Gender Identity Disorder, such an unfortunate situation, no? They think, "Cut off a part here, sew on a part there, and presto-chango- I'm a wo(man)?"

Don't think so.

If only someone informed them that their sex was detirmined at conception, and that their chromosome matches and pairings made them (fe)male, they could start real, productive mental help to get back on the right track. NO amount of surgery to give them "peace of mind" will change their sex, it will only make them feel more at ease when they wear skirts instead of trousers.

The fact that these individuals ignore that their sex has not actually been changed- and are even comforted by a grusome operation- only further shows their need to seek psychiatric help.

The person who had this child is a woman, and she will die a woman. The difference when she dies is that she'll have male sexual organs attached to her. Again- very regretable.

It must be so nice to have all the answers, to see the world so neat and concrete. How reassuringly pat.

At some point during each of our lives we will be forced to consider the difference between having a body and the persons we are inside of that body. Whether this lesson comes from age, infirmity, disability, or identity disorder... your body is not who you are. It's not even what you are. It's what you have to work with. Period.

I can only hope people like you will learn some modicum of compassion and empathy for those who experience their bodies differently than you do along the way. You'll want the same when the time comes.

You could not be more correct. Among other things, it is the opportunity to deal with "what we have to work with" that makes us human. In this case, however, sewing on other genders' body parts or cutting them off is not a cogent way to deal with what is going on in our minds. As you said yourself- there is a tremendous difference between our bodies and what's going on inside them. This practice of attaching things to the body does nothing to solve what's going on inside of it- or more precisely- what's going on in the mind, and it does anything but show compassion or empathy.

You speak as if people are going around "oh geez I wish I was a man today! It's so boring having this vagina... !"

I take it you've never spent any time with transgender persons. It's easy to dismiss someone's suffering as an internal issue and any sort of cosmetic adjustment as a cruel mutilation... until it's you or someone close to you.

What I know is that of the people I've met who transitioned, they are 10000% more productive, happier and healthier living in their new bodies and genders than they were before.

If you think about all the things we do in every day life that require us to have our bodies and our internal genders aligned, you'd be surprised. It's so easy to sit and judge from outside the experience of a handicap. and I'm sorry but you can't change a persons internal gender without changing/destroying that person entirely. Not even lobotomies work. So what is left? You change the body. It's much easier and much more effective and compassionate.

In the meantime you work on changing society so that people aren't compelled to pick one side or another in a world where existence hinges upon maintaining a false dichotomy. (Male or Female. Man or Woman. With no Other and no in between. Ever. Case Closed).

We can also sit and nitpick about the legitimacy of certain body modifications all day, but the issue at hand is not whether or not people are really changing their sex, but, what are the real options for people who fall outside of the gender binary? Nobody gets to opt out of this gender game; we are all assigned to live as one gender or another at birth. Most of us are not going to have a problem with our original assignment. But many people do.

You can say that that's psychotic, or genetic, or environmental or delusional but none of that makes it go away. It doesn't work for sexual orientation and it doesn't work for gender dysphoria either.

You stated about 25 different "mini-thesis" in this post alone, so I was forced to segregate them and address them independently. The breaks are noted.

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You speak as if people are going around "oh geez I wish I was a man today! It's so boring having this vagina... !"

Kind of. These individuals do not wish to be the other gender because they are "bored" with the sexual organs that they have been imbued with. They do so for other, more complex reasons- but at the end of the day, they still exclaim the above.

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"I take it you've never spent any time with transgender persons. It's easy to dismiss someone's suffering as an internal issue and any sort of cosmetic adjustment as a cruel mutilation... until it's you or someone close to you."

Because one maintains that the process of affixing sex organs to someone in order to alleviate their internal problems is barbaric and short-sighted, does not follow they "dismiss" the problem altogether. These individuals need real help and real therapy- other, more pragmatic means to relieve their hardship.

Secondly, what would indicate to you that my stance on this issue would somehow change if it happened (God forbid) to someone I know? The ways and means to deal with something like this would not change in the least.

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"What I know is that of the people I've met who transitioned, they are 10000% more productive, happier and healthier living in their new bodies and genders than they were before."

That you know of. Neverminding they have to carry the burden of being a sexual deviant around on their shoulders for the rest of their lives, these individuals have not "transitioned" to anything. To another sex? No. To another mind? No. To a healthier life? No.

I'm interested in your last statement. To a new body? Hardly. It's their same body with hormones injected into it, silicone shoved in the top, and sexual organs sewn on the front. Again- this flies in the face of your previous statement, wherein people should learn that there is more to who we are than our bodies. You abandon that argument when you now state that making superficial changes to the outside of the body is good enough in helping people's mental health. Which one is it?


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"If you think about all the things we do in every day life that require us to have our bodies and our internal genders aligned, you'd be surprised."

This statement is confusing. Please clarify or elaborate on this one.

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"It's so easy to sit and judge from outside the experience of a handicap."

You assume and speak as if I have never known handicap or hardship. For telling someone who hasn't judged anyone "not to judge," you have certainly monopolized the practice in your post responses.

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"and I'm sorry but you can't change a persons internal gender without changing/destroying that person entirely."

Again with tearing down your own argument. Neverminding that the phrase "Internal gender" is an oxymoron, since gender is determined largely by societal (i.e., external) elements, you have already stated that there is so much more to us than gender. Why, then, would a person be "destroyed" if their gender changed? You need to abandon your first argument, or be consistent in it.

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Not even lobotomies work. So what is left? You change the body. It's much easier and much more effective and compassionate."

Easy- yes. Compassionate- no. And I never offered up lobotomy as a salient way to deal with this problem.

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"In the meantime you work on changing society so that people aren't compelled to pick one side or another in a world where existence hinges upon maintaining a false dichotomy."

Wrong. I work on changing people's mindsets to accept that people will always pick a side, false or otherwise- but it's effectively accepting yourself for who you are that's important.

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We can also sit and nitpick about the legitimacy of certain body modifications all day,"

Not if we both agree that this problem- and people in general- are more complex than merely their bodies- an argument which you have abandoned in this post.

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"but the issue at hand is not whether or not people are really changing their sex, but, what are the real options for people who fall outside of the gender binary?"

Again- you need to learn the difference between gender and sex. Gender is not at all necessarily determined by genetic makeup. Sex is. The issue has never been if people are changing their sex because no one has. Sexual orientation is largely thought of as a genetic disorder. GID is not, it is considered a mental disorder (per the DSM-IV). There are salient ways to deal with both- and they are totaly different. At the end of the day, however, attaching body parts is not the correct method in either dealing with the problem, or alleviating what is clearly going on in the mind.

I'm only going to touch on a few points here in response.

Again- you need to learn the difference between gender and sex. Gender is not at all necessarily determined by genetic makeup. Sex is. The issue has never been if people are changing their sex because no one has. Sexual orientation is largely thought of as a genetic disorder.

I'm not sure where you get that I don't distinguish between sex and gender. I do so painstakingly. Your arguments boil down to biological determinism, that you are simply the sex you are, period, and any attempts to exist outside of the cultural expectations of your sex are delusional.

You say that gender is not all necessarily determined by genetic makeup, but you still seem to be making some sort of essentialist argument that I wish you'd clarify. Because, I'm not sure what you're trying to say other than... hey your sex is what it is, and if you don't like it, tough.

Not very compassionate at all.

GID is not, it is considered a mental disorder (per the DSM-IV).

Well Homosexuality used to be in the DSM-IV, until that changed. And it was a hard-won change at that. Many Transgender activists are lobbying to strike GID from the DSM-IV as well. Your point?

There are salient ways to deal with both- and they are totaly different. At the end of the day, however, attaching body parts is not the correct method in either dealing with the problem, or alleviating what is clearly going on in the mind.

Please elaborate on what these "salient ways to deal" are? For all your certainty that body modification is wrong, you are being awfully vague about the alternatives.

You assume and speak as if I have never known handicap or hardship. For telling someone who hasn't judged anyone "not to judge," you have certainly monopolized the practice in your post responses.

I assumed this because your cold and pat assessments of the transgender condition convey zero compassion, understanding, or empathy for the lived experiences of such people. If you indeed do have any experience with a handicap or personal hardship, you appear to be either unwilling or unable to empathize when it comes to this issue.

Personally, I judge those who blithely dismiss the suffering of others harshly. I judge those that make blanket judgments about what is "really" wrong with others without having walked that mile in their shoes harshly. I suppose that is my own failing and a bit hypocritical of me. Oh well. We all pick our battles, don't we?

Secondly, what would indicate to you that my stance on this issue would somehow change if it happened (God forbid) to someone I know? The ways and means to deal with something like this would not change in the least.

You're, right. I assumed that such an insensitive perspective like yours was the result of preconceived ideas about transgenderism coupled with a lack of exposure to actual transgender persons. But it could very well be that you are incapable of more and your perspective would not evolve no matter how well or how many transgender you came to know.

"If you think about all the things we do in every day life that require us to have our bodies and our internal genders aligned, you'd be surprised."

This statement is confusing. Please clarify or elaborate on this one.

Just to start, everything from the pronouns you must be called to where you can use the bathroom, to how you must identify yourself for passports, driver's licenses, health insurance, finding and keeping a job, social security benefits, your eligibility to serve in the armed forces, being forced to enlist for selective service at 18 even if you have no intention of living as a male, eligibility for government resources such as state welfare or medicaid, appropriate treatment or facilities in hospitals, or even being able to walk safely in public are all profoundly complicated by being transgendered.

Your proposed solution may be to avoid these problems by just "accepting" the gender you were assigned and accepting your "true sex" with counseling (and maybe even prayer), perhaps... but it's pretty sad that you don't see the many real people, transgender people, trying valiantly and failing to do just that prior to transition.

Neither do you see (or perhaps you refuse to see) that there are people who are much better off making whatever physical, cultural, and legal adjustments they can in order to have a more fulfilling life in a culture that allows them zero viable options.

<link>

<link>

<link>

Just some suggested reading, by the way.

I'm not sure where you get that I don't distinguish between sex and gender.....Not very compassionate at all.

You do not distinguish between gender and sex right off the bat by bringing up transgendered individuals. This is not the same thing as sex. Transgender is the state of one's gender identity not matching one's assigned sex. In other words, the way society deems necessary to act, given one’s sex, is not equal to someone’s personal views on how to act. It has absolutely nothing to do with how their biological makeup has defined them since conception- which is their sex.

You sex cannot be changed. If that doesn’t sound “compassionate” to you, so be it- A relaistic problem deserves a realistic approach. the compassion comes into play when you address and deal with the problem in a more meaningful and constructive way than merely chopping and adding parts, and sending them on their merry- yet even more confused- way.

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GID is not, it is considered a mental disorder (per the DSM-IV).

“Well Homosexuality used to be in the DSM-IV, until that changed.”

That argument would hold weight except that you could say the same thing for every other disorder listed by DSM and every other mental disorder listing. GID is still on it, and rightly so. Look at the critera for each disorder. The more we know about each one changes the already-dynamic publication. When they take GID off, you let me know.

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Many Transgender activists are lobbying to strike GID from the DSM-IV as well.

If is actualy true that there is a significant movement for striking the affliction from every mental publication, I wouldn’t blame them. I would probably wish to rid my mental affliction from being listed and studied as well, perhaps in the hope that the already- large stigma and adverse public response would be lessened. But no dice. It’s just a shame that any potential argument that they would have would not be based on science or reason, but of emotional foundation. The fact that some do not like it labeled the way it is does not deminish the fact that it is indeed a mental disorder. And rightly so.

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Please elaborate on what these "salient ways to deal" are? For all your certainty that body modification is wrong, you are being awfully vague about the alternatives.

Certainly. If it is the case that someone qualifies to be diagnosed as having- and subsequently treated for- GID or gender dysphoria, they must be experiencing an array of problems. In other words, it is not enough that a person is unhappy with being a (wo)man. They must also experience, among many other traits, depression, coping, and reduced social function. These three symptoms alone can be treated in many different ways, and can be cured. The fact that GID is not a permamnetly-rooted or a chronic disorder indicates that it can be treated and stopped.

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“You assume and speak as if I have never known handicap or hardship. For telling someone who hasn't judged anyone "not to judge," you have certainly monopolized the practice in your post responses.”

I assumed this because your cold and pat assessments of the transgender condition convey zero compassion, understanding, or empathy for the lived experiences of such people. If you indeed do have any experience with a handicap or personal hardship, you appear to be either unwilling or unable to empathize when it comes to this issue.”


Well- at least you ackowledge that it is indeed a condition. That’s a start. However, I will reiterate the point that in dealing with this- or any other problem- it is important and more than acceptable to be both realistic and empathetic at the same time.

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“Personally, I judge those who blithely dismiss the suffering of others harshly. I judge those that make blanket judgments about what is "really" wrong with others without having walked that mile in their shoes harshly. I suppose that is my own failing and a bit hypocritical of me. Oh well. We all pick our battles, don't we?”


Except your argument that one could not treat another unless they had experienced the same affliction flies in the face of your previous cry for more compassion towards the issue. Ignoring that help for this indiviudlas would be almost zero if you had it your way, how can people who do not actualy know what it is like to experice the affliction be expected to effectivly learn have compassion on these people when they “stick to their own” when it comes to their condition? They have to make a judgment call some time. Aain, you can’t be all about not hurting feelings in dealing with this situation. At some point, you need to state what is wrong, and what needs addressing. That includes catagorizing things. Labels might scare you, but it is a needed and essential part of science, reasoning, and the pragmatic tools needed to help.

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Secondly, what would indicate to you that my stance on this issue would somehow change if it happened (God forbid) to someone I know? The ways and means to deal with something like this would not change in the least.

You're, right. I assumed that such an insensitive perspective like yours was the result of preconceived ideas about transgenderism coupled with a lack of exposure to actual transgender persons. But it could very well be that you are incapable of more and your perspective would not evolve no matter how well or how many transgender you came to know.

Again, you assume. Now it is the baseless assumption that I have never known, cared about, or have even interacted with someone experiencing GID. While a psychoarist or councelor has a veriety of different means to traet these individuls, their methodology in doing so would be steadfast. Whether it was a loved one or an aquiaintence, my perspective, like the methodology used to treat the indiviuslas, would be consistent.

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Indeed, it is very troubling for a person with GID to adapt to socital norms and custims- the very same ones which make life easier and more efficient to process for the vast majority of people. While they know and are aware of them, follow them, and in fact embrace them, it it themsleves juxtaposed to them that is difficult. There are always viable options, and that is the target for treatment: to help them cope and adapt- and yes, accept- their sex (not gender) in order to lead a healthy life. In affixing body parts, you essentialy wittle down an otherwise square peg to fit into a round hole. On a list of the more “compasionate” means to deal with the condition, this ranks on the bottom.

There are always viable options, and that is the target for treatment: to help them cope and adapt- and yes, accept- their sex (not gender) in order to lead a healthy life.

It's really quite fascinating that you can so accurately describe the condition of transgenderism and GID while completely missing the point of treatment.

In case you haven't heard the most current modalities for treatment ARE to align the body with the mind, and not vice versa. Perhaps you disagree with this approach, but you are reading from an old oooold old manual when it comes to how to treat GID, particularly in adults.

You'll be horrified then to read this

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As for your point that people do not actually change sex with surgery and/or hormonal interventions, that's not realism, my friend, that's pedantry. It is a very small conceit to say that the modifications one makes to align the body towards an approximation of the opposite sex serve as a change of sex. But you refuse to concede this on what amounts to a technicality. "It can't be a real sex change. Because ... uhhh because because... the hormones came from a SHOT not from their own gonads!! And and and... that's a surgically created vagina/penis not a REAL one. And the chromosomes are all wrong. So there."

So what? If these changes allow the person to function as their preferred gender in this binary society, why does that bother you so?? Why does a chromosomal and congenital pedigree mean so much in your world?

I'm not going to belabor this argument any longer, however. Clearly you and I have radically different ideas about what compassion is.

This issue has never been about being compassionate or not. You use this as a buzz word to simply mean entertaining the individual's desire to change their body. It would be no different than indulging someone with an dimorphic disorder by "compassionately" allowing them spend 7-8 hours a day in a gym, or continue to purge after a meal, simply to achieve the warped view of their bodies they desire.

If you wish to strengthen your argument on GID treatment, I highly suggest that you do not include sources to activist group websites. I suppose we can also add pedantic to your list of words that need more clarity for you, adding it to the ranks of both gender and sex. It would be pedantic to suggest one- and only one- method of treatment, in your case modifying the body to meet the troubled mind's view of it. If we were to follow this narrow practice, I don't even wish to think about your approach to body dimorphic or dissociative disorders.

The fact is that, unlike personality disorders, GID is not enduring, and can be treated in a verity of ways with moderate to excellent chance of recovery and progress. Once again- you CANNOT change someone's sex with surgery. Period. When they can change someone's entire genetic makeup, please compassionately let me know.

This issue has never been about being compassionate or not. You use this as a buzz word to simply mean entertaining the individual's desire to change their body.

Maybe you haven't been paying attention, because that has indeed been my point. That anyone would dismiss surgical, hormonal, and cosmetic intervention as universally harmful and ineffective shows a complete lack compassion.

Your refusal to even "entertain" an individual's desire to change their body, without informed consideration of their circumstances and reasons for wanting it, lacks compassion.

As for your insistence that GID's attendant issues of depression, anxiety, can be treated and cured, therefore GID itself can be treated and cured, I don't follow your logic.

You begin from the premise that it is impossible to have the mind of one sex and the body of the other, thus, any claims of this condition are inherently delusional. There is growing scientific evidence that brains may be wired as one sex or the other, independently of the body. You are certainly entitled to your own opinion.

Still, I can't help but think you are missing the forest for the trees here. What if it's NOT a delusion? Couldn't it be that living in an opposite sexed body may itself be a depressing and anxiety inducing experience? I would think lack of access to treatment for this condition is depressing and anxiety inducing. Being branded a delusional sex deviant by your peers and invalidated by a society you are forced to participate in is depressing and anxiety inducing.

Couldn't it be that depression, anxiety and the various phobias that attend to a GID diagnosis are not necessarily endemic to the transgender condition itself, rather these are externally caused by a society that freaks out your condition exists at all?

And couldn't it be that adjusting your body to better adapt to an enviroment you cannot escape (ie., living in a society with only two gender options) might go a long way towards decreasing the depression and anxiety you are otherwise forced to endure?

You have failed steadfastly to provide details about alternative treatments to surgery and hormones, so I will offer some instead.

Education. Activism. And yes, Compassion. We could employ these tools for treatment at a societal level. If we allowed for the possibility that the brain/mind can be one sex and the body another, or some mix of both or neither or whatever the heck it is we collectively mean by sex and gender, maybe transgender people would no longer bear so much of society's derision and contempt. I'm willing to bet we'd see alot less depressed, anxiety ridden people as a result, trans or not.

It would be no different than indulging someone with an dimorphic disorder by "compassionately" allowing them spend 7-8 hours a day in a gym, or continue to purge after a meal, simply to achieve the warped view of their bodies they desire.

Wow. You compare someone harming themselves with eating disorders to someone receiving medical treatment for GID? Maybe if that person's very legal and social identity and their very ability to participate in society hinged upon having to binge, purge or exercise obsessively, you would have a point. Again, your lack of compassion obscures your view of the larger predicament.

The fact is that, unlike personality disorders, GID is not enduring, and can be treated in a verity of ways with moderate to excellent chance of recovery and progress.

Nowhere, in any credible (ie. scientific, peer-reviewed) reference source have I heard that GID is "not enduring"... I have no idea where you've drawn that assessment from, other than from the Exodus International manifesto.

I included the links to let you know what actual activists were up to, since you said you didn't know whether or not there was a movement to reform GID. Well, there is.

I'll try and ask one more time. What exactly is this "verity" [sic] of treatment methods that you mention? Everything you've hinted at so far sounds like it falls well outside of The HBIGDA Standards of Care, which for at least the last 3 decades have been a clinical rule of thumb for GID treatment in the US if not globally.

AlaskaBoy, I wish you were right and there was a solution to GID that was easier than surgery and hormones. If there was, I would have gone for it... Any amount of psychotherapy would have been easier than transitioning. But there isn't. All other forms of therapy have been tried and tried again with very low success rates. A sex change is the only real cure for GID. I would like to know where you're hearing that a sex change doesn't fix the problem, because in over 90% of cases it does.

As for a person's sex not changing because their chromosomes don't change: If it looks like a duck, sounds like a duck, acts like a duck, and functions like a duck, it's pretty silly to call it a goose. In practice DNA doesn't matter because no one ever sees it (and now, some stem cell treatments can change the sex chromosomes a person carries anyway. Technology will blur all lines of identity eventually).

No man has given birth to a child. Saying a woman is a man because she has had cosmetic surgey is just media hype.

Sick.

Media hype? Can you explain that? You do know this isn't the first time this has happened?

I agree with you that no man has given birth because to me Beattie's decision to use her birth biology to its fullest disqualifies her as a true transsexual. I was speaking about transsexualism in general before.

I don't believe transsexualism exists. I believe that there are confused, self destructive, mentally disturbed people who are preyed upon by unscrupulous professionals who tell these poor souls that cosmetic surgery is the answer and that cosmetic surgery can change their sex. The whole thing is sick. The idea that medical professionals are telling people that surgical mutilation is the answer to their problems and making lots of money doing it makes me sick.

Attching or cutting of sex organs does not change your sex. Your chromosomal pairs make you one biologic sex or another. The fact that this individual picks and chooses which one she wants when she wants not only proves that she has never been anything but female- it also shows that these individuals are appeased simply by taking or adding body parts, while igrnoing that their sex has indeed not changed, showing they are more disturbed than ever.