Comment by tw266 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tw266 | Hacker News Reader

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You're setting up an infalsifiable framework where your worldview must be right (anyone who chooses not to live as trans is not really trans).

But ignoring that, there was definitely something going on with me. In elementary school for history dress up day, I wanted to be Betsy Ross. In college, I always hated dealing with chest-thumping groups of males, and I preferred female friends. Halloween was my favorite holiday for obvious reasons. Trans inclination was something long enough and strong enough that an "open-minded" parent or community could have pushed me that way.

But over time the importance of those inclinations seemed to fade. I'm a reasonably happy, reasonably successful mostly-straight male. And my success in the workplace and success in family relationships is more important to me than playing with my gender identity. Given what I have heard from trans people, I am pretty sure that I am better off than I would be in a less traditional lifestyle.

No one except you can tell if you're actually a transsexual or not. But, from what you've said here it doesn't really sound like you are.

If you're happy as a male, you don't suffer from gender dysphoria and you don't have a strong urge to cross dress and don't think in your head "Im a girl" then you're probably not trans unless you've done a superhuman effort in repressing it.

Being a transsexual is not a "lifestyle". It's a neurological medical condition that is treatable with hormones and surgery.

http://tgmeds.org.uk/diffa.html

Maybe people think it's a "lifestyle" because they only notice the transsexual people that dress and act in such a way as to socially signal that they have an atypical gender identity. The majority of transsexual people try to hide their changing bodies as they get hormonal therapy till they can successfully blend in ("pass") as a cis gendered woman/man.

This is a very reductionist view of human sexuality. Even if you disagree with the GP it can't be right to describe our feelings about gender and sexuality as "neurological medical conditions" that are "treatable". Psychological reductionism of this type has not been good for humanity in general, and I don't see any reason to pick it up for this issue.

We're discussing gender, not sexuality(in the standard sense of sexual orientation). The term "transsexual" is somewhat misleading, yet I think it's the best term available for what I'm talking about.

You might not think it's right to describe my feelings about my gender as a treatable medical condition, but I'm one of the ones actually undergoing this treatment right now, and benefiting greatly from it. I think it's very descriptive and appropriate to refer to transsexualism as a treatable medical condition.

We're born, we suffer and sometimes die, we sometimes get medical interventions using drugs and surgery and this usually results in substantial, sustained improvements in our happiness and functioning. That's pretty much the definition of a medical condition.

Reductionism sure is useful when properly applied, as any engineer knows.

Transsexuality is a treatable medical condition. Someone's gender identity as woman, man, genderqueer, etc is, of course, not completely reducible to neurology or biology and has very significant social, historical, and subjective aspects.

Specifically, for myself: I'm a transsexual - i.e. I have a fairly rare neurological developmental condition that I'm undergoing treatment for.

But, much more importantly, I'm a woman - and that's something much harder to define, something indescribably precious and wonderful, yet taken for granted and commonly denigrated.

There are a number of people who identify as genderqueer, as having gender identification that shifts over time, as crossdressers, as drag kings and queens, as on some point on a spectrum, as a third sex, or in a number of other ways that are not as simple as "I was assigned the gender [male/female] at birth, but I am really [female/male], so I have transitioned/am transitioning/will be transitioning." Supposing that either people are cisgender (were assigned their correct gender at birth) or transgender (assigned the opposite sex at birth) IS reductionist. Transsexuals, however, are people of which that case is true, and the fact that this is not true of others doesn't change that.

It sounds like the best approach would be more acceptance of people's choices and inclinations without forcing them into categories or drawing arbitrary lines between "X" and "Y". That way questioning individuals don't feel pressure to conform to any orientation, and can choose a lifestyle that works for them, whether or not it conforms with any existing labels. Sometimes a questioning individual might choose a traditional straight lifestyle, and that should be just as acceptable as them choosing any other lifestyle.

Oh no I definitely believe that gender identification and sexuality are sliders rather than on/off switches. But I think that it was you who proposed a rigid framework where because society's unwillingness to accept your teenage inclinations somehow worked out for you, it might be better for other trans-gender people as well.

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