The prime source she uses for the incidence of surgery is The Incidence and Prevalence of SRS among US Residents(PDF) by Dr Mary Ann Horton. She used a simple technique - she determined that most such procedures are performed by a comparative handful of specialist surgeons. It's not exactly a common form of surgery, nor is it simple. Getting it wrong, even in a minor way.... let's just say that trans people take very great care indeed in choosing which surgeon to go to. As should anyone contemplating surgery on their "naughty bits". And in order to qualify for surgery, one of the hoops that must be jumped through is convincing the gatekeeper psychs that you've done the research in this area, and know the Pros and Cons of different surgical techniques.
The number of US residents undergoing primary SRS in the year 2001 (run rate) was 1170 (740 Male to Female or MTF and 430 Female to Male or FTM.)Some extra work is needed to take into account "re-do"s of surgeries which would decrease the number, then add some more to take into account the lack of response.
...
Persons desiring irreversible surgical procedures who value the quality of the result usually go to a surgeon who has performed the procedure many times previously. It is known within the American transgender community that the vast majority of transsexuals seeking surgery go to one of a relatively short list of surgeons for their final surgery. By reputation, the vast majority of US transsexuals went to one of 15 surgeons. (Eight of these surgeons are in the US, and seven of them are not.) This study refers to these 15 surgeons as major surgeons. It is believed that the major surgeons account for nearly all the primary surgeries performed on US residents.
...
...12 of 15 major surgeons, or 80%, provided usable data for this project. Two surveys were returned by surgeons who were not on the list of major surgeons. One of these provided MTF data for the study; one provided both MTF and FTM data.
The 14 valid surveys (a 25% usable response rate) represented 866 MTF primary surgeries performed by 10 surgeons, and 336 primary FTM surgeries (top surgery) performed by 10 surgeons. 7 of the 14 surgeons performed both MTF and FTM surgeries, 3 MTF only, and 4 FTM only. (Of the 12 major surgeons with usable surveys, 3 did MTF, 3 did FTM, and 6 did both.) Missing data was reconstructed and extrapolated, as described above, to arrive at a total annual run rate of extrapolated total primary surgeries.
Call it 1,000 per year. I would have estimated more than that, but those are the figures.
37 comments:
I still see it as flawed. Many US residents visit a Thai surgeon (that was true 2001, too)
Interesting! That would seem to indicate that even the lower-bound numbers in Lynn Conway's How Frequently Does Transsexualism Occur? paper are too high (unless you assume there are a lot of US trans women going to second echelon or third echelon surgeons).
I would see it as giving lower bounds. as Bad Hair Days said a lot will visit foreign surgeons, presumably mostly Canadian and Thai. You need to take a random sample of transsexuals to get an idea of this proportion and then scale up the estimate appropriately.
Canada doesn't have a great number of surgeons providing GRS, and I believe that most of them are registered to practice in the US as well so that their clients can get access to whatever tax write-offs the IRS allows. The Canadian surgeons might already be accounted for in the study.
WRT non-US surgeons, from the quoted section of the paper: "By reputation, the vast majority of US transsexuals went to one of 15 surgeons. (Eight of these surgeons are in the US, and seven of them are not.)" [emphasis mine] In other words, the study does account for non-US surgeons (and I'm assuming some of the Thai surgeons).
Here's an interesting idea for a study.. SRS patient demographics by age group. I would expect the over the course of the next couple of decades the average age for SRS would continue to shift younger as older transitioners from "the bad old days" finish their transitions & have their SRS and as younger transitioners inherit a world with greater social acceptance and knowledge of transsexualism becomes more ubiquitous. In fact it might even be an interesting metric for just that. Hopefully that last run-on sentence made sense.
oh.. @MgS: As of 2005 the IRS no longer allows SRS to be used as a deduction, based on the premise of rantings from a (forgive me Zoe) Catholic religious journal. see Lynn Conway's writeup at: http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/.../IRS%20SRS%20Rulings.pdf
The usefulness of also being registered in the US is for cases like the State of Illinois which requires that in order to have one's birth certificate corrected one MUST, without fail, have their SRS performed by a US-registered physician; or else face a lifetime of wrongly gendered documentation. Two transgendered women who were born in the state of IL are currently in the process of suing the state to try and have their birth certificates changed: http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2009/jan/28/local/chi-transgender-birth-certificatjan28
It looks like they are only counting TSs who have genital surgery though? As we all know, that represents for only a fraction of the total population of TS people (because of finances, health, no desire for surgery, etc).
The court case regarding SRS is still ongoing.
The ruling has been awaited for nearly 2 years now since the last arguments, and the (gay) judge is due to retire in 2011.
He's made a number of rulings on cases that started well after this one.
Lynn Conway's article is from January 2006. The resulting trial in Tax Court was completed two years later. We've been waiting since January 2008.
See O'Donnabhain v. Commissioner on wikipedia about the subject.
@Kara: From page 4 the paper: "Incidence of nonsurgical procedures was calculated from percentage estimates. For example, it was estimated that 50% of transsexuals with intense TS feelings are diagnosed with GID, and that 60% of MTF transsexuals diagnosed with GID have primary surgery, therefore the inherent prevalence of MTF transsexualism is about 3.3 times that of SRS. It was estimated that 90% of MTF transsexuals diagnosed with GID undertake Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT,) so the incidence of new HRT patients is 90% of the incidence of GID, or 150% of SRS."
The study is flawed for one very simple reason. It fails to take into consideration the number of transgender types who currently decline to have surgery simply because they are not sufficiently motivated to make sufficent effort of pay the costs, but who might take advantage of a free ride. Sandeen would be a classic example. Another would be "Monica" Helms who in past was adamantly "non-op." If the standards are set too low, it greatly increases the probability that very poor, essential non-transsexual people will decide to have surgery on what is, for all practical purposes, a whim. There are examples of this that can be pointed to in places like Canada.
@"just_jennifer"
Please respect other people's right to the name they choose to use. I deliberately used quote marks above to see how you like it.
There are plenty of reasons why someone may or may not get SRS. Sure, cost is a biggie. So is people who do not see the need (especially when they weigh it against the cost). But are you saying someone who can not have major surgery due to other medical factors is not as much a TS as someone who can?
Given your definitions, all people that can afford surgery must be doing it on a whim, right? Why not?
Transsexuality is not a binary.
There are degrees of it.
And the brain can be highly typically-feminine in one respect, and somewhat typically-masculine in another.
That's what the autopsies and MRI scans say.
For me - my body-image, the map that tells me how many arms, legs etc I have is strongly feminine. In that regard, I conform to the binary "TS or TG" model very well, as strongly TS. Very strongly.
In other respects, visio-spatial relationship perception, and a few others, my neurology is somewhat masculinised. I don't particularly like that state of affairs, but if my medical history hadn't been so unusual, wouldn't think anything of it. Certainly I'm just like all the other WITChes at the ANU (Women is Technology and Communications).
It is inherent in the situation that some people will have feminised brains in most areas except for the body-image. For them, neither set of genitalia would feel un-natural, so why go through the expense and risk of surgery? They don't need it. Now that may complicate their love life, but trans people, pre- or post- op have complications there. The days when you could be full stealth may not be over, quite, but it's becoming almost impossible given the databases and suchlike all governments keep now.
I also think many people underestimate the difficulty in scraping together the finances, especially for young people with no parental support. And especially if they are not of at least Middle-class background.
Being a "checkout chick" from a school with a 10% effective literacy rate - and that's amongst the teachers - until you can snag yourself a husband is the best many girls from inner-cities can hope for.
But if you have to come up with $30,000 or more just to look normal enough to snag a husband... risky lifestyles become almost mandatory. Prostitution and drug-dealing. Maybe 1 in 12 survive. All are damaged - just ask them.
If a person isn't motivated enough to get surgery on this sliding scale you hypothesize, the lesser condition you posit might as well not exist. What else besides surgery does the term exist for?
There are no degrees of genital surgery, you have one or the other. Why then do we need degrees of "transsexuality"?
Why does "transsexual" need to be redefined to include non-transsexuals?
Moreover, why do we have non-transsexual people speaking for transsexual men and women? If we needed an official spokesperson, I'm sure one of us would do it. As it is, all this exposure does us nothing but harm.
I won't thank people for using us for their own ends, and neither will the tens of thousands of silent transsexual people in the United States.
Transsexuality is not a monolithic thing, it has degrees.
Yes, if you only want to say "did this person have surgery?" that is one question. But it is only true for a subset. Not having surgery does not make someone not TS. Akin to saying you are only a US citizen if you live in Montana.
If TSism is monolithic how would you define each of the following cases (TS, etc)? Are any different? Why?
* Someone who is post-operative and living as their target gender.
* Someone in the process of transition, who wants to get surgery.
* Someone in the process of transition, who does not want to get surgery.
* Someone who wants surgery but is unable to do so (like financial or medical reasons).
* Someone who IDs as a transsexual but does not desire surgery.
* Someone who IDs as a transsexual but does not pursue surgery after considering it (like surgery risks or not good enough results for them).
Transgender may have degrees, but transsexuality does not...except to those who are not transsexual, whether they have had GRS or not.
Masculinity or feminimity is just that, masculine and feminine qualities and totally unrelated to male and female except as manifested. There may be masculine females and feminine males, but there is only male and female. Don't even try to go the intersex route, aberations are not a definitive argument. Most chromosomal anomalities are not even considered intersex, most intersex do not any gender dysphoria, and most are not gay or lesbian.
No comments Zoe - thinking about a person naughty bits being operated on this time in a morning is enough to make the cream in your coffee curdle! Just a wee note from a former Bubble head to a Scumbag Contractor hoping you are well and your bits are all in order, present and accounted for. Be blessed.
Rev. Robert - reasonably satiesfied of Kent.
P.S. what do you get when you cross a Mafia Don with a Post-modern? "Someone who makes you an offer you can't understand..."
@tgnonsense
No two transsexuals are identical. I really highly doubt most TS separatists would try to argue that I am the exact same (an inclusive activist).
While both them and myself identify as women another part of our self-identifications show we are not the same. They self-identify as WBT/HBS/whatever the angry-at-the-world acronym of the day is. I identify as trans/transwoman/transsexual/transgender/even genderqueer in some sense of the word.
Is the qualifier surgery alone? Why? (BTW, I am sure the WBT I unfortunately know who has not had surgery would take exception to you calling her anything other than female).
Oh, and calling any population "aberrations" is not a good idea. As well as the fact that your argument can be easily defeated since I can think of several people I know who are both IS and TS. Oh right, they do not exist.
In 2001 the study quoted reports 740 MTF GRS transitions on US residents.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004997.html reports in 2000 the USA population was 281,421,906. Figure about 25% of this, consisted of adult males. I'll round down and go with 70,000,000 individuals as potential GRS candidates. (70,000,000 - 740)/70,000,000 = 0.99998942857. This is rounded down slightly. I'll use "X" to represent this number.
For simplicity sake figure most GRSs take place between age 20 and 60. The percentage of males in the USA who will never have GRS is X^40. I.E. multiply the number by itself 40 times. The result is 0.99957723 (rounded).
1/(1 - 0.99957723) = 2365. Over the course of a lifetime a male born individual will have a one out of 2365 odds of having GRS.
OK, Zoe, take it from here - can you use my calculations to make an estimate of the prevalence of post-GRS in the USA?
Nerissa Belcher
Pre-GRS in Atlanta, GA
Nerissa - no good ones.
We'll try a few ways.
1. Assume GRS happens 1/3 of the way through one's lifespan, on average.
So 2/3 of the time trans women are post-ops.
Take 46xy pop of US - 150 million or so - 2/3 of that - 100 million - say 1 in 2500 have GRS - get 40,000.
2. Say GRS started in 1979, has been at the same rate since. 30 years x 740/yr = 22,000 or so. Of course some post-ops will have died, but some had surgery in the early 70's, so that is a reasonable approximation.
Basically, I'd say somewhere between 20,000 to 50,000. For Trans men, 10,000 or so.
Note that you should add those with 5ARD or 17BHDD - 1 in 40-50,000? so add another 3-5,000 there.
To do a more accurate analysis, you'd need to incorporate Demographic profiles etc, but the uncertainties make the effort not worth while.
It would be easier to just count them.
My best guess is that in the USA, there are 35,000 women who used to look male, and 15,000 men who used to look female. 50,000 all told, of whom about 1 in 10 (all males) changed naturally.
The number of natural MtoF transitions is lost in the noise. 0 is a good approximation, in this context.
"I identify as trans/transwoman/transsexual/transgender/even genderqueer in some sense of the word.
Is the qualifier surgery alone? Why?"
The qualifier is simply being female, not trans/transwoman/transsexual/transgender/genderqueer or anything else. If you, Kara, want to reduce yourself to something less than and other than "just female" and then live your "special life" as a trans something then knock yourself out, but don't even try to put classic transsexuals in that group. Why is surgery the qualifier (and it is), because a female doesn't have a penis. Classic transsexuals understand this and by definition it's what drives them to GRS.
"Oh, and calling any population "aberrations" is not a good idea. As well as the fact that your argument can be easily defeated since I can think of several people I know who are both IS and TS. Oh right, they do not exist."
I'm regret you don't appreciate the use of the term aberration, nonetheless, but that is exactly the word that applies. Further more, if you can't accept that most intersex are not gender dysphoric, then continue living your life with your head in the sand. I never said that there were intersex individuals who were not gender dysphoric, but they are indeed the exception rather than the rule. Most who are intersex are not even aware of it. Even stranger, there is not even a consensus on exactly what intersex is or all of what constitutes it.
On a different note, your disdain for us "separatists" as you infer we are is yet another example of the "wannabe" attitude of the transgender. One can't separate from something they never were a part of and transsexuality was never some transsexuals voted on but the colonization of our identity and legitimacy by the homosexual movement. It is not "us" who want to be you, but "you" who claim us. It doesn't sail...never has and never will and more and more of us are speaking out to the transgender "other-thans-less-thans" who claim us and calling a spade a spade.
You and other can go off and play dress up...convince yourself that a GRS for a female is simply a mastectomy...that a female can have her breasts removed, get pregnant, and then call herself a "pregnant man"...tell yourself that genitals don't define sex and gender, when no one but the transgender and a very, VERY few of the GLB differentiate between the two...believe the statistics regarding TS murders and then don't question why there were not 120 TS murders in the US last year if they are correct. Run yourself through as many intellectual cycles as you like, but no one is buying it except the transgender construct you are so proud to belong to. Classic transsexuality - REAL TRANSSEXUALS - want no part of that clap trap. Historically, all we want and all the vast majority do is have our surgery and then disappear into the mainstream. But we have been awakened...don't like what we see...and will not let this association continue without speaking up quite loud in our defense. If the transgender want us to be quiet, then they should go do their thing and leave real transsexuals out of it.
There is no separatism here. Separatism assumes a natural ownership of transsexual women by the transgender machine. As in property. If someone is fighting for inclusion of all transsexual-born people in a political construct, they are committing an act of political violence. Is that how you respect identity?
I never understood this thing where who you are is just a matter of how you "identify". I may identify as an astronaut but that doesn't make me one, right? I suppose that transgender fanatics they think I am some kind of fake woman like them. But that's their look out, not mine.
You'd think that they'd listen to their own dogma: "All I have to do to be a woman is say I am". Now why do they take that position and at the same time tell someone like me I can't just be a woman without a qualifier? I don't need no stinking qualifier.
The sooner people in transgenderland understand why, the sooner their lives take a turn for the better.
@tgnonsense
Combining an ad hominem attack with passive aggresivism and a side of superiority! Kudos, you just scored the trifecta! :)
So, are you saying the qualifier is identity (being one gender or the other) or is it surgery (which other posts here have implied if not taken as assumed)?
FYI, sex != gender. How long has everyone been telling that to the cis folks in trans 101? Maybe we need to preech it to other trans people first.
BTW, can you define 'wannabe transsexual' for me? Also, how do you qualify someone as being in that group? I do not think you will find a lot of people that want to be seperatists that are not already there.
To tie that all together: I have said absolutely nothing about my medical history here. Which category do I belong to? Yes, there will be a pop quiz depending on your answer.
@ariablue
The last I checked, seperatism means to be seperate. By dissasociating yourself from another group you are, by definition, a seperatist.
Separatism implies voluntary membership in a group at one time. The transgender political party decided on its own to steal the legitimacy of real transsexuals by claiming we are all the same. Telling liars to shut up and shove off is not "separatism". They had no right to create the false link in the first place; that was identity theft.
Charges of "separatism" are pure propaganda. i.e. BS
Maybe I need to copy/paste the definition of separate. Note that the only thing that counts is saying you are NOT part of something.
Sep⋅a⋅rate [v. sep-uh-reyt; adj., n. sep-er-it] , -rat⋅ed, -rat⋅ing, adjective, noun
–verb (used with object)
1. to keep apart or divide, as by an intervening barrier or space: to separate two fields by a fence.
2. to put, bring, or force apart; part: to separate two fighting boys.
3. to set apart; disconnect; dissociate: to separate church and state.
4. to remove or sever from association, service, etc., esp. legally or formally: He was separated from the army right after V-E Day.
5. to sort, part, divide, or disperse (an assemblage, mass, compound, etc.), as into individual units, components, or elements.
6. to take by parting or dividing; extract (usually fol. by from or out): to separate metal from ore.
7. Mathematics. to write (the variables of a differential equation) in a form in which the differentials of the independent and dependent variables are, respectively, functions of these variables alone: We can separate the variables to solve the equation. Compare separation of variables.
–verb (used without object)
8. to part company; withdraw from personal association (often fol. by from): to separate from a church.
9. (of a married pair) to stop living together but without getting a divorce.
10. to draw or come apart; become divided, disconnected, or detached.
11. to become parted from a mass or compound: Cream separates from milk.
12. to take or go in different directions: We have to separate at the crossroad.
–adjective
13. detached, disconnected, or disjoined.
14. unconnected; distinct; unique: two separate questions.
15. being or standing apart; distant or dispersed: two separate houses; The desert has widely separate oases.
16. existing or maintained independently: separate organizations.
17. individual or particular: each separate item.
18. not shared; individual or private: separate checks; separate rooms.
19. (sometimes initial capital letter) noting or pertaining to a church or other organization no longer associated with the original or parent organization.
–noun
20. Usually, separates. women's outer garments that may be worn in combination with a variety of others to make different ensembles, as matching and contrasting blouses, skirts, and sweaters.
21. offprint (def. 1).
22. a bibliographical unit, as an article, chapter, or other portion of a larger work, printed from the same type but issued separately, sometimes with additional pages.
Kara, do you actually even try? Geeeez....What is it about this can't you grasp? Both ariablue and I have both expressed it on a level even an adolescent could understand: one can't separate from something they were never a part of in the first place. Because the homosexual lobby says transsexuality is a part of their club doesn't mean we are.
You can not, and WILL NOT because we WILL NOT let you and your transgender-less-than-women-other-than-women-sometimes-women-could-be-women-would-be-SOMETHING gender freaks, include us in something we never wanted a part of, don't belong in, do not support, and for many of us, are beginning to actively oppose politically. You WILL NOT appropriate our dignity, integrity, and legitimacy...EVER! Any questions?
I will say this here and now, though it won't make a bit of difference to some people.
The political climate that allowed the idea of transgender to flourish no longer exists. This isn't a turn to the right, this is a fundamental shift in American politics towards pragmatism and getting things done. Our heads are not in the clouds anymore as they were the last 20 years. And the old left-right paradigm of the last 40 years no longer applies; that was an artifact of the fight between two particular generations, and one of the generations is no longer in the political picture.
The culture wars are over. Much like cold war relics who refused to change with the times, the culture warriors continue to spit venom, though they are quickly losing steam. Their time is over, and the signs are everywhere.
If you have the time, watch some of these health care town meetings. The tone is unlike anything I have seen in politics. I just watched an exchange between the crowd and the senator who was speaking. The senator asked why the people were shouting, and the crowd said "We don't trust you". This is going on all over the country. People don't care about useless ideology, they want solutions.
I believe that within a few years not only will the transgender lobby, existing as a branch of the GLBT, will fall silent and cease to exist in any meaningful form. People who are so strident in their beliefs today will distance themselves from them in times to come. They will find a new way to cope with their lives.
And that brings me to the central problem I have with transgender with regard to actual transsexual people. It is a bright, shining lie that keeps us from becoming who we were meant to be. It is a crutch that none of us need. Personal truth is something to be explored and cherished, it is not something to hide from through labels like transgender. All of us deserve better.
@tgnonsense
Actually, it is your side that is not even trying. You are running in circles and all I had to do was copy/paste a dictionary definition of separate.
If an entity defines itself as not being/not including/different than another group that meets the definition of separate. It does not matter who had the original claim to being part of the group.
I have asked concrete, precise questions to clarify your stance on things and all you have can do is ignore the questions and spout party line rhetoric. Word of advice: best not to join a debating society.
@ariablueoh
Wow, quoting someone yelling at the town halls. Who everyone admits are planted shills using false arguments ("no govt run health care, no way. Just do not touch my medicare"). Just when I thought your side could not twist logic any more .... :)
The stance is clear, you just refuse to understand it. Ideology is a poor substitute for thought.
@tgnonsense et al.
It always cracks me up that you say that "true transsexuals" want to transition, have surgical correction, and then go on to live normal lives. And yet some of you, at least, never shut up. Now, of course it's your right not to shut up. But it's totally incongruous with your stated aim. And that's funny.
You've transitioned. You're a woman (or man, depending). You're not transsexual any more. That's history. How can the "transgender lobby" have any effect on you? Do you allow it to? That would be rather foolish. I thought you were living normal lives! Why should you care what this so-called lobby does?
And @ariablue, still cracking me up. "Ideology is a poor substitute for thought." No kidding! It's interesting how we seem not to be able to see ourselves as others see us, eh? Unless we've achieved some non-ideological clarity, of course.
Zoe, I apologize for going along with the town-hall shouters derailing a discussion of what you posted about.
Thanks for the apology, especially since it wasn't needed.
Things have remained polite, albeit EXTREMELY heated. People here have passionate beliefs, and it is to everyone's credit that, while the debate has been heated, it has remained (just) within the bounds of courtesy.
When I feel strongly about a subject, and write a comment, I try to step back and ask myself "Is this comment useful to a lurker - is it informative on its own - or am I just arguing?".
I don't always though, so can't condemn anyone else for not doing it without being a hypocrite. I try, that's all.
OK, now onto the subject at hand. I can quite understand the reason why some women are upset that pre-ops and post-ops have been lumped in with men.
That's what the argument is really about.
They see no-ops as men in dresses, making no distinction between the fetishists, and those who don't see the need to change their bodies.
Because I straddle the TS/IS divide, and spend about as much time on each, I see things in a different way.
I know women who are Womyn Born Womyn, always had a female birth certificate, never been labelled male, never had to live a lie... who are FAR more well endowed than I ever was, because they are Intersexed with CAH. And they are happy with their bodies, and so are their husbands - albeit they have to be a little broadminded to marry a woman who is anatomically mildly unusual.
I am not going to label a person with 46xx chromosomes, has periods, brought up as female etc etc as a man simply because her external genitalia is a bit non-standard. Neither am I going to arrogantly assert that they should want to change their bodies.
Of course some women in this situation desperately seek surgery to make their bodies align with what their brain insists should be down there.
Sound familiar? Why these women are almost like...yes... trans women, aren't they? To state the obvious.
All women. Most anatomically normal. Some anatomically anomalous, but OK with it. Others anatomically anomalous, and wanting to get that situation fixed absolutely ASAP because it's horrible.
Hi Robert!
Yes, I can see that for a guy, any talk about removal of anyone's manhood would be upsetting, to say the least.
FWIW I feel the same about mastectomy. Odd, since before my change, I could never see why some women got so upset by it. If a guy loves, truly loves, a girl, what does it matter? It's an annoyance, an inconvenience, but nothing more, and she's just as attractive after as before. Deserving a little more kindness, perhaps. So why all the fuss?
And now I feel the same way as those other women did. The thought makes me want to curl up in a corner in a gibbering heap.
Hugs and Best wishes,
Zoe
Sure, let's hear some more "clarity" from people like Veronique and Kara. Here's the point, for those who still don't get it.
Transgender is not the null hypothesis. It is a made-up political category for people who lack the ability to face the truth.
Neither I nor the growing number of women who are dissatisfied with non-women speaking for us will stipulate that transgender is the default. We do not "separate" from a fantasy dreamed up by men in dresses. It is incumbent upon the transgender to prove their case and sell it to transsexual people. It is not for a handful of fringe activists to force a political identity on people who do not want it.
It doesn't surprise me that people who believe in transgender fantasies don't understand what the town halls represent. I'm not going to bother to explain it, because frankly ideologues (like those who believe transgender nonsense) on the so-called left and right will never let go of their delusions. There is going to be change, and transgender is going away.
Is there anything left to clear up? Are you still confused? I'm about done trying to explain it. What you seem to be doing is laying out the argument from a position of privilege and expecting your enemy to accept your premise, and play by your rules.
And Veronique, if I have to point out how the idiotic transgender BS affects the post-transitioned to you, there isn't much of a discussion going on is there?
@ariablue:
"And Veronique, if I have to point out how the idiotic transgender BS affects the post-transitioned to you, there isn't much of a discussion going on is there?"
But see, you do. If you're post-transitioned, fully a woman, nothing but a woman, then none of this should matter to you. You're blended in. You're not trans-anything. Why should you care what someone else says about a category of people that doesn't even include you any more? How can it possibly affect you, a woman just like any other woman?
"But see, you do. If you're post-transitioned, fully a woman, nothing but a woman, then none of this should matter to you."
Really? You don't see why? Really. This is one of those things that should be self-explanatory.
Well I'm done trying to explain the non-transgender point of view for today. What would really be interesting is hearing the pro-transgender side, their arguments in favor of forcing a label on people who don't want it.
Let's hear why it's ok to push your agenda on other people and use them for your own ends.
@ariablue: I really don't see why. I don't think there's much in the world that's actually self-explanatory. People should explain what they mean. That's how we achieve clarity and understanding, or at least know why we don't achieve it.
I don't force labels on anyone, and no one forces labels on me. Someone might say that I'm this or that, but it really doesn't matter. No one can use me. I know who and what I am, and I'm no one's victim.
One thing I am, just so you know (and don't make assumptions -- I've seen too much of that) is a woman fully transitioned except for one more step, which will happen a few months from now. Not that anyone has a right to know about my southern zone, but some seem rather obsessed with such things. Even governments can sometimes not be dogmatic: I have an F on my driver's licence.
@ariablue
"It doesn't surprise me that people who believe in transgender fantasies don't understand what the town halls represent."
LOL!!!!! I assume you mean the people yelling and screaming while people are trying to have a calm discussion of the issues? Even the republicans will tell you those people are paid to do that and not 'grassroots'. If you want to align yourself with them though ...
"Well I'm done trying to explain the non-transgender point of view for today."
That was yesterday and it is a new day now. Can someone please answer me one thing key to that statement? I have asked it multiple times but have yet to receive a clear reply. Is there one?
Here is the question:
What is the deciding factor as to if someone is a transsexual? Going to have surgery? Had surgery in the past? Identifies as a transsexual? Identifies as female (or male if FTM)?
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