Sex Change, transexuals etc....

This seems to be an issue that just seems to have started to get media attention. No, I'm not talking Men wearing womens clothing as seen on Drew Carrey, but people as young as 18 getting reconstructive surgery to switch genders.

Freak shows like Jerry Springer seemed to have brought it up in an ogrish sense. It then showed up on the Fifth Estate on cbc, where a teenaged girl felt inadequate in a female body. She then took it upon herself to act on the change.

A google search on "sex change" brought up 7.2 million web pages. This seems to have become universally accepted.

myria.home.mindspring.com...
heartcorps.com...

What do atser think about transexuals, sex change, etc..... ??

Should governmental health care plans pay for the procedure ?
Human rights board hears sex-change complaint


Other points worth considering

• Unlike gays transexuals can legally get married, and this does not necessarily constitute a civil union.
  
• There have been a few reported cases of transexuals coming off of reconstructive surgery, eventually begining to regret it, and commit suicide.
  

I personally despise this freedom individuals have and think the government to consider passing a law to ban such action like reconstructive surgery, before this gets of hand.

Originally posted by websurfer
Should governmental health care plans pay for the procedure ?
Human rights board hears sex-change complaint

* There have been a few reported cases of transexuals coming off of reconstructive surgery, eventually begining to regret it, and commit suicide.

I personally despise this freedom individuals have and think the government to consider passing a law to ban such action like reconstructive surgery, before this gets of hand.

First, what you personally dispise does not make it right for everyone. I personally dispise oppinions like yours, but I'm not rallying for a law to make you stop posting stuff like this People who undergo a sex change opperation or constructive surgery aren't doing it for fun, they do it because they genuinely feel they have been assigned the wrong sex. Often, it is a genetic difference where you have a hermaphrodite or someone with XXY chromosomes. It's not just "ahh I think I'll be a woman from now on." What people do with their bodies is up to THEM, and this isn't anything the government's nose belongs in, or yours or mine. It's a very personal decision based on one's personal identity.

As for health care footing the bill - there may be physical reasons why someone does not feel they are the sex that their body displays. Again - genetic and actual physical differences in the brain may play a part, and for those folks, absolutely it should be funded as many cosmetic plastic surgeries are. (Yes, plastic surgeries are paid for often if there is a "medical" reason. Want a nose job? Deviated septum! Want lipo? the extra fat chaffes and can get infected.)

Finally, as for transsexuals killing themselves - I doubt that it's due to a surgery like this that they chose, and as for 18 yr old kids doing it, thats rare too, and I'm not sure I believe it. Folks in the US who want to undergo a sex change opperation often go through legnthy counselling and therapy, many reviews by medical professionals, and often live as women or men for a long period of time before making the switch. Suicides are much more likely to occur when someone feels their body does not match them, and experience discrimination, snickers, judgements, and hatred from people who think they are "out of hand." Beyond suicides, murders are also frequent. I have, however, heard of many suicides from people who were given surgeries to change their gender without their consent at birth or as a small child. Someone genetically male with testicular feminization who appears female or with a small deformed penis, but is completely geneticallty male having their bodies altered by ashamed parents to be raised as female. Guess what? It doesn't work, and they often always feel wrong somehow and really hit a crisis when puberty sets in. Here's where suicides from surgeries happen.

I feel for the people who feel they need to have such an operation, and can't imagine what it would feel like to think of my own body as wrong for me. Stop worrying so much about what someone else does with their penis

Originally posted by RedBalloon
Finally, as for transsexuals killing themselves - I doubt that it's due to a surgery like this that they chose, and as for 18 yr old kids doing it, thats rare too, and I'm not sure I believe it. Folks in the US who want to undergo a sex change opperation often go through legnthy counselling and therapy, many reviews by medical professionals, and often live as women or men for a long period of time before making the switch. Suicides are much more likely to occur when someone feels their body does not match them, and experience discrimination, snickers, judgements, and hatred from people who think they are "out of hand." Beyond suicides, murders are also frequent. I have, however, heard of many suicides from people who were given surgeries to change their gender without their consent at birth or as a small child. Someone genetically male with testicular feminization who appears female or with a small deformed penis, but is completely geneticallty male having their bodies altered by ashamed parents to be raised as female. Guess what? It doesn't work, and they often always feel wrong somehow and really hit a crisis when puberty sets in. Here's where suicides from surgeries happen.

I feel for the people who feel they need to have such an operation, and can't imagine what it would feel like to think of my own body as wrong for me. Stop worrying so much about what someone else does with their penis

Bravo! Well said!

For the record, I've known three transsexuals. It's not a "whim" and it's (as you said so well) a very lengthy process and there's a LOT of counseling that goes on. You have to spend a lot of tme learning to "pass" (I spent an evening with one, showing her how a Real Woman behaves (she'd been modeling her behavior after June Cleaver... white gloves and all. Aieee!))

ONe of the three didn't complete the process (too expensive.) I'm not sure what her status is now, but we were worried about her.

Look at this issue this way. Given what we know about women, feminism and the complaints women have about society, the glass ceiling and all, why would any woman born in a man's body who is in her right mind want a sex change operation?

Of what value is it? You have breast made of silicone, collagen or implants in the cheeks, a faux vagina, no uterus, a long ring finger, narrow hips, big feet and hands, an adam's apple (unless they don't trim it down in sugery), just so you can be the object of the partriarchal hegemony, even if people can't figure out that your a man.

No, my friends, any woman born into a man's body would be more than happy to live life as a man, enjoying all the "rights and privileges therunto pertaining."

I'll leave the other side of the coin up for debate.

"Transgendered" people need psychiatric help and it's a shame that the medical community panders to their disorders just for the money.



[edit on 04/10/23 by GradyPhilpott]

People and sex changes are as old as society. It's nothing new.

There are people who are either hermaphrodites, or who are XX or XY females or males who feel completely out of place with their birth gender.

These symptoms have been recognized by societies for thousands of years. Before modern surgery became available to help people change their body, many societies had a third gender role for males who feel like they should be women. They often served as shamans or priests.

Males who feel they should be women are more common than women who feel masculine. This may have something to do with all fetuses starting out as females.

Gender dysphoria, feeling as if one is the wrong sex, is quite common. It should be covered by insurance, since it's a major issue with the health and well being of the individual.

It has been lately said that the increase of homosexuals is nature's reply to overpopulation. The more the population is, the more homosexual people are (relative to the total population) in order to keep the total amount of people down.

Originally posted by masterp
It has been lately said that the increase of homosexuals is nature's reply to overpopulation. The more the population is, the more homosexual people are (relative to the total population) in order to keep the total amount of people down.

Transexuals are not homosexuals.

The issue of gender and its relationship to sex is an issue which has happened for a long time and it goes on in many cultures , the west is just more advanced in getting the phyical changes happening.

But i dont like the idea of doctors performing these operations to change the body people have been given when there are so much more important things to do.

Originally posted by taibunsuu
Transexuals are not homosexuals.

Transexuals are incapable of reproductive once they have undergone reproductive surgery. Transexuals also make use of equipment which helps them in getting an erection and what not.

Originally posted by websurfer

Originally posted by taibunsuu
Transexuals are not homosexuals.

Transexuals are incapable of reproductive once they have undergone reproductive surgery. Transexuals also make use of equipment which helps them in getting an erection and what not.

What does that have to do with homosexuality? As Taibunsuu said, transexuals are not homosexuals.

Homosexuality is being sexually attracted to one's own gender. Transexuals who were born appearing male, but feel and live with their gender as female, are not homosexuals. Inside they feel themselves to be female, and are attracted to the opposite sex - males. Male homosexuals are quite comfortable being male, and feel their gender is male, and are attracted to other males.

A few years ago I was chatting with a pre-op male-to-female transsexual. She told me that for her it had never even been a question in her mind - she was convinced since as far as she could remember that she was female. If memory serves, at age 21 she started the process - weekly consultation with psychiastrists, then hormones, coming out as a woman, etc. I think she's 28 now - wonder if she's gotten the operation. As was said earlier, it takes a long time.

Grady - to all those considerations, you can add, in a lot of cases, family hostility and even ostracism, mockery in the workplace, and threats of violence in the street. Changing into a woman, I've been told, is very challenging as to these aspects too. But they know this and accept that risk, because from what my trans friend told me, for a good number of them the alternative is suicide.

A few posts back, (since its ats policy to not use nested quotes)
---------------------------------------
masterps premise to his argument was over population. He then related that to the existence of homosexuals.

taibunsuu then said that transexuals are not homosexuals.

I then said that transexuals are incapable of reproduction; which relates back to masterps premise of over population.
--------------------------------------

Yes I know transexuals may or may not be homosexuals. But in a way they are, since once they get married you have a man and woman partnership. And then the woman changes sex to become a man. Then you have a man and man partnership, and vice versa. In that case they are homosexuals.

Originally posted by websurfer
But in a way they are, since once they get married you have a man and woman partnership. And then the woman changes sex to become a man. Then you have a man and man partnership, and vice versa. In that case they are homosexuals.

Yes, in that case homosexuality would apply. Same with a man who feels and lives as female having a relationship with another woman. It's more about gender than sex.

Gnender should not be broough into this argument really just sex, as gender is developed.

Originally posted by Fitzpatrick
Gnender should not be broough into this argument really just sex, as gender is developed.

Gender has everything to do with this argument. Gender is at the heart of what being a transexual is. You can't talk about sex changes and transexualism without bringing up gender. Transexualism happens when sex and gender don't match.

Originally posted by RedBalloon

Originally posted by Fitzpatrick
Gnender should not be broough into this argument really just sex, as gender is developed.

Gender has everything to do with this argument. Gender is at the heart of what being a transexual is. You can't talk about sex changes and transexualism without bringing up gender. Transexualism happens when sex and gender don't match.

lol i kinda agree, im not good at getting what i mean across sometimes,the gender is developed in scoiety and isnt natural. So people do not want to do what sciety says there gender should depending on the sex, and want to change so they can do things that are more related to the other sexes gender, but im not really knowledgabley on this issue as much as some others may be, butr i hope to understand more as i know someone who is going into the beginning stages.

I believe people should be allowed to do whatever they want with their own bodies and minds, no matter whether I agree with it or not.
What right do you have to say someone can't change their sex just because, for whatever reason, you find it objectional?

Originally posted by Fitzpatrick


lol i kinda agree, im not good at getting what i mean across sometimes,the gender is developed in scoiety and isnt natural.

There's a lot of evidence, painfully drawn from the life experience of children 'assigned' a gender during infancy, to counter this theory.

Many of these children with assigned genders are boys who have surgical accidents in which they lose their organs, or children born with so-called ambiguous genitalia.

For example, there was the boy who lost his penis during a circumcision accident. John Hopkins experts simply said to get rid of the rest, and raise the boy as a girl. Since he had an identical twin, there was a perfect control.

The experiment was a disaster even though the researcher conducting it posted positive results until the 'girl' spoke out about his absolute nightmare of a life, which ended in suicide.

The thinking nowadays to treat children of ambiguous sex is not to assign a sex, but to observe the child and see who he/she emulates, what he / she chooses to wear, the activities they enjoy, etc. Surgery and therapy to correct gender can come at an age at which everyone and the child is able to determine which sex is appropriate.

It's pretty painful to observe a six-year old 'assigned girl' dropping off monkey bars, playing Army, and smashing Tonka trucks together while the consulting physician is telling the mother she did the right thing by assigning the female gender to the former boy.

[edit on 25-10-2004 by taibunsuu]

Transexuals are not homosexuals.

What you are saying is a transvestite/transexual's view.

But psychologists do not agree to that. In fact, many psychologists suggest that it is the religious beliefs of these people that homosexuality is a sin that makes transexuals have that view: in order to justify their choice to society, transexuals view themselves as members of the female sex.

Homosexuals are the same as transexuals. Homosexuals fill as feminine as transexuals do, but they simply don't want to go out as women. They are afraid of loosing the male advantage. But in their lifes, their reactions are exactly the same as for transexuals.

I've had homosexual friends that admitted that they were women trapped in a man's body. But they never dared to dress like women, so they were homosexuals.

Therefore, the difference between homosexuals/transexuals is a social one, not a biological one.

I think sex-change operations are just plain stupid.

You're born a male or a female. No matter how badly you mutilate your body to imitate the opposite sex, genetically you are still male or female. Brunettes who dye their hair red are still brunettes, blue-eyed people who wear green contacts still have blue eyes.

There are times when I've wondered what it would be like to be a boy, but I just chalk it up as a "grass is always greener on the other side" thought. I'm happy to be female.

The only way I can see any kind of operation like that is if a baby is born gender neutral or with both plumbing systems. In that case, do a DNA test, if there's a Y chromosome, that child is a boy, and go from there.

Call me old-fashioned, but if you were born with it, you're stuck with it. I am against gender-bending.