MagiStream

I realize this thread is old, but I felt I should come in and say that I myself am transsexual. I have been this way ever since I was born; I thought I would grow up a boy, I felt that I would. Puberty hit me at ten years old. I was horrified with what my body did instead. Not only was I "developing" years before other people in my grade, it was the wrong body to boot.

Looking back... I wish I would have voiced my thoughts sooner. My family was Catholic, so I didn't feel comfortable doing so, but maybe if I had then something could have happened sooner to prevent puberty from happening. Maybe I wouldn't have had to go through so much physical and emotional pain. It's one of the reasons I am a staunch advocate for trans children to get hormone blockers before puberty, and get on the hormones they feel they need as soon as possible. No one should have to grow up feeling completely wrong in every way, surrounded by people who don't see who you really are.

I am attracted to men, which makes me gay. I did not choose to be attracted to men. I kissed my first boy when I was in preschool, and though I can appreciate the female form... I do not find females attractive in a romantic, emotional and physical sense.

It is my firm belief that it is all nature. Nuture, environment and self-determination has an effect on it in the sense that it determines how quick you discover yourself and what you do about the lot you've been given in life, but it doesn't change who and what you are on a basic level. Maybe there are exceptions, but I don't think it really matters either way.

blackmeadows thanks for sharing your story and though I agree I personally find it hard to deal with transteens(as we call them over here).

Yes most of them really are transsexuals and will be greatly helped by hormone blockers but we also have a percentage that "get over it" and grow up to be adults in their birth bodies without trouble. We have a specialist over here who treats only teens and younger children and whilst eighty percents sounds good I cannot help but wonder about the twenty percent that didn't have happy endings.
There are even adult transsexuals that feel like they made the wrong decision afterwards. Some even whilst they clearly feel they got the wrong gender at birth, but being sterile after surgery and having too high expectations of their gender change can lead to this. There are many more but those two are the biggest ones.

It's not an easy choice and in the end we should all take great care that SRS(sex reassignment surgery) is in the best interest of the person. It has to improve the quality of life. I'm hammering on this as I was born intersexed but the wrong choice was forced on me. I also have some trans friends I keep in touch with and though most are happy after their srs there are those that continue to struggle.
I won't hold people back but I will them to tread carefully and be aware of the challenges of transitioning. For some it's pretty clear-cut what to do but for the majority it's a balancing act(surgery or not/only hormones etc. etc.).
I can only hope medical science will improve in such a way that all those in the transgender spectrum will eventually be able to live their lives as they want but we are not there and won't be any time soon.

Funny you mention being gay as I talked about this not long ago too. Many people struggle with the fact that a transman might not be attracted to girls. Gender and sexual preference are often linked whilst it's completely separate from it. Like you automatically turn straight afterwards
I also believe it's nature(or the soul if you believe it)and you cannot change what you really are. May we all make the right decisions given our circumstances and find happiness.

Yes, there are some people who... after everything... decide it wasn't the right choice for them. But that's why therapy is required (at least here in the USA it is), and why there are so many hoops to jump through. It helps lessen the amount of people who do it without proper consideration of what it means to be trans. Of course, then there are people who have the money to do whatever they want, and there are people who may have truly felt trans at the time and just don't feel trans later on. There's nothing wrong with the latter of those things; I think maybe those people should have settled for a genderqueer label rather than transsexual, but it was their life and their self-identification.

I think that having treatment available to younger people is more helpful than harmful, despite the risks of a small percentage of those people changing their minds later on. Surgery should of course wait until the younger person is of the proper age to really understand what is going on, but hormone blockers should really be available to all who feel they aren't comfortable with their gender and are unsure of what they want to do as far as hormones are concerned.

I'm sorry that you had bodily changes forced on you. :/ I know a couple people myself who were born intersex and didn't get a chance to make their own choice. I don't think that anyone should have choices like that shoved upon them. The right to choose what your body looks like is so important.

And yes... some people continue to struggle after SRS, but I think it might stem from the fact that quite a few trans people feel surgery (and sometimes hormones) will fix everything. Sadly, it doesn't fix everything. All those years of pain, suffering and often abuse are still there. One is STILL trans, even after surgery. It doesn't change the fact that one is trans. It will never be the same as having been born cisgendered. And for many people, that is probably a difficult pill to swallow. :[ Transition is (in my opinion) a life-long process, at least in an emotional sense. That's why I think therapy should continue after surgery, much in the same way that people should continue getting therapy even after they quit drinking, quit drugs, get a gastric bypass, whatever. Support is important.

And no, transguy doesn't mean "a lesbian woman who was uncomfortable being a lesbian" and transwoman doesn't mean "a gay man who was uncomfortable being gay". xD People DO assume that-- and it's sad. There are trans people of all sexualities.

I do believe in the soul. :]

Thanks for your reply, Brad.

in the early 1990s I volunteered at a small clinical center for transgenders. It was my duty to provide them with a friendly ear, a safe place to talk, a role model...that sort of thing. Since the western slope of Colorado where I grew up is extremely isolated (only one major city on that side of the mountains until you hit either Salt Lake to the west or Albuquerque to the south) it had to be kept close and confidential. These people, in seeking help and treatment, were literally taking their lives into their hands.

I came to understand that gender and sexuality cover a broad spectrum. The majority of my trans friends were people who at birth had either had trauma to their sexual organs or who were ambiguous in physical sex. Doctors, back then at last, generally told the parents to raise the child as the matching gender which they most appeared to approximate. Often, sexual reassignment was done right there in the delivery room or soon afterward in the surgical suite. Some of them had other issues: duplicates of certain chromosomes or broken or extra pieces of certain chromosomes. Whether or not a person goes for sexual reassignment was heavily dependent upon the origin of the gender confusion and whether or not the parents made any attempt to help them learn to be the correct gender identity at an early age.

Several of my friends died rather than have to wait so long. The assessment process at the time was fairly new and you had to have a minimum of three years of counseling and psychotherapy, one year living full time as the gender of choice, and then and only then could SRS be considered...and you still had to pass several grueling psychological tests. Two cut their own organs out and one cut off his penis. I'd guess I've lost five or six more of those friends due to outright suicide.

Some of them simply didn't wish reassignment. Some chose that for religious reasons and social pressure. Some liked the ability to be either gender at will. I hate the term "full transgender" for those reasons; it's such a personal and individual choice and generally once someone does have SRS they consider themselves the gender assigned, not transgender.

Some transgenders, like some deaf or blind people, consider it a natural minority or community and prefer to remain that way. I've met a few like that who regardless of whether they take hormones and do SRS or not will consider themselves transgender always.

As you can see, I'm most comfortable among the transgenders even though I am female and lesbian. To me, the folk I have met represent the ultimate journey in knowing oneself and knowing exactly who you are and what you want to be. I treasure my transgender friends because they understand the gender identity spectrum like no one else can and that allows them to better understand and accept me.

blackmeadows wrote: That's why I think therapy should continue after surgery, much in the same way that people should continue getting therapy even after they quit drinking, quit drugs, get a gastric bypass, whatever. Support is important.

Over here in the Netherlands you get full support in every step you take along the way but once you reach the end of the road people get dropped like a stone. Thank G-d for all those wonderful groups with volunteers we have over here. I'd advice anyone to go to a support groups as you have contact with people who have been through the same process and you can learn so much and better think about what is best for you.


@TxCat; kudos to you for having done that work. So sad to hear about those friends you've lost. I too have frequently thought about just ending it all because "what the heck am I anyway"? Due to female hormones I had small breasts and I remember taking a knife and cutting myself open because nobody would help me get rid of them. They are gone now and I prefer the scars the surgery left behind over the bouncy balls any day. But all joking aside it hurts so bad I cannot explain it and I can only imagine how transsexuals must feel the same way as I did back then. I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

People can react so violently towards transgendered, even gay people have treated me like dirt because "I wasn't a real guy". Of all people you'd expect more tolerance from them.

I hate how Biology classes still hammer on xx and xy as it has been proven multiple times it is not as simple as that. There's Klinfelter for instance which translates to biologically men having xxy, xxxy and so on and heaven knows what else. There was once an athlete, a woman, who was disqualified for being born a man(unfair advantage etc. etc.) even though she was biologically female AND a mum of two kids.

Not to derail this thread in a religious debate but if anybody is interested here's a very good site for trans-issues and Judaism. Also remember that there are Orthodox shuls out there who will accept you(for any trans Jews reading this) and that religious strictness does not equal closed-mindedness. I know some Liberal Jewish groups that do not accept transgendered!

As for the correct use of terms I'm also frequently confused. Nowadays I would not call myself intersex anymore but transgendered though transsexual also doesn't feel it describes "me". For fun I sometimes call myself "ItFFtM".

I've noticed that this hasn't been added to for a while so I figured why not add my story :

Throughout my years I have gotten harassed a lot about my religion and my sexuality. My freshman year I've had to deal with being called a "f-ing lesbian" and many other things, nearly getting in a fight. During this time I was confused and suicidal, but I have overcome that now. Thinking this ordeal was over I continued on being myself and just recently reality has hit me in the face. Of course one of my friends declared himself homophobic and so did someone else in my class. Even though they may be just saying that, they still said "gays are fags".
I am sure that I may get questions regarding an essay I wrote for the writing test with the prompt as "the causes of violence" stating that hate in school can cause students to harm one another. The teacher may think of saying the LGBT hatred and stating "gays are fags" exactly was a bad idea, but I still stand by what I say.
~To clarify: I am bisexual and I have known myself to be so ever since I was around the age of 8 years old. I have a loving boyfriend who loves me for who I am.

I've never really been good at dealing with things from the emotional side of things, and this is one topic that tends to get emotional... And I'm not sure I understand why.

I do come from things with the rational, scientific understanding, and have looked in depth at this subject. I looked at this subject because it was, at first, part of another subject I had great interest in. I have a genetic disorder myself, and became very interested in researching various ones, which also included ones involving chromosomal errors, such as XXY, ect. From there I became interested in understanding what gender really was and where the line between male and female truly lay. After nearly 15 years of looking into this, I've come to some conclusions.

So what is gender? From what I've read, in all the studies and research papers, gender is not what you have between your legs, it's what is in your brain. The brain is the biggest sex organ in the human body, it controls all our responces. And it is, infact, gender dimorphic. Based on what hormones it's exposed to before birth (and at a separate time than with the genetles) the brain's physical shape changes in responce. And how it responds to certain stimulie also changes based on what hormons it's exposed to before birth, such as the reaction to certain pharamones.

I've come to veiw intersexing as not something that just happens to the visible parts of the body, but something that happens in the brain as well. Since the brain is part of the physical body, and it's physical changes to the brain (even if these changes aren't something that can be seen).

Gender and sexuality are separate concepts on our minds, but they are forever linked by the gender dimorphic part of the brain that controls our concious understanding of our own sex and sexuality. A slight hormonal imbalance at one point or another during the 'programing' of this part of the brain can cause one to have romanic feelings to the same gender, or feel as though they should have been born the opposite gender.

People are born that way, all anyone can do is except, and where they can assist.

sadistsmiles wrote:
Sometimes people would force us or make us see ourselves as what they see us to be. But gender and sexuality is up to us to decide.There may be some of you with straight as a stick fathers and devoted mothers but you still become what you are - trans, androgynous, homo, bi, lesbian, gay, etc. - whichever you decide to be.

Sometimes people also associate gender with sexuality immediately.

No. I didn't choose my sexuality or my gender. I don't think anyone chooses; there are enough gay folk who tried to live as straight men and women to shoot thst myth in the foot straight off.

To prove the point: there was a recent article about a man who went in for surgery on some kidney stones but when the surgeons did the prepatory work, they found he was actually a female.

(link to story)

When interviewed, the man admitted knowing that the gender and sex identity he had been assigned wasn't the right one. If it were a matter of choosing, then, he would have acted on those feelings in the first place.

I think you might be confusing the concept of socially defined concepts of gender and sex identity, which do essentially force a person to choose or conform, and actual gender and sex identity which are proven biological facts and therefore cannot be influenced by choice. For instance, the way you behave with your female friends would be unremarkable in France or Italy where same gender affection is considered normal. Your mode of dress would be unremarkable here, where most girls work farms with their families and therefore dress more practically in clothing most would consider masculine.

Gender and sexuality are NOT interchangaeble and one does not necessarily dictate the other. Sexuality is determined at birth based largely on what physical organs may be observed. It is also possible to determine sex via chromosome testing, CT scanning, and other methods of seeing inside the body to determine sex organs.

It used to be thought that gender --- the role in which a erson thinks of himself or herself --- was a matter of nuture or choosing but recent studies now point to structural and chemical differences in the brain dictating gender. One such study demonstrated significant differences in function and structure between masculine and feminine brains. Another showed that foods and chemicals to which the mother is exposed can alter gender in the womb.

On a personal note, I don't think anyone would choose the pure hell that gender and sexuality differences which single one out from the social norm bring down. It would be like suddenly choosing to have a fatal disease.

In my opinion, you can be bi even if you're not sexually attracted to both genders/have dated both genders.
I consider myself bi because I wouldn't feel ashamed about dating a girl if my life ever went that way. Just a quick opinion