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Item that appeared today on a news website I monitor:
Misunderstandings: Transsexual vs transgender
“So, transgender is an umbrella term for a range of gender variant people and transsexual is a person born as one sex, who identifies as the opposite gender. Surely that isn’t too hard to understand?”
Potentially Straightforward
Comments
questionable
The article is presenting opinions as facts. No one agrees on how the terms should be applied, so it's rather rude of her to outright state that this is how they ought to be used and any other way is wrong. Personally, I'd say transgender describes one's mind while transsexual describes one's body.
"T" as self destructive
Each of us has to be their own person, so perhaps it is best if I just talk about one person. But, what is the fun in that? I really, really hate any sort of T word. I think that Transition is the worst, unless people use it about a week and then they are transitioned full stop. Maybe I am biased because on the 23rd of December 2004 I was a man. On the 5th of January, I was living as a woman. It didn't feel like a choice and I have to say it would have been better if they had just killed me.
So, after that, I did my very best to learn how to act and do what a woman does, including some relatively stilted ideas about what makes a woman a woman. I think the use of the word transgendered is self defeating and harmful. You wind up being a cake that never bakes, an uneaten hamburger, a dress never worn; trapped in a never ending limbo, doomed to never be complete. The operation is a lot of pain for a vagina that is a vagina in name only and is fuckin high maintenance. It would have been better to just use my tin snips, do my 6 months on the funny farm and find some doc to make it look a little like a vag.
The use of the term Inter-sex is far more likely to be true of most of us and does not carry the stigma. Eventually, I think it will be shown that everyone of us has something that an XX female, or XY male does not have.
If you're gonna sit around the house in a dress, smoke pot, drink beer, watch football and leave the kitchen a mess, clean motorcycle parts in the sink, and leave your sox inside out on the floor and leave the seat up and not clean the toilet, and go out drinking until 2:00am and walk home alone, I think you need to rethink things. Just sayin.
Gwendolyn
I am sorry
But I have to disagree with you. I think I am TG. Better to say that I think of myself as TG. Specialist psych tells me I am TG as well. I don't think of myself as TS because I am never going to transition despite my government offering to pay for or subsidise it.
Maybe it is destructive. I don't have much of a life and am not happy as a chappie. But I don't have that long left to see out my time in this vale of tears. If I was fifty years younger and had no offspring it would be a different story. But fifty years of testosterone and living as a male have taken their toll. Now I am this me and living in this body, this closet is who I am and that is not going to change.
I see that as being TG but not TS. That distinction has meaning to me and is useful to me. I hope I have not offended.
Thera.
Au contraire
I wish I had lived my life out with my family.
G
TG v. TS?
I might be in the minority on this one? When you're dysphoric and you have help? TG stands for Terrific Group (Therapy). When you're dysphoric and you don't have any forseeable future as a male to female transsexual, it's tough s... (Did I say that?)
Seriously, my big sis NeeNee listened to my laments early on and said after a very patient period of time something to the effect of ,"Hell, 'drea, you're TG!" And so I am.
Love, Andrea Lena
Mind and Soul
Andrea,
In your mind and soul you are Andrea, a wonderful woman. I guess that makes you Transgendered or Trans-something. That circumstances prevent you from doing something other then writing your wonderful stories and being a friend to a lot of people, is unfortunate and saddening. But, that other you, the outward you, fits one of the definitions of a true Man. One who sacrifices their own happiness and pleasure for the sake of the ones you love and care for. Andrea sacrifices Andrea for wife and child. Perhaps with some blessings (not luck) Andrea may progress to what she wishes to obtain. But now Andrea is the best, a wonderful woman and a a caring loving man.
Rami
RAMI
Where do I fit in then?
Then where does someone like me fit in? I was born male, but don't identify as male, nor do I identify as female. I would love to have surgery to have my body match my mental state, but considering everything a MtF or FtM has to go through, how do I convince a doctor that I am MtN? So am I transexual? I was born as one sex, but I don't identify as it.
Nothing is as straightforward as it seems.
It's a circular argument
of pure subjectivism. We are self diagnosing with very little signs to be picked up by the professionals. The whole thing is as woolly as some of the therapy. There are some who will accept us as we wish to be seen and some to whom we will never be accepted - the show us your ovaries, brigade.
I agree with much of the article, but then I consider myself a female living in stealth with papers to confirm my status legally. What others feel or wish to be is for them to decide and whatever that is, I will accept as their preference on the understanding that they accept me as mine.
Sticks and stones may break my bones but nomenclature will never be sorted.
Angharad
My thoughts
To start with let’s look at the words Transgender Trans = to cross, so we have to cross gender, transsexual translates as to cross sex it is an adjective (the ual ending makes it so). Now most of us here probably fall into the TG category or identify with it more than the TS category, now I am in the beginning of my transition, and identify with TG. My reasoning is this, gender is a mental thing, and it is how you self-identify with what and who you are. Your birth sex is a physical thing; the obstetrician looked at what was between your legs and labeled you. That is how it works. Take me for example I was born with male genitalia, but I recently found out I was born with two X chromosomes, but I am not a woman with MAIS (because I was fertile I have two daughters, and most male secondary characteristics). How do I fit? That being said however, the genitalia and the chromosomes are physical biological aspects. It doesn’t mean my mental identity, matches my physical body. I struggled a long time with this because I was told because of my birth sex; I required a particular behavior and a particular role and I bought into that. I think most of us did or do. I also personally think transsexual, is a bit dated as a descriptor for those of us that want both things to be harmonious. Type in the word in Google or your favorite search engine and see what comes up most of it negative it has a strong fetishistic connotation. I am starting to ramble on here so please forgive me. So I will close with this observation I find it interesting that she used these words to describe a transsexual: transsexual is a person born as one sex, who identifies as the opposite gender. Based on what the word means shouldn’t she had said born as one sex, and chooses to be of the opposite sex. Because we all know and have experienced sex and gender are not mutually inclusive of one another.
I consider myself to be transgendered.
As a some who considers themselves to be transgendered, I was somewhat offended when it seemed that the transsexual community co-opted the word as a direct synonym for transsexual.
If I were to put a definitive label on myself it would be androgynous because I see myself as nearly equal parts masculine and feminine. I have also said the removal of my favorite part of my anatomy was definitely not on my agenda. Therefore, I'm not a transsexual, but I am transgendered.
The confusion of the terms is really distressing to me. I'd love it if the general public had a good understanding of what each was and wasn't. I hate to have to teach a college level course in Gender 101 before I can tell someone what's going on in my head. Even my doctor had it wrong when I told her that I was transgendered. She thought I meant inter-sexed. I had to educate her, though I think she thought I was merely explaining what I meant about myself and not defining the term.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
Navel gazing
This has for me been an extremely interesting and educational post, but it has reinforced an opinion which I have gradually formed over my four years here (and I'm sorry if my views appear blunt).
Because it seems to me that many people on this site spend far too much time thinking about themselves.
Of course, that problem is not restricted to people on this site, there are a few others I meet in the real world with just the same problem.
I call it a problem because I believe that those who are more interested in others tend to be far happier people than those who spend their time examining their own navels or their psyche. Certainly, there appears to be an awful lot of unhappy people on this site which, although it doesn't prove my belief, certainly reinforces it.
So are you TG or TS? Who cares a sh** other than yourself? And if you spent less time thinking about yourself, it wouldn't matter to you, either.
As I said before, I'm sorry to be blunt.