<p>Seems like a lot of trouble to go to, rather than just have a commitment ceremony and wait for the legalization of gay marriage in cali, which is probably going to happen sooner than later. I just can’t imagine Chaz’s partner would want him to go through with this surgery for the sake of an official marriage, considering there is always a chance of complications, especially with someone of Chaz’s particular build.</p>
<p>For SueinPhilly, wondering about whether transitioning genders is common among lesbians and gays, 1:10 in the population are estimated to be gay. In 1994, the American Psychiatric Association reported that “data from small countries in Europe with access to total population statistics and referrals suggest that roughly 1 per 30,000 adult males and 1 per 100,000 adult females seek sex reassignment surgeries.”( The number of TG people who don’t have the surgery would be somewhat higher, of course.) Also, many people who identify
as transgendered did not necessarily previously identify as gay. But having said all that,
many young people who are evaluated for “gender identity” issues do end up identifying
as gay instead of continuing to grow to adulthood as transgendered.</p>
<p>A lot of questions to answer! And I’ll try later to answer as many of them as well as I can.</p>
<p>But, two things right off the bat. First, being a “Christian” doesn’t necessarily imply that anyone “disagrees” with this. Plenty of Christians I know are either perfectly OK with people transitioning when they need to do so, or at least understand that whether they “agree” with it or not doesn’t matter, because trans people exist and will continue to do so. And will continue to do what’s necessary for their survival and potential happiness, regardless of the opinions of strangers. </p>
<p>Second, I don’t know if the comment about needing “transsexual bathrooms” was meant to be funny, or snide, or was in any way serious. There’s no such thing as a transsexual or transgender bathroom, and there’s no reason for them. What trans people who aren’t comfortable using (or feel endangered in using) the bathroom of their “true” gender really need is more single-person bathrooms. I’ve never understood why all single-person bathrooms aren’t gender-neutral anyway, regardless of trans issues. What difference does it make who’s using a single-person bathroom at any given time, as long as it’s kept clean? (And I can tell you from personal experience that although women are generally neater than men in public bathrooms, that’s by no means universally true. Hovering can cause major cleanliness issues if people aren’t careful!)</p>
<p>The question of when trans people are comfortable using the bathroom of the gender they’re transitioning towards is an entirely separate issue I’ll talk about more if I have a chance. Passing (I prefer the term “blending in,” because “passing” implies trying to be something I’m not) is obviously a factor, but some trans women, and trans men, never pass no matter what. Although the allegedly widespread need among trans women for facial feminization surgery is highly exaggerated; I know many trans women, myself included, who blended in perfectly well from the beginning. </p>
<p>And for trans women who are 6’5" with football player bodies, all the facial surgery in the world doesn’t necessarily help. Trans men usually have a much easier time blending in facially (growing a beard and starting to go bald are major “cues” that lead people to see someone as male), but when they’re really tiny, as in under 5 feet, that creates its own blending in problems. As it happens, I was unusually small for a guy. (5’2’', 115 pounds, no big hands or feet or shoulders or square jaw or prominent brow ridge or anything like that – just my nice Jewish nose!) Which certainly made blending in easier for me; I literally passed beneath most people’s radar. And from the very first time in my adult life that I was out in public presenting as a woman (in other words, as “me”), long before I completed my social transition, I always used women’s bathrooms. Nobody ever even gave me a second glance, and that’s true for a number of trans women I know. </p>
<p>Although, given my stature, there used to be times that people actually thought I was transitioning from female to male rather than male to female! In fact, for the last few months before I began living fulltime as a woman, I noticed that even when I was dressed in male clothing for work, and wore no makeup, and had done my best to disguise the physical effects of my medical transition to that point, people called me “ma’am” with great frequency so long as I was wearing a baseball cap or something similar that covered my still-male haircut. When I took the cap off, it was “sir.” That was the gender divide for me: a baseball cap. An interesting power to have, almost like a magic trick. The line between being perceived as male and being perceived as female can be much narrower than most people think. When things got to that point, I knew that it was time.</p>
<p>NYsmile and just an aardvark: please don’t go there. No trans person suddenly decides to pretend they’re transsexual, and to transition, let alone to have surgery, solely in order to gain legal advantages such as the ability to marry if their partner happens to share their birth gender. If Chaz Bono is anything like the many trans men I’ve met and talked to, or have read about, he has <em>always</em> known about his gender issues. Perhaps, like many do, he tried to find a home in the lesbian community, and may have considered himself a lesbian at one time. But, if he’s like others I know, he realized eventually that that wasn’t who he really was, and that it wasn’t right for him. Transitioning, socially and/or medically and/or surgically, is simply not something most trans people undertake for ulterior motives. It’s not “going through trouble” to avoid waiting for same-sex marriage to be legalized. It’s doing what they want and need to do in order to alleviate longterm gender dysphoria. After all, by transitioning, I lost the ability to marry a woman again if I wanted to do so, once I was legally female. But, even though I’m primarily attracted to women, that didn’t even enter into my decision.</p>
<p>By the way, there’s no such verb or noun as “transgender.” It’s an adjective. Transgender or transsexual people often transition. “Transgenders” don’t “transgender”!</p>
<p>One last point for now: the statistics that cornmuffin cites are considerably out of date, and couldn’t possibly reflect reality. If there are 300 million people in the U.S., and half of them are born male, then, even if they were all adults, and 1 in 30,000 of those were transsexual, that would mean that there were only 5,000 transsexual women in the country. But the best current estimates are that there are 30,000 to 50,000 post-operative transsexual women living in the U.S. right now. And, of necessity, far more than that who haven’t had surgery. Also, it is now generally believed that there are basically just as many trans men as trans women. They’re just a little less noticeable, because there are far more options in this society for people born female to be “gender fluid” and/or masculine in their presentation, and until fairly recently, fewer trans men sought medical attention.</p>
<p>OK, I have to get some work done sometime; it would take me all afternoon to address the points everyone has raised. (This, of course, was one of my concerns in disclosing my history a couple of months ago – that I would feel a special obligation, as the only trans person to be out as such on the parents’ forum, to respond to questions and correct what I see as inaccurate statements. Imagine being the only Jewish person and seeing things said about Jews that were completely inaccurate, not from malice but from simply not knowing. Wouldn’t you feel compelled to respond to everything? Even knowing that you’re only one person, and can’t even purport to speak for your entire community?)</p>
<p>Oh goodness, I certainly didn’t mean to imply that there was any merit to the idea that Chaz was exploiting a loophole in the law for the sake of an official marriage–I just meant to stress that it was an inordinate amount of trouble to go to, and therefore I find it more likely that he is truly a transgendered individual. My apologies!</p>
<p>No apologies necessary; I must have just misinterpreted what you said. <em>I’m</em> sorry, but you have to understand that it’s easy to be defensive when one has to deal with so much actual hostility out there in cyberspace. And in real life, for too many.</p>
<p>I never said that this was the reason. All I did was pass on what I had read on the TMZ website. They were not implying that this was the reason for her desire to go through with the process. At the end of their article, they even made a comment about how ridiculous it is that a gay couple can’t get married but if one decides to change gender, then a marriage between the same two people would be legal, accepted, and binding.</p>
<p>I honestly believe that there are people who feel that they are trapped in the wrong body. I can’t imagine the torment of trying to be something that goes against what your brain is telling you. I hope that Chaz finds peace and can finally feel complete–that the mind, body, and soul feel as one.</p>
<p>That’s certainly the hope people have. All I can say is that I know it was the right path for me.</p>
<p>Apologies to you too, nysmile, for jumping to conclusions.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>DonnaL, I don’t wish to pry and if you don’t want to answer you will have no complaint from me, but my understanding from your posts is that you transitioned from male to female. Are you saying that once you were female you remained attracted to females? If so, wouldn’t that mean that you transitioned from male to female and from heterosexuality to homosexuality? Or does it mean you were always homosexual all along and transitioned from male to female to match your sexual orientation?</p>
<p>I am hopeful that the thread title uses the appropriate terminology, and equally hopeful that Chastity’s decision, living in the spotlight, will help to bring some added understanding, sensitivity and compassion. This unfortunately was not the case when the City Manager of Largo FL shared her decision publically. She lost her job. [Chastity</a> Bono Undergoing Sex Change - Spinner](<a href=“http://www.spinner.com/2009/06/11/chastity-bono-undergoing-sex-change/]Chastity”>http://www.spinner.com/2009/06/11/chastity-bono-undergoing-sex-change/)</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Yes. </p></li>
<li><p>Sort of, although nobody I know calls themselves homosexual. I prefer lesbian-identified – my son insists on having exclusive ownership of “the gay” in my household and is very protective of the title! – and it’s not 100% anyway. Primarily gynephilic? Whereas my son is exclusively androphilic? How’s that? (“Queer” is popular these days, but I happen not to like it. All I’ve wanted forever is to feel “normal,” whatever that means, and now that I do, I’m not about to start thinking of myself as queer. I’m old enough that the word has too many negative connotations for me.) </p></li>
</ol>
<p>The loss of “heterosexual privilege,” and the realization of how pervasively heterocentric our society is, have been considerably more of an adjustment for me than the transition itself. That’s been relatively easy, because it’s simply being myself, and I didn’t have to change anything except my external appearance (even that, not so much – no voice change was necessary, for example), and I’ve been lucky not to encounter much, if any, negative reaction and to be able to keep my job and my relationship with my son. But that’s another topic.</p>
<ol>
<li>That’s not how I see it. Because gender identity is pretty much separate from sexual orientation, and my reasons for transition had nothing to do with the latter. One is who you are, the other is who you find attractive, although for some people the two are closely intertwined and the latter changes with the former. </li>
</ol>
<p>And that’s as much detail as I plan to provide!</p>
<p>jym626, there’s already a thread about this, at <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/728805-chers-daughter-chastity-bono-changing-gender.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/728805-chers-daughter-chastity-bono-changing-gender.html</a>. Maybe the moderators can add your post to it?</p>
<p>Thanks, DonnaL.:)</p>
<p>DonnaL, I know you said you aren’t willing to give out any more information, but I hope you will shed some light on a confusing topic for so many.
Do you think that the issue of transgender people is due to being born a hemaphrodite and a doctor " choosing " the sex for the child ?
No problem if this is something you are not comfortable answering, but I have wondered …</p>
<p>No, it’s not usually the same thing . (By the way, the current medical term is “intersex” or “intersexed,” not hermaphrodite.) Usually, “intersexed” refers to one of many possible greater or lesser variations in genital appearance or configuration, sometimes but not always caused by chromosomal variations. (Sometimes the variations are visible externally, sometimes not, as in XY girls with androgen insensitivity syndrome [AIS] who look completely female on the outside and develop a completely female-appearing body at puberty, but have no uterus or ovaries and, of course, can neither menstruate nor conceive.) </p>
<p>“Transgender” refers more to what’s in your brain than what your body looked like at birth. Current neurological research certainly suggests variations in certain brain structures – preceding any hormonal treatment – that cause them to resemble those of the gender you believe you are much more than the gender you were assigned at birth, but that kind of research is fairly recent, and the brain is so complicated that I imagine it’ll be years before anything is conclusively proved. (Most “causation” theories involve the effects on the brain of various hormonal influences in utero.) But most trans people have bodies that conformed at birth to the gender to which they were assigned. So, if they were to be considered intersexed, it would only be invisibly so, and it’s much less confusing to refer separately to the two. </p>
<p>Obviously, some intersexed people end up being “trans” in the sense that they decide that they should be a different gender than the one in which they were raised, and transition to that gender. And, equally obviously, there are some trans people (just like there are some non-trans people) whose genital anatomy was “variant” at birth, but not sufficiently so to be classified as intersexed. I was myself, in a minor way (cryptorchidism), which did make me somewhat physically different from other boys as a child, since it wasn’t surgically “corrected” until I was almost 11 years old; I was treated with daily doses of halotestin (a testosterone drug) for several years beginning when I was 11, after that surgery, to induce puberty. </p>
<p>Ugh, I hated the treatment, and the results, even then. Remember, I knew from my earliest memories, certainly no older than the age of 3, that I wanted to be a girl and should have been one. I was perfectly happy with my “variation.” If they’d left me alone and never even done that surgery or dosed me with testosterone, it might have saved me a lot of trouble later on. Especially since the doctor who treated me and medicated me, a very prominent physician, sexually molested me, repeatedly, over a period of years. I was much too embarrassed and ashamed to tell my mother or anyone else, and never spoke of it until I was an adult. But that’s another story. (And, no, that experience had nothing to do with my being trans – see above – contrary to the crackpot theories of the religious right that both homosexuality and being transgendered are somehow caused by childhood sexual abuse. And absent fathers. And strong mothers. Etc., etc.) </p>
<p>But if none of that treatment had happened, I wouldn’t have my wonderful son – who’s flying home from Chicago tomorrow, finally, yay! I haven’t seen him in almost 3 months! – who’s made it worthwhile. All of it. </p>
<p>But none of that means I was intersexed.</p>
<p>“The loss of “heterosexual privilege,” and the realization of how pervasively heterocentric our society is, have been considerably more of an adjustment for me than the transition itself.”</p>
<p>Pervasively heterocentric?
Give me a break. The vast majority of our society is heterosexual, because that is NORMAL for human beings. Men who think they are women, and women who think they are men, are suffering from serious mental disturbances. Blaming society for failing to accommodate these people is absurd.</p>
<p>claremarie, I am torn between ignoring you in the hope that you will go away and confronting you. I see from your previous posts that you will persist regardless, and confrontation will likely make things worse. I hope your smug certainty that you are right brings you some modicum of comfort. It is unfortunate that you feel the need to strike out and insult others. You have made your opinions quite clear. I hope you will find that sufficient.</p>
<p>That was totally uncalled for, especially given how open I’ve tried to be in answering people’s questions, especially just now.</p>
<p>But go ahead. I’m sure those who’ve drunk your koolaid are nodding their heads in unison. But with every nasty word you say about this and other issues, more and more people sitting on the fence are falling off (in the direction of human kindness), just to get away from you.</p>
<p>I’m not even going to argue with you substantively, except to say that, as usual, you have no evidence for what you say (because there isn’t any), and know nothing of what you speak. (I’m sure you’re busy right now scouring the dank, fetid blogs you frequent, just to find something brainless you can regurgitate here.) I’m not a man who thinks he’s a woman. I’m a woman who happens to have had an unusual history. I got where I am in a different way from most women. But here I am, and here I stay, and there’s nothing you can do about it, and you can’t take it from me. And in the last 4+ years nobody who knows me has ever questioned my transition or my sanity or who I am, not once.</p>
<p>You, I’m not so sure. After all, I’ve been repeatedly certified, by experts, as entirely sane and well-balanced! I’ve had to be. By contrast, your own words demonstrate that if being incredibly nasty and being unable to converse with people or absorb what they say are signs of mental disturbance, well – enough said, lady. </p>
<p>If you think I’m going to allow myself to be defeated emotionally by someone like you – even though I can’t help feeling hurt, and somewhat physically ill, in reading your words – you’re wrong.</p>
<p>Thanks, Donna. Didn’t see the other thread when I posted here.</p>
<p>DonnaL
You are ,an incredible lady. I appreciate your pointing out this thread to me, and was very much enjoying reading it… until I was CM had entered the fray (if is is a female poster-- cant always tell by the SN), poisoning this thread with her garbage. Your post #37 says what needs to be said to her.</p>