Transsexual

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A trans woman with the letters "XY" written on the person's palm

Transsexual is a term for people who attempt to change from one sex to the other. In fact, this is not possible. Superficial resemblance is the best that can be hoped for, and in most cases even that is not achieved. Some people attempt to change into "non-binary" i.e. indeterminate sex.

People who suffer from gender dysphoria are offered a range of hormonal and surgical treatments all of which are risky, and may be fatal. The treatments cause sterility, injury and many long-term adverse side-effects. Multiple operations and even blood transfusions are often required. Transsexuals find very few prospective partners and have very high suicide rates.

Disastrous Surgical Procedures

A young man in Wales who had a so-called "sex-re-assignment" operation in 2016 spoke out a year later and said it had been a disaster and he felt like a "freak". All his male genitalia were cut off, leaving his urethra exposed and painful, vulnerable to infection as he has no labia or appropriate female muscles for passing urine. The surgeons used his penis to construct an artificial orifice that can never function as a vagina as it simply is not one. He has no organs for sexual sensation or pleasure and the operation is irreversible. Media refer to him as a "woman" but he is a eunuch.

Bogus Ideology

The belief that you can change sex is part of LGBT ideology and is frequently denounced by the victims who have believed it and later regret going down that path.

Jamie Shupe is one man who has spoken out after a painful experience of attempting to "transition" and then transitioning back. Jamie Shupe retired from the U.S. Army as a decorated Sergeant First Class (E-7) after 18 years of honorable military service. On January 26, 2019 he announced on his website “I believe that gender identity is a fraud perpetrated by psychiatry, the likes of something the United States and other nations hasn’t experienced since the lobotomy era..I Have Returned To My Male Birth Sex” .

He goes on "On January 25, 2019, in the State of Florida, the Marion County Department of Motor Vehicles in Ocala, Florida issued me a male driver’s license. Ocala, Florida has been my home since July 2018.

In the days ahead, I will be taking further steps to restore my birth sex to male more formally.

In my thirty plus year marriage, I am the husband. To my daughter, I am her Father. I no longer identify as a transgender or non-binary person and renounce all ties to transgenderism.

I will not be a party to advancing harmful gender ideologies that are ruining lives, causing deaths and contributing to the sterilization and mutilation of gender-confused children.

My history-making and landmark sex change to non-binary was a fraud based on the pseudoscience of gender identity. I am and have always been male. There should be no social or legal penalty for others to state that.

In addition to supporting the President’s ban on gender dysphoria in the military, I also support President Trump’s policy of recognizing and enforcing that there are only two biological sexes, male and female."

Terminology

See also: Transgender § Evolution of transgender terminology

Norman Haire reported that in 1921, Dora R of Germany began a surgical transition, under the care of Magnus Hirschfeld. In 1930, Hirschfeld supervised the second genital reassignment surgery to be reported in detail in a peer-reviewed journal, that of Lili Elbe of Denmark. Elbe died as a result of this surgery.

In 1923, Hirschfeld introduced the (German) term "Transsexualismus", after which David Oliver Cauldwell introduced "transsexualism" and "transsexual" to English in 1949 and 1950.

Cauldwell appears to be the first to use the term to refer to those who desired a change of physiological sex. In 1969, Harry Benjamin claimed to have been the first to use the term "transsexual" in a public lecture, which he gave in December 1953. Benjamin went on to popularize the term in his 1966 book, The Transsexual Phenomenon, in which he described transsexual people on a scale (later called the "Benjamin scale") of three levels of intensity: "Transsexual (nonsurgical)", "Transsexual (moderate intensity)", and "Transsexual (high intensity)". In his book, Benjamin described "true" transsexualism as the following:

True transsexuals feel that they belong to the other sex, they want to be and function as members of the opposite sex, not only to appear as such. For them, their sex organs, the primary (testes) as well as the secondary (penis and others) are disgusting deformities that must be changed by the surgeon's knife.

Benjamin suggested that moderate intensity male to female transsexual people may benefit from estrogen medication as a "substitute for or preliminary to operation." Some people have had SRS but do not meet the above definition of transsexual (e.g. Gregory Hemingway). Other people do not desire SRS although they meet the other element's of Benjamin's definition of a "true transsexual". Transexuality was included for the first time in the DSM-III in 1980 and again in the DSM-III-R in 1987, where it was located under Disorders Usually First Evident in Infancy, Childhood or Adolescence.

Beyond Benjamin's work, which focused on male-to-female transsexual people, there are cases of the female to male transsexual, for whom genital surgery may not be practical. Benjamin gave certifying letters to his MTF transsexual patients that stated "Their anatomical sex, that is to say, the body, is male. Their psychological sex, that is to say, the mind, is female." After 1967 Benjamin abandoned his early terminology and adopted that of "gender identity."

Sexual orientation

In 2008, a National Transgender Discrimination Survey was conducted by the National Center for Transgender Equality and the National LGBTQ Task Force. Of 6436 transgender people responding, 21% were homosexuals, 23% bisexuals, 21% heterosexuals, 20% queers, 4% asexuals, and 11% others. Of them 26% were men, 41% women, 13% others, and 20% varied. At birth, 60% were assessed as men, 40% as women, 76% were white and 11% multiracial. Of respondents, 46% identified strongly in "male-to-female", 26% in "female-to-male", 46% to "transsexual", 65% to "transgender", 32% to "gender non-conforming, 15% to "cross-dresser", etc.

Society and culture

• Featured article: Crimes Committed by Transgender People

Main article: List of transgender people

See also: LGBT rights in Thailand § Trans life in the country

Historically, an apparent transsexual named Elagabalus was the Roman Emperor from 218 to 222.

A number of Native American and First Nations cultures have traditional social and ceremonial roles for individuals who do not fit into the usual roles for males and females in that culture. These roles can vary widely between tribes, because gender roles, which tend to be elaborately complex, may vary considerably among different Native cultures. However, a modern, pan-Indian status known as Two-Spirit has been popularized by LGBT Natives in recent years.

Legal and social aspects

See also: Legal aspects of transsexualism

Poland's Anna Grodzka is the first transsexual MP in the history of Europe to have had sex reassignment surgery.

Laws regarding changes to the legal status of transsexual people are different from country to country. Some jurisdictions allow an individual to change their name, and sometimes, their legal gender, to reflect their gender identity. Within the US, some states allow amendments or complete replacement of the original birth certificates. Some states seal earlier records against all but court orders in order to protect the transsexual person's privacy.

In many places, it is not possible to change birth records or other legal designations of sex, although changes are occurring. Estelle Asmodelle’s book documented her struggle to change the Australian birth certificate and passport laws, although there are other individuals who have been instrumental in changing laws and thus attaining more acceptance for transsexual people in general.

Medical treatment for transsexual and transgender people is available in most Western countries. However, transsexual and transgender people challenge the "normative" gender roles of many cultures and often face considerable hatred and prejudice. The film Boys Don't Cry chronicles the case of Brandon Teena, a lesbian girl who sometimes passed as a man. She was raped and murdered after her sex was discovered. The project Remembering Our Dead, founded by Gwendolyn Ann Smith, archives numerous cases of transsexual and transgender people being murdered. In the United States, November 20 has been set aside as the "Day of Remembrance" for all murdered transgender people.

Jurisdictions allowing changes to birth records generally allow trans people to marry members of the opposite sex to their gender identity and to adopt children. Jurisdictions which prohibit same sex marriage often require pre-transition marriages to be ended before they will issue an amended birth certificate.

Health-practitioner manuals, professional journalistic style guides, and LGBT advocacy groups advise the adoption by others of the name and pronouns identified by the person in question, including present references to the transgender or transsexual person's past. Family members and friends who may be confused about pronoun usage or the definitions of sex are commonly instructed in proper pronoun usage, either by the transsexual person or by professionals or other persons familiar with pronoun usage as it relates to transsexual people. Sometimes transsexual people have to correct their friends and family members many times before they begin to use the transsexual person's desired pronouns consistently. According to Julia Serano, deliberate mis-gendering of transsexual people is "an arrogant attempt to belittle and humiliate trans people"

Both "transsexualism" and "gender identity disorders not resulting from physical impairments" are specifically excluded from coverage under the Americans with Disabilities Act Section 12211. Gender dysphoria is not excluded.

Employment issues

Openly transsexual people can have difficulty maintaining employment. Most find it necessary to remain employed during transition in order to cover the costs of living and transition. The transition is often disturbing to other people and raises many issues about mental illness and conflicting belief, particularly when a person transitions inconsistently e.g. sometimes dressing and presenting as their biological sex, sometimes not. Transition is often unconvincing and for these reasons creates problems in employment situations, which the trans-activists wish to blame on society, not on the gender-dysphoric person. Transsexual people must decide whether to transition on-the-job, or to find a new job when they make their social transition. Other stresses that transsexual people face in the workplace are being fearful of coworkers negatively responding to their transition, and losing job experience under a previous name—even deciding which rest room to use can prove challenging. Finding employment can be especially challenging for those in mid-transition.

Laws regarding name and gender changes in many countries make it difficult for transsexual people to conceal their trans status from their employers. Because the Harry Benjamin Standards of Care requires one-year of real life experience prior to SRS, some feel this creates a Catch 22 situation which makes it difficult for trans people to remain employed or obtain SRS.

In many countries, laws provide protection from workplace discrimination based on gender identity or gender expression, including masculine women and feminine men. An increasing number of companies are including "gender identity and expression" in their non-discrimination policies. Often these laws and policies do not cover all situations and are not strictly enforced. California's anti-discrimination laws protect transsexual persons in the workplace and specifically prohibit employers from terminating or refusing to hire a person based on their transsexuality. The European Union provides employment protection as part of gender discrimination protections following the European Court of Justice decisions in P v S and Cornwall County Council.

In the United States National Transgender Discrimination Survey, 44% of respondents reported not getting a job they applied for because of being transgender. 36% of trans women reported losing a job due to discrimination compared to 19% of trans men. 54% of trans women and 50% of trans men report having been harassed in the workplace. Transgender people who have been fired due to bias are more than 34 times likely than members of the general population to attempt suicide.

Stealth

Many transsexual men and women choose to adopt a new identity without disclosing details of their biological-assigned sex. This approach is sometimes called stealth. Stealthy transsexual people choose not to disclose their past for numerous reasons, including fear of discrimination and fear of physical violence. There are examples of people having been denied medical treatment upon discovery of their trans status, whether it was revealed by the patient or inadvertently discovered by the doctors.

Man-to-woman transsexuals often attempt to date men while pretending to be biological women. A major portion of the violence against them is related to this activity.

In pageantry

Since 2004, a beauty pageant by the name of The World's Most Beautiful Transsexual Contest has been held in Las Vegas, Nevada. The pageant accepted pre-operation and post-operation trans women, but required proof of their gender at birth. The winner of the 2004 pageant was a man named Mimi Marks.

"Jenna" Talackova, the 23-year-old man who forced Donald Trump and his Miss Universe Canada pageant to end its ban on transgender contestants, competed in the pageant on May 19, 2012 in Toronto. He lost.

On Saturday, January 12, 2013, Kylan Arianna Wenzel was the next transgender allowed to compete in a Miss Universe Organization pageant since Donald Trump changed the rules to allow men like Wenzel to enter officially. He also lost.

Events and organizations

Main article: Transgender § Events

Trans communities in various countries hold several events annually; in the United States, the most prominent are the Transgender Day of Remembrance held every year on November 20, and the Trans March, one of three protests held in San Francisco, California during "Pride Weekend", the last weekend of June.

Transgender At Work (TAW) is an organization with a focus on addressing issues in the workplace for transsexual individuals. Its goal is to allow transsexual employees to work productively without feeling as if they must hide an essential part of themselves. This includes addressing such issues as transsexual individuals being excluded from employer health care on the basis of their transsexuality.

The National Transgender Advocacy Coalition is a lobbying organization in the United States dedicated to preserving the civil rights of transsexual individuals. It began in Virginia in 1999 and held its first lobbying event in 2001. It has no paid employees, but consists of a board of experienced lobbyists and activists.

The Renaissance Education Association is a non-profit organization founded in Pennsylvania that is dedicated to providing education and social support regarding transgender issues. This includes providing educational programs, support groups, and resources to community care providers. It also strives to provide personal and educational resources for individuals struggling with issues related to transsexuality and those close to them.

Survivor Project is a non-profit organization founded in 1997 that is devoted to assisting intersex and transsexual survivors of domestic and sexual violence. This is done through caring action and education. The Project provides presentations, workshops, and consultation materials to many communities and universities across the United States. It also works to find information regarding the specific issues faced by intersex and transsexual individuals who are victimized. Empowering survivors and allowing them to participate in anti-violence activism is one major philosophy of the organization.

The Transgender Law and Policy Institute (TLPI) was founded by Paisley Currah, Associate Professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College. It is dedicated to engaging in effective advocacy for transgender people in our society. The TLPI brings experts together to work on law and policy initiatives designed to advance transgender equality. Their website provides information and resources on legislation, case law, employer and college policies and other resources.They also work with the Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) in New England.

See also

• List of transgender-related topics
• List of transgender-rights organizations
• List of LGBT-related organizations
• List of transgender people

Bibliography

• Standards of Care for Gender Identity Disorders, Seventh Version. – World Professional Association for Transgender Health (2012)

External links

• Full service information and interactive dialogue for transsexual people
• Asociación Española de Transexuales. AET Transexualia
• Basic TG/TS/IS Information – including Successful Transwomen and Successful Transmen
• FTM International – Female To Male International: practical and medical information
• FTM Australia – Comprehensive information for all men identified female at birth in Australia.
• Hudson's FTM Resource Guide – Comprehensive information for female to male trans men and allies – US-based
• Gender.org – The home of Gender Education & Advocacy, a nonprofit corporation using the web to provide education and advocacy for transsexual and transgender issues.
• Definition and Synopsis of the Etiology of Adult Gender Identity Disorder and Transsexualism – prepared by 24 internationally recognized experts, published by the Gender Identity Research and Education Society (GIRES)(See: http://www.gires.org.uk)
• The International Journal of Transgenderism – The Official Journal of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (formerly HBIGDA). An archive of IJT Volumes I through V is available, as are several books on transsexualism, including Harry Benjamin's "The Transsexual Phenomenon"
• TransParentcy – supports transgender parents and their advocates (lawyers, mental health professionals, friends, family) by providing information and resources.
• Transsexual Road Map – consumer information and advice for transsexual women.
• Lynn Conway's transsexual resources pages
• "Dr. Anne Lawrence On Transsexualism and Sexuality" - detailed information on medical aspects of transition
• The Gender Identity Research and Education Society