Inter-sex, Transsexual, and Transgender Myths

Gender; we all have it. Some persons wish we didn’t, others think theirs is the wrong one, and some think it’s the best thing since sliced bread… Sliced bread that declares the natural order of things to the point they get very upset to find the outsider somehow got into the middle of the loaf.

Am not going to say people’s opinions on the subject don’t upset me. They can do, but honestly, often its people’s misconceptions and failure to grasp facts that upset me the most. It’s really hard to have a conversation with a person that doesn’t understand the basics of the conversation.

So I’m making a thread to set some persons straight. No, I don’t expect persons to lay down their colorless binary view of gender simply because Pinke said so, nor is that the purpose of this exactly. The purpose is to get people to grasp some basic facts about gender, how it’s defined, and how the law generally perceives it in the Western World. This should help defining opinions properly in threads on this subject.

Okay, first … Transsexuals (hereby referred to as TS persons) are not all men in lingerie. Yes, you’ve seen Jerry Springer, your favorite movie is Big Momma’s House, and men in dresses are just awesome. You probably skipped ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ … you probably all only recall hilarious news stories about the TS woman that got kicked out of a tennis or golf tourney for being a man, or the person that had a new toilet built for them. Why does this happen?

The media likes freaks. Carnival types and the bearded lady get a hell of a lot more attention than a TS that passes. Also, there isn’t much of a story behind ‘woman becomes man and sucks at football.’ Swat team sergeant gets a sex change and wins at golf? Top shelf news. Most of these events are actually persons over reacting and/or not knowing their rights. If a business chooses to build their own toilet it usually says more about their bias and IQ levels than it does about gender persons threatening others' rights.

So the media rams down your throat that TS persons are men in dresses. Chances are you’ve walked past a TS man (a female to male transsexual or FTM) and didn’t notice. Chances are it has actually happened to you a whole bunch of times. Some of them can even do their business standing up. You may even be friends with one. Really, how often do you check out your friend’s pants areas?

So myth one … all TS’s are creepy men in dresses. Really, they’re not at all. There are FTMs and a few things in between. (Intersex/TG)

Myth two; gender and sexuality are linked. Men are becoming women for creepy sexual reasons and to get into my toilet! Soon we need dolphin person toilets!

Generally there's nothing sexual about your toilet. TS persons becoming TS for sexual reasons or because they have some utopian sci-fi idea of the future where they want lots of plastic surgery to look like a lizard or dolphin are classified as needing mental help.

Sex is not a reason to change gender; gender is a reason to change gender. Psychiatrists agree that gender and sexuality are not related in the way the media implies they are. Conclusion: people getting happy putting on their pants in the morning are not TS they are transvestites – psychiatrists are more than united on this single issue. The majority of transvestites are not transsexual as far as I know.

Also men on hormones are very unlikely to try to check you out or touch your precious parts. They’ve been technically chemically castrated. The funny thing is the ones that might be chemically dangerous (FTM persons on boy hormones) are all in the boys toilets and no one cares. Mainly because FTMs are many times harder to spot.

You’re also going to find that most MTFs like men. In fact the stats are pretty similar to heterosexuals.
Around 1 in 1000 persons have variations in their gender make up. In other words you’ve stood next to intersexed (biological/altered gender persons) and transgender persons who aren’t even transsexual. They’re just going to the toilet. (Note a lot of gender variations are incredibly small and can go un-noticed even by the person with that variation. Statistics may also vary depending on source.)

Myth three. If a man in a dress comes to my office I have to hire him/her.

This is by far the dumbest thing conservatives repeatedly state that makes me wanna go nuts.
Plain English and this applies to many Western Countries …

IT IS PERFECTLY LEGAL TO DISCRIMINATE AGAINST SOMEONE ON THE BASIS OF THEM CROSS DRESSING. IT IS ALSO LEGAL TO DISCRIMINATE AGAINST SOMEONE WHO WANTS YOU TO CALL THEM A GENDER OTHER THAN THE ONE ON THEIR BIRTH CERTIFICATE.

For a person to have the legal defense of their gender it has to be their LEGAL gender. That means it has to be agreed on by doctors and changed on their certificate of birth in most Western countries. A lumber jack with a massive beard cannot have this done as a joke.

You can tell them to get out, that you don’t want a man in a pink dress in your office and be done with it. No legal action will take place.

I’ll add though that many persons have hormonal changes etc … that make them grow facial hair and the trimmings. They have not had their gender altered in any way. I’ve seen plenty of times where a sex change was assumed and it’s just not the case.

Myth Four. Gender can be defined clearly by a persons hormones and chromosomes. This is how gender should be judged.

Incorrect. Women can have XY chromosomes or even XYY or XYX … dormant chromosomes happen regularly enough that it might surprise you.

Hormone deficiencies happen regularly enough that there’s nothing accurate about them.
Science generally uses statistics to work out what gender a person should be. If a person is born with a certain syndrome or gender variance they consult other persons with that condition to look for a pattern.
Sometimes these determinations and agreements are wrong, and horrible things happen. It has improved dramatically in the last thirty or so years, but some persons really don’t like having a gender slapped on them and we still don’t know everything.

Still, it is something that often can’t wait as much as persons would like it to as it can cause issues with sex characteristics etc … As a child gets older there is also the Jerry Springer effect which paradoxically gets worse with age.

Kindergarten? No one cares that you wear pants in the communal shower.

Primary? People think you’re weird.

High School? You’re a freak and probably a homosexual or lesbian.

University? You’re clearly a filthy transsexual with a mental problem! And you lie and say it’s physical! You clearly
don’t want to admit that you had a sex change.

People seem to lose maturity/tolerance once they hit high school and it doesn’t improve past university. Many inter-sexed persons are ‘assigned’ a gender to take away risks of depression and other things caused by social environment. Maybe if we were more up front about these issues we wouldn’t have these problems.

I’ll add that this is often why scientists put weight into transsexuals being a real issue since we still can’t exactly pin point how a person knows their gender. Many persons with assigned genders manage to work out something is wrong without ever being told, and sometimes don’t find out until they are nineteen or twenty and visit a psychiatrist or doctor. It can be a bit shocking to find out you were born part male or part female and had a gender ‘assigned’ to you.

Myth Five. Transsexuals, transvestites, inter-sexed, and transgenders are all the same thing. Also known as why we can’t have a conversation about gender!

TS persons are people desiring to cross genders. They may dress differently, they may not. They may indulge in various other behaviors. Many don’t.

Transvestites are cross dressers. A lot of the time it's for fetish reasons. A TS persons isn't necessarily a cross dresser if they're acting in the gender they look like, but then persons like to throw this word around during arguments which just makes it impossible to classify anyone or anything.

Transgender can mean a lot of things, and often means a person that can challenge gender conventions. It can also mean a person who challenges gender with no surgery etc … at times an inter-sexed person can be transgender at times they might not be … say for example if they completely agree with their assigned gender.
It’s almost as if all these words were designed to stop us actually having a mature conversation about gender. It’s also incredibly political even from the inside…

Inter-sexed don’t necessarily like TS persons. A person born part female and part male can sometimes become upset that a person with a clear defined gender chose not to keep it. Right or wrong, this isn’t the subject of the thread … but the point is this issue is 10x more complex than most of you treat it. The waters are only muddied further by the constant cross use of various words etc … to the point it’s almost impossible to have a conversation about it.

TS persons sometimes are jealous of inter-sexed TG persons who are born that way.
Some persons feel they don’t have any gender at all, or wish they had less of a gender.
Homosexual persons also sometimes take exception to TS and TG persons. Especially in the lesbian community, there are often strong disagreements about

- Are TS women (MTFs) actually lesbians or just creepy?
- Are TS men (FTMs) just women who couldn’t handle being dykes?
- What the hell is a TG, and should I sleep with it?

Even if you don't agree with definitions given though perhaps it's a good idea to make sure you're all speaking the same language. Half the time around here persons politics or beliefs get in their way of defining what they're talking about and you can't actually tell what they're trying to say. You can still disagree with the concept without destroying the language (which is convoluted enough already)

Myth Six. I will have to avoid public toilets, so I don’t have to explain to my child that some people are transsexual.

Most TS’s and inter-sexed persons head straight for the cubicles. Men at urinals tend to notice if a person has a handful of nothing, and women can be kinda nuts about it. So most persons with ‘differences’ go straight to the private cubicle toilet.

The chances of you having to explain transsexualism to your child are so unbelievably low on a daily basis I’m always surprised this one comes up. Masculine women and feminine men have always existed, and if a person can’t explain that to their child I have to question how they manage to explain anything else of note to them.
If you choose to explain that someone ‘different’ looking is a transsexual and they’re sick in the head then that’s your bias talking; you’re also setting up your child to wander into high school and become another bully … perhaps to a poor innocent TG/inter-sexed person who did nothing wrong except get born in a different way or even just a person with some masculine or feminine traits. This probably wasn’t your intention, in fact you probably never thought about any of this.

My suggestion? Tell your child people are different. The vast majority of persons your child meets in the first 18 years of their life will not be transsexual. They’re much much more likely to be a harmless TG or inter-sexed person, or just someone who dresses a bit different. The vast majority of masculine women and feminine men are not transsexuals.

If you do have something against TS persons in particular (transsexuals who, in your reasoning and opinion, have no reason to change their gender) then at least make sure you identify the correct persons to complain about. Some people can’t help what they are even by your logic.

I hope some of this is helpful. I have unfortunately placed some opinions in here, but it’s a little hard not to at times when explaining some of these things.

I can’t help but feel sometimes that there are persons in our world that really want us all to stay binary. The 0/1 approach to gender seems to make everyone so much more comfortable, and quicker to condemn those around us. I just don’t think it’s hard though to see reality for what it really is with a little effort; even if you don’t agree with all of it.

Great post! Much of this is only a refresher for me but its great to see someone trying to educate others about just how complex a world we live in. I truly hope that this subject can be built upon and the information flow freely and without judgment. S&F

Epic post. This definetly helps to put things into perspective and educates people so they don't have to rely on using cliche stereotypes.

Interesting... Westerners make things more complicated than they are.. (And more confusing..) Everyone is human and equal regardless of their race.. gender.. preferences or any of the myriad silly reasons they divide themselves up...

Great post. Thanks!

Great post and a star and flag Good to see the air being cleared from some of the myths that surround though it's to bad something like this can't be known by the media as well to help "clean" the air, but hey posting it here is just as good to.

Originally posted by Expat888
Interesting... Westerners make things more complicated than they are.. (And more confusing..) Everyone is human and equal regardless of their race.. gender.. preferences or any of the myriad silly reasons they divide themselves up...

Am not sure where you're from but natural order and gender are fairly important to people in the West.

You're right though, it realy shouldn't matter so long as a person is good on the inside and out. Even if a person does think someone has a mental illness they could be nicer about it. I don't believe gender issues or sexuality is contageous in anyway shape or form.

It would be fairly awesome if it was though, or at least surreal.

I have read other posts of yours, and you got me on another thread with a comment,,, "Gnome inside my head"" that I am still laughing about,, and I knew you are a wonderful writer,, eloquent and also aware of Semantics,, which makes you a Star in my book.

Proud to bestow your 23rd star and flag on this thread. Great and Informative Read.

Sincerely
EarthCitizen23

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OH BTW, just saying.

Really enjoyed reading this, thank you for taking the time to collect your thoughts and state them fairly


I was reading (In a sociology book) that Hermaphrodites should be regarded as a 3rd gender - Not in a discriminatory way, but rather instead of a way of saying "You dont have to be defined as male or female, you're perfect as you are"

But that is a different subject i suppose.

Originally posted by v1rtu0s0
Epic post. This definetly helps to put things into perspective and educates people so they don't have to rely on using cliche stereotypes.

What if I like cliche stereotypes? Its been accepted as a fabled truth for many centuries....it defines my disdain.