Gender options

[Towse]

Jewls2u wrote:
>
> >>>>The "transgender" category includes people who are born "male"
> but identify themselves as "female" and vice versa. Some of these
> people opt for sex altering surgery. Others opt not for surgery
> but, instead, to live their lives transgendered.<<<<<
>
> So is the term transgender a product of the option of surgery?

Perhaps the acceptance of surgery has made people more
comfortable with the fact that they aren't the only people who
feel female but are technically male or vice versa.

Some transgendered people don't necessarily _want surgery to
acquire the accoutrements of the sex they feel they are and
discard those for the sex they feel they aren't. They'd rather
live as they are sans the constant pigeon-holing of sexual
typing.

Transsexuals, on the other hand, as I understand it, are grouped
under the transgendered umbrella with others who have gender
issues, but for the transsexual, there is a more urgent need for
surgery to assign a physical sex in synch with the gender
identity.

I believe that if there were no surgical options but there was
the growing acceptance and understanding of the existing
situations, the transgender terminology would have developed as
well.

Others complain that transgender, being an umbrella term for
transsexuals, intersexuals and others with clashing gender
identities, is more a political in the GLBT sense than an actual
sexual classification.

Those interested should check out the situation with someone who
is involved with the culture and will have more answers than I
ever could. There are Web sites and newsgroups that address the
issues.

The main question is, what do you answer to the question, "Are
you female or male?"? If you were born female but feel male?

Do you answer, "Female" when you in your heart of hearts feel
male? Do you answer, "Male" when your biological status is
female? Do you answer "Neither"? "Both"?

With time, perhaps, "I'm transgendered" will be an accepted
designation.

Sal
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