A reader wrote me an email asking me about transsexuality. Apparently, he has a friend who is in the process of transitioning to male and he isn’t quite sure what to make of it. This is what I wrote back to him:
Hi, there!
First, thanks for reading my blogs. I always appreciate hearing from my readers and I am pleased that the airing of my thoughts has interested you.
Regarding transgendered people, I actually don’t have a lot to say. Before I get into what I do have to say about it, one of my online friends is an transgendered Objectivist and you might also check out her blog and try to get her perspective on it as well. http://raemeg.net/ Unfortunately, she’s not terribly prolific.
I think trans-folk are in a very tough spot. For me, who I am is linked very tightly with my physical being including the fact that I am male and have all the bait and tackle that comes with being male. For trans-people, though, there is a disjunction between their mental identity and their physical identity. It’s important to note that this dismorphia does not necessarily extend to sexuality. Some men become women and are then lesbians. It’s primarily an issue with their personal views of their own gender.
I could not even begin to speculate about the causes of transsexuality and I am not qualified to remark on that even if I could imagine something that could lead to that. It just strikes me as an extremely difficult situation to have on your hands. Life is challenging enough without having inner turmoil like that simmering in your skull.
Morally, I see no grounds for any sort of evaluation at all. Like homosexuality, I don’t believe anyone really consciously chooses to be transgendered, although I suppose it’s possible that some really spectacularly ill people only pretend to be transgendered, like Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs. That just says you have to evaluate each transsexual person as an individual just as you would anyone else. But by and large, I regard it as just another way people sometimes are and those who have to confront the question certainly don’t need me trying to dictate the goings on of their minds and psychology.
I think it is perfectly normal for you to be surprised upon encountering transsexuality first-hand simply because it is so alien to everything you know. I don’t know him, but I think your friend would likely welcome your curiosity on the matter as you seek to understand this new aspect of reality. He is probably asking himself a lot of the same questions and might want to talk it through with someone. It couldn’t possibly help for you to pretend as if you do understand it when you don’t. And it REALLY wouldn’t help for you to freak out and act as if this really has any direct impact on your own life. But curiosity is justified. Just try to be tactful and sensitive if you do inquire. And, maybe, you can offer him some insight into how guys do things.
In closing, I would offer a tip on courtesy regarding trans-folk: you should always refer to them by their personally identified gender. If your friend is transitioning to male, you should start referring to him as “he” and “him” and never more as “she” or “her.” It will likely be a little confusing for you at first, but it won’t be nearly as confusing as it has been for him trying to get to this point.
I hope this helps!
-3
Comments, particularly from Rachel, are most welcome here. What other advice or insight would you offer?
Update: A note on terminology for those unfamilar:
Transsexual = Someone who wants to physically change sexes. These are people who internally identify as the other gender from what their physical body is.
Transvestite = Someone who cross-dresses. This does NOT mean they are necessarily transsexual or any sort of gay. This term is actually somewhat antiquated because people tend to use “transgender” instead, because…
Transgender = A term which subsumes both transsexuals and transvestites. That just makes things easier.
Minor correction and addition: Transvestite has become a pejorative, recently, and cross-dresser is the preferred term (sadly). Also, transgender subsumes intersex, too. Intersex is the recent term for hermaphrodite, which is too specific, since there are a variety of intersex conditions, all genetic, but few having such blatant manifestations as the one sensationalized in The Crying Game.
Thanks for the link-love, Trey, and, as usual, for the thoughtful analysis/description. I don’t have a lot to add, but I’d like to give my endorsement to tactful, patient inquiries with the reader’s friend. I don’t know a lot about FtMs (female-to-male transsexuals), but I can’t imagine men are any less appreciative of a sympathetic friend than women are.
Obviously everyone is different, but speaking for myself, I love it when people honestly want to understand my perspective, and, even now, four years into my transition, welcome the chance to “compare notes”, as it were, on what it feels like to be a woman. In fact, I just made a new friend the other day whose offer to give me advice and perspective I happily accepted. (I had such a safe and easy initial transition at my old job that I’m only just now fully confronting employment seeking issues with respect to my new gender presentation. Hi Kim!)
But “alien” is quite an apt description. Gender is understood only poorly and no one knows the cause(s) of gender dysphoria/dysmorphia. As an Objectivist, I had a difficult time coming to a meaningful acceptance of my condition mainly because transsexuality is only knowable through a subjective identification. Almost all anyone can say is “I feel like something is wrong with my body. I identify (emotionally) with the gender opposite that of my anatomy.” So, personally, I have a great deal of patience with people in their reactions, since I can’t point to anything they can measure when they ask me how I know I’m female “on the inside”, as long as I think they are acting with good will.
I think the thing I would like most for people to understand about me (and imagine this is so for other transsexuals) is that whatever the cause or mechanism of my condition, my feelings are persistent, deep, and powerful. I can’t just ignore them or work through them. (I tried for over 30 years!) Living in the role of my identified gender has been almost (second only to my adoption/study of Objectivism) the most liberating, stress-relieving, fulfilling undertaking of my life. I can never take my gender for granted like cisgender people do (cisgender is the opposite of transgender), but in living as a woman, taking hormone replacements, and changing my appearance, I have begun to feel like I “fit in” in an important way, and it is allowing me to work toward *standing out* in more important ways.
Even if your reader can’t ultimately agree with the virtue of his friend’s transition or offer emotional validation to his friend, I hope he knows that no one undertakes transition lightly, and that his friend is just trying to make the best out of difficult circumstances.
Sweet! Thanks so much for this!
Ah correction. Transgender dose NOT EVER subsume intersex. Transgender is never ever part of the Intersex and Intersex people such as myself find it very OFFENSIVE when you subsume intersex with trans. Intersex is biological and medical based. It’s chief distinction is genetics, DNA and Chromosomes. Rachel, Get your facts straight and I suggest you crack open a college level A&P book and a Genetics 101 book before you open your mouth.
Nila,
First of all, if wrong, Rachel obviously did not intend to offer any offence with her comment. She was seeking to enlighten those of us who aren’t so familiar with trans issues. The proper and polite thing for you to do, rather than insult her, is to offer a correction and explain why the distinction is relevant.
Secondly, based on some very simple reading I just did on the internet, the term “transgender” is used to include intersex people by quite a number of people including some intersex folks. This may not be correct in your mind but it is clear there is some debate out there about this usage. In any case, simply because it upsets you is not a reason for anyone to stop doing so. And you being upset is not going to change anyone’s mind about that, particularly when it manifests in the poor behavior you demonstrated here.
Thirdly, I think you need to address why you think it’s so insulting to be called transgendered. If we’re all in agreement that there isn’t anything morally wrong with being trans, why are you so offended if someone thinks you are? I get a little miffed when people use “gay” as an insult because there’s nothing wrong with being gay. But here you are, behaving as if “trans” is some sort of insult.
Finally, if you want to comment again on this blog the next thing I want to hear from you is an apology. I will delete any further comments from you until that is addressed to my satisfaction. You are not welcome to insult me or my guests neither in my home nor on my property. While you contemplate that, may I suggest something for your reading list as well?
As I said to Nila on Twitter last night:
The term transgender was coined (by Virgina Prince, ca 1987) in order to describe those who experience a gender variance of some sort. Transsexuals experience a psychological disconnection from their anatomy. Cross-dressers feel a need to express themselves differently from social gender-norms. And intersex individuals have a physical condition that causes their primary or secondary anatomical sexual-traits to grow differently. If your disagreement is, rather, with being included in the political agenda of the liberal LGBT movement, then you and I are in agreement on that point. But it doesn’t change the conceptual utility of the terminology. (http://bit.ly/bNkAFz)
The emotional investment in these labels, though, is part of the whole liberal-dominated LGBT mess. Essentially, there are a number of efforts to enact hate-crimes legislation, bathroom usage laws, equal-opportunity in housing and employment addenda for this loosely defined group, Transgender. Many want nothing to do with the movement because, as far as I can tell, they have succeeded in achieving a measure of social privilege or at least normalcy and they just want to move on with their lives. Or they regard, for example, cross-dressing as an illegitimate inclusion in such political agendas, i.e. “Why should an employer be forced to allow a man to come to work dressed as a woman?” This drops all sorts of contexts, of course.
I can’t speak for Nila, and wouldn’t presume to say that this is why he doesn’t want to be grouped with other trans-folk. Personally, I hate the thought of being included with other trans-folk in their efforts to enact a great many social policies. As an Objectivist, I recognize the right of each individual to choose his associations and contracts. If a land-owner wants to deny access on the basis of race or gender-identity, this is not the proper concern of the government. Private property is just that: private. Hate crimes legislation, as has been explained ad nauseum in many forums, is a means of criminalizing thoughts and convictions and is completely unnecessary for justice. Murder is wrong, no matter why you do it. As for restroom usage, the only reason this is an issue is because of the irrational fear of gender-variance, and it’s a monstrous non-sequitor for politicians to associate it with sexual predation.
But it helps no one to claim that a particular type of gender variance isn’t a gender variance just because it is distinct from other types. No reasonable person fails to recognize that intersex is distinguished from transsexualism and cross-dressing by reference to genetic factors. And no reasonable person is claiming that cross-dressers should be allowed to cross-dress at work. I can’t help that liberal nihilists (feminists, egalitarians, eco-terrorists, etc.) want to destroy the important distinctions we make in order to organize and properly grasp our world. But the destruction of one more distinction feeds right into their efforts.
I may choose to disassociate myself from my fellow transgender folk in the social and political arena (though many feel as I do and have also distanced themselves from the movement), but that doesn’t make me less trans. I’m a transsexual. For good or ill, being transsexual makes me gender variant, and the same with intersex.