(SEE 09-19-08 UPDATE AT THE BOTTOM)
If one comments all over the blogosphere, as I do, and not just the GLBT sites but the mainstream ones as well, it’s hard not to run across Zoe Brain’s opinions. I like Zoe’s blog site; and if we disagree at all, generally it is on some minor point. On her site, she says that she doesn’t identify as transgender nor as gay…neither do I. I am often amazed sometimes at some of the blogs where we run into each other; they range from Oprah’s “pregnant man” epic to obscure sites by some right wing idiot whose blogs out in Texas. Ms. Brain’s approach is almost always from the perspective of science. Mine is almost always from a more practical point of view.
Zoe is a scientist by profession who works, I believe, in the space arena, and has worked on some very impressive projects if I remember correctly. I, on the other hand, am an engineer involved in the construction of huge industrial projects with scopes of work that can, and do, run into the billions of dollars. Perhaps that brief background explains our different approach to common interests.
Back on June 23 of this year, Zoe penned an essay entitled simply HBS. If you are reading this blog, you surely know what HBS means. In that piece, Zoe says, when referring to a statement claiming that HBS is an intersex condition developed in the early stages of pregnancy:
“I completely agree about the medical issues, as I’ve posted about earlier. The evidence that they’re (meaning HBS advocates) correct is overwhelming.”
But when commenting on statements attributed to Charlotte Goiar at the International HBS Forum in which Ms. Goiar says:
“Transsexualism (TS), Gender Identity Disorder (GID), or Gender Dysphoria is a mental condition that consists of the desire to live and to receive acceptance as a member of the opposite sex. Do not confuse this with HBS, as it is not medical.”
Zoe parts ways immediately:
“That’s where some (and I stress some, not all) of the more fanatic elements of HBS theory start going wrong. Various kinds of HBS fanatics insist that only they are Intersexed, and others are psychiatrically ill.”
Ms. Brain goes on to say:
“It’s difficult for me to be in this position. They’re right about so much, but some (and I emphasize some) are total fruit-loops in other ways. Hateful too.”
Zoe will readily tell you what the evidence and scientific papers regarding gender issues indicate to her, but she will just as quickly point out the lack of large samples or, admirably, she might admit that she could be interpreting the data incorrectly (the sign of a reasonable person in my opinion). Actually, that same evidence and published data indicate the same thing to me as well though, just like Zoe, I offer up the same caveats.
One thing, however, I have to agree with is the fanaticism that some of the HBS advocates hold. And the worst of the worst is TS-Si. And just as Zoe emphasizes “some”, so do I, for certainly not all classic transsexuals who subscribe to HBS have that fanaticism that some of the fruit loops do.
At TS-Si, if one agrees completely with what Lisa Thompson has to say then you are most welcome to participate. But disagree on any level with the Philosophy According to Lisa and that site will slam you with a level of attack and insults that matches any right wing blog. Perhaps that is why one sees the same few people commenting, in lockstep, on the endless anti-transgender articles that appear there…essays that say the same thing, over and over, with simply a different choice of words for each rendition.
You will not see the principals of TS-Si comment on other blogs. You will not see them try to persuade anyone anywhere else. You will not see them present evidence of any kind any other place than on their site. Though they have stated the reason for that is the uselessness of trying to persuade the transgender of anything, you won’t see them trying to persuade anyone on the mainstream blogs either. They won’t engage, period…except on their blog.
Why? Because even to those like myself and Zoe and Leigh and countless others who one day hope the research validates something we have long known, fanaticism at any level is a turn off. If Lisa Thompson attempted to present her line on any blog, particularly a mainstream blog, it would be a verbal bloodbath. She knows it, and is smart enough to dwell in her own controlled sphere of influence.
Not to worry, one should not hold their breath for the time the owner’s of TS-Si will step out into the real world. Instead, they will keep regenerating the same tired reworded arguments to the same fanatic drones that inhabit their comment section article after article.
The concept of a Harry Benjamin Syndrome was a good idea I think. I doubt there are few classic transsexuals who would not like to see a differentiation, a different terminology used to delineate us from the others who are captured by the transgender umbrella. But it has taken a terrible turn for the worse due to the fanatics who promote it.
Sign THE PETITION…help us claim our rightful place.
UPDATED 08-19-08:
If you really want to get a taste of the TS-Si fanaticism, then check out this article by Lisa Thompson called Round Heads, Know Nothings, and Transgender Post-Modern Fundamentalism. Pay particular attention to the comments at the bottom…most closely to comment by Leigh Smith responding to a warning from TS-Si that she is out of line. Ms. Smith says, while illustrating the total misrepresentation and inaccuracies of Thompson’s article:
”Sharon, and I suppose this snippet from Lisa was not intended to say or imply slur either?
“Oh, and Smith would like us to sign the petition. That neither of us would sign the petition, combined with the fact that we will not conform to Smith’s personal brand of transgender fundamentalism only mean, in her mind, that we both must be against the transgender movement. We are ruining transgender solidarity.” (Quote from TS-Si’s article)
Warning Noted – but it would be fair if you were to point out to the “readership” that I have been unfairly targeted on several points:
a) I am certainly not a transgender fundie
b) I did not write or instigate said petition
c) The petition itself is anti transgender
d) I have not used bad language on your blog
e) Enough Non-Sense is not MY blog
f) Many have misquoted or not even read what I HAVE said and simply replied with a knee jerk reaction based on what others wrote.”
To this post, Sharon Gaughan simply replies:
“Leigh, Let’s take this offline…”
How conveninent…geeez.
No apology from Lisa, no apology from Sharon, no apology for quoting Leigh’s article out of context…no nothing…just the arrogance and insults of the fanatical Lisa Thompson. Attacks and insults…typical. Read it for yourselves, don’t take my word for it.
Yep, HBS was a good idea, but the fanatics have turned it into a farce.
13 Comments
I think the angst of many of us who had dealings with TS-Si was the assumption that a MAN who lived and functioned totally as a male with a few oddities was being assumed to perhaps having been born with HBS. HE stated that HE only became aware of his ‘gender identity disorder’ after puberty. That is not HBS as we have tried to explain…it is the behavior of a TG. I agree with most of Lisa’s contentions and only disagree with few, this one being rather an affront to those who know themselves as having been born HBS.
The gender confused male ‘Daemon’ went on to explain that he wanted to use female private facilities when dressed la fem as if that was his right, – a right to impose upon women and their children when clearly the only commonality with the female binary is the clothes he might be wearing at the time. His own wife asked him not do that in front of his own children but it seems that for others it is OK to do just that in front of strangers. That again is TG behavior and not HBS identity. I stated in the TS-Si group and in our group that to assume that Daemon might be HBS born was way off track. To link him to being HBS born is simply another form of ‘enabling’ and heretic accommodation. TS folk seem to do that often whereas HBS born try to be very clear in our declaration. We understand the differences and are not squeamish about expounding upon them.
Our group which is actually the first U.S. Harry Benjamin Syndrome group (established in 2004)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HarryBenjaminSyndrome/?yguid=155548887
states very clearly that for one to identify as HBS born he or she must harbor a deep awareness of the need to correct their physical sex BEFORE puberty and bring it into accord as soon as possible with their brain sex. It is an inborn condition and not one that might be nurtured or grown to become transsexualism as I have been told by many in the tg advocacy camp.
Some have mixed and matched HBS with transsexualism and all that might mean and even with transgenderism and many of its gender confusing elements. We try to explain that HBS is a medical condition supported by none less than Dr Harry Benjamin who believed ‘true transsexuals’ are born with a biological condition and not a mental infirmity. To add further, Dr Diamond of Hawaii University is a strong advocate of the ‘neurological intersex’ application. We agree with both of them as did the Australian Court which found as a result of testimony by Dr Gooren and others to that argument in favor of Kevin Re: in case law and affirmed upon appeal. Now where might the transgender elements show us one bit of research giving them an identity which might be treated as anything other than a psychological gender identity disorder that does not seem to come from a singular source of distinction but from an affect of growth manifested by an other than a physical birth anomaly? Therein lies the separation as clearly as it might be emphasized.
HBS has not become a farce but has been infiltrated by those who might link it with gender identity disorders without understanding the distinction (not elitism) of those born HBS. It is an attempt by them to simply transfer one condition to another without legitimate basis. Many do this to simply add one more layer of masking to their lives in an attempt to be more ‘real’, ‘primary’ or even ‘true’. I only know how I have felt from earliest memory so will not speak of how and when others became ‘aware’ if that might really be a term applicable to them.
The latest research indicates that ‘true transsexuals/HBS’ number less than 1/30,000. I believe it to be perhaps even higher, 1/50,000. The problem with the 1/2500 or even 1/5000 numbers arises with the confusion of adding those who claim TS status but are really simply TG’s over emphasizing their climb up their self constructed ladder of ‘accomplishment’ which has more to do with mimicry and sexual urges than an actual driving inborn driven need for correction of genitalia so as to eliminate the contradiction between brain and body.
I feel very strongly that for one to make claim they are HBS born they must have been very much aware of their harbored need to correct their sex before puberty. HBS is not something one grows to become much like transgender and even some in the transsexual camp seem to do but instead it is an inborn error that took place in the womb…the hormonal wash mistimed facet of fetal development.
I believe Leigh made the point that if we believe in our HBS birth condition then why should we not make judgments of others who link to it without validity. I agree! We are judged by many in the TG camp as being elitists simply because we clearly make the distinction between what we know and strongly feel to be an inborn anomaly as opposed to a nurtured element under the tg banner. The same misapplied analogy might well treat a cancer patient the same as a heart patient? Why are so many so fearful of stating just that and wish to be so accommodating with those who demean us by adding us as a sub-set under the TG behavioral social construct. Many, even those identifying as TS, do just that simply because it allows them ‘guru’ status not at all in witness to those who suffer from what many of us realize without doubt as having been born with a very rare condition…HBS.
HBS is still a good idea if only those who obviously are not HBS born would keep their identity and not try to include themselves or others as being part of ours. The transsexuals allowed that to happen when they became part of transgender and then the GLBT inclusion and look at where they now stand and understood by most of the public. The focus now for them is applied as sexual orientation rather contrary to that which they claim to be their primary identity. Oh well!!!
Diane
I deleted this post, ONLY because it was a double post identical to the one above.
SA-ET
Yes well …
Here’s some studies and papers from the American Psychological Association that enforce my assertion that not everyone, in fact a hell of a lot of us, have no memory of early childhood.
full story here: http://www.apa.org/monitor/nov05/remember.html
“In a 1951 paper, psychologist Neal Miller, PhD, wrote that although people cannot remember their very early childhood, the events that happen then still influence them years later.
“The young child does not notice or label the experiences which it is having at this time,” Miller wrote. “Nevertheless, the behavioral record survives.”
In the annual Neal Miller lecture at APA’s 2005 Annual Convention, University of Arizona psychology professor Lynn Nadel, PhD, described how his and others’ research has begun to back up Miller’s observation.
“Fifty years ago we didn’t have the evidence,” Nadel said, “but now we’re in a position to talk about this in an empirical way.”
So much for the HBS claims that “if you didn’t know by 3 or 4 your not HBS”. Not EVERYONE can remember early childhood, in fact a LOT of us cannot remember it, and some actually “create” it.
“We can’t remember when and how we learned things in infancy, but these things exert a strong influence on our subsequent behavior.”
Lynn Nadel
University of Arizona
oh…. You mean like transsexual behaviour in pre-teens where none was exhibited before?
Some would call you a heretic and a transgender fundamentalist Lynn .. tsk tsk tsk. Definatly goes against the teachings and claims of the Harry Benjamin Syndrome Fanatics.
I do not ever recall those who advocate for the HBS claiming that it was necessary, or a requirement, that by the age of “3 or 4” one must sense they are “different”, for lack of a better word and for the sake of discussion. I do realize, and recognize, that the advocates of HBS feel that one who is classically transsexual is aware of their “difference” around the age of puberty at the latest. I would think that a pre-teen, i.e., eleven, twelve, or even thirteen would fall into that time frame. I also am sure that one is easily capable of remembering certain events much further back than say, for example, ten years old.
I have said before that my earliest manifestation, and remembrance, of having any sort of gender issue at all was at the age of four. Actually, I didn’t really remember the event until reminded of it by a first cousin. We deduced the year and how old we were (we are just a few months apart) only after remembering that it took place at her house while my family was visiting…the following year, my cousin (and Aunt and Uncle) moved into a new home a few miles away, and we were five when that happened…the deduction was easy. That earliest memory aside, and having to be reminded of it, I do have very distinct memories of two other events in my life that occurred at 6 and 7 that I can remember as if yesterday. After that, at least for me, from the age of seven or eight on, honestly, there was hardly a day, if not an hour that went by that I didn’t struggle with my gender.
But I don’t think either of the two paragraphs above are the issue.
Way more goes into memory than just cognizance. I would doubt there are few of us who have not been told by another of some event that happened and of which we couldn’t remember it, only to have almost total recall when reminded of perhaps where the event occurred…or when…or maybe shown a photo of it. My absolute earliest memory goes back to “…two or three years old…” (according to my mother’s handwritten note on the back of the photo). It is a photo of me and a little boy, barely toddlers, sitting side by side with the little boy’s mother sitting in the background. When I was first shown this photo sometime in my teens, forty years or more ago, I instantly remembered that photo being taken as clearly as if the shutter had been snapped the day before.
Being reminded of something we do not remember is just one example of the complexity of memory. As Leigh’s link illustrates, sometimes things we experience, though we don’t remember them vividly or perhaps even remember them at all, are subconsciously stored, and influence us later on in life. And, of course there are events that happen to us our brain simply refuses to remember, for example, traumatic events our subconscious chooses to block. Memory is obviously a complicated matter.
If those who advocate HBS choose to set the time one must remember they were “different” at or before puberty, that is their prerogative. I recognize that being classically transsexual is an innate feeling that goes back to a very early age. Exactly when that age is I think could be debated…but I don’t care to do so. However, personally, I think that those that would be considered classically transsexual (classic transsexuality essentially being the same as HBS) know from very early on that something is amiss when it comes to their gender, even if they may not be sure exactly what it is. And, though there may be an exception here or there (though one would be extremely hard pressed to sell me on exactly what may have caused such an aberration), I do not believe that one who is in there mid teens or older suddenly wakes up one morning realizing they have been born in the wrong body, has no prior feelings of this sort, has never manifested even the slightest of gender variance…and then becomes hell bent on doing something about it.
I am somewhat perplexed as to where anyone got the idea that to be HBS born means we were aware at age 3, 4 or even five. That was never asserted and it would be wrong to do so.
What we do say and state it clearly is that if one is not aware of their being ‘different’ BEFORE PUBERTY then they could well be transgender and even transsexual but they obviously would not be HBS born which we feel strongly is a neurological intersex condition that manifested itself in the womb and resulted in the contradiction between brain and body. There is no such thing as ‘growing into HBS’ since it existed as an anomaly before we were even born.
Our feelings as youngsters if examined even later by professionals (which mine were as well as being supported) are easily substantiated. Many chose to ignore our behavior as a ‘going through a phase’ but as attested to by a battery of psychiatrists at a county hospital after my surgery (so as to meet the standards of the state my being the first asking for document changes) not only agreed that I was a female mentally and physically but from interviews with family members the condition was found to have existed long before I reached adolescence. That my dear Leigh is what is meant by being HBS born. We are not a matter of nurturing but a condition of nature.
Diane Kearny http://harrybenjaminsyndrome.org./
Well my dear Diane … I am happy for you.
Research into cognitive memory has been ongoing for 60 years or more. In 1951, psychologist Neal Miller, PhD, wrote that although people cannot remember their very early childhood, the events that happen then still influence them years later. http://www.apa.org/monitor/nov05/remember.html
Miller said: “The young child does not notice or label the experiences which it is having at this time, nevertheless, the behavioral record survives.”
Fast forward to 2005 at the annual Neal Miller lecture at the American Psychological Association’s Annual Convention, University of Arizona psychology professor Lynn Nadel, PhD, described how his and others’ research has begun to back up Miller’s observation. Lynn Nadel is quoted as saying,
“We can’t remember when and how we learned things in infancy, but these things exert a strong influence on our subsequent behavior.”
Elizabeth F. Loftus, University of California, Irvine, has a long list of credits:
Distinguished Professor Department of Psychology and Social Behavior.
Department of Criminology, Law, and Society
Department of Cognitive Sciences
Fellow, Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory
Ms. Loftus is also the author of a number of papers and books on the subject of memory.
http://faculty.washington.edu/eloftus/Articles/AmerPsychAward+ArticlePDF03%20(2).pdf
In the above referenced article, “Make-believe memories,” American Psychologist (November 2003). sub heading “Rich False Memories” Ms. Loftus writes:
“Another method for assessing whether the suggestive manipulations are planting false memories is to try to plant memories for things that would be implausible or even impossible. For instance, it has been possible to plant beliefs or false memories of witnessing demonic possession as a child (Mazzoni, Loftus, & Kirsch, 2001). And it has been even easier to plant a false memory of meeting Bugs Bunny at a Disney Resort (Braun, Ellis, & Loftus, 2002). The latter was accomplished by presenting participants with fake ads for Disney that featured Bugs Bunny. In one study, exposure to the fake ad led 16% of participants to later claim that they had personally met Bugs at Disneyland. This could not have occurred because Bugs Bunny is a Warner Brothers character and would not be found at Disneyland.”
So, is it possible to plant the belief that a person may be HBS by suggesting to them that they “TRY’ to remember their early childhood? …. Of course it is!
Does it mean that ALL early childhood recollections of gender anomoly is simply a “Rich False Memory” ?….. not in the least.
However, what it does suggest is that one cannot rely on a persons say so, that the memories they say they have, actually happened in real life.
Your Serve….
Actually it was not just my parents who were asked to reply by the shrinks but a teacher and a neighbor as well as my sister.
Return serve:
Without doubt I am positive that my recollections were not implanted by anyone but rather a clearly remembered life experience that I was very aware of and in my case the memory of being ‘different’ was a matter of shame for me during those formative years even in grammar school. Other girls were able to openly express their interests while I had to suppress mine.
What I have attempted to explain is that true transsexuals are distinct and that is what the concept of HBS tries to outline. It is in agreement with the research studies that is indicative of a fetal development producing a brain in contradiction to the body during the hormonal wash period of formation of the fetus. It is supported by many, Dr Diamond being one, who firmly believe that the condition rightly applies to true transsexuals in that they are neurologically intersex. Having been originally diagnosed as primary/true transsexual and knowing of my long standing inner feeling I have to agree with the research and the professional who see us not as simply a learned behavior but an inborn anomaly rationally connected to an intersex syndrome.
When I married my husband soon afterward a doctor asked me if we were planning on having children. When I told him of my past he almost had a heart attack. My effort to explain HBS born is in direct correlation to his understanding which was simply that we are but a ‘little different’ from either a gay crossdresser, a drag queen, a confused transvestite and/or a myriad of ‘trans’ something often linked as if a result of a like causative action of nurturing much like that idiotic two identity proposal advanced by the Blanchard/Bailey/Lawrence trio and their cohort McHugh.
HBS born are not a class of transsexual as that has now taken on a wide and differing identity from that as proposed by many including Dr Harry Benjamin who was the first to accept me for treatment. I tried to explain that yes we are distinct and not those who have been able to live and fully function for long periods of time as either males or females and yet somehow became aware of a past association with their brain being out of focus with their functional genitalia. That of course does not apply to all but late transitioners seem to be the majority of contenders.
I am well aware of how susceptible children are to ‘brainwashing’. Parents use this method as a means of control and I am totally opposed to it. And I know from personal experience how damaging that can be especially when a child is told they must be more ‘manly’ and less of a ’sissy’. How many children must have been deeply damaged by that admonishment.
Being HBS born is not simply a mistaken trip to Disney but a deeply ingrained feeling of being different. Otherwise I would have to agree with many of the trans advocates that we are all but a little bit different but really just a degree or two separate from each other.
I find that assumption to be a total fabrication advanced by political motivations rather than an understanding of the biological influence that designs a brain in conflict with body…the HBS born.
Diane
Whoa there Diane!
I didn’t say YOU were not HBS and do NOT have anything more than implanted false memories, I merely outlined the possibility of such amongst those that claim HBS’ness as a result of what they say are memories of actual events in their lives, true, wishful thinking or implanted.
On the flip side however, you and other members of the HBS club seem to imply that I am not HBS simply because I take the position of Devil’s advocate. For sure, Lisa Thompson imply’s it directly in regard to me at TS-SI, even to the point of taking my statements out of context to prove her point. She has also been read as saying that “most HBS women have early recollection often at the age of 3-4 years old” and that is where I have to disagree since anyone can say anything regardless of how factual or fancifull it may be. I call bullshit and thats what the self defining HBS dont really like.
If you want to hang the diagnosis and definitions of yours or my condition on the hat stands of psychiatrist’s and psychologist’s and the miriad of other professional opinions that is all well and good, but to be fair, there are plenty of tranny’s and transgenders out there that can claim the same credentials based on what someone with a PHD and degree in psychology and psychiatry have defined them to be, EVEN IF WE DISAGREE!
You like to talk about your background experiences and what makes you a woman, well here’s news for you, I have many of the same experiences you talk about ad-infinitum, except I don’t claim to recollect any time during my early childhood when I thought I was anything other than a child. Perhaps it came to me in a flash when I fell six feet from the tree swing, face down on a concrete sidewalk, breaking all my limbs and most of my facial features, spending the next six months out of school. I DO have recollection of falling… oh yes, like it was yesterday! I was perhaps …PERHAPS ..7 years old. Fact is I cant even recollect THAT date for certain.
By nine years old I was experimenting with my gender presentation. By thirteen, I was taking day trips to London, 40 miles away by train, spending that time being me. In my early twenties I was out with my parents and family as wanting to pursue sex change surgery. By my mid twenties I was activly pursuing that goal, attending the Charing Cross Gender Clinic, the British equivelent to your John’s Hopkins. At 27, I had been diagnosed Transsexual by the leading Psychiatrist there at Charing all though for the life of me I cannot remember his name, I do remember that he was one tough son of a bitch that stood for no nonsense.
I went full time, immediatly found work as a silver service waitress at a high class hotel in the south of england, became head waitress within 2 months of starting there. Six months later, not willing to wait while the wheels turned at the National Health Service, I emigrated to the United States where I was refered to Johns Hopkins but never attended due to finanial difficulties. Nevertheless, I stayed the course, starting a telephone answering service, full time still pre-op, and finally had enough money to do SRS in Miami in 1985. The Surgery was something less than desirable and led me to redo surgury later with Dr Meltzer in 2002.
Ok so there is a quick run down of my experiences, dragging myself up at street level to accomplish my goals. I don’t come on here and tell you “Look at me! I AM woman and here is all the science to prove it” .. screw that. HBS or Classic Transsexual, or whatever you want to call it before the tranny hoards rode in on the backs of the gays and proclaimed us all as transgender, I still don’t care for elitism in whatever form it takes, which is why when someone like Lisa Thompson and Sharon Gaughan comes along and try’s to feed me the horseshit that their career’s and need to try to fit in delayed their surgery till they were over 40, I say maybe so but don’t try to insinuate that your better than me simply because you can remember playing girly when you were 3 years old. Thats Horseshit and it STINKS!
I never meant my comments to be taking you or anyone else to task. Forgive me if it might have been taken that way.
I gave support to your statements in TS-SI and I still do and I also signed the petition and took exception to those that seemed to take comfort with being part of the GLBT inclusion. I assume that was the reason for their refusal to sign the petition but I cannot nor will I make that connection.
Please read my comments and I really would appreciate it if you might understand that many who assign themselves as having been HBS born really are not.
I know many who transitioned in their thirties and forties and fully accept it when they identify as HBS. On the other hand many who claim to HBS born I must honestly contend that to be just another mask they hide behind.
I was never gay, transgender, or even transsexual as that term is now applied. I must admit to knowing I was different when young only because it was how I was treated. I assume we share that and we also share other facets or our lives as well.
I unlike others do feel an infinity with you since much of our backgrounds and lives seem to be synonymous. And please do not judge the concept of HBS simply because others use it to describe themselves all the while forever linking onto being transsexual and even transgender. Is that fair enough?
Diane
Diane,
I think I may have taken your comments as an attack, I tend to read things like “and that my dear Leigh” as condescending. I apologise and believe that we probably share more affinity than we do differences.
I don’t declare to be HBS born simply because up to a year or so ago I had never even heard the term but even if I did I think it presumptious to suddenly switch horses just because it sounds better than Transsexual. To my twisted way of thinking, to call myself HBS or even intersexed is nothing more than the same thing others do when they quit defining as a crossdresser or transvestite and claim Transsexuality.
I kinda grew up with the term Transsexual and even though I am technically no longer trans anything, for the sake of clarity in this sort of discussion, the words classic Transsexual seem to fit like an old pair of shoes. If someone wants to redefine that term I say more power to you, it effects me no more than if someone wants to claim my term when they are not. If they want to go one step further and try to displace me then we have a fight on our hands. Thats how I see the HBS movement and the Transgender movement, trying to not only redefine but to invalidate some to make themselves look more plausible.
I would say we are both old school Diane. Unfortunatly those ideas and ways are becoming as outdated as old west gunslingers at the turn of the century. We resist change but succumb to the inevitabilty of it.
To be honest Diane, I am about done with the blogsphere. I learned a long time ago that people only hear what they want to hear. Fair enough! I am done with TS-SI and no longer visit there. They can say whatever they want about me! I hope it makes them feel more comfortable in themselves. For the same reasons, I have not seen your comments to them in my defense. Perhaps thats another reason I initially thought this was an attack.
Yes… Thats fair enough Diane
OLD SCHOOL! Now you really have hurt me. Haha!!!!
I look back on those days and can hardly remember how I felt during that time but for the emotional roller-coaster. In my case the ride began very early in life during grammar school and my search for resolution began in earnest during my first year in college at the age of 17. But no need to repeat that travail.
I have had a wonderful life though since the majority of it has been as the woman I am. But more than that I have met some very wonderful people, some from the past when I was in transition over 35 years ago and others that have become very dear to me over the years. One who is still my closest friend and her mother took me to the hospital and visited with me after my surgery. I tend to keep my friends for they are closer than family and enrich my life.
Of course they all knew my husband and his humor. The second anniversary of his passing after heart surgery will be two months from now but it pains me just as much as the day they fired off those salutes and read the message given by the head of the honor guard at the National Cemetery. If you wanted to see a woman in pain I would have been the perfect example. I still grieve.
I particularly remember and even retold the story telling of his humor at a wedding I recently attended of my dear friends daughter. Jennifer was getting married and it brought back the memory of when we lived down south and Jen and her cousin were flown down to stay with us during the summer. Of course the airline requires that children (they were 8 and 9) be released only to those who are listed for that purpose. Jennifer asked, ‘Uncle Bill, what was that paper you had to sign’? He looked at her with a straight face and simply replied, ‘Parole papers’. That story never gets old and it does so equate with his humor.
My life too has never been related to anything ‘trans’. I actually hate that term being applied to me since any
‘transing’ I might have done was so long ago and now basically a ghostly memory.
Many of us have so much in common so our slight differences should never be the focus. I offer the story above so that others might see that we do not live the lives as ‘trans’ anything as many seem to do nuy only live simply as the women we knew we had to be. But our lives it seems, although very functionally ‘normal’, have been overshadowed by those who seem to progress from a very male life in all ways to somehow the opposite binary all the while telling the world they
‘always knew’. That has and still does confuse me to the limit. Maybe I am missing something in the bi-social lifestyle theme of life now offered as diversity. Ya think?
Thanks for the reply, Leigh
Diane