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How can you have a female brain in a male body? If you have XY, you are male. Your brain isn't excepted from the rest of your biology just because you "think womanly." You are still biologically male.
Just because you identify with females, it still doesn't make you one. So I disagree with those who are saying "she" was just born into the wrong body. If you have XYs everywhere, you cannot be a SHE. Black and white. This part is not a grey area. You can be one, or the other. If you have both XX and XY in your DNA then we can talk. Or if you have XXY. But a XY is male, and a XX is female.
That being said, if you want to live your life that way, who am I to judge? Go for it. There are lots of people who identify mentally as the other sex, or somewhere in the grey area, and that is what the issue here is. That should not be disallowed, and frankly, even though I don't do it myself doesn't mean others can't. I try not to judge those sort of people.
If I met a "girl" somewhere who used to be a man, I'd be turned off. I don't know why, it's just ingrained into me. Is it wrong? This "girl" is good looking, and hooking up with "her" would be both strange and good (no worries for birth control LOL), but I don't know if I could actually do it.
On topic- if the rules clearly state (and it's a private contest) that a she must be born as a she, then the disqualification is just. Doesn't mean "she" shouldn't petition for them to change the rules, it just means this is an issue that society needs to reconsider.
How can you have a female brain in a male body? If you have XY, you are male. Your brain isn't excepted from the rest of your biology just because you "think womanly." You are still biologically male.
Just because you identify with females, it still doesn't make you one. So I disagree with those who are saying "she" was just born into the wrong body. If you have XYs everywhere, you cannot be a SHE. Black and white. This part is not a grey area. You can be one, or the other. If you have both XX and XY in your DNA then we can talk. Or if you have XXY. But a XY is male, and a XX is female.
That being said, if you want to live your life that way, who am I to judge? Go for it. There are lots of people who identify mentally as the other sex, or somewhere in the grey area, and that is what the issue here is. That should not be disallowed, and frankly, even though I don't do it myself doesn't mean others can't. I try not to judge those sort of people.
If I met a "girl" somewhere who used to be a man, I'd be turned off. I don't know why, it's just ingrained into me. Is it wrong? This "girl" is good looking, and hooking up with "her" would be both strange and good (no worries for birth control LOL), but I don't know if I could actually do it.
On topic- if the rules clearly state (and it's a private contest) that a she must be born as a she, then the disqualification is just. Doesn't mean "she" shouldn't petition for them to change the rules, it just means this is an issue that society needs to reconsider.
It's not so simple as just XX and XY, but I think my point is valid still.
You'll see that even in the wikipedia XY article that you linked to, it states that the classical XX vs XY understanding has changed significantly. (edit: jeez, my reading comprehension sucks. I see you acknowledge that it's more complicated than simple XY.)
The significant quote is this one:
Quote:
We [are] entering this new era in molecular biology of sex determination where it's a more subtle dosage of genes, some pro-males, some pro-females, some anti-males, some anti-females that all interplay with each other rather than a simple linear pathway of genes going one after the other, which makes it very fascinating but very complicated to study.
It appears to be a lot more complicated than simple XX vs XY, and if this understanding is correct, then there most definitely is grey area. That said, I agree with the rest of your post; it's entirely within your right and the rest of our rights to be uncomfortable with such a woman, and as for the contest, it's within their right, but up to the rest of society to question how we want to treat such cases.
Last edited by octothorp; 03-28-2012 at 02:48 PM.
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The vast majority of transgendered people I have seen have so obviously been dudes playing an extrememly advanced game of dress up, and the few I have known personally still talked and acted like men regardless of the removal of their junk, in fact I think it is a highly male view of sexuality to see being a female as just being a case of having a pair of bristols.
What I always found odd is how many transgendered 'women' then decide they are 'lesbians' when the reality is they are just dudes with their junk cut off.
There is now emerging a whole other group of body dismorphics who want the right to have their legs or arms removed as this will 'complete them'.
I have long been of the opinion that these are all just sad unhappy people looking for somethinhg to blame or take control of to explain their sadness.
I wouldn't stop anyone from cutting their junk off but I do not believe for a moment they are women trapped in a mans body any more than anorexics are just dieting.
The vast majority of transgendered people I have seen have so obviously been dudes playing an extrememly advanced game of dress up, and the few I have known personally still talked and acted like men regardless of the removal of their junk, in fact I think it is a highly male view of sexuality to see being a female as just being a case of having a pair of bristols.
What I always found odd is how many transgendered 'women' then decide they are 'lesbians' when the reality is they are just dudes with their junk cut off.
There is now emerging a whole other group of body dismorphics who want the right to have their legs or arms removed as this will 'complete them'.
I have long been of the opinion that these are all just sad unhappy people looking for somethinhg to blame or take control of to explain their sadness.
I wouldn't stop anyone from cutting their junk off but I do not believe for a moment they are women trapped in a mans body any more than anorexics are just dieting.
This really just shows how little you really understand about what happens during sexual reassignment surgery.
The fact that many women remain attracted to women after they have surgery is irrelevant.
You might think it is an excuse or they are looking for something to blame for being sad, but this isn't like you can go to your doctor and schedule a sex change for next Thursday. This is a long procedure where you need to be examined and meet all these stringent psychological criteria to even get an interview with the doctor who will consider if you can even book an appointment for the surgery. The fact that most people with Gender Identity Disorder are depressed might have something to do with the fact that they are confused their whole lives about who they are and when they realize who they are they are often persecuted to the utmost degree by many facets of society.
I know you can't understand what these people go through, and I don't blame you because I can't even imagine what it would be like to not understand at a young age why everyone else was so different than you, because no one can until they have gone through it.
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I have to ask... is nobody else creeped out by this picture? The shape of her legs is just all wrong. Too much muscle definition in her thighs, WAY too much definition in her calves, not enough fat in her legs overall... and those big, thick ankles just scream "MAN". Giving me the willies.
Just a curious question after reading this thread what this conversation would have been like 5 or 10 years ago. I'm actually surprised at the progressiveness felt by many ( and I think that's good ). I learnt quite a bit too from some of the more scientific folk on here.
I have to ask... is nobody else creeped out by this picture? The shape of her legs is just all wrong. Too much muscle definition in her thighs, WAY too much definition in her calves, not enough fat in her legs overall... and those big, thick ankles just scream "MAN". Giving me the willies.
Be honest. You only notice those features because you know she used to be a man. If that was just a random picture in the hot girls thread, you wouldn't be pointing out muscle definition in her calves.
Be honest. You only notice those features because you know she used to be a man. If that was just a random picture in the hot girls thread, you wouldn't be pointing out muscle definition in her calves.
I am being honest. I'm very much a leg man, and I'm highly critical. It is possible that I would not have picked her out as a former man, but I definitely would not think she was hot because I find her legs to be extremely unattractive.
A child that is born neither male or female is a rare occurrence but babies born with some form of Disorder of Sex Development (DSD) happens in one in every 1,500 births, according to the support group Accord Alliance.
For some born with a DSD it can mean growing up in a world of shame and secrecy, but many people are working to foster openness about it.
After Janet was born, it was difficult to tell if she was a boy or a girl. "When my grandfather learned there was a question of my sex, it was suggested by him that they just let me die," she says.
Now in her 50s and a mother of two, she was born with a womb, ovaries and female genes but her genitals and hormones were partly masculine. She was diagnosed with congenital adrenal hyperplasia, a DSD where her body makes too much testosterone.
Living with this condition, says Janet, left her a "psychological mess" for many years.
A wide range of factors determine a baby's sex. Disruption in the development of any of these can cause a disorder of sex development. They can range from girls with more masculine characteristics and vice versa, to babies born with indeterminate sex, previously known as intersex.
Clinical psychologist and sex therapist Dr Tiger Devore was born with indeterminate sex. He has severe hypospadias, an abnormality of the penis, which in its milder form can affect one in 250 men.
"(Intersex) people are usually raised with shame and secrecy," he says.
Dr Tiger Devore says parents of intersex babies feel "fear and guilt they gave birth to a child like this"
"Those babies are hidden from general society - and that was my experience of growing up."
"I always had to keep it a big secret. I could not tell anybody I was having surgery down there, which we're not supposed to talk about."
Aileen Schast, a clinical psychologist who counsels families at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, says: "It can be very confusing and isolating for families and what worries me the most is an early feeling of shame starts to develop, as this has to do with genitalia, and we don't talk about that.
"Everyone is dying to find out what the baby is and how do you say we don't really know yet.
"I had one parent tell me she almost wished her child had cancer because at least people have heard of it, so when she needed support she could say this is what my child has and people would know what it meant.
I implore anyone posting or reading in this thread to read this article and attempt to watch the program. I had very little exposure to any of this information prior to this documentary and walked away thoroughly fascinated.
The fact that many women remain attracted to women after they have surgery is irrelevant.
You might think it is an excuse or they are looking for something to blame for being sad, but this isn't like you can go to your doctor and schedule a sex change for next Thursday. This is a long procedure where you need to be examined and meet all these stringent psychological criteria to even get an interview with the doctor who will consider if you can even book an appointment for the surgery. The fact that most people with Gender Identity Disorder are depressed might have something to do with the fact that they are confused their whole lives about who they are and when they realize who they are they are often persecuted to the utmost degree by many facets of society.
I know you can't understand what these people go through, and I don't blame you because I can't even imagine what it would be like to not understand at a young age why everyone else was so different than you, because no one can until they have gone through it.
Actually I have had far more exposure to this than you might think, I have worked with a few pre op transgendered kids and have know several older post ops as well, which is what I base my thoughts on, they were all deeply disfunctional before the operations and just as depressed and deeply disfunctional after.
The reality is the medical profession has never really questioned whether any of this makes sense, they have always approached it from the 'we have the technology' point of view, and while the process is long it is always persued from the point of view that it will happen, no one gets told 'no you arn't a woman trapped in a mans body, you are a just deeply depressed because you were abused or beaten or generally effed up and you need to work on this because you will be just as unhappy in a womans body'.
If anyone wants to read a great book about gender roles and the personal struggle of a hermaphrodite, born that way because of a mutated gene, living childhood as a man before becoming a women, I highly recommend "Middlesex" by Jeffrey Eugenides. It is a fictional book (a Pulitzer Prize winner actually) but very factual and was even praised by the medical community for it's description of intersex people and the struggle they face.
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Last edited by kipperfan; 03-28-2012 at 05:15 PM.
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Imagine, just for a minute, that your brain believes you are male, but you have female anatomy. Do you think you could lead a normal, happy and productive life?
How do you feel Male?
I don't get the concept, I brought it earlier in the thread and there were a few responses. But I do wonder if it isn't societies definition of Male and Female roles that people don't fit into and that creates a deep psychological feeling of being wrong.
It would be that Nature gives Men and Women a very wide range of acceptable behaviour but society defines one set of behaviours as male and the other as female. So right from the beginning you would feel excluded by society. So it isn't that you are born a man and should be a women it is that you don't meet societies expectations of being a man and therefore feel excluded. To me that makes more sense then such an abstract concept of gender identity which can't really be defined.
What ever makes a person feel themselves is what they should do. If that means that they are gay, then great. If that means they need to have a sex change operation in order to feel good about themselves, then great.
Does what ever they choose to do really impact anyone else; of course not. The thing I find most amusing is that the people that have the biggest problem with people trying to feel good about themselves are people that are all about personal freedoms.
I wish that she was able to compete in this beauty contest if that what she wanted to do. I don't really see a problem with it.
What ever makes a person feel themselves is what they should do. If that means that they are gay, then great. If that means they need to have a sex change operation in order to feel good about themselves, then great.
Does what ever they choose to do really impact anyone else; of course not. The thing I find most amusing is that the people that have the biggest problem with people trying to feel good about themselves are people that are all about personal freedoms.
I wish that she was able to compete in this beauty contest if that what she wanted to do. I don't really see a problem with it.
I generally agree with you, that said though 20 percent of post op transexuals are unhappy with their life after the operation and 18 percent attempt suicide, it is a hell of long painfull dificult process that doesn't seem to make alot of those that go through it happy, I don't want to sound like I don't think anyone should go that route I am just deeply conflicted that a medical profession doesn't question what they are doing and how they are doing it, on top of this it has also become a deeply political issue with the LGBT lobby becoming incensed if any one suggests that there might be better options for a fair chunk of transgendered patients, or, god forbid, that some of them might actually have mental health issues, rather than the wrong body.
