To all those people who have an issue with trans people - please read this

^

EatsBrainsAndLeaves I owe you an apology if it came across like that. It wasn't intended. I was trying to combine the fact that I felt you were both right rather than that you were contridictary.

"I echo what Eclectric AND EatsBrainsAndLeaves say. I think you should be on these threads, but I don't think you should be using them to educate yourself. There is far too much ignorance on the subject here and your comment about not knowing the difference also highlights your own. "

Hmm- I actually said that of course Droves was welcome on these threads. I did not say the rest and resent the impication that I did.

I agree, I think most trans would want access to hormones at least but I don't think that's good enough when it comes to drafting laws. I think laws have to be drafted very carefully to avoid unintended consequences. As the law stands, anybody at all can claim to be transsexual and will be protected by law if they decide to access services or spaces intended for the opposite biological sex.

enim - Perhaps you should talk to more Trans people then and read more Trans people's stories on the internet. Trans only criteria is that you think you are Transsexual and that if you have a biological male body you are really are a woman and vice cersa. You do not have to agree to take hormones to be considered Transsexual.

There are Trans people say with a male biological body who argue that they are a woman, thsi si the body they have, so it is obviously a wsoman's body.

I suspect you haven't actually met many Trans people or read many of their stories if you think hormones or surgery are necessary to be Trans.

Droves, I'm in a not too disimilar situation. I have a sibling who is mtf and I admit to struggling with it because of my shared past and how I have been rejected.

I echo what Eclectric AND EatsBrainsAndLeaves say. I think you should be on these threads, but I don't think you should be using them to educate yourself. There is far too much ignorance on the subject here and your comment about not knowing the difference also highlights your own.

You need to educate yourself from specialist websites and other sources rather than MN. THEN use the forums here as a point of debate about it. I really think you need to expand where you are getting your information from, as it does sound like you are using only MN atm.

You have emotions involved here that other people don't and I think its difficult to deal with at times - a sense of 'failure' and/or 'rejection'. Please try and really look into the issue away from MN and the feminist angle.

how confusing. so someone who says 'i am trans', isn't trans unless they are taking hormones/having surgery?

is that maybe a tiny bit presumptuous and arrogant of you to assume that you know better than these people how to name their own experiences?

That's a good link . Thank you .

Ex doesn't quite fit into a neat category .

He dresses as a woman , part time.
Gets a sexual buzz from it.
Has a girls name for when he does this .
Has sexual relationships with both men and women , none ever last very long ( I think ours was longest to date) .
Has mentioned getting his penis cut off ( once during an argument)
Demanded that I dressed like his other persona at all times.( full make up ,garish clothes preferably dresses and skirts,high heels ....never jeans and tshirt)
Has homophobic ,bigoted family.
Is often depressed , and has been suicidal .
Was very violent and controlling during our marriage.
Is alcoholic .
His mum tried to get him sectioned when he was 15 . ( this didn't come out until we were divorcing )

That's a real shocker, isn't it? Cross-dressers being 'protected' under the law against discrimination. Is there anyone who shouldn't be 'protected' in the extreme world view??

What chibi said so well.

i think if the goal here is to silence dissent, then mission accomplished. we have had posters implying that MNers are probably inciting violence against trans people on other boards, or being violent ourselves, we have posters being attacked personally (all of those attacking dittany) we have random internet nonsense being thrown at women who identify as feminists who are then told to justify it, as if they have any responsibility for it, or in fact anything to do with it at all, posters told they are homophobes, and using hate speech when they say things like 'there are times when xx women need to meet amogst themselves to discuss things that affect them'

all of this despite posters saying repeatedly that they understand that most trans people just want to get by, that they do not advocate violence or hate toward them.

Enim - No the goal of a transsexual is not to take hormones and get surgery. This is the goal for some transsexuals.

Some Transsexuals openly say they want to keep the body they have. Some say they are gender non conforming and dress androgonously or pretty much like a man.

Transsexuals form a very wide group of people are very different.

there are some who don't. i knew 2 people when i was younger who were trans women, who did none of those things, and yet still identified as trans

Droves, that's a difficult situation for you. I'm not sure this is the place to learn more about this topic, I'm sure there are plenty of other sites where the majority of contributors actually know what they are talking about have some experience of it.

About 2 years

Not anymore. The difference is now solely down to how a person defines themself. This is from a Home Office leaflet:

Who is protected?
The Act provides protection for transsexual people ? people who are proposing to undergo, are undergoing or have undergone the process of changing their sex. These people have the protected characteristic of gender reassignment.

The process of gender reassignment may involve different stages, from change of name, title and/or appearance through to surgical intervention. But the Act does not require a person to be under medical supervision to be protected, so a woman who decides to live permanently as a man but who does not undergo any medical procedures will be protected.

A wide range of people are included in the terms ?trans? or ?transgender?, such as people who crossdress only on an occasional basis and other people who may identify as neither men nor women but somewhere in between.

Only transsexual people are explicitly protected under the Act. However, if a person who cross-dresses, for example, is discriminated against because they are wrongly thought to be transsexual, they will be protected under the Act.

What has changed?
The range of transsexual people who are protected has been extended slightly. To qualify for protection, a transsexual person will no longer have to show that they are under medical supervision. This means that a person who has changed their gender without seeing a doctor will now be protected, though under previous discrimination law they were not.

Droves - Of course its not wrong for you to hang about Trans threads

Someone asked above why some posters only seem to post in FWR. I am one of those. I have been pretty much driven of the rest of MN by homophobia. In spite of accusations by some posters that those who are trans critical are homophobic, FWR is the only space in MN that seems to be pretty much free of that.

Eclectic I have lived with the basic concept for 10 years until I divorced him .
I have my own opinions on what I actually think my ex is , I just wanted to ask an question to see if someone else confirmed my suspicions .

I am asking because I have children with this person , and eventually I might have to have a talk about them as to why my first marriage did not work .
Having said that , also for my own sake , I'd like to understand why I wansnt enough for him ?. If its because he is really Ts and not just Tv then I will have a degree of sympathy and forgiveness for my ex . If he was born this way , he couldn't have had a choice about it then could he ?

Perhaps it's wrong of me to hang about the trans threads , but I find it a good way of learning more .

iamtransgendered.com/Transsexuals_Transvestites_Transgendered.aspx

This might be a starting point...I think it has a good explanation. The power of the internet eh...

I guess the difference is that a Trans person say MtoF would say they are really a woman, whereas a transvestite would say they are really a man.

To the observer - no difference at all.