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Transsexuals in Foreign Cultures

This section of the article is a good idea, but needs a lot of work.

  • "Foreign" cultures -- foreign to whom? This should be "international" or "non-Western" or something of the sort.
  • The current information is completely lopsided in favor of Iranian transsexuals. We should either have extensive information about several cultures, or link to articles elsewhere that do a more in-depth job.
  • There is already a section in the Transgender article that deals with transgender people in non-Western cultures better.

I think the Transsexuality article should just link to the transgender article's treatment of the subject for two reasons. First, the TG article already exists, so there's no need to duplicate work. Second, many of the forms of existence described there (winkte, khatoey, etc.) do not really fit under the Western definition of "transsexual", so it's a disservice to conflate them. Jiawen 09:54, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Please understand that many people with a history of transsexualism do not identify at all with the term 'transgender', nor with the experience of people who do so identify. We consider it at best ignorant and rude to dismiss the very significant differences between the groups. I underwent reassignment 35 years ago. I did not change my gender nor was I 'reborn' or any of that other nonsense: I had a physical problem ameliorated and changed my social identity, that's all. [AD]
I have edited the section to be a bit broader and to not specifically identify transgender people with transseuxals.
I understand how some people do not identify as transgender but do identify as transsexual. For this part of the article, though, I think that "transgender" is a far more useful term than "transsexual". The term khatoey, for example, maps much more closely to the English word "transgender" than to "transsexual".
That said, I respect the opposing view. I hope the current version of the article stays NPOV and truthful. Jiawen 07:42, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Edit war

It appears that Wikipedians have added and removed a photograph from this article in just the last few hours, usually stating "revert" in their edit summaries. In my own opinion, the photograph should not be included in this article, as it is sexually provocative and irrelevant to the subject of transsexuality, at least from an encyclopedic perspective. If your opinion differs, please state so here, so that we can resolve this edit war as quickly as possible. Andrea Parton 07:20, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Redundancy

Both the "definitions" and "terminology" sections of this article discuss the current convention of referring to transsexual people with pronouns related to their target gender, the fact that older medical texts often referred to them as members of their original sex, and both sections mentioned the use of "assigned-to-target" terms to identify transsexuals. This seems redundant, and I would like to eliminate this redundancy, but I don't know what the best way to do so would be and I would like someone to help me with that. You can post suggestions here or edit the article itself. Thanks. Andrea Parton 17:37, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Since no one responded here, I corrected the problem myself. Now I am wondering whether to merge the "definitions" and "terminology" sections into one. Let me know what you think. Andrea Parton 05:07, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

In my edit, I took care of some of this. I moved the section "Definition" in with "Typical Definitions", and the two sections I feel are fairly clearly seperated. The "definitions" section dealing with just who is a transsexual, and "terminology" dealing with how to refer to transsexuals.

Just Shoot Me

By the way, who likes that I mentioned that show? I bet noone else noticed that :) I did the edit a while back... Tyciol 19:39, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

diagram needed

I believe this of a couple articles that seem similar to me need a diagram explaining them. I will draw one myself if everyone else agrees not to revert it and agrees on the specifications. If not, then I won't waste several hours making something to let it get ruined. MartrtinS 11:57, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

It's not necessary, and would not add to the encyclopedic nature of the article. Dysprosia 12:56, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I added a number of links, and created a "trans youth specific" section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.164.168.72 (talk • contribs)

The external links listed are getting a bit overwhelming, and there appear to be multiple listings of certain sites. Since I have a site listed, I will not cull the list, but a lot of the sites do not appear to be especially notable. As a reminder, Wikipedia is not a repository of links. Maybe someone can take a look at that... Jokestress 05:12, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

I have cleaned up the list, removed some links of little notability, and moved some links related to legal and political issues to Legal aspects of transsexualism. The list is still somewhat long, but I felt like many of the links were useful and that I would not be the one to delete them. Andrea Parton 05:07, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, having written a new article on Transgender youth, I moved all of the links "specific to trans youth" there. I think it might also be a good idea to move the "specific to trans women" and "specific to trans men" link sections to the transwoman and transman articles, respectively, but I will not do that without discussing it first. Andrea Parton 04:21, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Improving this article

I think this article needs to cite a few more sources, either as inline citations or otherwise. It is a 50 kb article with only two inline citations, but otherwise fairly well written. However, it definitely needs a lot of work to be a featured article and I think citations are part of that. I will try to add some myself as I have time, but I would appreciate help. Andrea Parton 17:02, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you, Andrea. However, I think the person who needs to add citations is the one who wrote it! After all, they must have got their information from somewhere. If they didn't or can't remember, then it's not worth writing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shyborg (talk • contribs) 14 April 2006
@Shyborg, kindly a) sign your comments with -- ~~~~ next time, and b) if you put any NPOV-notices in the text, explain why on this page. Lack of sources is BTW not a reason for such an NPOV-notice. -- AlexR 17:20, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, I just finished making some significant edits to this article and it had more problems than I realized. As for citations, I added several, and I also marked a few places where I felt like citations were needed. I will work some more on referencing this article when I have time. I also added a paragraph about the regrets that some transpeople experience, and I did a lot of rewording, added some internal links, and removed some statements that I felt were POV.

I know that someone recently tagged this article as problematic due to weasel words and having read over this article and that guideline, I feel like that is something that needs to be addressed. I know that this article once had major POV, but I think it is pretty neutral now, other than for a couple things that I still find questionable. I am a transsexual woman myself and I agree that transsexual people should be fully accepted in society and that transsexual children should be allowed to transition before puberty. But I also agree with Wikipedia's NPOV policy and so I feel like this article should remain neutral.

One thing I noticed is that this article uses "transsexuality" and "transsexualism" interchangeably. I think this should remain consistent throughout the article, other than for a brief notation that transsexuality is also known as transsexualism, or vice versa. I wonder if it would be best to rename the page as "Transsexualism" since that seems to be the term most widely in use today. What do you all think about that?

Well, for anyone reading this post, this article still needs a lot of work. Please help Wikipedia by improving this article.

Andrea Parton 05:18, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was move. —Nightstallion (?) Seen this already? 14:24, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Requested move

Transsexuality → Transsexualism: I think transsexualism is the term in wider use today - Andrea Parton 02:52, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Survey

Add "Support" or "Oppose", followed by an optional brief explanation, then sign your opinion with "~~~~".
  • Neutral - Me not bring a native speaker of English, I can't really say whether one is more or less appropriate than the other, but to me transsexualism sounds more like an ideology. May be just me, though. Given the Google numbers (Transsexuality=259.000 Transsexualism=363.000) I am willing to support the move if more people vote, and if the person making or proposing the move fix all the links that lead to this page. -- AlexR 09:42, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Support - My understanding is that the term "transsexuality" is disliked by many I think on the grounds that it sounds too much like a sexual orientation rather than a gender identity. In any case, whatever the exact reason is, certainly a lot of transsexual people find the term "transsexuality" unacceptable. The UK government notes that the preffered term is "transsexualism", and that the other term is unacceptable, on its official policy on the topic [1]. Given these facts, and the already noted greater Google numbers, "transsexualism" has to be the article title. --SJK 11:51, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

I disagree with the change. Transsexuality is a correct term in my mind. The definition is focused on an identity and psychological issues, much like homosexuality or heterosexuality. Transexuality is a sexual identity and, although it doesn't indicate a preference in sexual relationships, the word still makes more sense and is near analogous in meaning to homosexuality or heterosexuality. If someone finds the word offensive, I apologize, but remember homosexuality can be used in negative connotations too; the word change doesn't somehow change the connotation or opinion of it.--Screwball23 talk 17:56, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

"Religious right" and "psychologists"

Last night we had a few edits pertaining the"religious right" and "psychologists". Here [=="Religious right" and "psychologists"] a reference to the former was simply removed, in other edits "Many religious conservatives and others still believe that the causes of transsexualism are psychological and/or emotional in nature." was changed to "Many psychologists/psychiatrists ...". Obviously, those edits have to be discussed first. -- AlexR 09:42, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Of course, the Religious Right is probably the most visible group to insist that the causes of transsexualism are not biological, but I am aware of many psychologists and psychiatrists, including one I have seen myself, who consider transsexualism to be a mental problem. I know Wikipedia is not a place for original research, but I think that most of the unsourced statements in this article are fairly general knowledge among the transsexual community, and that they have been published on enough trans websites that they do not constitute original research. I would like for this article to have more references and citations though. Andrea Parton 20:26, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Oops ... methinks I did not have a look at the context last night. The first of those edits was about reparative therapy, and somehow I did not notice that the sentence I quoted stood there on its own, not related to that. My bad! This sentence of course is utter nonsense (at the moment) in both versions. There may be indications that there are either physiological causes or physiological co-factors, but of course we cannot say that it is already proven that the cause of transexualism is physiological, which the sentence clearly implies. And of course there are many psychologists that assume a psychchological cause, it is an occupational hazzard, just as a geneticist is likely to assume a genetical cause. That by itself is not a problem, either, it only becomes a problem if either people insist that it can be cured (which we all know is not possible) or if someone attaches less "value" to a condition that is caused by psychological causes than to one that is caused by physiological causes, which itself is POV. (And, if you ask me, nonsense into the bargain.) Furthermore, the article already discusses the matter of "causes", so there is even less of a point to put in a sentence at some random point that suddenly declares that only "idiots" would assume on of those debated positions. -- AlexR 21:51, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Edits 06/04/18

(Copied that from my talk page, I think it belongs here)
Hi Alex, I see that you made a few more edits to this article. Some of them were excellent. I fixed a few typos you made and reworded a few things for clarity; I know you're not a native speaker of English and so I don't blame you for making these mistakes.

Thanks, that is, I am affraid, the plight of native speakers with a good grasp on spelling of every Wikipedia. Good thing for you that native speakers never makes mistakes, otherwise you would have to blame people, and have even more work to do. Whether all of your edits were indeed improvements, or whether it was my words you were correcting in any case, well, let other people decide that.

I removed your statement "This however is not quite compatible with the definition of transgender" as it is unclear what "this" refers to and this statement does not seem NPOV.

Actually, I found it quite clear what it refers to, namely, the idea of some transsexual people that they are not transgender. What they do is to start re-defining "transgender" until it is something they are not ideed, only, as I said, these definitions are not quite compatible with the commomly accepted defintion. ("All transgender people wish to break down gender barriers" is quite sophisticated compared to some other re-definitions ("Supender-Daddy" or plain old "pervert") but it is no more right than those. Maybe you can write a sentence that is less confusing, because it definitely is not POV, but merely a fact.
Which reminds me - I think we should move those "transsomething versus transother" into its own article, it does come, after all, in various flavours. Actually, there is a lot of stuff that should go elsewhere - article is too long and confusing, For example the trans youth problem does not exist only for transsexual youth.

I also removed a few other statements you added that seemed to border on POV.

I can't find anything else you have just removed, can you point me out to what those were?

And you changed a couple of things that I didn't revert, even though I don't particularly agree with them. For one, you edited the opening paragraph to state that a transsexual person "wishes to" establish a permanent identity with the gender opposite their assigned sex. Well, the latter part of this sentence may be unclear to some readers and should perhaps be rephrased to "as a member of the gender opposite their assigned sex". Well, that aside, I really think it is more factually accurate to state that a transsexual person establishes an identity as one of "the opposite sex" than that they wish to. Gender identity is how one sees them self; it has nothing to do with how they present themselves or are seen by others. I, for one, am still in transition and not living as a woman full-time; many people who see me relate to me as a male, but I identify as a woman. That said, I don't think the phrase is any more or less neutral either way. Please explain your reasoning for this edit.

"Wish" might not be the best way of expressing it, although it is sure common, but one can hardly claim that one is only transsexual unless one does at least try to establish a new gender role. Otherwise, what were you before you tried? Somehow not transsexual? And why would anybody try if they were not transsexual before? I was actually very close to remove the first sentence completely, a definition (not exactly a good one) comes after that, but the very first sentence does add nothing to clarify things. Oh, and if you mean that one does establish an internal gender identity (as opposed to a social identity) - that makes even less sense. One already has that. That is the whole cause of the trouble, and I don't think there are all that many people (if any) who consciously develop that. It is already there, that is the whole point.

You also added "This however has its own considerable health risks" in reference to the statement that some transpeople obtain hormones from black market sources. I have already reworded this statement slightly, but it seems kind of redundant given that the section on hormone replacement therapy already stated that HRT had risks and that it was considered inadvisable to take hormones without a physician's supervision. Do you think there is a reason for this to be stated twice?

Andrea Parton 03:59, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

You are right, it is in there twice - which it should not be. But like transgender, this article has become a mess. I don't quite understand, though why you changed it from "This however has its own, considerable health risks." to "This option has its own associated health risks.". Do you really want to imply that the dangers of self-administered hormones, gotten from god-knows-where, is not considerable? I don't think there are many who would agree with you there.
There are other changes I do not agree with: " Research has shown that a real-life test of less than one year, or no real-life test at all, does not increase the likelihood that an MTF patient will regret genital reassignment surgery." was "a patient". First of all, FtM and MtF we have avoided so far, since they are not exactly without problems. Second, the way the sentence stands now, it implies that transmen need that one-year-RLT. Which is, to put it mildly, bullshit. This needs at least a modifying statement.
" reparative therapy [...] in the West usually with ties to the conservative Christian movement." was changed to "usually with ties to the conservative Christian movement or other conservative religions." I don't think reparative theory is particularly widespread in countries which are not considert part of "the West", and I do not know of any instance of "other conservative religions", which by itself is problematic, because usually it is not the religion itself that is necessarily conservative, but only certain movement within that religion. However, that is part of what was spread through the article anyway - hitting the religious right. Now, in my personal opinon, that is always a good idea -- except in Wikipeda, when it is at least misleading. Because you see, not exactly every country, not even in the West, has that many problems with those nutcases. Not to mention that there are also non-religious people who are not exactly fond of transpeople, too.
"Generally, SRS is very expensive and not everywhere is not covered by public or private health insurance." changed to "Generally, SRS is very expensive and, in many places, usually not covered by public or private health insurance." First of all, that is a double - in many places and usually does not make too much sense (and it is wrong). And there is the problem of "usually" or "usually not". First we talk about health insurance, which is not exactly widespread through the world in the first place. And then we talk about whether this insurance covers trans healthcare. Well, I have to say that almost everywhere that I know where there is a comprehensive health care system, trans health is covered. Oh, and I didn't correct that, but generally, SRS is not all that expensive, either, or rather, does not have to be. In Germany, transwoman's SRS is, for example, less expensive than two month in a psychological institution, which happens to be a good argument in favour of physical treatment instead of (pointless) psycholgical treatment. Of course, where people have to pay out of their own pockets, they are milked for all that it's worth -- but that is also the case with any plastic surgery. -- AlexR 09:31, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Hi again Alex, I agree with many of your comments. I addressed most of the issues you mentioned above but there are still a few problems. For one thing, I reworded your sentence on how "this is not compatible with the definition of transgender" to make it clear to most people reading the page, but my version of this statement still seems to make it sound like a bad thing when transsexual people refuse to be labeled as transgender, which is neither something I feel is the case, nor is it NPOV.

You mention that you feel like this article is too long and confusing, and that many of the issues in the "transsexual youth" section apply to transsexual adults as well. As far the latter part, you are definitely right. The issues of coming out and safety in the community are as significant for transsexual adults as for transsexual youths. Maybe we could start a separate article on trans youths and add sections to this article to focus on coming out and community safety for transsexual people in general. For purposes of clarity, I feel like it is important that terminology is kept consistent throughout this article, which is something we seem to be working on right now. I have wondered if the "definitions" and "terminology" sections should be merged in to a single section, but I am not really sure it would not make the article more confusing. Transsexualism is something that most people do not understand, as well as a very complex matter. And this article has largely been written by transsexual people, which according to many pages in the Wikipedia namespace, makes it more difficult for neutrality to be maintained. As I stated above, I agree with you that this article still needs a lot of work. You state that we should move those "transsomething" versus "transother" into its own article; are you referring to the "definitions" and "terminology" sections and stating that we should start a new article on transgender terminology. If you are, that might be a good idea, but I would have to think about it for a while. You actually added several references in this article to "transgender" people other than those at the transsexual end of the spectrum and you stated that you felt like the transgender article was a mess too. Well, I have made no significant contributions to that article and I have not read it in a while, so it would be difficult for me to comment on it, but I feel like the focus of this article should be on the transsexual end of the spectrum. When I read this article the first time, it seemed to have major bias towards transmen, which I have helped to eradicate. Because I am a transsexual woman, I know much more about their experiences than those of transmen, but I think this article should represent a worldwide view encompassing both transwomen and transmen.

As for the opening sentence, I reworded it for clarity. But the latter part of the sentence "as a member of their gender of identity" still seems somewhat unclear. If you can clarify this, you may do so, and I will continue thinking about ways to clarify this, or perhaps someone else will. I will continue working on adding citations to this article, removing weasel words, and cleaning up this article to make it more readable. I am also considering adding sections to deal with "diagnosing" transsexualism and on psychological treatments for trans children, noting the fact that not all trans children remain trans into adulthood, though if we created a separate article to deal with trans youth, the latter would definitely belong in that article. Once most or all of the problems mentioned on this talk page are addressed, I may nominate this article for peer review so that hopefully it will be assessed by those outside the trans community.

Andrea Parton 16:28, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Splitting the article

I hope my last edit clarified a few points. Feel free to make them better and/or discuss them here.
As for the topics that should go into seperate articles, well, I think that does apply to everything that does not just concern transsexual people, but (all or many) non-transsexual transpeople as well.
  • Youth: My reason for moving this one into its own article has nothing to do with how much of that applies to adults as well, but with the reason above -- every gender-variant child experiences those problems, and a change of gender role may just as well be necessary for non-transsexual-transgender youths.
  • T-X vs.T- Y: This list may not be complete, but I count at least those:
    • "Proper transsexuals" versus everybody else
    • "Transgenderists" versus "Transsexuals", transpeople claiming that everybody who undergoes SRS is an idiot (or similar)
    • "Cool Transgender" versus "stupid Transsexuals", often in academics and/or feminism, by cisgender people, vilifying everybody who undergoes SRS (and often other medical treatment) as "people who were trapped by the patriarchy". Spin-off of the "Transsexual Empire" mindset.
    • Whether we should include this one I leave open and ask for comments:
      • "Homosexuals" versus "those who actually switch full-time", claiming, similar to the above, that if people could just be happy homosexuals, there would be no transpeople. Transpeople who actually change gender just can't stand the thought of being homosexual. (As a trannyfag, this one is, IMO, slightly below "reparative therapy".)
  • Much of the medical topics, those really should be only refered to with a link, and at most a sentence or two.
  • Same as with the "Standards of care" and "legal" stuff.
And the transmen thing you complained about -- well, first of all, exactly which version did have more on transmen than transwomen, and if there ever was one, how long did it stand? I mean, given the relative number of out transwoman and out transmen here, it sure was not very long, although I don't think I ever saw one. You know, this reminds me of studies done on the relative attention girls and boys get in class, and their perception. As soon as, in a class with an equal number of girls and boys, girls got about 30% of the attention of the teacher, the teacher, the boys and the girls all estimated that the girls got most attention (i.e. >50%). I get pretty much the same reaction from transwomen lots of times. And that is not even metioning those who consider it a completely unreasonable demand that they should stop uttering sentences like "But all trans* people just want to be women!".
As for myself, I tend to put transmen just as much as transwomen when I write for a number of reasons (besides being a transman, that is). One is that transmen are still marginalized, not just in the outside view, but also within the trans-community. Making them a bit more visible is certainly appropriate. Also, many points are much easier to argue with transmen, not only because readers just tend to have a far smaller set of prejudices that have to be fighted, but also because many points transwomen also complain about make even less sense with transmen. (A year of RLE to find out whether they can stand the reactions of people seeing them in trousers? Yes, such an absolute necessity!) I have also seen that in some places transmen have been thrown into with transwomen in a really stupid way, especially in "Requirements for sex reassignment therapy". Here, the problems of transmen are often just different from that of transwomen, and to throw them just in without discussing both seperately once again marginalitzed transmen and ignores their specific problems. I didn't do much about it, since that bit should go into its own article anyway. But I definitely don't like it.
Maybe we should put a sentence in before we direct people to other articles, something like: "Since this matter does not just concern transsexual people, but also non-transsexual transgender people, this topic has its own article." Just an idea. -- AlexR 12:11, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, I have created a new article on transgender youth, based on the recommendations above. As for my other thoughts, I disagree with some of your suggestions and some, I do not completely understand. At this point, this article mentions nothing on the "Transsexual Empire" theory, and I don't feel like any mention of this is necessary. Someone could write a whole article on "ex-trans" ministries, those who claim that SRS is idiotic, the claim that transsexual people "just can't accept their homosexuality", etc., but I am not going to be the one to write this article. As for the medical and legal matters, separate articles already exist on HRT, SRS, and legal issues, and this article simply summarizes those. I think that almost everything this article says about the medical and legal aspects of transsexualism needs to be kept in this one article, as a sentence or two on each issue would not be enough of a summary. Actually, the section titled "legal and social aspects" focuses mostly on social issues, which again, apply not only to transsexual people, but to many other transgender people as well. I think this section should include a sub-section on "employment issues", as it already contains one paragraph on such issues, and the existing paragraph needs to be expanded. Transsexualism and transgender are complex subjects, and subjects that most people do not fully understand. I don't even fully understand transgenderists, drag queens/kings, etc. Because I am a transsexual woman, I understand our/their issues the best. No encyclopedia (not even Wikipedia) will ever cover everything there is to know about transsexualism, but I think Wikipedia should cover the important aspects of it. Andrea Parton 05:08, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Definition

I am not quite happy with the "Defintion" part. It currently says:

The minimum requirements for labeling a person as transsexual are debated. Some feel that hormone-induced changes, without surgical changes, are sufficient to qualify for the label transsexual. Others, especially health care providers and some transsexual people, believe there is a certain set of procedures that must always be completed.

From my experience, to be labeled as "transsexual", one has to at least want genital reassignment surgery; compare also the ICD-10 definition. Since that seems to be also the definition of the "general public", it should at least be stated who defines it otherwise, and why. The ICD-10 definition (and many transsexual people I know) also claim that being transsexual includes only accepting a binary gender system, and hence a switch from X to Y with nothing in between. (Not to mention those who include a straight sexual orientation as necessary, too.) Mind you, the crafting of the "transsexual identity" with its reciprocal influences of medical defintions and transsexal narrratives etc are a most interesting topic, but one where we should dig up sources before we step into that. Nevertheless, that paragraph, as it stands, seems problematic to me. -- AlexR 13:41, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

  • I addressed a few of the issues you mentioned above. Yes, defining a person as transsexual is a complicated matter. I, for one, feel that a person is transsexual if they consider themselves such, and I think many people in the trans community agree with me, but I know some who do not. A therapist who I saw until recently repeatedly told me that "I was not really in transition", mostly because I was not dressing as a woman on a regular basis. Well, "transsexual" and "in transition" are two totally different things, but at this time, I consider myself to be both. I am taking female hormones and undergoing facial electrolysis, and my social presentation is androgynous at this time. I plan to have genital reassignment surgery; I don't know when, but I plan to. I don't mean to run off on a long tangent, but the issue at hand is one I can relate to. Andrea Parton 04:54, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Gender professionals

In the section on objections to research of causes, the article states that many "gender professionals" have contested the rationale of searching for a cause of transsexualism. I think this needs to be more clear on who "gender professionals" refers to. Psychologists? Sexologists? Gender studies experts? Psychiatrists? Physicians? Transsexual/transgender care providers?

Andrea Parton 05:12, 26 April 2006 (UTC)


Transsexuality

"Transsexualism" sounds like a disease. Transsexuality is the more modern term. Let's move the page.--Sonjaaa 23:59, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

No. It is less commonly used, more POV, and in my opinion, more pejorative. Rebecca 08:34, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
We already had this debate weeks ago, and reached a consensus. So there is hardly any reason to move it again. -- AlexR 10:10, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, just recently, we proposed renaming the page from Transsexuality to Transsexualism, so it appears to be a very controversial issue. As the Definitions section of this article suggests, not everyone will be happy with any single term. For examples, Jennifer Diane Reitz refers to "transsexuality" and Lynn Conway refers to "transsexualism." If you search "transsexuality" and "transsexualism" on Google, you will find more hits for "transsexualism." Reality Resources, an ex-trans ministry, frequently uses "transsexuality," and to me, "transsexuality" sounds like a sexual orientation. Of course, some people do not like either of these terms. For example, some people prefer Benjamin's syndrome [[2]], but that definitely sounds like a disease. Andrea James has proposed the term "interest in feminization" for transsexual women who plan to transition. She feels like that term would encompass all persons who transition from male to female, or desire to do so, including those who do so for non-traditional reasons. While I do not feel like the medical community should stop people from transitioning for non-traditional reasons, I also feel like this terminology suggests that transsexualism is a chosen behavior. I feel that transsexualism is an inborn characteristic, but I don't believe that it should be called a disease. All said, I feel like Transsexualism is the best title for the Wikipedia article on the subject. Given the recent replies to this comment, and the recent move debate, I feel like consensus has already been established. Andrea Parton 13:16, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Just a quick note on the concept "interest in feminization/masculinization": I acknowledge several issues with the terms, but I was looking for something generalized enough to encompass any gendered behaviors, whether the person is trans or not. An "interest" is a concern or curiosity, and it does not preclude the possibility that these feelings and behaviors stem from an innate cause. It also does not preclude their stemming from social pressures. It's a complicated issue to model inclusively and non-hierarchically, and I remain unsure of the utility of the concept. My hope is that the proposal will encourage others to consider models and transitional language which don't suggest that taking steps to gender oneself is a disorder or disease, but a natural variance in humanity that extends to the level of requiring medical technologies to better align one's identity and expression in relation to one's place in society. Jokestress 20:03, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Diagnosis

It has previously been mentioned here that the article is too long and that much should go into seperate articles. The bit about the diagnosis is a case to the point -- because these days, in many places, one is not diagnosed with "transsexualism" any more, but with GID. And there are considerable differences between both diagnoses. If we write this part to apply to a diagnosis of TS only, then we should preceed that with a warning that what follows is outdated; rather pointless, IMO. If, on the other hand, we leave it as it is written, it does give a very problematic impression -- namely, that one can clearly distigusih between "proper transsexuals" who deserve medical treatment, and a lot of sick perverts who do not. A view that is not only thoroughly outdated, but also patently false. I therefore propose to move this bit, best, IMO, into Gender identity disorder, or, if somebody feels it would be better, into something like Diagnosing gender identity (disorder, variations, problems, ...). -- AlexR 19:14, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

No huge objections here, as long as it is the former rather than the latter. I also think you'll need to be very careful about making sure the reformed article here doesn't turn into an advocacy piece. Rebecca 00:16, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

The more I think about it, the more I think it would be best to move most of this section to the GID article. As for the concern about this becoming an advocacy piece, I have made major edits to this article myself, and I have tried to keep my edits as neutral as possible, but I am a transsexual woman and I do have my biases. Please let me know if anything in this article seems POV to you, or correct the problem yourself. I still have a bit more work I would like to do on this article, but pretty soon, I think this article is going to need a peer review. Additionally, a few statements in this article are marked as needing citations; I will try to find sources for these statements when I have time, but if anyone else reading this knows the sources of these statements, please add them. Thanks. Andrea Parton 03:55, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

I think most of the people working on those articles are transgender, and while this can lead to bias, so far most complaints about the articles being biased were, let's say, not exactly neutral themselfes. It is certainly a good thing when some cis-people read over the articles, but as I said, so far the neutrality complains all were like "those are perverts, and you make this sound as if they are not". So it seems we are doing reasonably well on the neutrality issue so far; and my main reason for wishing non-involved people to read over the articles is to make sure a) they are understandable to them, and b) that the articles are not too much like (often whining) essays, which some edits unfortunately are.
As for this section, or rather, the section of GID, I think it might be possible to say something about how the diagnosis has changed; i.e. what is the difference between the "transsexual" diagnosis, and the "GID" diagnosis. There are, after all, considerable differences. -- AlexR 11:13, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
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