Two Questions for Transgender people

originally posted by: TrappedPrincess

originally posted by: JadeStar

originally posted by: Kojiro
a reply to: JadeStar

Yeah, I guess I didn't spend enough time outside the UFO and Aliens section.

Same with me but substitute Space Exploration for A&U.

That is what is great about this site is that there are so many genres and topics that it really brings people from all walks of life together to discuss spooky weird stuff and politics lol. Be careful the Illuminati is out to get you and use us Trans folk for their evil plot MUWAHAHAHAHA

I guess you didn't see this ATS thread because that's pretty much what Alex Jones is saying these days.... (facepalm)

All i want to know is where and how to join the 'space-cult' he rants about. Sounds like fun and it can't be any more "cray cray" than this planet!

originally posted by: Crazy Diamond
a reply to: Domo1
First of all, I honestly think, from reading your posts, that you are a good, tolerant person and I totally understand your position on this subject.
But let me ask you, what do you think is the worst reaction that you might have if you were to find out the best sex you've ever had was with a woman born different? And I am curious only about your reaction, not how other men might react. To use your "cheating wife" analogy, what would be worse for you, finding out that your wife of ten years has been cheating on you or finding out that your wife of ten years was born different?

No offense but I bet you would be unpleasantly shocked when it turns out that the majority of hetero identifying males find the thought of accidentally sleeping with one of us horrifying. Not all but probably the majority, it is almost if like they can't help it it just bothers them. Does this sound familiar? I spent enough time around gorilla chest thumping types to know. If scares the bejeezus out of them like they will catch the gay. I know it sounds silly but girl we have to take baby steps with them, ease them into the water. It will take a little time but things will gradually get better. Your young you have a lot of time to find out just be patient.

a reply to: JadeStar

I honestly don't know what the hell is wrong with that man. He did a cool thing crashing the 1% and their nudist camp in the redwoods, but now he's seeing conspiracies everywhere. He's completely bat#.

originally posted by: JadeStar

originally posted by: TrappedPrincess

originally posted by: JadeStar

originally posted by: Kojiro
a reply to: JadeStar

Yeah, I guess I didn't spend enough time outside the UFO and Aliens section.

Same with me but substitute Space Exploration for A&U.

That is what is great about this site is that there are so many genres and topics that it really brings people from all walks of life together to discuss spooky weird stuff and politics lol. Be careful the Illuminati is out to get you and use us Trans folk for their evil plot MUWAHAHAHAHA

I guess you didn't see this ATS thread because that's pretty much what Alex Jones is saying these days.... (facepalm)

All i want to know is where and how to join the 'space-cult' he rants about. Sounds like fun and it can't be any more "cray cray" than this planet!

Oh no girl I saw it thats why I thought I would make fun unless of course your real Illuminati, can I have a job? I'll start in the mail room.

a reply to: Kojiro

It was a good try, but anyone that's actually paying attention isn't falling for it. Anyone paying attention realizes you just throw out ridiculous accusations trying to shame others into silence. How many accusations have you leveled and those that disagree with you now?

Next anyone that doesn't accept your nonsense will probably be a Nazi.

In fact this is my 666th post MUWAHAHAHAHAHAAH I have now completed my evil agenda.

a reply to: TrappedPrincess

OK, thread done. It's over everybody!

All this shows what a tricky subject this is for all parties involved. I'm with Jade on most of this and don't think about or want to be treated like trans anything but have been around guys talking about it, even lately with Caitlyn Jenner in the news and get it how most guys think trans people are gross and disgusting or something to joke about. That was a tough conversation to listen to and not say anything but I myself also don't want to be rejected or ridiculed and thought of as being gross and disgusting or less of a woman because I don't think I am. Even socially around this group of guy friends and their wives and girlfriends that treat me like just one of the gang if that makes any sense, they would never think of me the same way if they knew my history so yes, I very much want to be thought of as a woman that has always been a woman because that's how I feel. I'm not fooling or deceiving anyone with my life. There are just some parts of it that are a bit unusual I wish to remain private until I decide to share them.

I acknowledge, at least in my mind though, that I am different because of my history and it would be foolish for me to think this might not be a big problem for some in something more than a social relationship. I may have a bit more life experience with rejection and verbal abuse and hostility or more sensitivity to try and avoid it because I've learned most men are immature and insecure little children inside. (sorry - nothing personal directed toward anyone and not all men).

Thankfully I'm well past the age of where hooking up and sex and validating my womanhood and attractiveness are a driving part of my life. I think at this point, if I were to partner up with someone, it would be after a prolonged period of getting to know each other first and more about the relationship above my shoulders than below the waist so my input to this discussion may not even apply? Would my long past history be something I brought up before even getting a kiss or a hand up my blouse? Probably not but that would certainly be my queue it's time to bring it up or that things were getting more serious. It took me a long time to learn to be a little bit hard to get but in the long run, has always worked out better. Daughters usually learn this from their mothers but I had to figure it out on my own (I was a bit "free spirited" in my 20's.) Speaking in terms of relationships and not lusty romps, I don't feel how I got to be who I am is something that can be withheld. Could I sleep with someone and not tell? Yes. Would I sleep with someone and not say something first, no.

When my husband and I first got together, we had a common interest and became friends and kept hanging out more and more that kind of turned into dating and feelings and a physical attraction thing. We had fooled around some and were obviously going to end up in bed together so I told him. I was angry and embarrassed and upset with even having to have this conversation with him. It was really hard and I knew this was going to be the end of probably even being friends.

I was crying when I told him, which I had to explain a few different ways before he got it, but he didn't totally freak out and we fell asleep on the couch with me in his arms. Things were a little frostier in the morning avoiding eye contact and all and we both went off to work. Three weeks later without a single peep from him, I was sure that was it. I'd lost my friend and my boyfriend and was really hating that I wasn't just born female like I always should have been and cursing life. I can only imagine how much worse I'd felt if he had became belligerent or hostile. Then one afternoon out of the blue, he called me at work like nothing ever happened and wanted to know "where the hell I'd been and to get over there and cook him dinner, right now" which was his way of being funny. I cried then too, at work. I guess he just needed to think about it? We were married for 11 years and when we did separate, it had nothing to do with my past.

Could I ever have had an honest and real trusting relationship without him knowing my history. Not in a million years.

originally posted by: TrappedPrincess

originally posted by: Crazy Diamond
a reply to: Domo1
First of all, I honestly think, from reading your posts, that you are a good, tolerant person and I totally understand your position on this subject.
But let me ask you, what do you think is the worst reaction that you might have if you were to find out the best sex you've ever had was with a woman born different? And I am curious only about your reaction, not how other men might react. To use your "cheating wife" analogy, what would be worse for you, finding out that your wife of ten years has been cheating on you or finding out that your wife of ten years was born different?

No offense but I bet you would be unpleasantly shocked when it turns out that the majority of hetero identifying males find the thought of accidentally sleeping with one of us horrifying. Not all but probably the majority, it is almost if like they can't help it it just bothers them. Does this sound familiar?

Yes and no....

originally posted by: Crazy Diamond

originally posted by: JadeStar


OMG!!!! :heart: :heart: :heart:

That is exactly the point i've been trying to make to Domo and others.

I don't know how to say "I LOVE YOU!" in Serbian... but i think i'll have to learn.

That would be "Volim te"

As a straight, white, male in predominantly white, patriarchal country, meaning I've never experienced any sort of discrimination for who I am, I cant even begin to imagine what life must've been for you. And when you finally think its over and you can finally be who you are some people still want to add prefixes to your being like trans-woman. I do have hope that in near future through better education and understanding, in large part thanks to internet, people will finally accept others for who they are.

Volim te you Crazy Diamond

I too have hope for the near future. Things seem to be progressing a lot now so it won't always be this way.

a reply to: TrueBrit

You want a woman who has never had body image issues in a world where sexism gives pretty much all women body image issues? Seriously i have met a cisgender international super model and THEY were still struggling with body image issues. So good luck with celibacy.

Though... not every Trans woman does have body image issues. Someone who has their gender identity respected as a child, goes on hormone blockers to avoid the wrong puberty then hormone therapy to go through the right puberty and elects not to have surgery (yep these people do exist) would have avoided those trans-specific body issues you worry about and may only have the ordinary body-issues pretty much all women gain from the psychological impact of the body-negative 'beauty' industry.

a reply to: JadeStar

To be absolutely fair to him...Alex Jones is a laughing stock and regularly shows himself up as an ill educated, intellectually deficient oaf, with delusions of his own importance. The only thing that makes his prattle something worth listening to, is that by hearing it from his lips, it dampens the surprise when some other halfwit parrots it back to you later.

He is fundamentally incapable of anything approaching journalism as well. I would go as far as to say that most members of this website have better creds than he does in this specific regard.

a reply to: Bayne

Well, if it is as you say, and ladies of my age group ALL drunk the kool aid, rather than sticking a fist in someone's face over it, then I don't mind being alone.

People do not talk about this very often, but there is quite a lot of pressure on males to behave a certain way, and look a certain way too. Guys were not allowed long hair when I was a boy, because schools would send them home if their hair was longer than about two to three inches. Both television and movie media, as well as the popular music media when I was a lad at school, were touting boy bands with reputations for shagging everything they could get their hands on. Gentlemanly conduct was considered a sign that one had caught "the gay", and rock music was never played at the school disco. Intelligence had been decreed as a sure sign of mental illness by the media drone kids. I was an army of one, and the war never ended for me.

I said screw that from day one, and had to fight, for my right, to paaaaaarty as they say, and still do.

If I can spend my life refusing to match up to the stereotype, refusing to fit the mould that society built for me, then there must be a woman out there who has done the very same, who's made it through childhood without an obsession with make up, perfumes, clothing which does not have enough pockets, or provide adequate warmth, has retained her intelligence despite the pressure to dumb down, and would rather burn the world than change the beat to which she dances. It is mathematically impossible that I am the only one with my particular outlook, that I have no counterpart in this crazy world.

I do however accept, that it is mathematically probable that I will not be lucky enough to bump into her, wherever she is. But compromise is a concept upon which one cannot rely when it comes to the rest of ones life, and I only want to fall in love just once more. I believe that love between two people can be eternal, that it can, despite all evidence to the contrary, transcend mortal life. Eternity is a long time, so I will not be fooling around when it comes to these things.

a reply to: interupt42

No you did not answer the question , all I saw was personal attacks and irrelevant retorts.

List them and explain that claim. What personal attacks did i make? What retorts were irrelevant?

That has nothing todo with my question or statement and is a bunch of hogwash.

Incorrect. As the studies finding more than 80% of homophobes have repressed same-sex attraction show this sort of prejudice is based on repressed attraction. As Transgender is genetic with the Trans gene discovered way back in 2008 and is far too widespread to be a genetic illness it must have conferred a survival, prosperity (perhaps kin-selection), fertility and/or attractiveness benefit sufficient to make it stable in the human population everywhere around the world. This would then produce a rational mechanism for the widespread phenomena of Trans-attraction as a specific sexual orientation/preference. One i know well myself, after i came out i had so many women i knew asking me for threesomes it got ridiculous. And no i am not kidding.

So its not hogwash and if it's the motive behind Transphobic Prejudice, as it has already been proven to be with the vast majority of Homophobia it's direct;y relevant to the whole topic.

Having sex with someone knowing that you are not revealing something that could adversely effect the other person is wrong, period. Which you appear to have difficulty in answering , focusing on , or pointing out what is wrong with that statement that is NOT TRANSGENDER specific.

You appear to have somehow missed me repeatedly making the statement that being a Transphobe is something that could adversely effect the other person whether they are Trans or the family of a Trans person or the friend of a Trans person or just someone who disagrees with Transphobia. So no i didn't have trouble answering you i turned your argument right back at ya showing that your premise actually requires the people who would have a problem to disclose before any Trans person needs to disclose meaning the Trans person wouldn't need to disclose at all anyway!

Now that's a really simp;le and frankly rather obvious piece of logic.

However, going with your logic: Again you are obviously aware that the other person could have some difficulty coming to terms with the circumstance regardless if its good for them in the long term .

Which is why they should have gone to therapy for long before choosing to become sexually or romantically active. They themselves are responsible for that failure. And if they wanted to take the risk but minimise it THEY should disclose first as i have shown already, so they are twice responsible for their own suffering.

So you are saying that you are willing to drop a bomb on them by forcing them to deal with it because in the long run its good for them and its not your problem that they have an issue.

Nope. Look i stated really clearly. Do you have a comprehension or learning difficulty i need to take into account to better communicate with you (no that's not a personal attack, it'd be better that then assuming you just tried a straw-man fallacy)? I am OUT. Every person in this entire city and all it's surrounding towns knows i am transgender. We are discussing a super-mega-ultra-hyper-rare pretty much only Hypothetical circumstance as i made clear. It's not something i ever have or ever would experience cause everyone knows i am Trans, and people of every sexuality chase me and want to have sex with me because i am Trans not in spite of it. I get laid FAR more after coming out than before. I get tons of people pestering me that i turn away. Coming out made me popular.

And let's face it, just having sex with a Transphobe isn't the only way to trigger their repression. Being out and Trans, being Trans in public and not passing but still being attractive? That does it. That's all it takes. And they get aroused and they freak out as their problem rises to the surface. They have a responsibility to choose to go get therapy and not to harass me when that happens. They sure as heck aren't getting anywhere near my bed. And if they harass me then i have my martial arts background, my many friends (i'm always out with friends) and the law on my side.

Now if we talk about Moral Obligations, i have a moral obligation to be visible. To help these people get used to the reality of Trans people and to cope with their problem and go get therapy. So i've been on the front page of the paper. And i regularly post on social media on this and other subjects. They have a moral obligation to go get therapy and disclose their problem to everyone they might have sex with and everyone else has a moral obligation to help them get therapy and to support me and other Trans people having full access to our right to public life.

Sorry , but still sounds rather irresponsible , selfish and uncaring way to help someone deal with their problem.

Well you failed to understand my argument (or tried a Straw Man Classical Logical Fallacy) so of course your criticism is wrong. If the transphobe didn't get therapy before becoming sexually active that's their own fault. If they didn't disclose their transphobia before sex that's their own fault. If they assumed the other person must be cisgender when everyone knows transgender people exist and it's an obvious risk of having sex to anyone who spent a half ounce of brain power on it that they might end up having sex with a transgender person seeing as they exist that's their own fault.

That doesn't mean i recommend Trans people not disclose themselves, as it's a great way to avoid having sex with people who badly need therapy and fail their own moral/ethical obligations to disclose thus cannot make a fully informed decision to have sex with anyone.

But if a trans person has not disclosed as the transphobe has a greater obligation to disclose then the transperson an never be judged more harshly than the transphobe is and the trans person can never be more responsible for the consequence than the transphobe is for their own suffering.

originally posted by: EKron
One more small nit to pick before I step away for lunch and to get some work stuff done..

The title of the thread: "Two questions for transgenders". Transgender/transsexual is not a noun. It is an adjective.

Sorry, I'd change it but as I don't make too many threads I don't actually know how to actually do this. Mods?!?

a reply to: solarjetman

You don't need to, and the amount of time you have to edit is expired.

If you want to contact the mods you can go to the front of this thread and hit the button that says alert, then explain. I believe that would be the easiest way.

It's not easy to know all the little nuances involved with discussing gender, I don't think it's even possible to not inadvertently end up saying something that someone somewhere will get pissed about.

a reply to: EKron

Bayne, I like a lot of what you've had to say but don't know where you are getting your numbers from because they all seem high? 1/30 may be or have transgender feelings or aspirations but if you take 50,000 as the estimated number of post operative transsexual women in the US compared to the total cis female population, I think we're talking something higher than 1/30. I don't do math.

Oh i'll happily cite sources. First we have computer pioneer Professor Lynn Conway's estimate that 1 in 500 people get surgery and 1 in 50 are non-binary Trans (she suses the terms Transsexual and Lifelong Crossdresser, but the neurology evidence supports them all actually being Transgender) ai.eecs.umich.edu... But she rather underestimates the figures even then as more recent data shows. As we can see from that the vast majority of Trans people do not get genital surgery though studies like this one www.thetaskforce.org... show that half those who self-identified as crossdressers intend some degree of medical transition in the future. So estimating medical access needs by genital surgery figures gets far too great an underestimate.

For we have studies like this one from New Zealand www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov... "1.2% reported being transgender, 2.5% reported being not sure about their gender" Now those are Highschool Students, so it won't count the many people who come into self-acceptance enough to admit it till after Highschool (like me) or the many who aren't even consciously aware they are Trans because it has been so strongly repressed till later in life. Furthermore we know that even in anonymous online surveys people under-report on things that there is an actual or perceived negative social attitude towards.

That brings us to the next study, the 3rd of a series of studies on Homophobic Bullying in Schools www.glhv.org.au... where 3% of Australian Young People are classed as Gender Questioning.. but they weren't asked questions about that, they literally took the title of the survey to heart and voluntarily wrote in valid gender identity terms other than male and female. They were also the group suffering the most in quantity and severity of bullying and receiving thr least support so they added the category to cover this block of self-reported data.

Now in adults we have this www.afao.org.au... and sorry it's a photocopied book and not a searchable text but it is from the 90s and that gives a figure of from 2% to 4% receiving a diagnosis of Gender Identity Conflict that is constant or recurrent and 8% receiving a diagnosis of Gender Identity Conflict at some point in their lives. And that's old data and because back in the 90s the prejudice was much greater than now and a very large portion of Transgender people remain closeted and do not present to psychologists and doctors this will again be a significant underestimate.

Now if we go to a country where Trans is much more accepted (but still faces tons of prejudice) we may get a more accurate figure. And in Thailand we get this anecdote "The headteacher, Sitisak Sumontha, estimates that in any year between 10% and 20% of his boys consider themselves to be transgender" "A ratio of 10% to 20% of boys calling themselves transsexual in a provincial high school does seem very high, but Mr Sitisak assured me that in his experience it was not unusual. " news.bbc.co.uk...

Now of course another issue with all of these is the word Transgender. A great many people who are Trans by phenomena do not identify with the word. There are many many terms used by sub-sets of the Transgender umbrella as identity terms. So questions using that word will result in underestimates.

So we have multiple minimum estimates of children at approx 1 in 33 fitting the broad-spectrum term Transgender even if they don't all self-identify with that term, and the adult rate will be higher. We have diagnosis evidence that puts the figure closer to 1 in 20 up to almost 1 in 10 and even that is likely to be an underestimate. And we have anecdotal evidence from a locality that should reveal closer to genuine incidence of a rate from 1 in 10 to 1 in 5 and even that may well be an underestimate.

1 in 30 is a nice conservative estimate then.

originally posted by: JadeStar
By the way I kinda thought that girl is probably how you looked at 20, that's why i thought it was a perfect picture to illustrate that point.

Missed this post earlier...

Actually, not quite of course, but I told you my folks more or less backed off and I gave up trying my senior year and that's pretty close to how I looked when I graduated high school except my hair was a little longer. It didn't take much to go either way and by the end of that same year and turning 19, I had mostly went. When I was 20, I had a fair amount of development and t-shirts weren't girly enough during my "adolescence".

originally posted by: Domo1
a reply to: JadeStar

Blaming this girl's death solely on a guy being mean to her is disingenuous. Mentally healthy people move on and don't kill themselves if someone is an asshole to them. Her need to be accepted by everyone as a woman, and not a transwoman, perpetuated by people that don't see the very clear difference is what killed her. That is incredibly sad.

Actually Transgender people do often die from people being assholes to them. It comes from having SO MUCH meanness done to you. Bullying induced suicide is not unheard of in Cisgender people anyway, But lets' throw some trans-specific stats up Canada first
"Among trans Ontarians, 35.1 % (95 % CI: 27.6, 42.5) seriously considered, and 11.2 % (95 % CI: 6.0, 16.4) attempted, suicide in the past year. Social support, reduced transphobia, and having any personal identification documents changed to an appropriate sex designation were associated with large relative and absolute reductions in suicide risk, as was completing a medical transition through hormones and/or surgeries (when needed). Parental support for gender identity was associated with reduced ideation. Lower self-reported transphobia (10th versus 90th percentile) was associated with a 66 % reduction in ideation (RR = 0.34, 95 % CI: 0.17, 0.67), and an additional 76 % reduction in attempts among those with ideation (RR = 0.24; 95 % CI: 0.07, 0.82). This corresponds to potential prevention of 160 ideations per 1000 trans persons, and 200 attempts per 1,000 with ideation, based on a hypothetical reduction of transphobia from current levels to the 10th percentile. "

Australia next (and i klnow one of the reasearchers who did this one as it was partly done through my local uni)
"Almost all of the 189 young Australians surveyed had experienced abuse because of their gender diversity, ranging from verbal threats to physical violence. One fifth had experienced physical abuse, and 90 per cent had thought about suicide in response to that experience of physical abuse. The street (40 per cent) and school (38 per cent) were the most common places for threats and harm to occur.

The report also found:

66% of participants had seen a health professional for their mental health in the past year
38% had suicidal thoughts and a quarter had spoken to a medical professional about it
One in three did not feel supported by their family and suffered much higher rates of stress, suicide and depression
45% were diagnosed with anxiety compared with an average 25% of the population
66% had experienced verbal abuse due to their gender identity
62% had participated in some form of activism (e.g. participating in a march) which was a protective factor

However, the report also highlighted that parental, peer and school support can make a huge and positive impact to that young person’s wellbeing, as support from parents, peers and teachers was a major protective factor in their wellbeing."
www.biomedcentral.com...

There we have confirmation from two recent studies on opposite sides of the planet showing a clear connection between rejection of a Trans person's self-determined gender identity and suicide, and of experience of violence and other abuse and suicide.

In the specific case she appeared to be successfully transitioned so only that guy rejected her, so he's responsible as much as if he shot her or ran her over. Of course he can't be accused of murder unless he new the risk beforehand.. but now you all know that risk, so keep that in mind.

I'm just going to keep posting this question from Bayne until someone acknowledges it, lol...

What upsets you more, that someone you dated might have been born with a girls brain and always was a girl on the inside but may have had their body changed so it matched who they really were or that they were born with a girls body but was a guy on the inside the whole time?

I really think the thrust of this back-and-forth going on centers on penis-phobia, not transphobia. Some brought up the point that the surgery involves making the vagina from the male sex organ, and just can't get past that fact. I know this is my hang up personally. HOWEVER, I will concede that I can see how viewing this as (quite literally) a mind over matter thing-- that the brain trumps the body-- could be an evolved way of thinking about this... lord knows the planet could use a mentally-oriented society.

I have to muse on this some more (and unthread a lot of social dogma in the process)