Cher's daughter, Chastity Bono, is changing gender

Parent Cafe
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<p>No scare quotes are necessary, MyOpinion; a woman who has relationships with other women and identifies as a lesbian <em>is</em> a lesbian, regardless of her history.</p>

<p>And, “normal life” does not equal being with a man. I have what I consider a very normal life right now, and I’m not with anyone – just like many other perfectly normal women my age! And women and men of every age.</p>

<p>Nobody knows what percentage of trans women are lesbian-identified after transition. There are many who were always attracted to men, who identify as gay before transition and as straight thereafter. And quite a few who were always attracted to women (and often who were married to women), and remain attracted to women. And others who thought they were exclusively attracted to women, and find afterwards that they begin to be attracted to men (or, probably more accurately, begin to allow themselves to feel attracted to men), to a greater or lesser extent. And others who are bisexual, both before and after transition. </p>

<p>So you’re entirely right that sexual orientation doesn’t really have much to do with gender identity. There are as many variations in sexual orientation among trans people as there are among non-trans people. (By the way, I’m not personally fond of the “cisgender” formulation that’s been in common use on trans-friendly and generally LGBT-friendly Internet spaces for the last 5-10 years. It’s a shorthand way of referring to people who aren’t trans, in discussing gender issues, by using a term that doesn’t “other” trans people – in other words, that doesn’t inherently cast people who aren’t trans as “normal,” and those who are trans as being abnormal. But in a place like this, I think it’s easier, for me, just to use trans and non-trans. YMMV!)</p>

<p>In any event, there are many trans women who, regardless of their orientation (even assuming they’ve figured it out), remain alone. Which is completely fine if that’s their choice, but it does seem, even though it’s obviously a generalization, that trans women – especially, but not exclusively, older trans women and/or trans women who don’t conform to cultural standards of female beauty (in other words, just like non-trans women, except perhaps even more so) – are widely seen as not being potential partners. There are all too many men, and women, who are attracted to women but wouldn’t even consider being with a trans woman, regardless of whether they would otherwise be interested in her. Some of my friends have had very bad experiences of that kind. (Personally, I haven’t even tried to find anyone since a relationship I was in for a while after my marriage ended came to an end itself three years ago. Mostly because I’ve had way too much other stuff going on in my life to think much about that, but pessimism certainly enters into it. Maybe someday; who knows.) </p>

<p>Donna</p>

<p>PS: Quaere, I very much appreciate your input. It’s nice to have someone else around to answer questions! I guess you’re right around my son’s age. I hope you don’t mind my asking; do you identify as genderqueeer and/or as being on the trans spectrum yourself? You know too much not to be, methinks! (Well, that’s not really true, but it’s rare to find cispeople who know as much as you obviously do about “the trans,” unless they’re partnered to a trans person.)</p>

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<p>Another PS: I think I may have mentioned this before, but it’s fair to say that the majority of the most trans- and LGBT- accepting people I’ve encountered, regardless of age, have been Roman Catholic, either presently or raised as such. Now, maybe that’s just because, given the metropolitan area where I grew up and still live, the overwhelming majority of people I’ve known in my life have been either Roman Catholic or Jewish. But maybe not.</p>

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<p>Donna, I understand that the appropriate pronoun to use is now the new one, reflecting how the individual is now. However, in telling a story of the person’s life, would it be inappropriate to use the other one?<br>
For example, if I were writing a biography of your life, would I say, “XXX was born on XX date, the son of X and Y. <em>He</em> went to X school and did X things. In such-and-such-year, XXX became known as Donna. Donna subsequently did X and <em>she</em> subsequently did Y.” Does that make sense?</p>

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<p>I don’t really think there would be anything wrong with using male pronouns if one were referring to my external actions and interactions with the world for a good part of my life. That’s how people saw me, regardless of how I saw myself, after all. For example, I did go to a private high school that was all boys when I was there. (Coincidentally, the same school that Renee Richards attended. She, when she was he, also went to Yale, as it happens. I guess we belong to a very small club!)</p>

<p>Of course, using two different pronouns can be rather awkward, as in the “She looks back on his life” kind of thing.</p>

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<p>You’re right, Donna, I am trans. In fact, I’m a queer trans guy, in a relationship with a trans woman who identified as genderqueer when we first started dating… it’s been a long, strange trip :slight_smile: I’ve been in awe of your posts (and your patience) and figured, the more of us fielding questions, the merrier…</p>

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<p>trans guy, class of 2012 here too! props to both of you for your great responses in this thread, I’ve enjoyed the different perspectives on what it is to be trans!</p>

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<p>Well, good luck to all of you; as a boring straight married woman, I can’t say I can understand or relate to your struggles, but I admire all of you for doing what you have to do!</p>

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<p>Yowser. I feel so – boring.</p>

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<p>Ditto, and to add to that, I feel like I live a very sheltered life in my little conservative county (that I MUST escape from someday).</p>

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<p>I promise you; I lead a more boring life most of the time than all of you combined – wake up, play with cat, get ready for work, go from NJ to NYC to work, work late, go home from NYC to NJ, play with cat, eat, play with cat, watch reality shows on Bravo if they’re on, surf Internet, maybe talk to a friend or my son on the phone, read whatever novel I’m reading (since I always have to be reading something to take me away from my drab existence), play with cat, sleep (usually with cat curled up next to me or on me), repeat.</p>

<p>But plain old boring is way better than miserably unhappy.</p>

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<p>Oh please, you’re going to be arguing for man-cat or woman-cat marriages pretty soon. Don’t think we haven’t figured out that slippery slope! :-)</p>

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<p>Donna, thank you so much for your input on this forum.</p>

<p>You’d probably like to hear (if you have not already heard this) that attacks against transgender individuals can now be prosecuted as hate crimes in Washington State according to the new law:</p>

<p>[Local</a> News | Gregoire OKs transgender hate-crime protection | Seattle Times Newspaper](<a href=“http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009103280_webtransgender22.html]Local”>http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009103280_webtransgender22.html)</p>

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<p>“As for the question, “Are there only two genders?”: Not all trans people identify as male or female. Some people are genderqueer, androgynous, two-spirit, or have other identities outside the male-female binary.”</p>

<p>And some people have serious mental problems. That’s the truth. “Two-spirit?” How about “delusional?” The really sad thing is that so many of these troubled souls are being enabled in their illness by physicians willing to perform unnecessary surgery on healthy, functioning body parts. It’s unfortunate that more physicians don’t follow the lead of doctor who shut down the Johns Hopkins clinic.<br>
Do you suppose that Obamacare is going to pay for this stuff?</p>

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<p>Sure hope so; it would be the first thing he’s done right by the LGBT community. I’ve always found it curious that my insurance will cover counseling appointments with a therapist who’s worked with hundreds of trans patients, but won’t cover the medical care that he and most other professionals agree is the only effective response. (Nor, for that matter, will they cover any of the totally ineffective, wack-job reparative therapies that are out there.) It’s an awkward situation: they’ll pay for a diagnosis, but not for any kind of treatment…</p>

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<p>claremarie, you continue to fail to provide any empirical evidence for the opinions you are sharing on this thread. Saying “it’s the truth” doesn’t make it the truth. In response to your last question, it doesn’t matter who pays for transgendered individuals to pursue the necessary treatment–it will always exist, because it is biological in nature. And frankly, even if it were paid for by the government, the effect on taxes would be minimal, a difference of a few cents only, but enough to allow a group of individuals to have a chance at happiness and a fulfilling life. Worth it to me.</p>

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<p>By the way, claremarie, since you find the concept of Two-Spirit so interesting, you might appreciate this: [Two-spirited</a> people](<a href=“http://www.mcgill.ca/interaction/mission/twospirit/]Two-spirited”>http://www.mcgill.ca/interaction/mission/twospirit/)</p>

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<p>Well, you can start with this article by Dr. Paul McHugh of Johns Hopkins.</p>

<p>[First</a> Things - Article](<a href=“http://www.firstthings.com/article/2009/02/surgical-sex--35]First”>http://www.firstthings.com/article/2009/02/surgical-sex--35)</p>

<p>Here’s an excerpt:</p>

<p>"When the practice of sex-change surgery first emerged back in the early 1970s, I would often remind its advocating psychiatrists that with other patients, alcoholics in particular, they would quote the Serenity Prayer, “God, give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Where did they get the idea that our sexual identity (“gender” was the term they preferred) as men or women was in the category of things that could be changed?</p>

<p>Their regular response was to show me their patients. Men (and until recently they were all men) with whom I spoke before their surgery would tell me that their bodies and sexual identities were at variance. Those I met after surgery would tell me that the surgery and hormone treatments that had made them “women” had also made them happy and contented. None of these encounters were persuasive, however. The post-surgical subjects struck me as caricatures of women. They wore high heels, copious makeup, and flamboyant clothing; they spoke about how they found themselves able to give vent to their natural inclinations for peace, domesticity, and gentleness—but their large hands, prominent Adam’s apples, and thick facial features were incongruous (and would become more so as they aged). Women psychiatrists whom I sent to talk with them would intuitively see through the disguise and the exaggerated postures. “Gals know gals,” one said to me, “and that’s a guy.”</p>

<p>The subjects before the surgery struck me as even more strange, as they struggled to convince anyone who might influence the decision for their surgery. First, they spent an unusual amount of time thinking and talking about sex and their sexual experiences; their sexual hungers and adventures seemed to preoccupy them. Second, discussion of babies or children provoked little interest from them; indeed, they seemed indifferent to children. But third, and most remarkable, many of these men-who-claimed-to-be-women reported that they found women sexually attractive and that they saw themselves as “lesbians.” When I noted to their champions that their psychological leanings seemed more like those of men than of women, I would get various replies, mostly to the effect that in making such judgments I was drawing on sexual stereotypes."</p>

<p>And from his conclusion:</p>

<p>“Quite clearly, then, we psychiatrists should work to discourage those adults who seek surgical sex reassignment. When Hopkins announced that it would stop doing these procedures in adults with sexual dysphoria, many other hospitals followed suit, but some medical centers still carry out this surgery. Thailand has several centers that do the surgery “no questions asked” for anyone with the money to pay for it and the means to travel to Thailand. I am disappointed but not surprised by this, given that some surgeons and medical centers can be persuaded to carry out almost any kind of surgery when pressed by patients with sexual deviations, especially if those patients find a psychiatrist to vouch for them. The most astonishing example is the surgeon in England who is prepared to amputate the legs of patients who claim to find sexual excitement in gazing at and exhibiting stumps of amputated legs. At any rate, we at Hopkins hold that official psychiatry has good evidence to argue against this kind of treatment and should begin to close down the practice everywhere.”</p>

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<p>And Australia’s only sex-change clinic was recently (temporarily) shut down after several investigations and legal actions brought by former patients. </p>

<p>[Sex-change</a> clinic ‘got it wrong’](<a href=“http://www.theage.com.au/national/sexchange-clinic-got-it-wrong-20090530-br3u.html]Sex-change”>Sex-change clinic 'got it wrong')</p>

<p>“Dr Kennedy claims the same “political forces” that tried to shut down abortion clinics are trying to close the gender dysphoria facility, which has performed sexual reassignment surgery on more than 600 people — a third of all referrals — since it was founded in 1975 by Dr Kennedy and Austrian-born Dr Herbert Bower, who died in 2006.
The temporary closure comes five years after a State Government probe found a catalogue of problems with the way the clinic diagnosed and treated people with gender-identity issues.
The 2004 review, led by Victoria’s chief psychiatrist, was never made public, but a copy obtained by The Sunday Age shows the review found that countless patients were given sex changes without proper mental health checks before or after surgery.
A second review in 2006 found half of all patients had significant psychiatric conditions, such as borderline personality disorder and psychotic depression, but many were still operated on. There was no evidence that patients’ underlying mental problems were treated or their risk of suicide monitored.”</p>

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<p>And from the UK:</p>

<p>[Sex</a> changes are not effective, say researchers | Society | Society Guardian](<a href=“http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2004/jul/30/health.mentalhealth]Sex”>Sex changes are not effective, say researchers | Health | The Guardian)</p>

<p>“There is no conclusive evidence that sex change operations improve the lives of transsexuals, with many people remaining severely distressed and even suicidal after the operation, according to a medical review conducted exclusively for Guardian Weekend tomorrow.
The review of more than 100 international medical studies of post-operative transsexuals by the University of Birmingham’s aggressive research intelligence facility (Arif) found no robust scientific evidence that gender reassignment surgery is clinically effective.”</p>

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<p>What, are all females supposed to be of that ooey-gooey-wittle-babies-I-love-them nature all of a sudden? Gag. I adore my own children but I’m not particularly interested in other people’s babies or little children for the most part (unless they are close to me). Guess I’m not a real woman, even though I was born with all the parts and such.</p>