Am I wrong with my views on transgender? Prepared to get flamed.

[MACaddict5]

I'll start by explaining that I have the utmost sympathy for those who are transitioning and who have had to transition as I can't even begin to imagine how truly difficult that journey would be.

I have often wondered what brings a person to that point of feeling that changing their physical anatomy will give them peace and allow them to be their true self.

I can imagine that growing up and being pigeon holed into wearing blue, playing with trucks, wearing "boys clothes" etc but feeling like you are more drawn to the "girl things". Feeling like society expects you to be a certain person just because you have male or female genitalia and feeling as though you're living a lie as a result of that.

Would it not be true to say that the physical anatomy is not necessarily the problem, but that it's how society has certain expectations of people based on whether they are male or female. That people from a young age feel that pressure to conform to certain gender roles and so, when they no longer want to live this lie, they feel the need to transition. Why does being physically male or female have to dictate anything about our lives? It strikes me that the problem is societies expectations of people based on their sex, rather than that individuals anatomy being "wrong" that is the problem.

I have nothing but compassion and love for those dealing with these issues. I just wish their was a way that we could become a society where we accept everyone as individuals rather and I wonder if I society like that would result in less people feeling the need to have such drastic surgery which must be such a difficult process.

I don't think Caitlyn Jenner is oppressed, or any of the pushy white transactivists taking over LGBT on campuses around the UK.

Got to say I haven't read the whole thread but in my experience from a couple trans friends of mine, sometimes it is very much the physicality of the issue that is the worst. To feel your body developing into the 'wrong' gender can be extremely traumatic and it is this, rather than the social performance expected of them that is hardest to deal with.

To feel your body developing into the 'wrong' gender can be extremely traumatic

Biologically they are not developing into the wrong gender. Its more about how they feel about themselves mentally. When they look into the mirror do they like what they see. Would they rather male parts to female parts or vise versa. On the outside they can make changes to look more feminine or masculine but on the inside they will always be biologically female or male. I hope your friends are on their way to physically looking the way they want and feeling happy. Surgery comes with risks and I hope they achieve the results they want. Like I posted before there is no turning back.

Hi all. First time user. My son is seven ( very soon). He likes wigs, make-up ( beyond lip balm and perfume, he's not allowed it) dresses and is desperate for high heels. He likes to dress up. I don't think he is at all confused about this. I do know that he is concerned people will laugh at him. I feel he would get benefit from a playmate who had similar dressing up interests. If anyone is in similar circumstances it would be good to hear from you. He has lots of friends but feels alone as a boy who likes to dress up as a girl. Thanks for reading x

I don't believe there has never been a one single banner of "woman" in this fight.

Yes there has. Feminism is about the oppression of females. This oppression is because of their biology. And so people with female biology are the ones feminism covers.

Whatever their colour or economic background.

There was an interview with Lena Dunhams sister.
She is a lesbian, I think, and is now gender fluid too.
Her description of boys and girls was archaic and suggested that she has been brought up in the US where male and female roles are very divided and stereotyped.
I found this surprising given her liberal elite background.
There was a lot of navel gazing which is also very New York. From my little knowledge of the place.

genuine question:

a five year old has been approved for gender re-alighnment.

(was on the red buttin news in England) on the NHS.

A FIVE years old? can a 5 year old really know? or is it parental pressure?

I know my cousin, who's gay, said she guessed/ knew from about when she was 10/11 that she felt ''different'' (her words), but even she says a five years old cant possibly know .

That with bells on. And there is clearly a huge pressure on gay/lesbian teenagers now to be trans instead

Gender identity and sexual orientation are separate, unrelated things.

I have never read any less unreasonable that the OP. You are dead right. Everyone should do what they want whatever their anatomy is like. The pressure to conform to stereotypes should be reduced. Wearing clothes a complete matter of personal choice.

I can see that some people are the wrong gender and that that must be mentally exhausting and depressing, always being what you are not.
But I wonder about the many male to females with their nail varnish and tumbling locks. This isn't your average woman. If they were being the average woman they would be nipping into tescos on the way home, cooking the evening meal then doing a bit of housework before slumping in front of the tele, nails would be well down the list. This part of being a woman seems off their radar.
Females to males don't seem to be taking up boxing and building a sixpack and driving ferraris. A macho male.
Or don't I know these people, but they are around.

Gloria how many transgender women do you know? If you know any could you give me a rough idea of how many of them wear nail polish? And how many are Olympic athletes?

I'm intrigued.

Hi, interesting thread. I was asked to read it by someone and comment. Happy to do so. I was a trans child in the 1950s when there was no such thing by name. My primary school teacher saw that I chose to isolate myself from normal play and that I tended to enjoy writing stories in which the 'I' part was always a girl and had a word with my mum as they did not think this was 'normal'. I saw many doctors and spent time being assessed in a psychiatric hospital - though most of that only happened at 18 as doctors who saw me whilst I was still at school had no idea and just told my parents that they hoped I would 'grow out of it'. I didn't. I tried mind you. By doing things I was asked to do. By throwing myself into schoolwork and qualifying for University. But that sense of total dissonance never went away or weakened. I knew I felt deep down on a totally instinctive level that I should be a girl and one of the few friends I had sensed this and she was the first I ever talked openly to about this sometime around 1960/61 probably when even the word transsexual was not known. There was only ever one way that I was headed. I never had any doubts about that. I was entirely focused on what they now call transitioning as fully as possible. I knew, of course, that was never going to be a proper transformation and was told clearly I would not change sex (indeed had to sign a form before surgery to confirm I understood they were reassigning gender not sex). For those days I transitioned fully (as possible) very young. It was completed by my early 20s. So I lived all my adult working life as a woman, but with no rights until the last decade or so. I never expected any nor have been an activist. I was also, by the way, never a cross dresser. The first time I did so was the first day I transitioned 45 years ago and never transitioned back. I am happy to try to answer any questions as I did in a thread on here about a year ago. Cannot promise any great answers as I understand what is going on no more than anyone else. But can at least offer insights and try to make you see that this really can be something very deeply instinctive that is with you from earliest recall and not really caused by anything obvious like gender roles or stereotypes. Though I suspect you are right that it sometimes is and, for the record, I do not believe medical assessment should be removed from the equation and this be a total free choice of gender. I see why activists want it to be simpler, but also very much understand why most women see it as a concern that fully biological men who just self identify can expect to share spaces. I probably feel less awkward about that than most of you, but I feel the concerns too given that I have lived the majority of my life as a woman and so know the reasons to be fearful.

I can also offer some figures to answer an earlier question.

In the early 70s when I was being assessed by many doctors who 'hoped' I did have a psychiatric problem that could be treated, about 1000 cases a year in the UK occurred where someone came to them with the idea that they needed to 'change sex'. Only about 100 of them were progressed that far. The other 900 were considered to have other problems that made them believe this but, in the doctors view, they would come to regret transition as they should really adjust to being who they actually were.

They actually were very obstructive on purpose and rules were written in that still persist now about a period of time (two years usually) where you need to show 'persistence of insistence' as to gender identity and ability to express it openly before they assisted medically.

Many, many tests were done. I had daily sessions with psychologists and psychiatrists and went to several hospitals having physical tests before they decided to approve helping my transition medically.

When I was transferred to see the specialists who aided my transition it was with great reluctance as the last resort, they said. Because they felt it was the only option that would give me a chance of something like a normal life.

I know several of those they turned away and they went on to marry and have kids and I hope most overcame their problems. I fear some probably didn't and transitioned later with their wives and kids as collateral damage from transition in later life.

In my experience, they were right to only progress those they felt 100% certainty had to physically transition. As in those days everyone did have surgery or were basically sent on their way if one of the 90% considered to not really be transsexual.

The vast majority - 90 - 95% were trans women (as in boys becoming girls). It was then not unheard of but much rarer the other way round.

There were, of course, no such things as puberty blockers then. And no children were treated, only, as in my case, monitored in the hope they would 'get better'. When it did not, as in my case, it meant for a hellish childhood but you got on with it.

I think that is how life was in those days.

When I had surgery to complete transition there had been less than 100 cases in the UK. But even then, by the mid 70s, the numbers were rising and there were 80 or so a year new cases being treated that way.

Today things are radically different. Since the Gender Recognition Act, that I never expected to happen, numbers have rocketed.

But it seems to me most of them are the 90% who in the 70s were rejected by the thorough and intense testing done then, which I suspect NHS resources and rising numbers just do not allow today. Regardless of the pressure from activists to demedicalise the whole process.

The act allowed for legal registration in your acquired gender with the normal restrictions of it having to be permanent and that you demonstrate that you have successfully lived within society and earned a loving for two years within that gender.

Safeguards I think were correct to protect both inappropriate transitioners from doing so and having regrets - as up to 2004 the way things were handled had led to a regret rate that was tiny (about 2% only I believe).

But also to protect society as a whole from anyone who might want to appropriate the law for other reasons. I think the risks are small but they are there and - frankly - if you are really trans, then, from my perspective, you would just be happy of the help and recognition and do whatever was necessary.

The need for surgery was NOT written into the act. It was considered, but turned down to protect all the older trans people who it was now imagined would transition once they had the chance to be recognised legally but had not done so over the decades because they felt they would be too vulnerable without those rights.

Such people might be too old for doctors to agree to surgery and they did not want to disenfranchise them.

This was clearly based on the belief that we were talking small numbers - a few hundred per year at most. Not tens or hundreds of thousands.

I do not think the situation that we have today was expected to happen where the internet and social media has made it a choice for the many as opposed to a survival necessity for the few.

Exact figures are hard to come by but I believe that surveys suggest about 600,000 people in the UK identify in some way as transgender - a US term recently brought in to cover this wider spread and, indeed, the term transsexual, which I grew up with, has been more or less outlawed.

Many of those have not transitioned in any way and are just non conforming in some sense. These are mainly young and is where most of today's activists come from and the concepts as alien to me as I expect to most of you arise - such as gender fluid or pan gender.

Of those 600,000 only around 60,000 or so seem to be what you would likely think of as trans, in that they have in some way transitioned from one outward gender to another full time.

That is less than one in 1000 people in the UK.

Of those not much more than half have physically transitioned - fully or less fully. And the percentage who do so is much at the same level as it was in the 1970s - so - because there are more 'trans' identifying people out there - seems to be falling as an overall percentage.

I suspect the level of transsexual people - the few hundred a year - has been pretty constant throughout history (we were around centuries ago and exist in every culture, even remote island communities, suggesting this is not directly caused by modern social structures or gender roles in the west).

This is born out by those who have actually legally used the 2004 act to transition genders officially. It is not 600,000, or even the 60,000. It is under 10,000. So most people who identify in some way as trans do not have any legal recognition. Though they could have had they chosen to follow the guidelines and requirements that most have opted not to do.

This is why there is such a push for the law to be amended and made easier and basically self declaration with no proof of medical assessment or success of transition needed.

I think that goes too far, as I suspect do most of you.

The final step you can take once you have legal recognition is apply to have your legal sex altered on the birth certificate. This does not remove the one given at birth but provides an updated one to recognise those with medical support.

As it requires more medical support only around 1000 people in the UK have gone this far - out of the 600,000 identifying as trans.

I assume the change to self declaration will mean that number will rocket subsequently.

Since more children are being treated by transgender clinics over the past decade or so by far the most surprising outcome has been that the 90 - 95% male to female transitioners has become much more like 50/50 with an unexpectedly high number of girls seeking to transition to boys than before.

It is usually argued this is because boyish girls were more easily accepted by society in the past than girlish boys making it more pressing for full transition one way than the other.

Maybe. Or maybe those of us who were trans decades ago had an issue that mainly effected genetic males and the spread of social transitioning is more a human than a biological one and so has a more even spread between the genders.

Hope these figures give some guidelines.

Really interesting posts Jayceedove, thank you.

Thank you.

I had not realised the thread was from last year until just now.

I possibly posted in the wrong thread from the one I was suggested to post in. But I found the search a bit haphazard and was not expecting to find more than one on the subject.

Nobody will be reading this so long after I expect. :)

Oh, neither did I, sorry! Well, I was reading and appreciate your having shared your story.

I think if you read all the current threads on this subject you may not have time to get anything else done.

The solution is to accept the fact that some people are not the gender that corresponds with their physical sex and support them wholly for who they are.

Not all trans people want surgery. Many do but can't afford it. Many have undergone a range of procedures and are happy with the outcome. Many feel pressured to have surgery to 'prove' they are trans, but might have happily lived without it.

We do a huge disservice to trans people by assuming there is a checklist of necessary procedures and behaviours that they must tick off to qualify as trans, when the only measure that should matter is a person's own understanding of their gender. We can achieve harmony and equality by accepting this and not behaving as though trans people are mentally ill, deluded, faking, in need of therapy, misguided, naive, confused, closeted or any other reason given by people who can't or won't accept the distinction between sex and gender and allow people to define their own personhood and experiences.