Now you got me curious. Apparently you are attracted to women, as a former male. You also, though, enjoy the trappings of being a 'woman'. So, the logical question is, are you now a lesbian? I'm thinking that the rough approximation for your situation is the transsexual that is the kids' teacher on SouthPark? But he is attracted to men still. (I know it's a cartoon, but I'm trying to understand)?
I never watch broadcast TV so I've never seen the program.
The first thing I think we should do is stop trying to label people. There are 7 more chormosome patterns found in people besides the XX and XY. We also know that there are so many cross-overs between male and female that gender falls on a continuum rather than being "if, then". Even the Olympics has given up trying to assign gender.
You can't type me as a lesbian because I've never had lesbian sex and I don't consider myself a lesbian. You cannot make that kind of decision for me. Is a woman who never has sex still a lesbian? You see here is where the labels breakdown, I'm neither male nor female, I lived the first part of my life pretending to be a man because the culture required it. Finally I was able to get enough information to discover that I was born with a birth defect and then I went to the doctors to see what could be done. I live my life now as a woman because my brain is female and has estrogen receptors in it, I work better and feel better living as a female, I'm a much more functional person now.
There are two things that come to mind here: one, that I feel the deepest of sympathy for your situation. And two: you must clearly understand why society cannot model your situation as a "marriage" that our youth is supposed to see as "normal".
I don't want sympathy, educated understanding would be good though. No child will be convinced to be a transsexual by finding out that they exist, finding out about tall people does not make one tall.
As to your second point, what needs to be done is for people to stop saying that there is a "normal" by which everyone is to be measured. I'm a normal transsexual, there are millions of us in the world, seeing that we are treated the same as everyone else won't make the kids transsexual. Normal is not real; gender, sexual orientation, intelligence, skin color, visual acuity, hairiness, height, weight, agility, and strength are all attributes that fall onto a continuum in the human animal.
Your fear plays you false, you are apparently very afraid that sexual orientation can be put on to a person like paint, an impression made by some outside force and to support this idea you have animal behavior manipulated by tens of thousands of generations of selective inbreeding. I'm sorry, but the science doesn't back you up.
Once you start mutilating the body God gave you to deal with, based on confusion (many males aren't as aggressive as others, have more estrogen and do just fine in their role as less-aggressive males), you are no longer an example to be followed. I'm sorry if that seems harsh, but that's how it is.
Now you are bringing religion into this. If you are going to go that route, then you need to support your position with scripture--a slippery slope at best considering the amount of craziness in the Bible.
However, body mutilation is a buzz term, do you call vasectomies, piercing, facelifts, repair of cleft palates or club feet, or any of the cosmetic surgery "body mutilation"? This is important, the culture in which I live kills people like me if we can't fit in, without the surgery I would not have been able to legally use the bathroom in most of the US, I would have been put in with the men had I been arrested, I would have continued to be denied medical care, been subject to firing from my job in 47 of the States, been able to be legally denied an apartment to rent, and I would have lived my life in fear of discovery.
Another point is that I would not have been able to apply for a job. I look like a woman, my driver's license has the "F" designation, when I put "female" on my application I would be lying according to Federal Law because I still had a penis. Even if I had lied, when my employer sent my Social Security info in it would have been kicked back out because the gender marker would be wrong--then I'm liable for firing for lying on the application and liable for prosecution for lying on my W-4 form about my gender. It isn't until I have the surgery and bring notarized copies of the surgical records and a signed, notarized copy of the surgeon's letter saying that the surgery was done that I can apply to the Social Security Administration to get my SS file changed to the "F" designation. That "body mutilation" is what saves our lives from the hatred and fear in our culture.
If I was you, I would've invested those thousands of dollars in the best psychotherapy that money could buy before I had body parts removed. And the clincher is that not only do you have to attend psychotherapy, you have to work at finding the roots of your issues. If I had to put money on your situation, I'd put it that you had such a horrific male presence(s) in your life modeled early on that you simply could not accept being male yourself. Clearly you harbor no little animosity towards the male gender. And that animosity isn't biological, it's psychological. You may also have more estrogen that some men, which is normal for males, but you have HUGE issues with being male. It is behavioral. It is psychological. And it is abnormal and has roots in trauma in your youth.
Once again you are denying the medical truth. The AMA has been successfully treating transsexuals for more than 35 years, there has been ongoing research for more than 100 years and none of the conclusions support your position. Thirty years of depression cleared up in a few days by blocking testoterone and supplementing estrogen? I didn't know about cross-gender hormone responses when I got the medications, the doctor deliberately doesn't tell the patient so that if the depression doesn't go away, then they know that there's another cause. I know you want to believe your psychological theory, but there's no science to support it in this century. I was forced to live as a male, I learned to fight really well since I wasn't very macho and got picked on alot. Men in this culture are often pretty badly damaged by the way they are raised. An intersting book dealing with this is REAL BOYS by William Pollack, PhD. Your "common sense" view of this subject is just as wrong as the the common sense view that the world is flat--it has to be flat or we'd fall off!
We need social norms to aspire to.
This statement I can agree with, how about "non-violence", loving others as ourselves, turning the other cheek, not judging, legal equality for all? How about we put in a special law that says that we do not punish consenting adults for loving each other?
Of course they will not always be reached, but what you're asking for is condoned chaos. Clearly your orientation has been chaotic for you. Imagine how it would be to extrapolate your chaotic mindset into a 'norm' for our socially-learning youth to aspire to? They have enough to deal with just getting through school and trying to find their place in the world. To throw another wrench of sexual ambiguity as being "normal" in their world might be a bit much. We need solid roles for them to aspire to; in spite of the fact that some of them will fall short. I don't advocate descrimination against those that do, only that we not hold them up as the example to aspire to. Marriage is the embodiment of "the example to aspire to" in our culture. The deviation and the paragon are not compatible.
Your basic premise is not supported, so your logic brings you to a fallacious conclusion.
Moreover, I still think it is very hard to tell an adolescent how it is OK to mutilate the body and even harm it, in your case or in the case of repeated anal sex, in order to feel pleasure?, but not OK to do so if that pleasure is sought through drugs; another God-given-bodily deviant behavior. I have adolescent children at home. I know how they think. The tiniest hypocrisy they call me on time and again. I am at an utter loss how to hide the spots of blood, Mare, in your argument from my little bloodhounds at home..and their friends at school all over the country..
The hypocrisy is in lying to them, tell them the truth. Your anal sex thing is true but uncommon, what about "intercourse into utero"? The cervix is sugically altered to allow very long male organs to penetrate up into the uterus. It's true, but uncommon. Much more common is trapunto (the term is colloquial slang) or alternating intercourse strokes between the vagina and the anus. If you are going to judge all gay people by the acts of a few, then don't be surprised when you are judged by the few crazy heterosexuals. If you're looking for weird sex to be upset about you should look to the 96% of the population who are "normal".
Your basic premise is not supported by the careful scientific research being done all over the world.
), lost 1/3 of my muscle mass and strength (both good and bad there), cost me tens of thousands of dollars to transition, I lost most of my friends, lost my home, lost my business, lost my shop, I'm not as safe now, not treated well by the prevailing religious community, am discriminated against legally as a 2nd class citizen, uncertain medical future since no long term studies have been done on people like me, have been denied medical care, still have all the light colored beard hair that the lasers wouldn't destroy, need electrolysis to remove the rest--money/pain, my wife and I are in legal limbo since our marriage could be taken away from us--my brothers are part of the campaign to annul marriages like ours, my voice is too deep, my feet are too big, my arms too long and my hands too big for comfort as a woman, I lost the ability to have sex due to damage during the surgery, after 5 years I still have neuropathy (nerve pain), and no matter what I do I'll never be a man or a woman since I was born somewhere out in the middle between the two.
