Chastity Bono announces gender reassignment
 

Story. The title pretty much says it all. Read elsewhere that he'll go by "Chaz".

For those opposed to same-sex marriage:

What gender should he be allowed to marry?

Smooth sailing to you, Chaz.

Ironically, once he's been legally declared male he can get married in the state of California.

But would he be allowed to serve in the military?

The technical term for the surgery is adadictomy

As near as I can find (but so far not from primary sources) transgender status or a gender identity disorder diagnosis are disqualifications for being accepted into the military.

Of course, being 40 would probably keep him out too.

I have a lot of issues with Trans people. I need to get to know some more of those folks.

But I kinda resent them being lumped in with da gays. Gender Identity issues have absolutely nothing to do with same-sex orientation. I have nothing more in common issue-wise with Trans people than I do with Latinos and African-Americans or any other oppressed group of people. I want the 'T" from LGBT thrown into Boston Harbor.

Further, while the main issue I'm dealing with right now on the gay side is Marriage Equality, it rankles that Trans people can marry whomever they want. This is not their issue at all, and their issues have nothing to do with it. It doesn't help any that I think there's no surgery or personal belief that can actually change one's gender ... so, to me, a Trans Man-to Woman who marries a man is "getting away with" gay marriage through a legal loophole that I could care less about, but that's what it is to me.


Clearly, I have a lot of work to do. But I just don't get Trans folk. I think everybody should live the life they want ... but thinking you ARE a different gender is a delusion. One may prefer to act like, and have as many attributes as possible as, and think of oneself as a different gender. But that doesn't make it so.

Still, I'm all for complete personal freedom that hurts no one else, so good luck to Chaz Bono in all her or his future endeavors.

The piece I read last night (cnn.com???) said that quite a small percentage of all transgendered people have surgery, that it's much more about living as a man or a woman than anything anatomical.

Why do you think you have a lot fo work to do? I don't think that you (or I or anyone) has to understand or embrace what others choose to do.

Here is the article. I read it yesterday as well. If you don't have the surgery then what exactly is the criteria for legally declaring yourself to be of the opposite sex you were born with?

I thought it was very interesting.

Neither Man Nor Woman is a good place to start to begin understanding the role of gender identification has in society and in psyche. We may not have to understand or embrace what others choose to do, but I personally find the attempt to understand what others choose to do helps me understand my own choices better. Gender roles are intensely powerful forces in society, and understanding what (if anything) is "real" about them and what is artificial goes a long way towards understanding why people act like they do.

I believe in California it does require the surgery to legally change your gender. You can find the forms here. An affidavit from a doctor of sex change is required.

The transgendered people I've known all were simply living as their preferred gender but none had plans for gender reassignment surgery (some because it was just too expensive others because they weren't interested).

Also they weren't all "gay." I haven't known any female-to-male transgendered but the men were split between being sexually/romantically interested in men or women.

Transgendered folks that I have met have pretty much all been "straight" in their chosen gender.

Yeah, from what I understand, transgendered is not enough to change legal gender identity. You need to be transsexual ... or a Transylvanian from the Planet Transsexual at the very least. ;)


scaeagles, I say I have work to do because I clearly don't grok Trans fully, and although it doesn't keep me awake at night - I resent their inclusion in the LGBT family of which I am a crusading member.

If I resent them ... it's my problem, not theirs. I'd like to work on it.

I give you a lot of props for this statement. Kudos to you for knowing the difference - not many people do.

I guess I don't have much to say about what Chastity Bono is doing. I say, good luck, Chaz. Hope it is a smooth transition.
:)

Do they need to find an organ donor or do they make something out of her bits? I know they do with the latter (basically turning the penis inside out), but what do they do for what she is doing?

I believe that there are chemicals which enlarge the cl!toris. He'll never be well endowed, but it'll be there.

I could also be wrong, I'm not the best informed on such topics.

I disagree.

Well, you don't HAVE to understand. But I think it's important to try.

It helps me to try to understand people and their motivations, their needs, their wishes. It helps me to consider others in my daily interactions, and to consider the larger picture of how the human world moves.

So it doesn't matter whether I'm trying to understand gay people or trans-identified people or republicans or illegal immigrants or bullies or animal trainers. Seeking to understand them, hard as it may be sometimes, helps me be a better person - not just to them, but to everyone.

VLSPEM!
:)

understood. Perhaps I didn't word it in the best way.

Understanding is perhaps not the best term. I do think it is important to try to understand those who are different than you are.

Perhaps embrace and agree with? Embrace and think is awesome? Embrace and be supportive of in every way?

I'm handing out 2x4s for you to whack the back of my head so my eyeballs roll back do
 

Geez, why on earth would a woman in our society want to be a man?

I'm willing to stand up for what you originally said. I don't think it is even all that important to try and understand the ways that others are different so long as you don't do anything to interfere with those differences.

I'm not going to try and understand why some people like off-road unicycling or wallpaper their dorm rooms with Playboy centerfolds. But I'm also not going to attempt to do anything to interfere with them.

I'll admit that most of the time when people try to explain themselves my honest (even if unexpressed) response is that of Tommy Lee Jones standing in a tunnel: "I don't care."

Except you sort of have to understand it at least a bit to determine that it's a difference that should not be interfered with. As opposed to the difference between choosing to work for a living or to steal from others. Even with the latter, understanding is required to determine the appropriate sanction.

I would say that's not true. I only need to know the outcome to know if I think that should be interfered with. Only if the answer is yes, then do I care to understand the why to see if that changes my point of view.

Since I don't care if people are gay, I really don't care beyond a purely academic interest why they're gay. Since I do care if people are killed then I have more than a purely academic interest in why Person A killed Person B.

In the iSm example, so long as Steve isn't interfering with transgendered people in anyway, while it may be nice if he learned enough and gained an understanding so as to overcome his issues I don't think it is particularly relavent whether he does.

I'd like to be a girl so I could dress more fancifully and change my hairstyle a lot. That would be fun. I could do all that by pretending to be a girl.


If, however, I'd like to be a girl for how much (usually) more compassionate, nurturing, empathetic, and generally enlightened they are as a gender ... not only is that something I cannot achieve via hormones, surgery, dress-up or self-delusion/intense belief - - it's something I could just as easily accomplish as a man and be no less man or more woman for the accomplishment.

I think perhaps some folks find it easier to be themselves if the world sees them as a different gender?

I admit, I don't understand it either, but I do try to respect it.

I understand from Steve's perspective, that he's trying to understand it to get how it's relative to his experience as a gay man who finds his issues lumped in with theirs in terms of advocacy, and so he's trying to understand the relationship so he can better appreciate the grouping rather than feel resentful that there's any dilution of strength behind the things he's fighting for. (OMG run-on sentence!)

VLSPEM? Okay, I've been trying to look up acronyms and tone down my hateful rhetoric about them, but a Google search of VLSPEM got me nowhere. Please translate, and then tell me where I go to get my 21st century compatible brain.

(Sorry for the derail, all.)

Visible <<insert username abbreviation>> Mojo.

Sadly, the tribute to my greatness that was originally VAM has been bespoiled by the hoi polloi and vulgarate. Though I am also pleased to have in some way spawned a snowclone.

It's lumped in because it involves the same set of social rules revolving around gender identity. "You're a boy so you should want to fvck girls. You're a girl, so you shouldn't want to play with trucks." And it is met with the a similar level of ignorance and intolerance.

Not being involved myself, I can't claim to know all of the nuances, but from an external viewpoint, the difference between trans and gay doesn't seem to be a much bigger gulf than the difference between bi and gay. Especially when framed in the political terms that the "LGBT" community has been lumped together to tackle. It all boils down to, "I may have been born with X or Y equipment, but that doesn't mean I should be required to be like everyone else born with X or Y equipment just because that's how society's always been." The particulars of HOW you don't fit into the societal gender roles aren't the issue.

Wow, I never considered it that way. Thanks for the insightful angle.

D'oh! And I once had to beg for an explanation of VAM as well. I'm just no good at this!

Um, props for an interesting conversation, everyone. (Nothing but sympathetic interest to add myself.)

VGDM An excellent explanation!

Which brings up the question is visible flippyshark mojo VfsM or VfM?
:)

I struggled with that same question, but decided on "VfsM" in another thread a few minutes ago. It seemed to indicate more clearly whom I was visibly mojoing.





(And not that I ever get any, but the proper form for mojoing yours truly would likely be "ViSmM" rather than "ViM")

GD's "boil down" is somewhat overstated because not everyone gets invited to the parade, no matter how much their atypical condition may be said to be in-born: pederasts, sexual predators, bestialitizers and lovers of German amusement park rides. As to the first two, we can exclude them because there is the issue of victimization. The last two are excluded because they transcend certain taboos or are just too weird. Still, "dog f*ckers-out; dick-loppers-in" is somewhat arbitrary.

2 things. 1) You've made the logical error that me saying, "All of the things that belong to this group have Z in common" means, "All things that have Z in common belong to this group." 2) Your examples don't involve (at least not in as direct a manner) issues pertaining to gender and gender roles. Sexuality, yes, but not gender.

Yeah, see, I never saw homosexuality as a gender role issue, and still don't. So from my perspective, LGB+T remains an error.

But from other people's perspectives, it was eye-opening to consider that others might look at homosexuality as a gender role identity issue. Interesting.

I don't think I'm saying all men are Socrates.

At any rate, I do see homosexuality as a gender issue, or, at least, the reaction against it. The question is, "How should a man behave?" One answer, to many, is, he should be dominate but not be dominated, i.e., he should not be FUTB. He should also seek appropriate objects of conquest, that would exclude children and animals. Some might also say that another thing a man shouldn't do is cut his dick off. So, I think the various practitioners all belong to the same group, or at least their proclivities involve the same considerations. The embrace of some to the exclusion of others is somewhat arbitrary, although undoubtedly politically wise.

A lot of TransMen are happy with the enlarged clitoris (up to 3-4" ins some cases) as their male organ, but some do elect to have the surgery where skin tissue from the labia becomes the scrotum, and the penis has the clitoris (or clitoral nerves, not too clear on this one) relocated at the head of the new penis, the shaft tissue being taken from the inner forearms (very sensitive skin there) and the whole thing encasing a standard erectile implant with pump. I believe there is some tissue added to "girth it out" (not sure where from) but the end result is a very natural looking penis that has good sensitivity sexually.

The program and procedure I had the chance to see involved a transman who deliberately got his forearms tattooed in tribal patterns so when it was removed and grafted elsewhere, he had an illustrated willy !! :cheers:

I once read Ray Bradbury's The Illustrated Willy.

I lived with a transman in college. He started transitioning when we were living together, it was an amazing process to watch. Although actually his gender was a "butch", as his concept was that there are more than two genders. However, he went by the male pronoun And he married a femmy woman! Also legal, I believe, in California.

I've known a number of transgendered people of all types - MTF, FTM, surgery, not surgery, considered "homosexual" after, considered "heterosexual" after. Most I couldn't have imagined in their societially proscribed gender. One I had a real struggle with, because it seemed more about being edgy and kinkier-than-thou, but I didn't know him that well and it wasn't really my business.

As for why they're all lumped in together - because to the outside world it's all the same deviant sexual behavior. The lumping together comes more from an outside view, I think, driving the various groups to combine forces. Strength in numbers, and all that. Plus, the transgendered will probably be the last of the LGBT group to be accepted. Their numbers are too few, and too few can identify with them. If gender is no longer an obstacle to marriage, jobs, housing, etc, then many of the legal hurdles the transgendered face will be addressed.