FOX News: Transgender girl drops class after 200 protest for and against her.

originally posted by: Annee

originally posted by: poncho1982

originally posted by: Annee

originally posted by: poncho1982
At 12, even if she wanted it, it's too young. Way too young.

Hormones blockers are given pre-puberty to stop the physical changes.

This gives the child additional years to mature and make decisions.

Of course they need to be given at 12. Maybe even younger.

If they are TRULY trans, then even after puberty, they will feel the same. Before that, it's just the absence of hormones.

There are PLENTY of trans people who transitioned after puberty. Even well into adulthood.

I don't agree with you at all.

Have you not read the vast info and facts of what a m/f has to go through transitioning after puberty?

You seem to choose to believe what you choose to believe ---- rather then reading factual info provided.

I guess I should spell it out in graphic yet generalized terms from what I've gathered on the subject:

*Transitioning before male puberty*

physical:

No facial hair
No chest hair
female voice
female neck (no adams apple)
female hair line
facial development in line with female norms
breast development in line with female norms
bone growth in line with female norms
female curves
skin remains soft

psychological:
knowledge that they never had a man's body

*Transitioning after male puberty*


physical:

mustache and beard (expensive and painful permanent removal through laser or electrolysis)

chest hair and perhaps other body hair in male patterns/thickness (expensive and painful permanent removal through laser or electrolysis)

male voice (can be never be what it was before but can sometimes be "trained" to sound more female but just as often cannot).

adam's apple (can be removed through surgery)

male hairline pattern (can be corrected through hair transplants).

male facial structure (can be corrected through expensive cosmetic surgery).

breast development often in line with social norms but sometimes needing extra help through implants.

male bone growth (can not be reversed)

male body morphology (cannot fully be reversed but can be feminized to some degree)

male skin texture (can soften to being feminine after hormone therapy).



psychological:

knowledge that they once had a man's body


In the latter case of someone transitioning after male puberty, she will have to work more and spend to get what I got by simply preventing my body from developing as a male in the first place. An ounce of prevention REALLY IS worth a pound of cure. (Actually

These are things which may effect the transgender woman's social acceptance as a woman if not dealt with.


Keep in mind this a a gross generalization but mostly accurate. There are outliers like Ekron but they are rare.

originally posted by: EKron
Honestly, the "transgender experience" can only truly be understood by those that have lived it. Some things are on a level impossible to access verbally to even explain to someone else. When we say this is something part of our soul or whatever spark of spirit exists at the center of our being, it still fails to convey the depth and complexity of it all. I lack the language that can make another fully comprehend. Maybe a Vulcan mind meld would do it?

This is what I've found myself saying a lot but some see it as sidestepping the question.

The vulcan mind meld is something which would be a wonderful thing to have in reality in situations likes this.

I can imagine doing it with some of those highly critical of us and them going "OOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHH WOW NOW I GET IT!!! I'M SO SORRY I HAD Noooooooo IDEA!"

originally posted by: WhiteHat
So you see, this is the big difference in our perception, and neither one of us can really grasp the other.

My body is not my genitals only, but is defined by genitals. Every cell in my body, from inside out feels like in accord with this.

I realize you were replying to Ekron but I can say that this actually is a big reason why those of us who have surgery do. Because nothing is in accord with male genitalia.

For some who fall under the transgender umbrella just living as as a woman without surgery is fine for them but for those of us who are like hyperaware of our difference….and know and yearn to be…us.

Words like complete, harmony, balance, full, whole are often used to describe what we seek and more often receive following successful surgery so there is something to what you're saying about the body be an important part of not only how we are perceived but how we feel the world.

This of us for whom surgery is imperative just aren't in balance with having male genitals physically nor do most of us ever get comfortable having them mentally. It's not simply a disassociation, but a fundamental "knowing" or yearning to be completely in harmony or at the very least much closer to harmony. I know, very unscientific but there's no other way to describe it except in terms you just used.

My body is my portal to the outside world and everything that gets in gets as an woman's experience.The way I move, or I talk, the way I perceive every sensory things, the way I think, everything. But it makes sense that you cannot feel that harmony with your own body if inside you feel different. And it makes sense for me to not understand how can you feel different from your own body.

One of the happiest moments in my *entire* life was after I began to feel this after surgery and know that no matter what happened from now on, no one would ever be able to take away that sense of peace and perception and loving myself from within to without. To be one with what I always knew I was. It is an unspeakable comfort and relief and heightened perception and awareness of self and how self interfaces with the world. And now i'm crying again, lol, at least its out of happiness this time.

While prior, the way I moved, talked and felt things through touch, smell, sight was female there was always like this dissonance which until it was corrected was like experiencing the world in the same way that someone might look through glasses which are fogged up or hear underneath shallow water.

The whole world just became more vivid, vibrant and I felt part of it as an extension of it and it a part of me. I was suddenly more connected to the world. And felt more connected to other women in my family like my sisters, grandmother and mom, though we had always been close it just felt different? idk.

If I close my eyes and imagine my self in heaven, for example, I see my self as a woman. I dream of myself as a woman. There is no aspect of my physical, mental or spiritual life that it comes in other form than a woman. It is my identity and it comes from the body I was born with; how could I be something else? Never knew nothing else but this female body.

I've never dreamed of my self as anything other than a woman. In mediation, dreams, daydreaming, nightmares. The "inner voice" inside me is a woman's voice and always has been. However I started out different than you. Still that experience is identical. Intriguing.

So maybe it doesn't come just from our bodies but somewhere else too?

First, my thanks to Jade and EKron for successfully rescuing this thread from the cesspit of hatred it had become for too long, and bringing it to a place of rational debate. I was actually contemplating quitting ATS again because of this thread. Both of you have really come through and done a stand up job in what I'd thought would be the impossible.

Now, there are some in here who think "waiting after puberty" and/or "trying to tough it out" is somehow "better." Or that there's some alleged transifying conspiracy to influence people to being trans. No. So wrong. So very, very wrong.

Let me copy a long, autobiographical email that I've sent to EKron and Jade to demonstrate what can happen to a mind who tries to fit into the gender society assigned it:

Once upon a time, I was born as a c-section baby to a single mother in Tacoma. Apparently I also didn't kick much in the womb and didn't move much either, satisfied with sitting on her cervix. Nevertheless, I was one of the most well-behaved, quiet, soft-spoken male toddlers ever. I also could cry very easily if something went on. I was always a clean freak too, even changing shirts if it got a spot on it. Sufficed to say, I sounded very effeminate so far, didn't I?

There was even a day when I attempted to "steal" my mother's shoes by tromping them all into my room. I think I was like 2 or 3. Early warning, maybe?

Years passed and my gentle demeanor continued. When school started for me, I was judged to be "immature" and thrown into pre-K before going into Kindergarten. This was at age 5. That's when the distress started to begin. I noticed that girls looked pretty in their dresses and tights and began imagining myself in their clothes. But social indoctrination had repeated that boys wear pants and girls wore dresses, even though sometimes girls also occasionally wore pants as well (which didn't seem fair to me). Nevertheless, because of these social lessons, I worked to suppress my feelings as best I could. Society said I was a boy, so I should act like one. Despite that it was frequently remarked that I walked like a girl.

(Nevertheless, I had a rather difficult transition from sitting on the pot to pee to standing.)

I was made fun a lot at school, bullied by almost everyone. I cried a lot because of it. While learning to read, I once read a story about a little witch. Near the end she declared that she'd turn boys into girls and turn girls into boys. I fantasized about meeting that witch. Nevertheless, I had to maintain a "macho" image for the world as that was what it apparently expected so when I was a vampire one Halloween, I refused makeup. Couldn't risk looking like I enjoyed it and raising suspicion.

Hard to believe all of these complex thoughts were going through my head at this very young age, huh? My tests kept showing that I was brilliant, though. So go figure. I learned to read better than most others in my class; where others would struggle on words, I'd breeze through 'em and even emote dialogue.

Still, taunting at school continued as I passed up through the grades. Eventually I began to fight back since the authority figures would sit back and let it happen. That's when Hell ultimately began and I became the problem child. The school started to try psychoanalyzing me and coming up with nothing. I was on record wishing I had never been born, or wishing I was dead. This was at age 7 or 8. Once I had liked school, now I hated it. I stopped being neat, began crawling into an anti-social hole with only a few friends. Had frequent nightmares, and occasionally the lucky, pleasant dream of being dressed as a girl. Nevertheless, sleep was difficult and I'd fall asleep frequently in class. Was misdiagnosed with ADD, stuck in a remedial class, and even suspended for a couple months. They would even lock me in a room during my outbursts.

The torture continued. Now the teachers were picking on me as much as the kids, albeit in different "more professional" ways. I hated life. Hated the world. One of my only friends was a girl named Jennifer Zach and I had wound up playing pretend games with her the most. Sports never interested me and I hated gym class the most. My mother had also filled my head with strange, confusing ideas like that transvestites were gay men trying to trick straight guys. This made me nervous because of what I was burying under a lot of boyish bravado, and so I refused to comment on such statements. I thought I liked girls, not boys. So I couldn't have these feelings and desires to look like a pretty girl.

One day another warning signal went off. For a while, I was secretly pulling on my mother's pantyhose that I'd find hanging in the bathroom. One day she caught me. She simply brushed that off as a phase.

Eventually by 5th grade, I had ticked off the University Place School District enough that they expelled me entirely and tried to initiate a custody battle to make me a ward of the state. Nevertheless, my mother won, narrowly, revealing the very unprofessional way the school district had been treating me and eventually enrolling me. During this time, I was told by my mother that transsexuals were gay men trying to be "normal" and often "switched back" when they found that they "weren't any happier." Once I was warned that she kill me if I turned out gay. I was often flummoxed why she was telling me these things. Did she suspect something? I don't know. One time, out of nowhere, she asked me if I ever wished I was a girl. Nervously, I tried my best to avoid the question. It was true that despite my attempts to be boyish, a lot of my behavioral mannerisms were very feminine. Maybe she did suspect something was going on. I may have the chance to find out in the coming years, but until then it's a mystery to me, especially considering what happened only months later:

At age 12, my mother was growing confident to letting me stay at home. Up to this point, I was having a lot of dreams about dressing or becoming a girl. Now it was the chance I'd been awaiting for too long. Every time she'd leave, I'd jet into her room, open her closet to the clothes she couldn't wear anymore, and go to town. It was exhilarating freedom. I hadn't been that happy in a long time. To look so feminine, so pretty, to be myself at last. I was even getting cocky enough to occasionally do it while she was in the apartment, using the bathroom as my cover.

One day I was caught, because she didn't go where I had thought she went. The moment I'd heard that front door unlock, in high heels I jetted toward the nearest hiding place, behind her bedroom door. In a dress, slip, opera length gloves, pantyhose, high heels, I looked up at her with the most sheepish expression ever. She wasn't thrilled and was threatening to expose me to my grandmother and shame me. Shame shame heaped with more shame. She'd even made snide comments for a while after the discovery.

We eventually moved back into Tacoma proper so I could go to the Tacoma School District. There was a close call where I was nearly discovered again, but I bull#ted a reason why she couldn't come into the bedroom. I needed to be more careful.

School wasn't much better. I was still the object of harassment, and new words like "fag" and "homo" were being thrown my way. My life was a self-built prison of solitude. I really had no one. I got into fights, other fights, more fights, and even some fights. Did I mention I got into fights?

(Cont.)

(Continued)

I'd also skip school a lot. Sleep was... well, sleep was a fickle thing. My grades were terrible. I no longer felt intelligent. I hated not only the world and everyone. I hated myself. I hated looking in that mirror, watching puberty destroy me. Suicide was a frequent, ongoing thought. My fantasies would alternate between either waking up as a woman or suddenly dying in my sleep. I was also caught again, and my mother was more furious than the last time. She said "I thought we were through with this. Are you gay? Is that what it is?" I had to explain that I liked girls. She said they wouldn't like me "dressed like this."

I became brutally rebellious. Resentful. Cold. Distant. AAAAANNNNGRRRRYYYY!!!!!! I stopped helping around the apartment, became completely indrawn. Refused to go to a lot of places unless there was something in it for me. Skipped school a lot. Drew a lot of transgendered cartoons that have all since been thrown away by my mother. Still occasionally snuck into her clothes, but was better about avoiding capture. Fury and sadness became my only two emotions. Finally we got our first computer and I became lost on the Internet, forever addicted, using it as my crutch. On AOL, there was a role playing community called Rhy'Din spread over numerous chat rooms. I became centered there. Eventually my characters would always go through some transgendered process of self-discovery. It became predictable like clockwork. Still, it was my only outlet, which made the years in-between without a functioning computer even more difficult. And I felt so alone, thought I was the only person in this state who was dealing with this, as the few rudimentary searches I did on crossdressing, transvestism, and transsexualism seemed to indicate that transgendered people were very, very, very rare. Every single one I found lived so far away from Tacoma. I felt isolated.

I saved a bunch a transgendered Web rings to my favorites. I'd look at the pictures, wishing, wishing, wishing I was one of them. My mother found them, of course, and for some bizarre reason clicks on only one link on one of the Web rings that takes her to a site about homosexuality. I don't know why it was on one of the Web rings I had favorited, nor did I recognize it, so her accusations had really made me feel terrible. She didn't understand at all. This wasn't a sexual attraction thing, this was a gender thing. And I didn't know how to make her understand it.

I had to enroll in the Fresh Start program at Tacoma Community College to get my diploma since my high school grades were terrible and I wasn't going to graduate on time. During that time, I was a burning inferno on the Internet and a depressed, closeted nutcase at home. Flamewars galore. Anger anger anger anger all the time. Oh, and looking for a job... what hell. Took forever. Rarely, if ever, had any call backs. Thus my present skepticism about "white privilege." It certainly wasn't working for me. Maybe people sensed something about me; I don't know. I tried for years. No luck. I wanted money to get out of that damn apartment with a mother who didn't understand that I was a woman on the inside. Eventually, I had met a neighbor who was a lesbian. She was a manager for a Burger King in Renton. Eventually she had an opening and gave me a job. I carpooled with her each day. Shared my secret. She understood. Still, the money wasn't enough and I couldn't save enough for anything. Furthermore, I occasionally clashed with coworkers, which my friend and neighbor was always there quickly to defuse.

But eventually she got fired over a bogus reason and I couldn't get up to Renton anymore without her.

Then another year of unemployment before I get the job as a dishwasher at Emerald Queen Casino. That job beat me down and spit me out. I clashed with coworkers a lot. Terrible, terrible place to work even if the pay was good and the benefits were exceptional. I still felt like I was treated like #. The changes they kept making to my schedule were also causing problems with the bus routes I relied on. Which led to an unpleasant encounter with two bus supervisors who acted like shrieking harpies and a cop who fancied himself part of the Gestapo. Eventually I quit my job following a third suspension for my behavior in the work place and refused to leave the apartment for a year.

An entire year.

I didn't want to be in this world anymore.

Eventually I started collecting disability payments from DSHS after a psych eval found that I was indeed a deeply troubled person. I was going to counseling. DSHS had me, in early 2011, apply for SSI. Kept getting rejected by SSI and I kept appealing. One day my counseling stuck me with a young bearded idiot who didn't understand my problems, hopes, wishes, or anything at all. Very confrontational and ultimately terrible at his job. It took me a while to consider counseling again, and my current counselor is wonderful. I have divulged my secret to her and she finds it unfortunate that I've had trouble with my mother over my transgendered nature, unable to be myself. And recently, a judge finally ruled in my favor for SSI and so I'm waiting for that. 4 years of back pay. Life had finally smiled upon me.

Then I met you guys on ATS after I saw Jade make her posts in one of the threads about Caitlyn Jenner.

Anyway, Jade has been coaching me. When the SSI backpay comes, I'm going to be ordering a lot of clothes, accessories, necessities. Then I'm going to go get my makeup professionally done, and once fully dressed, I'm going to confront my mother once and for all.

That confrontation came a little earlier than planned. My mother did not kill me. She has grudgingly accepted it, but she's dragging her feet on a few things so I still need to work on gradually educating her.

Simply put; waiting after puberty is not wise. In fact, it is hell, and I'd give up everything I have to have the experience Jade had.

What a lovely post, WhiteHat. Thank you

originally posted by: WhiteHat
My body is my portal to the outside world and everything that gets in gets as an woman's experience. The way I move, or I talk, the way I perceive every sensory things, the way I think, everything. If I close my eyes and imagine myself in heaven, for example, I see myself as a woman. I dream of myself as a woman. There is no aspect of my physical, mental or spiritual life that it comes in other form than a woman.

I rearranged things a bit but you have so succinctly summed up and captured almost exactly the feelings I had during my childhood, teens and adolescence which points out precisely why there was absolutely no way for me to continue my life in that physical form or being perceived by the world as something I was not and had never been. We are women emotionally, psychologically and psychically and have the same, dreams, hopes, fears, visions and aspirations.

That is the crux of our issue and for Jade and I at least, we have never filtered the world through the lens of men or through the male perspective in spite of being born with male bodies. What other reasons would we have endured the challenges we have faced to change our physical and social selves if not to bring them into harmony with every aspect of our soul, identity and very being. Our gender and sense of who we are has been immutable. With the womanly qualities you have expressed about yourself, you are approaching some understanding of what Gender Dysphoria really was like for people such as myself and Jade.

It is my identity and it comes from the body I was born with... And it makes sense for me to not understand how can you feel different from your own body.

It is because all of the physicallity and other factors that for you all adds up to being a women is culminated in and perceived and processed by the brain and the mind, spirit and will of the person you are. It is the mind's eye and our inner voices and their dialogs that makes us what we are and how we accept ourselves to be and how we perceive we are perceived by others.

What you attribute to your vagina, chemical interactions, hormones and whatnot are all filtered, processed, cataloged, stored, interpreted and understood between the ears and it is from here where the nature of our hearts and our essence and the spark that makes us human emanates. This is our common denominator even if our physical vessels were incongruent. We have and had no doubts about our own internal identities, spirituality and souls if you will, and what they were and what they were always meant be in spite of having to overcome some incomprehensible issues for reasons we don't understand nor does it even matter if we do. Some things genuinely defy explanation or don't need one - they just are.

But it makes sense that you cannot feel that harmony with your own body if inside you feel different.

And now you understand why it was imperative, a matter of life and death and absolutely fundamental to our existence and peace within that Jade and I changed our lives and physical selves to quell and remove this disharmony at the soonest possible available opportunity in our journey through this sphere called reality. This collusion of the spirit and the flesh happened for me what for some here has been a lifetime ago. While maybe not 100% exactly like yours, the energies, and inputs from my chemistry, my body, my vagina, sexuality, personality, my perception of life and how I am perceived by others all flow in accord and in harmony with the girl I was and with the woman I have been my entire life. I no conflicts and no drama over any of this whatsoever.

I need to catch up with this thread, grab a bite to eat and take a nap! I am typed out and apologize if I've been boring or redundant. Thanks.

originally posted by: JadeStar
Words like complete, harmony, balance, full, whole are often used to describe what we seek and more often receive following successful surgery so there is something to what you're saying about the body be an important part of not only how we are perceived but how we feel the world.

This of us for whom surgery is imperative just aren't in balance with having male genitals physically nor do most of us ever get comfortable having them mentally. It's not simply a disassociation, but a fundamental "knowing" or yearning to be completely in harmony or at the very least much closer to harmony. I know, very unscientific but there's no other way to describe it except in terms you just used.

Damn! It still strikes me as somewhat amazing when independently of each other we end up saying almost basically the same thing or expressing the same sentiments and thoughts often with the same language.

Folks, keep in mind I am almost exactly 40 years older than Jade but yet on so much of this, we are of the same mind and similar experience. (plays spooky Twilight Zone theme)

I am learning a lot on this thread which is great.

It seems to me in specific situation in the OP there are two seperate arguments. The first is a question ofrights. Lila's right to shower in the facility of her choice, vs. the girls right to not share this facility with someone that makes them uncomfortable. I am not going to focus on that part in this post.

The second is a question of safety. It seems that it is just assumed by many on here that if Lila were to stay in the boys facility, should would be in danger. I find this assumption disturbing. It seems that people defending trans people would hesitate to stereotype anyone in such a manner. I have read through this thread and not seen one shred of evidence (maybe i missed it) that the boys tried to attack Lila.

How can you say that we should viewed each trans person as unique but stereotype any boys as potentially violent?

originally posted by: Grambler
I am learning a lot on this thread which is great.

It seems to me in specific situation in the OP there are two seperate arguments. The first is a question ofrights. Lila's right to shower in the facility of her choice, vs. the girls right to not share this facility with someone that makes them uncomfortable. I am not going to focus on that part in this post.

The second is a question of safety. It seems that it is just assumed by many on here that if Lila were to stay in the boys facility, should would be in danger. I find this assumption disturbing. It seems that people defending trans people would hesitate to stereotype anyone in such a manner. I have read through this thread and not seen one shred of evidence (maybe i missed it) that the boys tried to attack Lila.

How can you say that we should viewed each trans person as unique but stereotype any boys as potentially violent?

Of all the transgender women and girls who have been violently attacked or murdered recently how many were attacked and murdered by women or girls?

0

originally posted by: JadeStar



Of all the transgender women and girls who have been violently attacked or murdered recently how many were attacked and murdered by women or girls?

0

Fair enough. So takig into account this study:

journals.plos.org.../journal.pone.0016885%20

Second, regarding any crime, male-to-females had a significantly increased risk for crime compared to female controls (aHR 6.6; 95% CI 4.1–10.8) but not compared to males (aHR 0.8; 95% CI 0.5–1.2). This indicates that they retained a male pattern regarding criminality. The same was true regarding violent crime. By contrast, female-to-males had higher crime rates than female controls (aHR 4.1; 95% CI 2.5–6.9) but did not differ from male controls. This indicates a shift to a male pattern regarding criminality and that sex reassignment is coupled to increased crime rate in female-to-males. The same was true regarding violent crime.

In other words, post op transgenders commit crimes, including violent ones, at the same rate as men. I understand Lila is pre operation, but the numbers still apply. So wouldn't the girls in the locker room have the right to have the same fear of Lila as Lila does men? Or is it ok for women to assume you are prone to violence?

originally posted by: Grambler

originally posted by: JadeStar



Of all the transgender women and girls who have been violently attacked or murdered recently how many were attacked and murdered by women or girls?

0

Fair enough. So takig into account this study:

journals.plos.org.../journal.pone.0016885%20

Second, regarding any crime, male-to-females had a significantly increased risk for crime compared to female controls (aHR 6.6; 95% CI 4.1–10.8) but not compared to males (aHR 0.8; 95% CI 0.5–1.2). This indicates that they retained a male pattern regarding criminality. The same was true regarding violent crime. By contrast, female-to-males had higher crime rates than female controls (aHR 4.1; 95% CI 2.5–6.9) but did not differ from male controls. This indicates a shift to a male pattern regarding criminality and that sex reassignment is coupled to increased crime rate in female-to-males. The same was true regarding violent crime.

In other words, post op transgenders commit crimes, including violent ones, at the same rate as men. I understand Lila is pre operation, but the numbers still apply. So wouldn't the girls in the locker room have the right to have the same fear of Lila as Lila does men? Or is it ok for women to assume you are prone to violence?

Where does that say anything about violent crime?

Prostitution is also a crime.

originally posted by: JadeStar







Where does that say anything about violent crime?

Prostitution is also a crime.

It is in the section I quoted.

Second, regarding any crime, male-to-females had a significantly increased risk for crime compared to female controls (aHR 6.6; 95% CI 4.1–10.8) but not compared to males (aHR 0.8; 95% CI 0.5–1.2). This indicates that they retained a male pattern regarding criminality. The same was true regarding violent crime. By contrast, female-to-males had higher crime rates than female controls (aHR 4.1; 95% CI 2.5–6.9) but did not differ from male controls. This indicates a shift to a male pattern regarding criminality and that sex reassignment is coupled to increased crime rate in female-to-males. The same was true regarding violent crime.

originally posted by: Grambler

originally posted by: JadeStar







Where does that say anything about violent crime?

Prostitution is also a crime.

It is in the section I quoted.

Second, regarding any crime, male-to-females had a significantly increased risk for crime compared to female controls (aHR 6.6; 95% CI 4.1–10.8) but not compared to males (aHR 0.8; 95% CI 0.5–1.2). This indicates that they retained a male pattern regarding criminality. The same was true regarding violent crime. By contrast, female-to-males had higher crime rates than female controls (aHR 4.1; 95% CI 2.5–6.9) but did not differ from male controls. This indicates a shift to a male pattern regarding criminality and that sex reassignment is coupled to increased crime rate in female-to-males. The same was true regarding violent crime.

Your link is broken though can you perhaps link it rather than posting the long url? I prefer to read whole papers when possible so I can delve into their methodology, sample size, sources, etc.

a reply to: JadeStar

Sure. I hope I am doing this right.

journals.plos.org.../journal.pone.0016885%20

originally posted by: Grambler
a reply to: JadeStar

Sure. I hope I am doing this right.

journals.plos.org.../journal.pone.0016885%20

not quite but I see it now in the quote so let me have a look and get back to you.

a reply to: JadeStar

I am not sure i am doing that right. Sorry I am very bad at this type of stuff. By the way, kudos to you for reading the actual article and checking sources. For the record, I have learned a lot from readings many of the articles you posted here.

Anyways here is the title of the research paper, you should be able to google it if that link didn't work.

Long-Term Follow-Up of Transsexual Persons Undergoing Sex Reassignment Surgery: Cohort Study in Sweden

originally posted by: Grambler
a reply to: JadeStar

Sure. I hope I am doing this right.

journals.plos.org.../journal.pone.0016885%20

Click on the icon with square with arrow coming out of it up there in your edit.
Linky

originally posted by: Grambler
a reply to: JadeStar

I am not sure i am doing that right.

Ok I'll try to to assist you.

There is a URL link Icon which looks like a box with an arrow pointing up and to the right.

When you first click it you are asked for a Name for the link in a dialog box

You can put anything here really like "Long Term Study on Lives of Transsexuals in Sweden" or whatever then click "OK" and another dialog box pops up and here is where you put the actual link.

Sorry I am very bad at this type of stuff.

Its ok, I was confused about how it worked at first too.

By the way, kudos to you for reading the actual article and checking sources.

I'm a scientist (in training) so it's kind of a thing I regularly do. It's sort of second nature at this point. Kudos to you for bringing some more science to this discussion. Always welcome.

For the record, I have learned a lot from readings many of the articles you posted here.

Anyways here is the title of the research paper, you should be able to google it if that link didn't work.

Long-Term Follow-Up of Transsexual Persons Undergoing Sex Reassignment Surgery: Cohort Study in Sweden

Thank you I am glad that some people are getting something out of them. I know that on most forums there is a higher number people who read things but don't necessarily reply or are active in conversations than do so. So it's always good to hear that people have gotten something out of my posts.

originally posted by: JadeStar

originally posted by: EKron
Honestly, the "transgender experience" can only truly be understood by those that have lived it. Some things are on a level impossible to access verbally to even explain to someone else. When we say this is something part of our soul or whatever spark of spirit exists at the center of our being, it still fails to convey the depth and complexity of it all. I lack the language that can make another fully comprehend. Maybe a Vulcan mind meld would do it?

This is what I've found myself saying a lot but some see it as sidestepping the question.

The vulcan mind meld is something which would be a wonderful thing to have in reality in situations likes this.

I can imagine doing it with some of those highly critical of us and them going "OOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHH WOW NOW I GET IT!!! I'M SO SORRY I HAD Noooooooo IDEA!"

Actually, in that scenario transgenders would discover... "Oh... normal people don't obsess over gender identity and their male or female body image. I really do have a psychological problem."

originally posted by: Teikiatsu

originally posted by: JadeStar

originally posted by: EKron
Honestly, the "transgender experience" can only truly be understood by those that have lived it. Some things are on a level impossible to access verbally to even explain to someone else. When we say this is something part of our soul or whatever spark of spirit exists at the center of our being, it still fails to convey the depth and complexity of it all. I lack the language that can make another fully comprehend. Maybe a Vulcan mind meld would do it?

This is what I've found myself saying a lot but some see it as sidestepping the question.

The vulcan mind meld is something which would be a wonderful thing to have in reality in situations likes this.

I can imagine doing it with some of those highly critical of us and them going "OOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHH WOW NOW I GET IT!!! I'M SO SORRY I HAD Noooooooo IDEA!"

Actually, in that scenario transgenders would discover... "Oh... normal people don't obsess over gender identity and their male or female body image. I really do have a psychological problem."

Where did I ever say that they did? And really other than early childhood I didn't either. People assume we're like perpetually confused or something. That's simply not the case.


ATS is the only place I even talk about this stuff and even that is only fairly recently.

I'm not "out" as being born different in my day to day life.