My Definition of “Transsexual”
The following is an opinion, and as such it will probably be refined with time and further insight. Everything said here should be read as coming from my own personal experience, not as an ex nihilo talk point meant to assert my beliefs as the one true gospel. Obviously, I am not a scientist, psychologist or biologist, but I am a very intelligent, experienced and well-read student of life who has experienced transition first hand. During my experience, I watched everything with an artist’s eye, looking to understand the what and why as well as the how. I am very aware of the social and legal issues, arguments and opinions that swirl around transsexualism and transgenderism, both from within and outside of our ranks. From my own life experience, I can say that if you are like the vast majority of people I’ve encountered from every possible background, you probably have the wrong idea about transsexuals. To be very honest, I don’t really know a single non-transsexual person who “gets it” completely, although I am fortunate enough to know many friends, supporters and professionals who try hard enough that they come close enough. There are many transsexual and ts-identified people who “don’t get it” either, in the way that I understand “it”, just as there are many American citizens who can’t name our current Vice President or locate Iraq on a globe. This writing may not be excerpted, quoted, paraphrased or summarized without permission.
What is a transsexual woman?
To me, a transgendered woman is someone who feels that she is fundamentally female (gendered), despite having been labeled as male since birth and raised as such by her parents. A transsexual woman is a transgendered woman who takes every step possible to align her physical form (her physical sex) with her soul, which includes medical, social and legal actions in most cases. Why do some people feel this way? I don’t know. There are studies going on right now that suggest certain brain structures may be congenitally “female” in a transsexual woman’s brain, or that a transsexual woman’s brain may become feminized by certain hormonal conditions in the womb. These explanations seem likely to me, and seem to fit with my own lifelong natural tendency toward and identification with female identity. Some have asked, “How do you know what it is to be a woman?” and I can only reply with the question, “How does any woman know what it is to be a woman for anyone but herself?” We can never enter the mind, soul or body of any other person and know the world from inside their experience of life. In the most factual sense, even the closest twin sisters in the world can only guess from what they see and communicate to each other, and from what the world communicates to them through speech and action, that their emotional, mental, physical experience of being a woman is the same for both sisters. They cannot see the world from inside the other’s eyes, or feel the world from inside the other’s skin. In that same way, I’ll never see the world from inside anyone’s eyes but my own, but deducing from what I’ve seen in the past and what I see now of other women and they way they move through the world, and by comparing the feelings I’ve heard women express to my own feelings, I have confidence that I am a woman.
Though some were better at suppressing its expression than others in early life, with most transsexual women I have known, their gender was always a part of their soul and other people recognized it. And once they decided to transition socially, medically and legally, people recognized their womanhood on an instinctual level. Whether they were a plain, frumpy old lady with white hair, extra weight and no fashion sense or a hot, sexy young club chick. Whether people could tell immediately that their body had spent a long time under the influence of male hormones, or they were the softest, most delicate gazelle of a girl. They were obviously giving 110% in an effort to join the community of women, and people who met them for the first time knew at a gut level that they should be addressed as “Ma’am”, “Miss”, “she” and “her”.
But what about…
You may encounter people from time to time who claim to be transsexual women, but just don’t seem anything like women to you. I always think that the best rule of thumb is to trust your instincts. Being transsexual is not an easy thing to be, and I don’t completely understand why anyone would claim to be such when they aren’t, but all the same it happens. This isn’t a beauty contest: even the greatest beauty fades and the person is still the same gender after. This isn’t a “passability” contest: every transsexual woman I know gets read as being transsexual at one time or another no matter what they look like. I think a person’s gender is in their soul, that indefinable nexus of personality, temperament and emotion that brings inner light to the actions of their life. If someone seems like a woman to you, then they probably are. If someone seems like a transsexual to you (and you know what a transsexual is) then that doesn’t invalidate their womanhood, although it may challenge you and your ability to respect a person’s soul over their physicality. If someone seems like a man to you, a man’s soul in whatever body, then listen to your instinct and decide what you believe. You may or may not be right, but what else have you got to go on?
You will also encounter people who use the term “transgendered” in the broadest sense, meaning “someone who crosses gender lines in some or any way”. In that sense, a woman with short hair is crossing our current society’s gender lines, so she would be “transgendered” under a ridiculously stringent definition. A man who feels like crying during a romantic movie is crossing gender lines, and so would be “transgendered” under that broad definition. A little less literally, a drag queen (a gay man who dresses as a female for entertainment value) is transgendered, because he is crossing gender lines. A butch dyke, an effiminate gay guy, etc etc etc. These examples spotlight how many aspects of gender are simply made up social constructs any way… who says a woman has to have long hair? Who says men can’t cry? But even aside from those questions, this super broad use of the term transgendered is valid but not useful to me in this particular discussion, so for purposes of this discussion I am using the term as I described it above: someone who feels that she is fundamentally female (gendered), despite having been labeled as male since birth and raised as such by her parents.
What most non-TS people think about transsexuals
To put it simply, the average person in America falls into one of two categories:
Gross! I think transsexuals are: |
“I’m really cool” and I think transsexuals are: |
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A small percentage think we’re cool club friends, but they wouldn’t really introduce us to their jerk conservative brother or pals at the office. There’s no way they’d set up one of their friends with us, unless he was a perv or… OMG that would be the ultimate prank! LOL! Wait till I tell him his date’s actually a man… No, wait, that’s not cool…
An even smaller percentage think of us as women, although if pressed they will say that we came to it differently than most women. And yes, I did come to my current place in society differently than most women. But I’m not eager to adopt the sometimes-mentioned “asterisk” next to my womanhood (She’s a woman* * transsexual), and prefer transition to be a piece of my history that is not favored above more relevant and current achievements. What if women who could no longer reproduce were asterisked, and referred to as nonsexuals? It would technically be accurate in some ways, and would apply to tons of post-menopausal women like your mom and grandmother, or those who suffered from various illnesses or congentical conditions. But it’s just not done, because it would be rude and cruel, and I’d like the same consideration. I’ll never deny that I took the long way around to womanhood, but it’s obvious to me that I am undeniably here now. And I’d rather not chat about that long trip when there are so many cool things going on now to talk about.
Facts are Facts, Bitch. You a man.
Many people attempt to dismantle or invalidate our identities with medical or history based attacks like these:
- Your DNA is male, so you are male - This always makes me laugh, because the majority of people who say it would do well to even tell me what the letters DNA stand for. Fewer still could name the parts of a DNA molecule, or what they theoretically do. Science is only now beginning to map the human genome, and we are ages away from understanding the complexities of what each little pair of GAT and C mean for the human that is made from this blueprint. And in any case, these people have assuredly not had a DNA analysis done on my DNA, so they really have no idea what my DNA says, even if they knew how to understand that information. I don’t even know… I’ve never had an analysis done. There are several diagnosable genetic circumstances which can cause sex variations, and probably many others that we simply do not know how to diagnose yet.
- You were born a man, so you will always be a man - No one is born a “man” or a “woman”. They are examined and assigned a gender based on visible external characteristics. The people who say this were assuredly not present at my birth, and I often wonder about the sophistication of OB/GYNs working in Nashville, TN in the 1970’s anyway. Who knows what may have happened to me in the womb, what may have been diagnosable at birth, what things these doctors may have missed. Certainly the person attacking my identity does not know the answer to those questions.
The very same people who leap to call a transsexual woman a “man” would scoff at an effiminate gay guy’s claims to manhood. “That ain’t no man, that’s a sissy!” They might want to “make a man out of him”, or tell him to “man it up”, but really it’s all just a confusing mish mash where the word becomes their own personal football to play keepaway from, or throw at the head of whoever they don’t like.
Why am I writing this?
There is an enormous amount of information out there purporting to be about “transsexuals”, but most of it is porn, parody, exploitation or co-opted identity. I just want to make it clear that my gender identity is not driven by erotic goals, about being entertaining to anyone or doing your hair and makeup. And if someone is presenting their identity as a transsexual through porn, self-eroticization to a paraphilic degree, fetish scripts and other ridiculous scenarios, I am encouraging you to follow your instincts when you decide whether this person is someone who is overcoming a gender identity mismatch or whether this person is adrift in a psycho-erotic sea of delusion. I think I am a decently cool, nice and funny woman with things to offer the world, and I hope to be able to give those things freely to people who see me clearly. I suppose that, on a fundamental level the same thing drives me that drives many artists and entertainers. I just want to be known truthfully, and that can be a difficult thing in the world we live in today.
