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?
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.