Question regarding transsexuals

Hey,

Transsexuals (or trangendered folk) are people whom do feel as if they've been born in the wrong body.. Although that feeling does not have to Constantly be there.
As for being tansgendered there are times where one might just happen to forget that their body is one thing while their mind is another. Transsexuals can be gay, straight, lesbian, pan or asexual. Honestly, what they prefer as a partner has no relation to their own identity when it comes to their body.

Your message wasn't insulting, and it's always good to try learning new things. I know about transgendered people (obviously ^.^) but even I don't really know Much about transsexuals past the basics.

 

A transsexual can be born male or female and there are lesbian male-to-females and gay female-to-males.

 

Some people say transgender for transition and say transsexual for people who have gone through surgeries... if I remember right... but they're more or less the same thing. Though what a person says depends on their own views and such. For example, I personally don't like the term transsexual because being trans is not a sexual orientation like being gay. I don't mind if others want to use the term for themselves, but I will not be the happiest person if they refer to me as transsexual. I will always say that I am transgender.

Not everyone feels like they are 'trapped' in the wrong body. Some trans people don't feel dysphoria and don't want to transition (take hormones or have surgeries), whereas others may feel that those are needed. I need/want them, but I don't feel trapped, I just feel like my body needs a bit of fixing. But 'trapped' is generally a good way of describing it.

If they're transgender, then 'honey, I'm really a guy' is very misleading. A man who dresses like a woman but is still a guy is a drag queen, not a trans person. 'Honey, I was assigned male at birth' would probably be a more accurate way of saying it, but that doesn't sound as as dramatic for a show like Jerry Springer.

 

I think that those types of shows have a tendency to further the confusion on the issue because their goal is usually not to inform the audience of a new idea, but rather to coax entertainment out of a stressful situation in someone's life.
The "Honey I'm really a guy" phrase is pretty inaccurate. Honestly, there are a lot of vague words that transgender people have to learn to make specific, themselves, so that they can explain to the world how they feel. Guy is one. Guy suggests a gender, whereas male or assigned male at birth or genetically male all point at the sex of a person.
So saying "I'm a guy" would suggest that they are assigned female at birth, but are actually a man.
These words don't really make much sense in a transgender world, but many people don't really know the difference.

The ACCURATE statement, as said above, would be "I was assigned male at birth," or "I am genetically male."

With all that being said, there is a lot of misinformation about transgender people. For instance, not everyone feels "trapped in the wrong body." There are many transgender people who feel perfectly fine in their body but rather feel trapped in the wrong social role, IE: Amab who never changes her body, but asks people to call them her, socializes as a woman, and wears woman's clothing.
But, just as he said above: Yeah, generally many people can feel trapped in the wrong body, or rather, in my case, that my body is fine, but that I had the wrong puberty.

This really all just leads one back to the concept, though, that transgender people are not transgender because of their body, but really that we are trans because we do not fit in the GENDER that was assigned to us by society.

So, if a person fully transitions to be a woman but was assigned male at birth and was born with the (GD) Y chromosome, I really don't see the issue socially. The way I see it, the REAL headline should simply read "Honey, I grew up being treated by society as a man, and unfortunately I can't have children."

And yeah, I have actually been thinking about "transsexual" as a term a LOT lately. It really bugs me too. We have to call people who are technically transsexual "trans-attracted" because the word has been used to describe people who are really just fully transitioned. I don't, personally, feel like there is really any societal difference between a fully transitioned person and a cis person. If anything it's just a medical difference and they should, except for personal identity functions, not really need a term to distinguish them from other people. That's not to say that they are the same as cis men and women because they have gone through a LOT and deserve to have a title that they can hold close to their heart, but, rather, I don't fully understand society's need to label them something like "a guy" for the sake of an offensive TV show that depends on our society's predisposition to judge transgender or transsexual people harshly for going through the hell that we do just for the sake of furthering that ignorance and making it ok to point hurt us.


BUT!!!!! With that being said they really don't know any better, and if it made you come to ask us about it then, in all reality, I'm glad the issue got brought up. I'm so glad you came to ask questions and you have no reason to be afraid of being offensive as long as you're trying. The only people who should feel bad are those who fully understand and seek to invalidate us just because they're, well, cruel TV shows with an agenda that has nothing to do with empowering people.

*thinking* Deeeeep breaths, Caelyn. It's just Jerry Springer. Calm the hell dowwnnn.

Haha. <3
YOU, though, made my day!!

 

I think drag is more of a performance thing. A female, no matter the sexual orientation, who feels comfortable in male clothing, doesn't necessarily make her a drag king. Drag kings, like drag queens, dress up as the opposite gender usually for show.

Drag queen is not an insult if you use it in the correct context. For example:

Tim likes to perform drag shows as his nighttime job. He is a drag queen.

This would be using it in the insult context:

incorrect: Jessica is a drag queen, because he likes to dress up in women's clothing.

correct: Jessica is not a drag queen. She is a transwoman. She identifies as a woman, therefore, not making her a drag queen.

 

Yeah, sex is completely different. Sex is genetic and physical. Gender is essentially a role.

Some transgenders don't feel physical dysphoria, which is dysphoria about their bodies. For instance I have a really hard time coming to terms with my facial hair and flat chest. But then there are people who don't have social dysphoria, which is that they don't really mind being called pronouns that are incongruent with their gender, etc.

Dysphoria is, generally speaking, pivotal thing in transgenderism. It just depends on WHERE it lies. With that being said, though, some people just feel more closely linked to a particular gender, just as I may be IN the navy, but I don't FEEL like a sailor. I'm not unhappy with being CALLED a sailor because it's technically true, but I have a tendency to see myself as outside the military community. I feel most like a civilian. It's sorta the same thing.

As for sexuality, ,because that IS a different thing altogether, one can usually tell when they have an urge to be sexual with somebody who is the same gender or sex as themselves. I found out I was pansexual because I realized that I have both a romantic and sexual interest in people that is independent of their gender. When I form an emotional bond with someone I can have interest in them. It's that simple. I'm never turned OFF my someone because of their gender or sex. Their personality or demeanor or, admittedly, their body may be what turns me off. So.

Usually people don't notice anything strange until they can't figure out why they're uncomfortable, but others are just in-tune with their feelings enough to know that they're different without eing unhappy about it. Does that sum it up?

Sexual orientation and gender are completely different realms. They are different journeys and they are mutually exclusive.

---------- Post added 22nd Dec 2015 at 11:41 AM ----------

To answer the gender vs sexual orientation thing, I found out I was attracted to men when I was younger. I thought I was gay for a while because I thought that I was a man. I had absolutely no problem with feeling attracted to men or women. That was one journey. It was independent of my gender identity (I won't get into the subconscious gender issues going on with me, personally, during that time), but now that I realize I am a woman it would change my title if I was only attracted to men, but it wouldn't fundamentally change who I am. It would simply give me a different title.

That's the BIGGEST source of confusion with most people, I think. People have a hard time understanding that BEING someone is not always obvious.
Not everyone KNOWS they are homosexual or transgender. Their gender/orientation titles may change all throughout their life. And that's totally fine. It's a bit like thinking when animals are socialized by other animals. A dog raised by cats will think it's a cat. It doesn't just BECOME a dog one day all of a sudden when it is introduced to other dogs. What happens is that it realizes it was a dog all along. So, basically, it stops thinking "I'm a cat" and starts thinking "I'm a dog" in a similar manner to how many people just change their labels.

 

"Transgenders" is a term to avoid, keep that in mind. Transgender is an adjective, not a noun. It should be transgender people. A good amount of trans people are ok with transsexual but I'm personally not. The meaning of transgender is transsexual differ a bit. Transgender means anyone whose gender identity does not 100% align with the one they were assigned at birth. Transsexual means a transgender person that undergoes medical transition.

I never understood the whole "trapped in the wrong body" thing.i have dysphoria but I would never describe myself like that.

I've heard some debate over the term "drag queen." They suggested to use the term "drag artist" instead. Use that if you want to be on the safe side.

In terms of the "born a girl/boy", it's cissexist because it creates the idea that a trans person somehow changed their gender, which is not something that had ever happened. A trans person is born as the gender they identify as. They ARE the gender they identify as.

Sexual orientation is a separate thing, however, what their orientation is called depends on their gender identity. For example, a trans woman (a woman that is assigned male at birth) that is attracted to men would be straight, because she is a woman attracted to men.

---------- Post added 22nd Dec 2015 at 11:59 AM ----------

There's the idea that a trans person has to get all forms of medical transition possible to be accepted. That's discriminatory as it puts trans people in a position where they somehow have to "prove" their gender. If your wife was a trans woman she wouldn't be born a man, she in her entire existence would have always been female.

Cross-dresser could be problematic, I'm not completely certain. Part of the problem is that it implies that clothes have a gender. Also, it's generally a term with negative connotations. You could always describe someone as gender non-conforming, which means what it's called, they don't conform to society's expectations of gender.

 

Um. Yeah, drag is a totally different culture I'm not a part of. I wouldn't be able to tell you what they prefer.

And yes, I was born a girl. I was TREATED like a man my whole life and I still am. I allowed people to give me a gender that wasn't mine for a LONG time, but, yes, be careful about saying someone was BORN something other than the gender that they are.

And as for calling someone a cross-dresser you have to understand that I'm a WOMAN. I wear female clothing. I have a y-chromosome and a body that LOOKS like a man's. Many people would call me a man and many would agree with them. I'm not. I'm a woman and I was born as a woman, even though I have a y chromosome and I have "fathered" children doesn't mean that I'm a man. SO when I wear women's clothing I'm not cross-dressing. I'm just dressing. I'm wearing normal clothes that make me look like a girl. Which I am... So...
Basically a cross-dresser would be a woman (trans or not) who wears clothes designed for a man, or a man (again, they can have ANY chromosomes they want, as long as their GENDER is male) who wears clothing designed for a woman.
So, for instance, my friend from highschool was assigned female at birth, but he is transgender. He is a boy with "female" parts (don't get me started on that one). When he wears a dress he is crossdressing, even though he was raised wearing dresses his whole life.

It might help to read the "Assigned Male" comics online. They're about a trans girl in middle school. I quite like them.

 

That is exactly how I think about it.

 

I was, again, born a girl. But, for the sake of your argument, yes I was born with a penis and I was assigned "male" when I was born, and I even lived as a man for most of my life.
I have always been attracted to both men and women and at one point I considered the idea that I might ONLY be attracted to men. At that moment in time I didn't really have any concept of being a woman. I felt like me. And the "me" that I thought I was was a man so I called myself gay. It's like I could only see the person others thought I was, and I never allowed myself to be transgender (which is a pretty common defense mechanism).

With that being said, I HAVE always thought "straight" was a term that would mean I was attracted to men, and "gay" would mean I was attracted to women, but that was just a deep down feeling in my subconscious. So, basically? It's kinda like being brainwashed, haha! But yes, to answer your question, if I was in a relationship with a man I would feel like a normal heterosexual woman in that relationship. I'm NOT hetero OR homosexual, though, so I always feel the same; I am bi/pan.

 

Haha, no that's fine. You misunderstand. I am biologically male. I suppose I was being confusing, sorry.

 

No apology needed; you understood the first time.

And as for MOST things, it's usually best to understand what people want to be called before assuming.