed on my passport. With work, I can closer and closer bring my behaviors and appearance to that of other Koreans. But the fact is that I'm not Korean in the way that other Koreans are, and can't be. I have different genetics and a different appearance. If I am culturally well-adapted, Koreans will embrace me as one of their own to a degree, but there's always that understanding-- full acceptance and total equation aren't the same thing.

I'm perfectly happy to say that through identification and probably a lot of work, you are fully female in terms of your external expression. But you are not identically female to XY females of the human species, and can't be. That doesn't make you lesser, or deserving of mockery or demeaning treatment. You shouldn't be attacked for what you are, ever. But if you insist that a refusal to equate your femininity as fully equivalent in all ways to that of an XY female is dehumanizing, then you're painting yourself in a corner.

Put it like this bennyboy. If you thought that a trans-women were woman then why would it matter to you that they didn't tell you about their medical history? Do you also care about a cisgendered woman's medical history? Say that they are infertile? Or maybe if they suffer from Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome and are XY but were assigned female at birth? What about a trans-woman who is XXY because they have Klinefelter syndrome and were therefore assigned male at birth but still have many physical aspects specific to women, such as period pains?

I have to kind of go back in time to answer this question. But yes. . . any prospective romantic partner with any issues at all, medically or psychologically, could have been potentially less attractive than a more typical female person. And it doesn't have to be about the sexual bits, either: an extra toe or nipple, a skin condition, a weird laugh, the shape of someone's nose. . . in any of those cases, some people might not care at all, and some people might find themselves turned off.

I cannot say if a really convincingly surgeried (?) trans woman had been interested in me, if I would have been attracted to her or not. I did meet some trans people, and the adam's apple and the stubble under the makeup, and the big hands and feet, the slightly forced pitched speaking and so on, definitely didn't get my neurons firing in a way to stimulate romantic interest. But the sample size is so small-- who knows? Certainly, I was hedonistic enough that if someone did turn my crank, whatever form they took, I would have been perfectly happy tell the rest of the world to go fuck themselves.

Well maybe you are one of the few men that would be able to tell the difference. Question is, how would you know? Have you ever slept with a trans-woman? They have pelvic floor muscles as well that can massage the head of a penis. Do you have a multi-pronged penis that can grope around inside? Most men just have a single digit down there that goes in and out of a vagina. And you are assuming that women all function the same way.  There are many women who are anorgasmic you know. I am middle aged now and have never had an orgasm before, whether alone or with someone else. Men generally assume that women have the same sexual responses and will respond immediately to touch, forgetting that they need foreplay. So you can't think that it will be any different for trans-women compared to cisgendered women. It won't be. Because not all women respond the same way.

When I was younger and going to raves, taking ecstasy or LSD, I might have met trans people that were very traditionally feminine. Hey, it's even possible that I DID have sex with a trans person-- but I doubt it. Back then, the surgeries and hormone therapies probably weren't as complete as they are now. But my friends and I experimented with a lot of things, sexuality among them, and I can't rule it out.

As for "anorgasmic" women. . . yeah, that would have mattered to me. When I was young, causing an orgasm was much more important to me than having one. It gave me a sense of validation, and it definitely was a precursor to a level of bonding that felt very special to me. In fact, unlike most men, I don't think I COULD have an orgasm unless I caused one first-- I was too insecure, and I always had to engage in oral sex and manual stimulation for a couple of dates before I could get it up and go all the way.

And that makes ME atypical of men of the species, to be sure, and some girls who were too pushy had plenty to say about that-- "Are you fucking GAY?! Fuck me, faggot!" was shrieked at me in distress a couple times-- presumably by women who felt that my own inability to perform was a reflection of their sexual attractiveness. But it also gave me a chance to learn about my romantic partners' turn-ons, and to have some wonderful relationships in college and early adulthood. I spent a lot of time playing the "1-10 game" (How's this? What if I touch you HERE? What if I rub THAT? What if I move my tongue THIS way?). . . definitely the world's most-fun game IMO. Hearing the word "10" moaned repeatedly while a woman nearly cracks my skull with her thighs is about as happy as I can get.

I am talking about transsexuals, not trans people in general. Transgendered is an umbrella term that includes transsexuals.

I can't personally comment on the complexities of transsexuals or other trans people, except to say that I've been made aware of the relationship between sexual abuse, dysphoria, and suicide rates in at least some cases.

Not all self-identifications are healthy. For this reason I wouldn't, for example, endorse a child or teen having irrevocable surgery. I'd recommend talking to the child a LOT, taking him/her to counseling (and I mean self-examination, not trying to "fix" them) to make sure, and then as a parent, I'd say, "When you are of age to legally make that decision, then I will support you and love you no matter what path you take."

At the risk of presuming too much, why did Yonadav transition to female and then back again?  Might it be that there's more to his sense of gender than just aligning external appearances with internal feelings about his identity?

Yonadav is a very rare creature indeed who is unrepresentative of the transsexual community. No one knows what's happened with him, possibly not even him.

He's the .1% of the .1%, eh?

That just makes me more curious. I hope he comes back and is willing to talk about this stuff more.