What does it mean to be transgender?

[DreamBliss]

I am a little confused and out of the loop about this, so I would like a clearer understanding. Here is a link to a woman who says she is transgender:

http://www.okcupid.com/profile/MarinaSlater/

 

Does that mean she is a male that has taken treatments to become female? Or that she is a female with male tendencies? Or do people just label themselves as this for various personal reasons, and there is no rhyme or reason to it?

 

I had a male friend who has claimed they are transgender, and are taking treatments to become more female, or a woman, or whatever it is they do. They have changed their name and everything. But this woman looks like a woman, not a dude, so I am a little confused.

 

I think I understand all these transexual, metrosexual, homosexual, bisexual labels as referring to sexual bias or preference. But I want to be sure, in general is that about right? Is this just referring to a person's sexuality?

 

I appreciate your help clarifying this for me.

[dust]

I recently watched a documentary episode by the ever-inspiring Louis Theroux.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b05qkzt2/louis-theroux-transgender-kids

 

For those who can't view iPlayer or find it elsewhere, a short review: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/tv-and-radio-reviews/11516723/Louis-Theroux-Transgender-Kids-review-excellent-storytelling.html

 

He documents a number of kids, including a 5-year-old boy-turned-girl (he still has his male equipment, but dresses "like a girl"), and male and female teenagers going through puberty with hormone blockers to prevent natural changes.

 

What becomes immediately clear is that this (usually) is nothing to do with sex. The youngest kids, especially, know nothing about sex -- the boys who want to be girls are influenced by gender stereotypes as much as anything, obsessed with makeup and dresses and Hello Kitty merchandise, and, in my opinion, taught by society that if one likes pink things and skirts, then one must only like pink things and skirts, and if one only likes pink things and skirts, one must in fact be a girl.

 

At one point he interviews 2 older teens who were both born male and have both decided to become female -- except for their penises (I think they were having just their testicles removed). They have a sexual relationship, but it seems that they are not particularly specific about which gender they desire -- they find each other attractive, and that's that.

 

So, in my opinion, all those labels are useless. You have to attempt to understand each individual, because circumstances and reasons and desires etc are different for everyone. Blanketing everyone with "weirdo" labels isn't helpful.

[DreamBliss]

That's what I was afraid of... I will just avoid the trans-anything for now. Probably about as healthy for me as trans-fat...

 

Thank you.

[Seeker of Wisdom]

A transgender person's brain didn't set the right 'I am this gender' setting while developing. So they may be physically male but see themselves as female, or vice versa. Their brain literally expects their body to be the other gender and is constantly saying, 'hey, that bit isn't right...' - imagine waking up the other gender, that's what it's like for them. It's neurological.

[Michael Sternbach]

On another level, it ties in with strongly influential past lives in the opposite sex, imo.

[DreamBliss]

My theory is that this is a symptom of a societal cause. That in fact this is a disease, manifested in response to the sexual repression found in almost all religions.

 

The physical form gets sick because of some energetic cause or imbalance. The societal body, so-to-speak, does the same.

[dust]

Sure, there will be social causes, and religious causes, and there will also be biological and perhaps, as Michael says, past-life causes. And who knows what else.

 

Is it really your business to speculate?

 

Do you think you can know what's going on in the heart-mind of any particular person? And do you really not understand that everyone is different, and that if judgement must be made, it must be made on an individual basis?

 

I think you'd do best not to blanket-label people (who don't conform to traditionally socially acceptable gender roles) as "diseased" or "sick". Some probably are -- most people are sick in some way or other -- but unless they ask you for help, it is not your concern.

 

If you feel like trying to address imbalance, do so, but not by targeting a particular group of people and trying to "make them better". You'll only make society even sicker.

Edited April 27, 2015 by dustybeijing

[Michael Sternbach]

Anyway, I think this is the right forum to talk about such matters with individuals (as Dusty suggested), as there are plenty of people around with certain, let's say, complexities regarding their gender/sexuality.

[DreamBliss]

I do not seek to change anyone. My practice is to be love and accept everyone exactly as they are. I do not blame them, or anything for that matter. It is not their fault, and blaming doesn't do anyone any good. I am not singling any person or group out. That is duality, us VS them.

 

I am just stating what I think is the likely root cause of this. I call it a disease, a sickness, because that is what it is. If our bodies were meant to be transgender, they would commonly come wit both sets of equipment. If they were meant to be asexual, there would be no equipment. The common human physical equipment is what most of us guys are born with, and most females are born with. For someone to go against their natural, physical birth traits is a disease, a sickness. Just like cancer going against the body.

 

It is not something to hate. If we each choose our life experiences before we come into the physical, then perhaps more and more of Us are manifesting these gender and sexually deviant traits in an effort to cause a change. Maybe humans will look quite different in the future. Or maybe we are freeing ourselves of our sexual oppression.

 

It is my choice, and my right, to speculate on this all I want to. I have come from a place of hating this, to a place of practicing love and acceptance. It still bothers me. But I am working my way through it. Lots of opportunists out there to practice love and acceptance!

 

Mankind, in general, is seriously screwed up sexually. Children are not brought into this world consciously, we mate like rabbits, we seek to control things in the mating process, we take various pills and supplements. The world around us reflects our screwed up condition. Even animals that live around humans are displaying the same gender and sexual deviancy. Then there is the whole gamut of STDs that nobody likes to talk about. I used to think these came from God.

 

Now my opinion is that we are doing this to ourselves, that there is a change coming, and these are signs of that change. I for one am cheering it on, at least as far as getting mankind free of sexual oppression. I hope for the day we can all naked around each other and not have it be some sexual thing. That we can, each of us, freely enjoy a sexual experience with someone, and not have fear, guilt, shame and all that other crap creep in.

 

I am seeking understand here, that's it.

[dust]

I am just stating what I think is the likely root cause of this. I call it a disease, a sickness, because that is what it is. If our bodies were meant to be transgender, they would commonly come wit both sets of equipment. If they were meant to be asexual, there would be no equipment.

 

Nobody is "meant" to be anything. There is no supreme being up in the clouds saying "Oh, he wasn't meant to be like that...sorry guys.."

 

Things just are.

 

 

The common human physical equipment is what most of us guys are born with, and most females are born with. For someone to go against their natural, physical birth traits is a disease, a sickness. Just like cancer going against the body.

 

And they would argue that the sickness is that their body went against their natural gender. Who are you to say that they're wrong? Maybe something went wrong in the womb, and they were born with the 'wrong' equipment.

 

 

 

It is my choice, and my right, to speculate on this all I want to. I have come from a place of hating this, to a place of practicing love and acceptance. It still bothers me. But I am working my way through it. Lots of opportunists out there to practice love and acceptance!

 

Sure, it's your 'right' to speculate on anything you want, but still not your business

 

 

 

Mankind, in general, is seriously screwed up sexually. Children are not brought into this world consciously, we mate like rabbits, we seek to control things in the mating process, we take various pills and supplements. The world around us reflects our screwed up condition. Even animals that live around humans are displaying the same gender and sexual deviancy. Then there is the whole gamut of STDs that nobody likes to talk about.

 

I don't disagree.

 

 

 

Now my opinion is that we are doing this to ourselves, that there is a change coming, and these are signs of that change. I for one am cheering it on, at least as far as getting mankind free of sexual oppression. I hope for the day we can all naked around each other and not have it be some sexual thing. That we can, each of us, freely enjoy a sexual experience with someone, and not have fear, guilt, shame and all that other crap creep in.

 

Cool.

 

You claim to be seeking understanding, and that's fine by me..but a lot of what you say sounds like it's coming from a place of judgement. So..speculate all you like, but I stand by everything I've said. Most importantly, that we have to understand each person on an individual basis.

[vonkrankenhaus]

Re:

-----

"A transgender person's brain didn't set the right 'I am this gender' setting while developing. So they may be physically male but see themselves as female, or vice versa. Their brain literally expects their body to be the other gender and is constantly saying, 'hey, that bit isn't right...' - imagine waking up the other gender, that's what it's like for them. It's neurological."

-----

 

Gender has a lot to do with hormonal environment in the womb at specific moments during development.

 

Food, consumer products, and the environment abound in hormone-disrupting chemicals, and high levels of these chemicals are seen in pregnant women and breast milk all over the world.

 

These same chemicals appearing in "pollution" are causing gender to be changed in wild animals - wrong sex organs, no sex organs, etc.

 

 

-VonKrankenhaus

[DreamBliss]

Well that makes sense, and would go in line with what I am saying.

dustybeijing, you are right. I am showing criticism and judgment here. And tt is none of my business, at least right now. It does however become my business when I have children, if I wish to protect them from sexually deviant behavior.

But I thought about this last night, and it seems to me that if we are choosing our life experiences before the womb, even if the woman I have children with, and I myself, are eating healthy, organic food we grow ourselves without any chemicals, even if we take care of every minutea of diet so that nothing could negatively affect the child to come, if that child is an expression of Source that came into the world to be transgender, or transsexual, or anything like that, there is nothing we could do to stop it. In fact trying would only ensure it happens.

It always comes back to resistance. The things we fight the hardest against are the things that we give power over us. The harder we fight them, the more power they have over us. Like styruggling in quicksand. Victory can only come through not seeking victory. Through acceptance and non-resistance, using the energy of that which is not desired against itself.

It would be pointless to fight against this anyway, because every child that is born may have a chosen role to play, or experience to have. Evey child is an answer to the desire of the parents, as well as the collective desire of the race. So fighting is not the answer, hatred is not the answer, resistance is not the answer. Which leaves us only with love and acceptance.

[Songtsan]

'Deviant' means that which diverges from that which is the norm. Norm in this case is male or female. 'Trans' means across. Transgender doesn't necessarily imply an attempt to go from A to B, from black to white, it can also mean somewhere in between stations. I think we are entering a new more enlightened age where male/female dualities are transcended. Hyperpolarized individuals are often the most imbalanced. Ultra-feminine and ultra-masculine have always seemed like weak links in the chain to me. I have always admired Padmapani for this reason.

[Aetherous]

I'm open to the idea of a person feeling like they are the opposite gender...why? Because there are people born with chromosomes other than simply XX (female) and XY (male). Without evidence such as this, transgender can just be chalked up to being a mental abnormality or even aberration...but individuals born as XXY for example, prove to us that we are not always only one of two options...if we are educated. It's not their "fault" that they are born that way, as it would be if it's viewed negatively, and if it's completely a personal choice. There are also people born as hermaphrodites...there is an array of potential things that can happen.

So without this other evidence, it can be easy to distrust a person's psyche...think that they are screwed up for feeling like the opposite gender of what they clearly are. Perhaps sometimes this is actually the case, that they've been brainwashed by our culture in a sense, or abused by someone to the point of breaking, or are just rebellious...but perhaps other times they legitimately feel that way naturally and can't help it.

Also, it's strange...I live with a transgender (woman who felt like and chose to become a man). It might just be their clothing and way of behaving, or it might be the treatments they have received...but I actually do consider them to be not so much of a female presence. Sometimes I almost catch myself saying, "What's up dude" and forgetting that they were born as female and are physically that way. Perhaps in their case, they legitimately were born different on the inside. Their spirit seems not-female.

Although it's tricky...because of course they are female, and must be treated with the respect that one deserves.

The world is not so black and white, and it can be challenging for people with thick skulls like me to learn that...it must be especially challenging for them.

[dust]

I like parts of your post, but:

 

Sometimes I almost catch myself saying, "What's up dude" and forgetting that they were born as female and are physically that way. Perhaps in their case, they legitimately were born different on the inside. Their spirit seems not-female.

 

Why catch yourself?

 

Why not just say "What's up dude?" ?? If he wants to be a dude...let him be a dude...

 

 

Although it's tricky...because of course they are female, and must be treated with the respect that one deserves.

 

What difference does one being male or female or anything in between have on how much respect you show them? All people deserve an equal amount of respect, no? (until they show otherwise..)

 

 

The world is not so black and white, and it can be challenging for people with thick skulls like me to learn that...it must be especially challenging for them.

 

My skull is as thick as anyone's...at least we can admit it

[Aetherous]

I like parts of your post, but:

 

 

Why catch yourself?

 

Why not just say "What's up dude?" ?? If he wants to be a dude...let him be a dude...

 

I'm not stopping him/her! They can be who they want. But yes I do catch myself, and am not comfortable saying it to them.

 

Can I be me?

 

What difference does one being male or female or anything in between have on how much respect you show them? All people deserve an equal amount of respect, no? (until they show otherwise..)

 

It's good to give respect to all people, so long as it's beneficial to do so.

 

I was referring to the appropriate way to treat women. For instance, as a man, you protect them if need be. You treat them with dignity, even if they insist on it being otherwise. I don't personally ascribe to the popular post-feminist ideas of men and women being equal, acting equal, and being treated equal in all respects...I view huge differences in how the genders are, and have personal ideas of how I think they should be.

[Songtsan]

I call guys and girls 'dudes'

[dust]

Can I be me?

 

Well...if you really want to be...

 

 

I was referring to the appropriate way to treat women. For instance, as a man, you protect them if need be. You treat them with dignity, even if they insist on it being otherwise. I don't personally ascribe to the popular post-feminist ideas of men and women being equal, acting equal, and being treated equal in all respects...I view huge differences in how the genders are, and have personal ideas of how I think they should be.

 

I was taught for a long time in a Catholic private school environment: suit and tie, nod and smile to everyone, "Yes sir, sorry sir"; always taught to hold doors and, by my grandmother, even to pull out chairs for women.

 

Nowadays, I have to catch myself, because I'm polite and helpful to women, but might tend to ignore a man in the same situation. And why? It feels weird to hold a door open for a man of my own age, but for a woman I'll do it without thinking.

 

But that man and that woman are both equally capable of opening and walking through that door, and equally capable of appreciating my assistance if I hold it for them. Giving the woman preference is, realistically, ludicrous. There's absolutely no logical reason for it, and though I will not label myself 'feminist' (or 'Taoist' or any other -ist), I absolutely understand the position.

 

So, yes, you have your own ideas, and that is of course fine.. but in my opinion, though all people are different and there is a more obvious separation between male and female, to suggest that, in our treatment of people, we should not start from a position of absolute equality and proceed from there on an individual basis, is one of the more harmful perspectives in society.

[Aetherous]

one of the more harmful perspectives in society.

 

I definitely hold rare perspectives that have been cast aside for years now...but I don't think that being a protector of women and striving to treat them with dignity when others don't, is harmful. I think the opposite is harmful, and the idea that all are to be treated as the same when they are not is harmful.

 

So basically we just disagree. 

[Songtsan]

Treating a whole half of the population one way, and the other half another, is discrimination...

[Aetherous]

Treating a whole half of the population one way, and the other half another, is discrimination...

 

Yes, I discriminate between people.

[witch]

A few comments--"transgender" encompasses both transsexuals and crossdressers and can also cover queer and genderf--k, depending on different definitions.

 

DreamBliss, I wouldn't be so quick to ask Nature to back up your biases, as intersex is pretty common in the population--1 in 2000 people are intersex.   1 in 1000 people are transsexual. 

 

It is very common for shamans in traditional cultures to be transgender, whether born male or female.

 

I am skeptical of the bright line made between trans women and crossdressers.  Alice Dreger recently wrote a book, Galileo's Middle Finger, that had some interesting points about similarities.  On the other hand, enforcing such a bright line helps trans women gain public acceptance, which is important.

 

Personally I think society would be vastly improved if men had the same rights as women do to crossdress--then there would be less pressure on them to make a choice.  Nothing wrong with having two spirits.  I am hopeful that the younger generation considers men acting and dressing feminine to be much less of a big deal.

Edited April 30, 2015 by witch

[redcairo]

One long weekend on the internet, I stumbled across this story of a guy -- decades ago -- who when he was born, had not yet developed to the point where the genitals were 'decided'. Turns out that wasn't all that unusual. The doctors or parents would simply decide. Except some years into life, the person felt horrible -- just... "wrong." And it went on with the story of his life, and how he eventually became a woman, and then it went on to talk about this complex list of different "genders" that exist in our population. Like you're not just male or female, you'd be shocked at how many variations there are (?!). Eventually I realized that we are pretty much just a spectrum. A big circle in the middle of the spectrum, that basically "removes the outliers" you might say, leaves what society considers normal.

 

I spent the entire weekend in shock and awe over the topic. I think the only time I was that shocked was once in L.A. when someone's newspaper had blown into my yard and I went to throw it away and discovered it was some paper with pictures of very beautiful big-hair big-breasted women with really big ... eh. I have not been in this forum long enough to know what words are appropriate. Suffice to say I'd never even thought of such a thing and my eyes almost fell out. I spent the entire weekend reading this thing repeatedly trying to understand it. I could only think it reminded me a little of some ancient stuff where creatures were male on the lower half and female on the upper half (years later I met a creature like this, metaphysically). After further thought, I considered such people might be the ideal lovers especially in relationships that have three people LOL. Never really thought about it again until that weekend when I found all the stuff talking about chromosomes and birth choices and so on, decades later.

 

After reading lots of accounts though, the one thing I thought? Was that I just felt horrible compassion for such people.

 

I remember this event from when I was young, about age 12. I was at the skating rink a lot. I was a skate freak. You know, they made me race with the 20 year olds and start halfway back around the rink, I still won. I lived in this huge apt. complex spanning about 3 blocks that had ramp-sidewalks everywhere, so I literally lived on skates, is all. There was a woman who worked there, fairly young though like maybe 18, worked at the snack bar. Had long brown hair. I remember one time a friend and I were in the bathroom and realized there were no open stalls, and someone finished and was stepping out and it was her. We were looking at her merely because we were standing there, and had to back up. But I think she had been standing facing the toilet, and we hadn't noticed (I did only afterward) because I just thought she was standing like pulling her clothes back on or something. But she said something like, "Don't mind me, I'm just a freak!" and whirled around and left, and my friend and I burst out giggling because we had no idea what she was talking about -- although later I realized she probably thought she did and were laughing at her. She was proactively paranoid, is all. Anyway, I thought about her, when reading those accounts, and I wondered if she was in some situation like that, going through her whole life feeling completely wrong for the body she was in, feeling like if she lived "like" the gender she identified with, everyone would then think she was a freak for that instead.

 

I don't know if there is an answer to such things because I suspect that such things are merely a "spectrum," period, and there isn't really any one way it "should" be so much as that there is "a large dominance" of a way it "usually is" which is why our species repopulates ok.

 

I feel it must be very tragic for people in that situation. I imagine the not knowing is probably the worst of it, I would think, I mean socially -- not knowing if people have a bias and that's why they do or say X; or not knowing if someone is going to reject you if they find that out; or if maybe you just shouldn't get close because they won't want you around their kids if they realize; or whatever. I would almost want to just wear it on a T-Shirt (my next door neighbor has a T-Shirt that says, NOBODY KNOWS I'M A LESBIAN which cracks me up) just so everybody knew up front and then I didn't have to worry about it past that. At least some things, like being black or fat or whatever the latest "people are biased because ___" thing might be, are so obvious that they're not going to surprise anybody.

 

The recent stuff with Kaitlyn Jenner has been ambivalence-generating. She'd signed media contracts before even starting all that and it seems like a promo thing from the start. But it occurred to me that maybe she was just aware that it would and could be, given her previous status as a male athlete, and that she hoped to give visibility to others all along as a good thing, and I suppose I can understand that. Definitely the media did it to death -- if I never hear of her again, I'm good with that -- but maybe if it's more familiar to people it will seem less bizarre to them if they meet someone like that.

 

I'm all for men crossdressing if they want. Men walking around looking like boy george for example -- or KJ -- is just fine with me, unless it's personally my boyfriend why should I care anyway? Women dress like men all the time, nobody blinks. If men actually want to put on heels and hose and torment themselves with that shit then fine, let them. We women also go get shot in combat now, that seems an equal trade. (kidding)

[Karl]

Transgender is a symptom of the collapse of civilisation. The feminising of males, feminism and the destruction of the family. That's not the fault of transgender, transsexual, gay, lesbians or any other mixed group, they are simply victims of a new, pragmatic world in which there is no identity and reality has been vanquished.

 

We see the same in economics, art, philosophy, education, literature. The world has become Alice's garden party. When people lose their identity and reality distorts perception like a magic mirror, then identity hopping is the result. In Japan the young men are no longer interested in young women, these young males see no value in forming families-they see no purpose in it, or having a male identity so they have developed a kind of androgynous personality.

Edited December 19, 2015 by Karl

[redcairo]

Hmmn. I have a different perspective, if looking at it from the mystical side.

 

What I observe in my own experience is that most things begin with "definitions" and they are fairly polarized.

 

As I learn and experience, eventually I exceed those; I realize the polarities are too small to hold that energy; then I realize the polarities are the same thing, oddly; then it all loses definition and I see it more like just a big "spectrum" and no matter where something is in that spectrum, it is all equal; it is all life; it is all exploration of life.

 

And then, humorously, definition begins to come back -- not because the limits return, just the opposite; but because now that there is a greater understanding, the "choice" becomes truly conscious, truly based on awareness for the first time.

 

I think I saw some quote on this forum the other day where some master said there used to be mountains and waters, and then there were none, and then there were mountains and waters again. This makes sense to me. It's all the same dynamic.

 

In this model, our world has begun to exceed the default-unconscious-assumption-of-polarities of the male and female, the beliefs there are no other options or here-there-be-evil at such a thought. The world has begun to expand its understanding and exploration of the life, of the spectrum of this thing we call gender or sex but really we're talking about yin/yang energy right.

 

And eventually I think when there is more awareness, and the choices people make are truly a choice from awareness, we'll probably return to the vast vast majority of sexuality at the male/female poles.

 

In particular I think the shift will help men some. There is a great deal of yin/vulnerability that men do innately have that right now is either forced into total suppression or them having to go full bisexual to explore it, which is kind of ridiculous. (A sexually healthy wife would help explore that with him but a rather large percentage of people aren't married, so...) I think it tends to affect men emotionally in an unfortunate way sometimes.