OK to be with a TS because they say they are really female

[Nicole Dupre]

Oh, by the way, Phobun. I have now placed a doozie of a curse on you. I do indeed worship Satan, and you are in some seriously DEEP SHIT! :P

666

Oh, I put one on you too! :P

[Felicia Katt]

I'm late to this thread, and its gotten so rancorous I don't know my frail reasoning and reflections will have any resonance anymore, I had posted something similar to this before to no apparent lasting effect, but if at first you don't succeed...


Everyone is so consumed by labels, by what makes a male a male, and a female, a female, and what it means to be attracted to one or the other or both. But ultimately, all of the things that we think of to divide male from female: hair and skin and body size and shape and breasts, are all secondary sexual characteristics, and as such, they differentiate but they don't define. For human beings, there is only really one primary sexual characteristic, and for better or worse, thats the external genitalia. You can talk about genetics and xx and xy and xyy and all the chromosonal variations, but ultimately, how those genes are expressed physically is what counts. Males have penises, female have vaginas

But Male is not man and female is not woman. Your anatomy is not your gender, which is much more of a psychological construct than a physical absolute. Genitals are not what makes a man a man, or woman, a woman. Having a penis doesn't make you a man, or exclude you from being a woman. Your gender is between your ears, not your legs.

Same with homo vs heterosexuaL. homo=same. hetero=different. In the strict, literal sense of the terms, if you have a penis and your partner has one as well, that is a homosexual act.

But homosexual isn't the same as gay, just like hetero isn't the same as straight. Gay and Straight are social and cultural constructs, not easy absolutes. Being gay or straight is more about who you are attracted to, and why, and how you interact with them, and how you interrelate to the rest of the world. Being "gay" is more of a social political identity than a sexual one, just as being straight is. If an open admitted gay guy becomes celibate, he is still gay. If he sleeps with women, I would argue he is still gay as well. A man who is attracted to a transgendered woman can be straight. but he can't technically claim to be wholly heterosexual.

The term transsexual is an unfortunate one, because unlike homo and heterosexual, being transsexual is not about sex, its about gender. If they would have started with the term transgendered at the outset, instead of it evolving slowly and fitfully into more common usage, there might be a lot less confusion and angst among the transgendered community.

but we can never unring the bell as far as the terminology of transsexualism goes, so the term will continue to define gender and to confound how we deal with it.

I think rather than worrying about labels, that you should love who you love, or lust for those who you lust for, and do so proudly, and openly and shrug off those who would try to define or confine you. Sexuality is nothing if not fluid, and too many people are swimming against its current instead of going with the flow.

Peace

FK

[loren]

opcorn

[Nicole Dupre]

I'm late to this thread, and its gotten so rancorous I don't know my frail reasoning and reflections will have any resonance anymore, I had posted something similar to this before to no apparent lasting effect, but if at first you don't succeed...


Everyone is so consumed by labels, by what makes a male a male, and a female, a female, and what it means to be attracted to one or the other or both. But ultimately, all of the things that we think of to divide male from female: hair and skin and body size and shape and breasts, are all secondary sexual characteristics, and as such, they differentiate but they don't define. For human beings, there is only really one primary sexual characteristic, and for better or worse, thats the external genitalia. You can talk about genetics and xx and xy and xyy and all the chromosonal variations, but ultimately, how those genes are expressed physically is what counts. Males have penises, female have vaginas

But Male is not man and female is not woman. Your anatomy is not your gender, which is much more of a psychological construct than a physical absolute. Genitals are not what makes a man a man, or woman, a woman. Having a penis doesn't make you a man, or exclude you from being a woman. Your gender is between your ears, not your legs.

Same with homo vs heterosexuaL. homo=same. hetero=different. In the strict, literal sense of the terms, if you have a penis and your partner has one as well, that is a homosexual act.

But homosexual isn't the same as gay, just like hetero isn't the same as straight. Gay and Straight are social and cultural constructs, not easy absolutes. Being gay or straight is more about who you are attracted to, and why, and how you interact with them, and how you interrelate to the rest of the world. Being "gay" is more of a social political identity than a sexual one, just as being straight is. If an open admitted gay guy becomes celibate, he is still gay. If he sleeps with women, I would argue he is still gay as well. A man who is attracted to a transgendered woman can be straight. but he can't technically claim to be wholly heterosexual.

The term transsexual is an unfortunate one, because unlike homo and heterosexual, being transsexual is not about sex, its about gender. If they would have started with the term transgendered at the outset, instead of it evolving slowly and fitfully into more common usage, there might be a lot less confusion and angst among the transgendered community.

but we can never unring the bell as far as the terminology of transsexualism goes, so the term will continue to define gender and to confound how we deal with it.

I think rather than worrying about labels, that you should love who you love, or lust for those who you lust for, and do so proudly, and openly and shrug off those who would try to define or confine you. Sexuality is nothing if not fluid, and too many people are swimming against its current instead of going with the flow.

Peace

FK

Thank you yet again for being one of the few voices of sanity on this forum.

[Nicole Dupre]

I want to add something to what Felecia said above.

But homosexual isn't the same as gay, just like hetero isn't the same as straight. Gay and Straight are social and cultural constructs, not easy absolutes.

Ok. Here comes fluid thought, for whatever it's worth. Sue me if my spelling or grammar is off. I'm going to bed soon...

One of the things that divides the members of this forum more than any other is basic honesty. Transsexuals are all OUT. We have no closet where we hide a dirty secret from ourselves. Covering one's genitalia in public is an almost universally conventional practice. So on the social level, gender is an understatement. No one is expected to make an issue out of what's in their underwear at the DMV or in the grocery store. We all simply go forward and function on the most basic human level. But even those of us who are stealth and post-op, at least at some point, looked themselves in the eye and acknowledged that the risks we might be taking to do these very basic all-too-human things, constantly surrounded by potentially close-minded and volatile "normal" people, were far outweighed by the need to feel comfortable in our own skin. That single act of self-actualization represents a thought crime to most people. It scares them. Transsexuals are a taboo, first and foremost, because thinking for yourself is a taboo. We know this all-too-well and we wouldn't have it any other way. And we're even proud of it; perhaps not always openly and in public, but we acknowledge it FOR OURSELVES.

Yet the people who are attracted to us, more times than not, remain in the closet. And these sad individuals often wrestle with the living paradox that is US. And, since the libido essentially has no conscience, they often feel controlled and almost forced into embracing, not only their own sexual lusts, but a bona fide taboo. We make you feel "gay". We make you seem "gay". We challenge your parents, your families, your friends, and your concept of God. And some of you can't carry that load. Some of you can, of course. But perhaps most disturbing of all to those of you who can't is that WE DON'T CARE. We know damn well that there are far more of you who can't have us, for a number of reasons, than there are those who can have us. This phenomenon exists PLENTY with men and genetic women. But with TS women, it's infinitely multiplied. So often, the bottom line is, it kinda sucks to be you. But we're US, gentlemen, through sheer determination and inner-strength. If that's not something to marvel at and respect, nothing is. And you know it. And it intimidates the shit out of most of you. Ironically though, most us don't want to scare you. We simply want to be cherished and loved. But that's a cross that we bear.

Anyway, I think I've had it with this place for a long while.

Peace.

[transmaven]

Anyway, I think I've had it with this place for a long while.

That's what a lot of people mutter to themselves every day about life on earth.

Not fair, no fun, etc.

**************

Here's a novel idea: sexuality *thrives* on taboo, hiddenness, shame and fear.

Forget all the nonsense about equality, honesty, justice, etc. Sex and desire are a species of darkness and that's what I love about them.

I like the low-down double-dealing dirty world of fucking. Outside of that eveyone can make nice. Civilization is a pleasure nicely opposed to sex. But always secondary. :P

[phobun]

Functioning male gonads? CHECK
A penis which is not abhored, but actually used as a source of livelihood? CHECK

Avoiding drastic surgery and a 100% dependency on external hormones is not something worth considering?

Btw, after that definition, i am not a man.
I dont use my penis as a source of livelihood...

Dude you kill me. If I chuckle when a MTF transgender claims to love "her cock" and uses said penis to bring home the bacon, it does not mean that a regular guy is not a man because he is not a prostitute.

[phobun]

But even in the above statement it sounds like you are saying that calling ts women, who have had legal documents changed to female is "fiction". That would seem to be like saying that naturalized citizens aren't real Americans, which a personal opinion vs legal fact.

I did not say that it is a legal fiction when TS women have their legal documents changed. I'll repeat with emphasis:
"I'll be the first to say that I think TS women are women. But it is a social courtesy (and, if they have had their gender changed by a court, a legal fiction) to address certain transgenders as female, because in all other respects, they are male."

Let's look at your list. I would feel that a person who meets all of your criteria is more male than female.

The list is shit, man. I tried to illustrate that there are some folks who claim to be TS, but who are nonetheless male physically, hormonally and behaviorally. If someone refers to them as "men", it is not the same as calling a black man the "N-word".

That was my point. There is no equivalence between calling a transgender who looks and acts like a male a "man", and calling a black man the N-word.

Looking your avatar, Japan is one culture were female behaviors are more culturally restrictive.

The girl in the avatar is actually Thai. Regardless, I'm not into docile, obedient women. Smart women are hot. There is a transsexual on this forum who has never shown a picture as far as I know, but she is sexy as hell.

[phobun]

IMHO transsexuals have existed as long has humanity has (give or take), including the era before we had medical science to treat it. So if you go back, say, a mere 80 years- transsexuals would almost without exception have "male facial features" unless they were lucky enough to be castrated before puberty... which probably was uncommon to say the least. Even then, if someone had been castrated before or early into puberty- all that would mean is an absence of male facial features, not the presence of female facial features. To do that requires FFS & HRT technology, innovations that aren't even a lifetime old yet. Hell the first generation of widespread SRS patients aren't yet old enough to pass from old age, and that technology predated both FFS & HRT. Virtually every trans person who has received treatment to have died to date has died from various causes like suicide, murder, cancer, disease- whatever, because we're talking about such a small span of time here.

So using something like facial features as a "gauge" to determine whether or not a "transsexual is male" seems problematic as, at the least- it would skew any way of looking at the transsexuals that existed prior to these important medical breakthroughs. As for today- There's also no way of knowing who would eventually have their facial features changed/modified/corrected if they had the means to do so (whether we're talking better medical science to do what cannot currently be done, cheaper procedures, easier access to capital- etc.). Even someone who gets the best FFS available with current technology will, if they started HRT after a few years into puberty, have male skull features above the hairline making passability near impossible without hair (i.e. losing it when undergoing chemo treatments). The cost factor is also an issue of some kind, most people wouldn't have the means to immediately get every "flaw" they have fixed- and that's not even mentioning people who aren't healthy enough to put under the knife (various circumstances come into play here like various medical conditions that would make surgery risky). There are even trans people out there who can't go on HRT because doing so would kill them because of their unrelated medical problems.


However, to get back to the "jest" of what you're saying- I could see arguing that not everyone who is considered trans, is trans. What I mean by that is, there are people throughout history that people today assert to be trans, when there is no evidence to truly support that labeling. I.e. there are all kinds of stories of women throughout history who "pretended to be guys" for a temporary span of time so that they could perform a task or help with a movement they believed in. Famous example would be so that they could fight in combat during war. We have examples from our revolutionary war, our civil war- there are numerous European examples. It would seem dishonest to me, to assert that Joan of Arc was trans because she wore pants when she fought in combat.... but that's precisely the kind of revisionist labeling I see time & time again in online "trans spaces". Consider the story of Hedwig, if that storyline had been a real person & a real story... would getting (an albeit crude) SRS just to escape the Iron Curtain be sufficient criteria to consider someone TS? Medically I am not so sure, though I would expect someone to refer to someone like that with female pronouns anyway if that's what the person wanted. Tact & civility isn't a bad thing...

I always enjoy reading your thoughts. I willl emphasize what I wrote: I think TS women are women. Men who are TS but not transitioned are men who are TS but not transitioned. And the "male facial features" was just one of many features that I listed to describe how SOME transgenders are male, physically, hormonally and behaviorally. Of course, we all know TS women who have a strong brow (or nose or jawline or all of the above), but who are obviously transsexual because their conscious actions and non-verbal demeanor are feminine. Being transsexual does not require looking airbrushed. But the cock-wielding prostitutes who look and act like men, then call guys "faggot", are phonies. Where is Holden Caulfield these days?

[phobun]

Trust me, he's been indirectly and directly calling me a "man" for months, so there's no point in him trying to backpedal now.

You seem paranoid with a persecution complex. Get help.

Meanwhile, we still haven't heard a word about his own intimate experiences with any transsexuals.

Obsessed too? Fuck, you're nuts.