What makes a “transsexual man”?

Recently, somebody called me a “transsexual man”, and I think this was meant to be insult: that I was biologically male, and transsexual, and therefore still a man. There is an element of truth in this, although by strict definition, I don’t think I am a man, because whatever my biological sex might have been, my legal sex is female. I don’t think I can be described as “transsexual” either. At least, that is what quite a few transsexuals have told me anyway, insisting I am not transsexual, and that intersex people cannot be transsexual (usually accompanied with something about me not being allowed to say anything about transsexualism, or the trans community, they don’t like on that basis).

My understanding of a “transsexual man” is of somebody who was biologically female, and who transitions and becomes legally male. I have met many transsexual men, and they are some of the nicest and self-aware people I have met, many having themselves come through radical feminism, although a few are still quite angry about how they have been treated. So, I don’t mind being called or taken for a “transsexual man”, as I admire and respect them. I am over gender pronouns – they are not that important; they are important to people who go along with and support the maintenance of an oppressive binary gender system which is mainly of benefit to men. But this mistake does kind of speak to aspects of my own experience. As an infant, I had genital surgery, which was part of my experience of social gender reinforcement as a child, and while this was not sex assignment, or sex reassignment, it was what is best called sex confirmation surgery, and part of my masculine gender reinforcement. It was surgery intended to reinforce my masculinity as a male. So, there are similarities to some of the surgeries some transsexual men have. I had further surgery later in childhood, which was also more sex confirmation surgery, in part carried out in order to to reinforce my masculinity as a male. That and the psycho-social reinforcement didn’t work, my masculinity was not reinforced. But, there is a point of similarity between what I experienced, albeit without consent, and what transsexual men experience out of choice.

So, yes, I do see myself as having had some similarities to a “transsexual man”, for part of my adult life. I didn’t ask to be treated that way, I would have preferred if I had not been. I rejected it. If I could make a wish and snap my fingers, I would be the way I was before that, only grown up naturally and without interference. I am quite clear that is not a possibility, just as making me a man was never going to work, or anything else really. I am stuck with the way I ended up, and I try to work with that as best I can, and live my life in a way that reduces the dysphoria that followed me into adulthood as much as possible. I cannot buy into these gender stereotypes that a heteronormative society presents,  so now I am “gender non-conforming and queer”.

Repeat after me “queer”, “batty boy”, “faggot”; this is the sort of abuse I and other people tend to be more familiar with – and if abusive people want to be accepted within the mainstream, they really need to target their abuse in a way bigots in wider society can understand. “Transsexual man” might be a bit long too long-winded for normal bigots – to them it is just another type of queer.

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Pass the pastiche – My Big Fat Transsexual Summer part 3

This is a follow-up to

One of the criticisms I received about my blog about last week’s episode was the focus on ‘passing’, and yet while understated in week two itself, passing is a central aspect to trans experience, it frames the experience. Trans people either pass in the gender they aspire to, or they don’t, they either choose to pass as man or woman once the transition, or they remain passing as a woman or man without ever transitioning, or they choose not to pass after transition and pass as a trans person, or they simply are unable to pass because of certain characteristics that define them as male (more usually than with trans men).

In episode three, the program makers focus heavily on ‘passing’, and so I make no apologies about commenting on this aspect. It is an important aspect of the program, and seems to be an important part of the lives of participants, as they try to find away of navigating society and being accepted as the people they see themselves as.

The program opens with the house-mates returning, and over dinner we hear about the changes since last week, how Drew has had such a hard time before she ended up stuck at home. She is upset that she got turned down for the job in the bridal boutique: “to me it’s all about passing – like, if I passed, I’d have got that job.” The narrator explains that passing is important to every member of the group, because being read as trans outside can be dangerous, and two-thirds of trans people have experienced hate-crime.

One of the trans men talks about being kicked out of a changing room, or being laughed at for using the men’s bathroom, and how at one level this makes people terrified deep down in case it escalates into violence. All of participants have been threatened with violence, we are told. A ju-jitsu master is brought in to teach some basic self-defense techniques, but his most important message is that if you look and walk with confidence, people leave you alone.

Donna says that it is OK for her to pass as a trans woman, is able to accept that there are parts of her that aren’t female, and gets on with her life that way. Drew admires Donna’s confidence, although for her confidence is about being able to pass.

For the guys, a fake cock helps them feel more centered and able to pass, including peeing in a urinal. They pore over a box of fake willies, some costing as much as £1,000, presumably donated by the producers or manufacturers, and discuss how they are attached and that some have a funnel to allow peeing through. Cut to bathroom where two guys experiment, a loud standing pee-tinkle from the toilet signifies success, but still not as satisfying as having one’s own cock, apparently.

Then we are back to the girl’s quest for cleavage – rolled up socks, freezer bags, condoms full of water and gaffa tape have all been pressed into service in order to enhance what is there and produce realistic looking – and passable – breasts at one time or another, as Drew and others are seen applying makeup in the mirror yet again. The aim of passing is, we hear, to be taken as being a ‘natal woman’, which ‘feels amazing’ – which kind of negates the earlier comment about being all about safety and it being about some kind of sensation, or thrill, that can helps to keep going.

Some time is spent looking at Lewis’ relationship with his father, who left his mother a decade earlier, and his plan for fund-raising for chest surgery, which he feels he needs to pass as a man. Drew gets a job waiting tables in a mall coffee bar, where her concern is about passing, although she realises it is more important that people are nice and accept her. One woman commented that she wore too much makeup, and doesn’t need to. Lewis passes well as male, so he is anxious about outing himself as trans in public while fund-raising. Lewis’ dad becomes very supportive of his efforts to raise funds. Donna supports the event by dressing like a hooker and giving Lewis a lap-dance on stage.

Drew’s job is about more than the pay-check from a 9-5 job, it is about building a social life. Her colleagues seem to accept her, and she seems to enjoy having a normal job as a woman. And she gets offered a position, which was really great – this was quite powerful at the end, and left me feeling better about the program than when I watched last week’s.

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When fantasy meets fantasy – My Big Fat Transsexual Summer part 2.

Drew wears 4 bra’s as well as chicken fillets in her quest for feminine cleavage, and feels that having breast enhancement surgery is a more important part of her transition than sex reassignment surgery. She has a job interview at a bridal outfitters, which threw up that her Adam’s Apple was a bit of give-away, and raised the problem that some women might feel uncomfortable being fitted for a bridal dress by somebody like that. But, apart from these few minor details, Drew is just like any other young woman in her early twenties – albeit one who has been too scared to go outside of the family home for the previous three years.

One of the shop owners who interviews her points out that there are no transgender fairy-tales like there are girls’ dream of a white wedding; and this is quite profound really, because while some critics do see trans as a self-indulgent fatasy, the reality is that it ain’t no fairy-tale. When one fairy-tale meets head-to-head with another fairy-tale, when the fantasy that a man can become a woman meets the fantasy that a white wedding is what every girl must aspire to, clash, something has to give. And it ain’t gonna be the white wedding, as that fantasy is stamped too deep.

One of the other transgender women would probably disagree about it not being a fairy-tale, because it seems to be hers. She loves being ‘trans’, and says that if she could wake up having been born female, she’d still rather be trans. As she flirts with men in the pub, who joke about her still having ‘meat and two veg’, we are reminded that after a few beers most men lose their inhibitions and will shag anything, basically. And the recurrence of the meat and two veg theme is a key that gives the lie to the title of the series. While one person who is completely unpassable, with a deep male voice and built like a brick shithouse, has SRS at Charing Cross, and is transsexual in every sense of the word apart from any ability to look anything like a woman, at least two of the other MtF’s are not transsexual, despite being much more ‘passable’; they would best be described as ‘transgender’ people who seem to want to keep their genitals intact.

Chest surgery seems more important than SRS for the trans guys as well, although for one, gaining a realistic looking penis is what he really wants. He almost salivates at the idea of having one that he can stick in someone, which can be achieved in a way that retains his clitoris for orgasm.

I guess that whatever you call a program like this, whether you use ‘trans’, ‘transgender’ or ‘transsexual’, it is going to be misleading and piss some people off. A lot of transsexuals must be pissed because it isn’t about them particularly, yet lumps all these people together under the label of transsexual. If it used the word ‘trans’, or ‘transgender’, and included transsexuals, well that would probably also piss off some transsexuals as well, because they see transsexualism and transgenderism as very different.

Some of the characters come across as caricatures, not caricatures of women, but caricatures of transsexuals – caricatures of caricatures, if you like, and it takes us into some pretty murky places. None of these people seem happy with simply being themselves as men or women, but all seem set to embark on a journey that will involve a never-ending round of cosmetic procedures to make them appear different to how they are, and to allow them to portray the character of somebody they wish they could be. Which is quite sad really, when you think about it, because they all seem nice people really.

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My Big Fat Transsexual Summer part 1

Just filling this space for completeness, after posts for 2 & 3. This first program kind of introduces us to the house-mates and and the concept of the program.

Dawn and Donna talk about the effects of oestrogens, such as developing breasts, aided by laser treatment for the beard; the men talk about the effects of testosterone.

The first program in the series kind of sets the scene. Lots of makeup for the girls, lots of tears leading up Karen’s surgery. A night out in London, a group of trans-women all dressed as “trannies”. Karen’s comment about age inappropriateness is an understatement in one or two cases. We see some of the surgery, and the result. And a dinner table conversation about how others should adapt to people’s transsexualism.

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What’s wrong with being intersex?

April 2010, revised November 2011

My attention was brought to a blog by Suzan Cooke on Woman Born Transsexual, and it made me think.

http://womenborntranssexual.com/2010/04/27/what-is-wrong-with-being-transsexual/

I have plagiarised her original in part response, homage, tongue-in-cheek… all of these things.

Q: What is wrong with being intersex?

A: Nothing

Q: Or in the case of people who identify as male or female, what is wrong with having been intersex?

A: Nothing

Q: What makes you say you are intersex?

A: Because I appear to have an intersex history.

Q: Does this mean you are still intersex?

A: Yes. However, the way specialists have seen this is that once a child has been treated for intersex and discharged from their care, the intersex has been cured, and they are no longer described as being intersex. However, despite such operations and subsequent psycho-social gender reinforcement, I never felt comfortable in my assigned sex, I found I felt uncomfortable living as either sex. Even though I was discharged as a teenager, and my medical records restarted from that point with just a letter covering the previous 15 years of medical treatment, my body did not appear nor function in the same way as those of my peers.

Q: But you have to be one sex or the other, you can’t change that.

A: Arguably you can, but I would argue that this is what the original operations that some intersex people had tried to enforce: to make people conform to other people’s expectations of what one sex or the other should be like, conforming to certain criteria of determining the sex of an individual. Not some ideological test, or test different to that which non-intersex people are subjected to. If one uses the usual test of sex determination, a visual examination based on whether one has a vagina or penis, I guess it would be true to say I was male after surgery, just as I was not clearly male prior to surgery (hence the need for surgery).  This means that no matter what sugar-coated words one uses as a euphemism for the operations intersex children have, by common criteria it either changes or reinforces the sex assigned to the individual it is performed upon. It is either a sex change operation, or a sex reinforcement operation.

Q: So are you a transgender?

A: No I am not. The word, or the social construct, did not exist when I had my sex reinforcement operations. By the time it had been, the intersex part of me was part of my life history, and I had been raised believing that I was male. I doubt I would have embraced such a term even if I had heard when I grew up. I have found the thinking of the Gay Liberation Front much more appealing than either transsexual or transgender ideologies. Later, I tried identifying as ‘trans’, but it doesn’t make sense to me, personally.

Q: You mentioned that you viewed being intersex as a part of life history and as an identity…

A: Maybe it is a bit of both. Many intersex people had sex change/reinforcement operations and then experienced years of psycho-social gender reinforcement; as adults they try to get on with their lives as the men and women they believe themselves to be. But it is very difficult to escape such a history, although it is possible for people to deny it. Some go as far as to create a false history, and while that may work with the outside world, I would have a hard time extending that exercise to my interior world as it would mean denying so much that shaped me into the person I am today. Part of my personal development was my involvement in a range of political and religious campaigns addressing issues of social justice and bigotry which took place before I tried to transition from what I thought was male, and that is still an important part of who I am (although I have little faith in religion any more).

Q: Why do you hate ‘trans’? You are part of the transgender umbrella.

A: I don’t hate ‘trans’. I am quite willing to support transsexual and transgender rights and campaigns to ensure the civil rights protections of transsexual and transgender people. Perhaps it would be good for those espousing transgender as umbrella to study the history of the gay and lesbian movements of the 1960s and 70s.  The GLF got a lot right, only were too radical for their own time – we need to revisit their ideas, at the time before the movement fragmented when the women went their own way, the trans folk found themselves left out in the cold, and what was left was a gay movement that became increasingly commercialised.  I try to avoid ‘trans’ discussions, because I find the discourse is often vitriolic, and I cannot relate to much of the content.

Q: It’s all about gender…

A: Gender… I have a hard time with this word, and prefer ‘sex’ to signify male/female.  There were two streams that led to gender becoming so dominant in the second half of the 20th century, one was feminism, the other was John Money.  Money developed the idea of gender identity, while gender roles were what those of us who supported feminism critiqued way back in the 1970s.   Contrary to what a lot of intersex people are supposed to believe, Money did some good work – he completely revolutionised our understanding of the medical intersex conditions; he also provided a conceptual system that helped legitimise and gain acceptance for transsexual surgeries. However, the system he developed also legitimised the aribtrary assignment of sex for intersex neonates, surgery to reinforce that assignment, and subsequent psycho-social reinforcement of the surgical assignment.  This has been very problematic for many who experienced this.

Q: Are you tanssexual?

A: I have tried to think of myself that way, and to live up to that standard; I tried to see if that might solve my dilemma, but swapping one oppressive gender role for another did not seem to be the solution to my problems. Neither would further surgery, because the genitals I would want were not those of a man or a woman, but my own; there is no operation to put genitals back the way they were before they were operated on. So, I put up with the genitals the surgeons left me with as a child, and at best feel ambivolent about them. So, no I am not transsexual, I am intersex.  However, despite sometimes making glib throw-away comments from time to time, having experienced some of what transsexuals have to do, what they have to go through, and how they can be treated, I have to respect their decision and their achievement.  To me, to achieve a successful transition is precisely that – an achievement.  The problem for me, and I must admit to being aware of this from when I first began to research what was ‘wrong’ with me over 25 years ago, was that I did not fit the transsexual narrative.  There were points of similarity, but there was also considerable divergence.  Some of those points I would now identify as parts of that intersex history I describe.

Q: Focus on the Family and all those other right wing hate groups hate us because we use a word that has sexual connotations?

A: No we discomfort them, because by our existence we challenge their belief that there are only two immutable ways that humans can be, male and female, which for them is divinely ordained. This is part of the reason that people experience surgeries in childhood which try to erase our apparent difference. This is why, as adults, those who reject that assignment are pushed through the same sausage machine that is designed for transsexuals, which is meant to turn what were biological men and women into phenotypic women and men. In that process, the existence of intersex as adults is erased, just as much as it is erased in childhood through intersex surgeries; intersex is erased in adulthood through transsexual surgeries carried out on intersex people who reject their earlier assignment.

Q: But isn’t it about gender and gender identity?

A: Intersex is about the sex that is assigned, the sex identified with, the surgeries that change/reinforce the assigned sex in childhood, the sometimes serious health issues that affect intersex people because they are intersex, and how they identify. For some, gender and gender identity will be an issue, for others not. I do not see myself as having a specific gender identity, if anything I have a non-gender identity, and a gender-role that involves integrating masculine and feminine aspects of my personality.

It infuriates intersex-identified people with an intersex history no end to have their life experiences dismissed by people who have not gone through the same process, and yet who themselves expect to be seen as women or men. Being human is the basis for having human rights and equality, not being male or female from birth and remaining that way. It is important to appreciate that many intersex people are ‘post-op’, although the operation may have happened in childhood. So, some of us do know what it is like to be in the position post-ops are in to some extent, but they do not know what it is like to be a person who had these sorts of operations not out of choice.

That is a physical reality that separates intersex people from transsexuals – usually we had no choice, and attempts at changing things is sometimes about rejecting decisions made for us. Intersexphobia (or the fear of it) is as much of a factor in intersex people’s lives as transphobia, homophobia or misogyny – especially those who live in situations where they are not involved with people who change sex or are homosexual. Intersexphobia is only knowingly encountered when one is ‘out’, because many people will not realise that an intersex person is so; what may be experienced can seem like transphobia, homophobia or misogyny.  However, this is intersexphobia.  Just as with being lesbian, gay, or trans, there is no pressure to be out, and as with most lesbian, gay and trans people, in a heteronormative world, people generally assume intersex people are just as they appear to them. That is, it is generally assumed people are non-transsexual, heterosexual, men and women unless they are told (or find out) otherwise.

One form of intersexphobia is the people feeling they have some right to demand ‘proof’ that the other person is actually intersex. So, interrogators will ask about diagnosis, details of private medical histories relating to genital surgeries, or chromosomes, etc. These things are usually regarded as confidential in any other circumstance, so the interrogator has no right to demand to know about these things; but when people are open about their being intersex, some feel they have some right to demand evidence that they are so. This in itself is part of an oppressive process that can prevent intersex people coming out about themselves. Intersexphobia also involves not believing people when they do choose to disclose these things. Intersexphobia is widespread, and is found amongst heterosexual, lesbian, gay, transsexual and transgender people – and even people who claim to have an intersex history themselves. People don’t usually demand that a transsexual proves their post-op status in social discourse, nor that a gay man proves he prefers men to women as sexual partners; nobody expects a heterosexual woman to start giving private details about a hysterectomy, or a man a vasectomy. Yet intersex people seem to be expected to go into quite personal details, and the experiences involved are often very traumatic and these recollections can be triggers. Some intersex people have reached a point where they can discuss these things, but some prefer not to, or cannot because they simply don’t really know what happened and their records have been lost/destroyed, and some will remain traumatised for the rest of their lives.

I think it is more an existentialist matter than an essentialist matter, in that having had a body and/or genitalia that are in some way different, or which have been modified without consent to make them conform, results in qualitatively different life experience than does living as a woman or a man who has not had that experience – or as one who has had sex change surgery they consented to.

It will not always be the case that somebody with such a history will want to identify as intersex, but in those cases where people find it helpful, I am all in favour of them identifying as intersex. Even more so since the development of the nomenclature referred to as ‘DSD’. This could signify a real opportunity for intersex liberation. I do not like the ‘disorder’ in DSD, as I feel it is derogatory and has a number of problems (which I have gone into detail elsewhere), and prefer ‘variation’ or ‘difference’ – so I use ‘dSD’ to signify difference with a small ‘d’; it appears that there are those with medical conditions formerly referred to as intersex, who prefer not to be identified as intersex, and who prefer to be thought of simply as men and women with a medical disorder or condition. I cannot deny people’s wish to identify as they choose, and have to support their choice to do that.  I do find it sad, though, and I wish they would feel comfortable supporting those who do not wish to be identified as having a disorder, and who positively identify as intersex.  But, this shift in the discourse also signals an opportunity for progress for those of us who do identify as intersex, because by disconnecting it from pathology (in a way that intersex once stood for ‘intersex disorders’), we are more free to talk about our aspirations than ever before.  We are in a position to choose something we were always denied before – intersex people can choose to be intersex, giving us a similar agency to that which transsexual, lesbian and gay people can achieve (or have done).

Q: Can people be transsexual and intersex?

This is a very difficult question, because transsexual means somebody who was one type of human (male/female), and has surgery as part of becoming another type of human (female/male).  It is important to be clear what we are talking about here.

1. The most well-known version is that transsexualism is congenital, as supported by Diamond and others, who often cite Swaab, and that is that transsexualism is a sort of intersex of the brain; there is a mismatch between phenotype and psychology/emotion/will.

2. Another is a form of ‘intersex by design’.  Whatever the motivation/cause behind transsexual reasignment, the result is that transsexuals become intersex, as they have XY chromosomes with a female phenotype or XX chromosomes with a male phenotype.  This mismatch may even be more pronounced than for most intersex people.

3. There is the issue that some people with a clear intersex history seek reassignment, because they are unhappy in their assigned gender.

4. There are people who discover some form of intersex history or diagnosis, or its relevance, as they pursue transsexual treatment.

No.1 and No.2 do not reflect my understanding of intersex. Whether transsexual brains are wired up in certain ways (No.1) is not important to me, and I resist the determinism that is associated with this idea.  It may be true, I do not know, but I don’t think we need to know this in order to ‘justify’ transsexual reassignment.  It is justified on other grounds – perceived need and outcome. I am in favour people making a positive choice to be what they will be, rather than feeling it is something they have to do – it is about agency.  No.2 is an interesting argument, but not one I am able to reply to politely.

In relation to No.3 and No.4, I am sure that there are trans people who have intersex histories (No.4), just as there are intersex people who have sought to change the sex they were originally assigned.  As many as 10% of people who had interventions for intersex in childhood grow up unhappy with their assignment; that is a much higher ratio than the general population. The main difference between No.3 is one moves from an awareness of being intersex to choosing reassignment as a solution, while No.4 moves from an awareness of being transsexual who seeks reassignment to an awareness of the significance of an earlier medical history. It is hard to say much about No.4, because in an ideal world, we would all be party to a full disclosure about our histories; however, we know that having an intersex history was kept secret from most people. In the case of No.3, I am not clear that reassignment is necessarily the best approach, but it depends on the individual. When it comes to being uncomfortable about their assignment, intersex people are between a rock and a hard place. Personally, I find the whole surgical approach intensely disturbing, and I am sure that my own experience has contributed to this feeling.

I am unclear how it is possible to be both intersex and transsexual, in terms of identity; I tried, but I could not find a way for these to co-exist within myself.  Affirming one seemed to entail denying the other, to myself, my peers, and to caregivers.  Maybe dSD will help with this, and the proposals for DSM5 seem to be trying to accommodate this; that there are people with dSD who seek help with what it calls ‘gender incongruence’. So, the question of trans people who claim intersex will become redundant – because there will be trans people without a dSD, and go through the diagnostic sausage-machine one way, there will be trans people with a dSD, who go through the diagnostic sausage-machine another way, and there will be intersex people with a dSD who have no desire to go through the same sausage-machine as transsexuals, but who are unhappy with their assignment. The proposed revisions in DSM5 appear to be making a space for people, including those with dSD, who seek help establishing an identity that is neither male nor female.  It would be very ironic if it turned out that DSM5 ends up supporting those with dSD who simply want to identify as ‘intersex’, rather than male, female or transsexual, although many like myself have had a belly-full of diagnoses, particularly inadequate ones and ones that identify us as disordered in some way because we aren’t like most men and women, and spectacularly failed in making all of us like most men or women, originally.

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