Ethereal

A conversation I'm having in the education forum has spawned an interesting question. How do you view transgendered people? Now, this isn't asking how society should treat them only how you personally view them.

For instance, I think anyone who undergoes a sex-change operation is mentally disturbed, but I support their freedom to have that operation and to be free of harrassment and to a lesser extent discrimination (I have some issues with their employment when children are involved), but you understand the disctintion.

Summerwind

The two are not mutually exclusive. Of course if I were "in the wrong skin," it would likely cause me to be mentally disturbed until I got it remedied. I imagine they have felt confused and even perhaps to the point of being irrational when all the mental assistance they probably tried first, didn't work.

I think the judgement can only be made by judging the mental stability of persons AFTER they have the surgeries. I've never seen much about that. Of course it is worth mentioning that when judging the "improvement" after surgery would have to be weighted to accomodate the fact that even if they are internally more at peace, the jerks in the world that would ask questions such as yours make their community peace a bit harder to attain.

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Lightdemon

I think the phrase "mentally disturbed" probably has too many negative connotations for it to be used judiciously in this regard.

If we were to use it in its actual meaning, which I interpret as "conflict within the mind," then I think it would probably be a good way of describing transgendered people.

I've met a few transgendered people, mostly through school. Some undergone surgery, others refused to go thru surgery. But they all say the same thing: They were trapped in the wrong body.

Basically, the way I see it is either you're a man trapped in a woman's body, or a woman trapped in a man's body. How can there not be a mental conflict here?

This isn't something that is "unstable" (which is associated with "mentally disturbed"), in fact I would argue that they have a good understanding of who they actually are. One would have to have a high degree of introspection to see this in themselves.

I don't think "insane" or "mentally disturbed" are good ways to describe transgendered people. But there is definitely a mental conflict.

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jamesrage

I think the whole whole tranny issue is no different than someone who thinks he is a duck or two people.Giving some one a sex change operation to someone who thinks he is a she or a she who is a he would be like giving someone with multiple personality disorder multiple birth certificates and IDs and calling them cured of their mental disorder or attaching some prosthetic wings and gluing some feathers on someone who thinks they are a duck and calling them cured. You are not curing you them, all you are doing is facilitating their mental disorder and calling them cured when in reality they are still ****ed up in the head. So attaching fake boobs on a man,chopping his penis off and giving him some hormone to make him look less masculine is just facilitating his mental disorder. Facilitating mental disorders instead of actually curing them should be considered a highly unethical practice by the mental health association not a treatment.

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Kandahar

OK, I've tried to understand where transgendered people are coming from. I really have. But I still don't get it, and probably never will. They seem to have some mental issues.

I can understand that some guys may act more effeminate than the average man, which is perfectly fine...but I just don't understand how that translates into a desire to actually have one's penis removed.

If they want to act/dress like girls, that's fine, everyone has different personalities. But actually replacing one's genitals seems like a HUGE step into the unknown. I just have no clue what would make a guy think that he'd be a happier person if only he had a vagina. If he's never had one before, how would he know?

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CaptainCourtesy

Firstly, I believe the term, "transgender" is a misnomer. This term can mean any set of behaviors or beliefs that deviate from conventional perceptions of one's gender. A boy who plays with dolls would be construed under this definition. I think the term that is being discussed, here, is transexualism. For this, to answer the question, the best answer I can give on this issue is, it depends. One who is truly transgendered is not mentally ill. In this case, it is not about a delusion, but a desire to alleviate an illness, Gender Identity Disorder. Once one has sex reassignment therapy, research shows that the distress and psychological problems that the may have been suffering, often disappear. Some research points that our belief about gender is hardwired before the development of sex organs. Of course, this can not be confirmed, as of now, but this would explain how things develop; person believes themselves to be inside the body of the incorrect gender, the person has sex reassignment therapy, and the distress disappears.

The problem, however, is that not all those who believe themselves to be transsexual, are. This is why an extensive psychological screening process is usually give to those who claim to have this issue. There can be other, confounding psychological factors that may be occurring, that give evidence that the person is not transsexual, but is suffering from some sort of psychological disorder that, once addressed, would alleviate the distress. If this occurs, obviously, the person is not transsexual.

Since we do not know for certain how gender is processed in the brain, and since gender roles are, for the most part, a human-based construct, once a thorough evaluation is made, one who is transsexual can be teased out from those who suffer from a mental illness. One who is truly transsexual is not insane at all.

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1069

As Cap'n noted, a real transexual is someone who actually is born in a body of the wrong sex. A female born male, or a male born female.

You say you can't envision a man wanting to have his penis remove, but I'm sure you can imagine a woman, inexplicably saddled with a penis, wanting to have it removed.
I'm sure if you woke up tomorrow morning with breasts and female sex organs, you would want them removed.

From what I've read and seen on documentaries, truly transexual individuals are aware of the issue from earliest childhood. I saw an interview with a person born male, now female, who claimed that at the age of five or six, he would poke his genitals with needles, close them in doors, and do other things to hurt them, because he wanted them to fall off. He was female and could not tolerate having those things attached to his body.
You may think that sounds like the mark of an insane person, but actually it's how any female would feel if they had a penis. And it's how you would be if you suddenly developed breasts and a vagina. You would want someone to get them off of you. If help was not forthcoming, you might even try to remove them yourself.

Your failure here is in not being able to take the leap of faith necessary to believe that some rare individuals actually are women trapped in men's bodies, or vice versa. That they truly are, and that they are therefore grotesquely deformed and in need of corrective surgery.
If transgendered people seem psychologically unstable, it's due to the horror of being in the wrong body, a body that is repulsively out of sync with what one knows oneself to be.
After sex reassignment surgery (as the Cap'n also mentioned) they are fine, and seldom need therapy or anything. Once they've got the right body, they generally thrive, and manage to lead physically, mentally, and emotionally healthy lives, despite the tremendous discrimination and stigmatization they currently face in our society.

This is pretty rare; there really aren't enough transexual individuals to justify society's getting its collective panties in a wad.
Live and let live.

Kandahar

The difference is that these people DIDN'T wake up one morning and had the wrong sex organs. They're the organs they were born with, and have had their entire life. Under those circumstances, I don't understand why even the girliest man in the world would want to have a vagina. I just can't imagine how anyone wouldn't just feel WEIRD if their body was suddenly different than the body they grew up with and had for decades.

Unlikely. If I was born with breasts and a vagina (even if I retained my current personality), I'd probably accept them. Although I'd be a very masculine chick. Again, why would one assume one had the wrong set of genitals if they didn't have anything else to compare it to? It's not like you can just alter your genitals for a test-drive before you have a sex-change operation.

I'm not saying they're terrible people or they shouldn't be allowed to do this. But it does seem pretty damn weird to me.

Does anyone know if female-to-male transexuals actually exist? It always seems to be the other way.

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CaptainCourtesy

Yes, it does. People like this are, at times, called "transmen" (transwomen change from male to female). I have seem a few in documentaries.

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1069

People can survive in all sorts of ****ed-up conditions: no arms and legs, faces rotting off, giant tumors growing out of their heads. Just look at developing nations, the stuff people manage to survive for decades with.

A transexual person has survived in a grotesquely malformed body for decades: since birth, to be precise (which is to their credit, and points to their fundamental psychological fitness and health).
But every day has undoubtedly been a torture. One does not "get used to" hideous deformities.
One might live with them, but I'm sure one never loses hope that somehow, someday, one will be "fixed", freed from said deformity.
One gets up each day in a deformed body; one drags oneself through the days, because there is no choice, no immediate solution.
No one could thrive under such circumstances; their loathing of their bodies and their discomfort in them no doubt colors every minute of their lives.

Sex reassignment surgery in such cases is as humane as separating conjoined twins, as reasonable as removing a giant esophageal tumor that is slowly strangling off the person's breath.