Transsexual/Transvestite/Transgender

[shinyhappywoman]

Hi everyone, just trying to get to grips with what it means to be transgender and how that differs from transsexual (is that term still used?) and transvestite. I've read on this board that many transgender people don't have any surgery but simply dress as a woman/man (as the case may be). If that's the case, how are they any different from a transvestite? Sorry if this comes across as rather ignorant, just hoping someone can clarify. Thanks

-sexual and -vestite have been expunged from the language. If they are in your head you must tip it to the side and bash your uppermost ear until those two suffixes have fallen out.

I'll take a stab. So transgender people feel they were born in the wrong body but some still opt against surgery because of the risks.

Where as transvestites are perfectly happy being the gender they are, they just like to dress as the opposite gender.

The former may have deep anxieties, depression and body resenting thoughts and feelings due to the way their body betrays their sex (not gender). The later, dont. But they may steal your sparkly heels for a night out.

@Xanthangum So does that mean that transgender is now an umbrella term covering both?

Actially I suppose I should use 'sex' in the second paragraph, not gender.

Sex being what you are born and gender being the social construction of various socially accepted norms and qualities often associated more with one sex than the other.

The trans lobby have decided that male transvestites are actually women now and must be allowed into women only spaces. Transsexuals who feel discomfort about their body are referred to as truscum as the vast majority of TRAs love their penis and have no wish to take any medical treatment so to suggest a dislike for it is bad. Unless we're talking about children in which case any slight digression from boys like blue and girls like pink needs to be fast tracked to a life of sterilisation and medication.

Transgender is the only acceptable term as that muddies the waters nicely and makes people think that it means transsexuals as opposed to those with a sexual fetish. Making a new name and sneakily adding fetishists to the genuine people means you can trick people into supporting what most people would find unacceptable if they were open and honest.

No transgender only applies to transgender.

Transvestite is totally different

I think transsexual used to be used INSTEAD of transgender. But not sure its 'politically correct' anymore.

The term "transvestite" has been largely replaced with "crossdresser".

I think the term "transsexual" was associated with the assumption that those affected would undergo surgery - hence people used to refer to "pre-op" and "post-op" transsexuals... whereas the modern transgender movement emphasises that people may regard themselves as transgender without necessarily any intention of having surgery.

Fact: The 2016 Rocky Horror Picture Show remake had Laverne Cox singing "I'm just a sweet transgender from transgendual transgendania."

(NB Not a 'true' fact.)

The thing that confuses me most is the lack of surgery. It must be awful - I can't even imagine - to believe you were born into the wrong body. I would fully support any adult in that position being given the resources to transition to their preferred sex.

But if a transgender person has no intention of having surgery why do they need to be legally recognised as the opposite sex? Can't they just live as their current sex and express themselves as they see fit? No one forces men and women to dress a certain way anymore, there are no barriers to the work they can do, who they can have relationships with etc. Am I missing something?

But if a transgender person has no intention of having surgery why do they need to be legally recognised as the opposite sex? Can't they just live as their current sex and express themselves as they see fit? No one forces men and women to dress a certain way anymore, there are no barriers to the work they can do, who they can have relationships with etc. Am I missing something?

This confused me also

I can only guess but...i suppose it's like if you were really, really overweight and couldn't lose it. Other people probably wouldn't notice or care but of course it's always going to be on your mind. And bring with it all these inner personal struggles.

If other people kept treating you like you were skinny and you knew otherwise it might feel like they were dismissive of reality. Or at least,of your reality and of your inner struggles.

Like you can see something that is driving you nuts. But the whole world is going on around you as if nothing is wrong.

But if a transgender person has no intention of having surgery why do they need to be legally recognised as the opposite sex?

This (and people saying you don't need gender dysphoria to be trans) is why I have problems with my own community, but they call me 'truscum,' 'transmedacalist' and 'gatekeeper' for not following the party line :/ aka - I'm not allowed to have an opinion.

Here is the stonewall definition

www.stonewall.org.uk/what-does-trans-mean

I think that makes us all trans 😆

@Eo91 are you transgender (if you don't mind me asking)? I did wonder if there might be any rupture within the trans community between those who fully medically transition and those who don't. It seems to me (as an outsider) that after all you've gone through / are going through, it's not quite fair that someone who has no intention of having surgery should be afforded the same legal protections as you? Would be really interested to hear your view.

Yes, Eo91 is one of those posters that confounds trans activists of all types. They are a transgender person who is under no illusion about what their personal choices have been an dwhy they were taken, or that those choices left their body genetically as it was at birth!

There are a few others still posting. Just as their are parents of trans kids, parents of kids who thought they were trans, and a whole heap of other people who just don't want to be what society says they look like - or don't ;ook like, depending!

But if a transgender person has no intention of having surgery why do they need to be legally recognised as the opposite sex? Can't they just live as their current sex and express themselves as they see fit? No one forces men and women to dress a certain way anymore, there are no barriers to the work they can do, who they can have relationships with etc. Am I missing something?

So you'd think so wouldn't you.

But there's quite a lot to unpick here.

For a start you need to know about AGP (autogynephilia) psychological typology of gender dysphoria, transsexualism, and fetishistic transvestism, created by Ray Blanchard through the 1980s and 1990s,

Autogynephilia (derived from Greek for 'love of oneself as a woman') is the term Blanchard coined for "a male's propensity to be sexually aroused by the thought of himself as a female", intending for the term to refer to "the full gamut of erotically arousing cross-gender behaviors and fantasies".

Part of the presentation is a desire to be perceived by others as their desired sex.

The other thing to think about for people who are not AGP but suffering from gender dysphoria is the impact of surgery.

There's as common Misconception that the technology exists to enable you to change sex.

Yes, there are surgeries that can do a reasonable job of approximating a woman for example - breast implants, facial feminisation and in the reverse case a mastectomy.

However when is comes to "bottom" surgery the risks and complications are significant and there is no surgery that can recreate a fully functional vagina or penis.

The creation of a "vagina" either by inverting the penis or using tissue from the colon effective creates a "closed" tube that can neither self lubricate or clean. It needs constant dilation to keep it open.

Complications can include hair growing inside, serious infections, risk of tearing etc.

Phalloplasty - the creation of a penis is also extremely invasive and involves taking huge amounts of tissue from a donor location (usually the forearm). The scars are horrific and there is a risk of function loss at the donor site.

The end result even if successful will still need some mechanical means to produce an erection.

In both cases there is a real risk of loss of sexual function wrt stimulation and the ability to orgasm.

This is why so many trans people don't have genital surgery yet children are being sold a myth you can change sex and they believe the technology exists to do this "properly" when that simply isn't the case.

We have to bear in mind that 'surgery' can encompass a number of things. Whilst the general public take it to mean genital surgery, in most cases 'surgery' can mean breast implants and facial surgery, not genital surgery. And to be fair, I don't blame people for not wanting to have genital surgery, but I do think it's important to be accurate and say that surgery rarely means genital surgery.

I don't mind! I'm FtM transgender (a transman).

And there are rifts in the trans community, there's many of us that feel that TRAs aren't actually interested in protecting our rights but forwarding their own interests. Interests which are getting more invasive on the rights of others and that 'truscum' can see are eventually going to blow up in our faces.

I understand that some people can't transition for various medical reasons, but when activists say you don't need to have gender dysphoria to be trans/call themselves trans with no intention to transition I feel like their co-opting my condition and exploiting protections that were originally made to make life for us a bit more comfortable.

I am not 100% sure but I think Transgender people believe they are a different sex to the one they were born but Transvestites just want to dress in clothes that are traditionally seen as being worn by the opposite sex to the one they were born into
I imagine there’s some crossover though

I feel like their co-opting my condition and exploiting protections that were originally made to make life for us a bit more comfortable.

Yes. Not least because many people who used to shrug and accept any trans person in any single sex space now look twice and make more of it because, well, things have changed and reactions have too!

The current trans activists refer to old school transexuals as Truscum, the old style know they are biologically male.

What you are missing is the special womanly feeling that trans women feel they have.

The gateposts of what being trans is have changed, there is no need for gender dysphoria or changes to the body by hormones or surgery to be trans anymore.

But for the original question,

Transvestite - dressing in the clothes stereotypically worn by the opposite sex (basically crossdressing)

Transsexual - someone who is in the process of medically transitioning/has medically transitioned.

Transgender - identifying with a gender different from that of your sex. This can be with the binary (man/woman) or non-binary (the 100+ genders everyone's confused about).

I'm transsexual - I'm just so used to having to blend in that 'transgender' is my go to when people ask.

I feel like their co-opting my condition and exploiting protections that were originally made to make life for us a bit more comfortable.

Thanks for sharing @Eo91 That must be incredibly frustrating. It does feel like there is a bit of opportunism going on (eg sports, prisons) which is unfair not only for the people it affects (in those examples, female prisoners and athletes) but also the genuine trans community who, I imagine, by and large just want to get on with living their lives and not see trans rights pitted against other rights.

@Eo91 for having to navigate such treacherous waters.

@Eo91 this is where I struggle.

As a society, we need to ensure nobody is discriminated against, let alone subject to hate. So I'm very happy for the laws around that to apply to anyone on gender expression grounds. I should stress that I support all present law around that, and have done since the 1990s.

But the provision, acceptance and understanding for transsexuals - people suffering from a rare and wholly genuine condition, and for whom society can make a reasonable adjustment in order to allow them to fully live their lives, is one thing. To me, that's akin to disability law (I speak as a disabled person with disabled kids, so I also have no truck with indignation that comparing disability to trans is a slur). People need to be able to reach their fullest potential, and society can do things that help with that. So while I think we need the safeguards and checks of existing GRC law, I also think that GRCs should be free, for example. I also strongly support third spaces, open to all who could benefit - which would help disabled people, parents of opposite sex kids, and non-binary people, too.

I struggle with places such as prisons, hospital wards, changing rooms etc where the rights of women are directly impacted, and in some cases, male bodies would cause genuine trauma, no matter how real the person's dysphoria. I think we need separate spaces there, too. One of my kids can't manage communal areas at all, for disability reasons, so provision must, where possible, be made to meet that need. I think that needs to be extended, in those situations, to trans people (which would also help NB people, as they wouldn't be assigned to a sexed space).

I also think that there needs to be a discussion about the difference between dysphoria, and between someone who just feels more comfortable in the gender expression traditionally assigned to the opposite sex, in this point in history. Gender expression isn't dysphoria, as I understand it, and nor does it need to be accommodated in the same way. I feel that they have different needs. Expression, and we need to loosen the gender straitjacket, so men and women can live more authentic lives. Dysphoria, and there's a medical condition that we can support.

In short - it feels as if there are people who can't live happily with their biological sex, and they need help and support with transitioning in oder to treat that - and then there are people who just feel wrong with the gender roles assigned to their sex. We need to help them live as feels authentic within that sex, with their own expression, surely?

I don't know if any of that makes sense. It's just that you are engaging so couteously and openly, and I do feel that progress in all of this can only be made that way. I'm honestly interested in your views on what could be a compromise way forward, that respects the needs and dignity of everyone.