New Trans thread as requested by HQs.

[oilfilledlamp]

Please forgive the intrusion but I've been out tonight and only recently got back. I wanted to respond to MadWomanintheattic earlier when she posted

"If I were an mtf trans (pre op or post op) the last place I'd want to fetch up is in a women's refuge, because of the potential for making other people feel ill at ease. But nothing is clear cut, really.

How often does this happen, really? Has there been any research into prevalence and motivation?

elephants - most FTM transsexuals don't have surgery to their genitals. So the 'op' in most cases consists of testosterone supplements and a double mastectomy and that's it. FTMs usually 'pack' to produce the appearance of a penis and testes when clothed, but seen naked look genitally female.

So an FTM transsexual might look utterly convincingly like a man clothed, but have no penis. If such a man walked into the female changing room, you would most likely register him as a man and wonder what he was doing in there. So I suppose what I'm curious about is: if this hypothetical transman walked into the female changing room and you thought 'Oy! Get out! You're a man!' would you feel differently about him if he then took his kecks off and you saw that he didn't in fact possess a penis?

manatee - I don't think the parallel with immigrants makes sense. I don't have the slightest bit of patriotism, and no-one has suggested that patriotism is the qualifying thing that makes me British. What makes me British is that I was born that way. Nationality may coexist with an inner identity (patriotism), or it may not. If someone else becomes British through naturalisation, that does not mean I am not allowed to say 'I am British because I was born that way'.

No-one posits that French people and German people, or Swiss and Italians, exist in a binary relationship such that one may only be one or the other. No one has suggested that, in order to 'become' Indian, I would need to dye my skin and hair, or that to become Icelandic I should become taller and blonder.

In fact ... I'm struggling to see any similarities between the two situations?

Can I ask what FTM transexuals generally want in this scenario?

If they walked in and looked like a man I would probably first off all do a second glance as I have seen some very butch women who at first glance did look like men. If they still looked like a man I would say, do you know this is the women's changing room?

If someone answered in a female voice and said yes I know, for example then I would leave it. If they answered yes in a male sound then I would probably challenge them further and say well can you leave then as my assumption would be that they are a man.

Sorry posted too sonn. If he then took off his clothes and it was a female body I would be embarassed and probably apologise.

But Manatee - presumably he would want to change in the men's changing room in that case?

I think I'll avoid changing rooms altogether from now on. They are a minefield.

LRD - ok, that's how you see national identity - fair enough. But there are people who make a very similar argument about naturalising immigrants to one that has been made here about transsexuals: that due to immigrants' different biology (ethnicity) and socialisation (a different culture) it is nonsense to say they could ever be British. It's often argued, further, that the feelings of 'real' British people are being trampled over and ignored in the process of legislating for naturalisation, and that this is oppressive.

It struck me as an interesting parallel; I'm not claiming it is identical in every way, and of course a reductio ad absurdam will reveal differences between the two cases.

When a bay is born we don't look at the baby and say - Oh he is British. or Italian or...etc.

When we look at a baby, except where it is intersex, we do know if the baby is a boy or a girl. It is not a subjective feeling. It is real.

Dowagers - if I think about those of my friends who are transmen, I'd say this is generally the case in theory but is quite frightening in practice for the individual in question.

I remember getting an excited email from a friend about how he'd used the men's showers in a London swimming pool and no-one had batted an eyelid at him! It brought home to me how, for transpeople, any situation where one is publicly naked with others could potentially be a frightening moment as at any time they could become the target of fear or hatred.

On the topic of nationality, I met a non-British national who states that from an early age, when he first learnt about Britain, he identified with our culture and identity. He stated that from that point on he felt compelled to do everything he could to be recognised as British and to have the right to live and work in the UK as a British person. He got permission to come to the UK on a temporary basis, but worked illegally after he failed to renew his permission to stay. He has now been in detention for 5 years as he refuses to sign the necessary documents to acquire an ID document so he can return to his country of origin. He feels so strongly that he should be in the UK that he is prepared to put up with indefinite detention rather than return to his (relatively prosperous) country of origin.

Most people I have talked to about this have dismissed him as being absurd and not acting rationally. But I think there are real parallels with a transgendered person. Why is gender identity treated as less concrete than nationality?

(I know this story may seem incredible - I can't link to anything as it would infringe the persons right to privacy, but it is absolutely true.)

HugeManatee - that is the same for anyone who is physically different. If you had extremely bad scarring or some other kind of physical thing that marked you out as 'different' when you were naked, it's going to be a challenge to be naked in public. Some rude people might stare at you. Some people may look away. I don't think it's got a lot to do with being trans other than the fact that we are a binary gendered species in the main.

Thistle - wow. How fascinating.

I remember a show, way back in the day, called the Black and White Minstrel show. Now, this may sound ridiculous, but what if a white person wanted to blacken up, because they have always identified as a black person. Would that not seem horrendously racist? Or is it breaking down racial barriers?

I'm not really happy that Asian people are having eye surgery to make them look more caucasian.

Hump: good point. I have a very large abdominal scar that just looks gross and there's no way I would shower naked in public. It's just never going to happen.

No oil it isn't a ridiculous example. We would be horrified if a white person said they felt they were really black and used make up to make themself look black and wanted surgery to later their facial features. i wouldn't actually call it racist, but I would think it is is very confused. And I don't think most peopel would accept that they are "really" black.

Just to say as well, the assumption by many here is that MtoF will have surgery. Actually most transgendered MtF do not have surgery on their penis.

You can't "be" black. You can be African, Afro-Carib etc etc and you can want darker skin and altered features.

Yes I know about altered features which is why I mentioned surgery. There are actually thought to be physiologically I think 5 or 6 ethnic types. The rest are actuually countries not ethnicities.

Dowagers - I do and don't agree. It is true that people who look different can be targets for hostility. I don't know how the statistics compare for violence against disabled people and violence against transpeople. But I don't agree that it's the same.

While physical difference often triggers fear in the ignorant, the gendered nature of transsexual difference seems to trigger a particular kind of violence and hostility. If I had a limb missing and got naked in a public changing room, I might be running the risk of stares but I'd be unlikely to face intimidation or violence for my appearance. Transpeople do, on a daily basis. I know a fair few transpeople and every single one of them has had the crap kicked out of them at least once if not many times because of their gender presentation.

I know there are those who will skip over posts that point this out, on the basis that they must be written by 'trans activists'. I'm not a trans activist; I'm just a woman who happens to know quite a lot of transgendered people and has had cis- and trans lovers of both sexes.

(Incidentally, to whoever it was upthread who objected to having to call herself a 'ciswoman', that previous sentence is an example of one of the rare contexts where the 'cis' prefix is useful and relevant. Most of the time the trans/cis distinction is irrelevant, and thus the term isn't in common use and you needn't worry about being 'forced' to adopt it.)

You can't be black?

Don't some people quite strongly identify as 'black' no matter what their nationality? I have a mate who'd she is black and British - they are both important things she 'is'.

Huge - Yes I know Trans people face huge stigma and violence and I agree it does seem to trigger a particularly vicious kind of reaction in some people.

Say you went to a surgeona nd said make me black.

Nigerian black? Ethiopian black? Somalian? They are very different looking.

Black can be an identity. It isn't an ethnicity.

Really interesting thread, how nice to get beyond the rather, er, binary debate I've previously seen on these issues.

Can I ask: why is it radical feminists in particular who find the notion of MTF people being identified as women 'offensive'? Given that men are the privileged group in our society, I'd have thought that there would be many more objections to FTMs identifying as male and thus trespassing on 'cis male' privileged territory. Or maybe men do object, but I don't read the relevant websites?

Thistledew, I know you mentioned that you thought your story at 12:59:54 sounded incredible, but apart from the being in detention part, you HAVE described my experience to a T! I can't explain why I felt compelled to move to the UK from the age of 12 (having never been here before!) or why I am confident that I'd be dead or in psychiatric care had I not succeeded in moving here (and thankfully did so legally and am now naturalised.) Yep, few people can get their head around it so I'm used to that! :) I'd never thought of it having any parallels with the experience of trans people.

To be fair though, I would never claim that my experience of "stork dropped me in the wrong place" as being anything like that of a trans person. People may think me odd, but I'm not at risk of abuse or violence for what I've done.