The "Sex Change" Dichotomy

Or, “some girls have penises, and some guys don't.”

Upon talking to a non-op TS female friend of mine (who shall remain nameless), she told me of her initial experiences in transitioning, and the pressure she faced to get Sex/Gender Reassignment Surgery (SRS/GRS). When she began, her initial intention were to get GRS within two years. But eventually, she realized that all of the pressure she was feeling internally to transition her primary sex characteristics were coming from external sources. She was not doing it for herself, but rather for the sex/gender binary of the outside world, which seemed to consumer her. In the end, she decided that GRS was not in her interests, and proceeded to be non-op after an orchidectomy (removal of testes).

This story is very similar to myself, although I was much, much less directed in it. Ever since I began my coming out process a year ago, I felt as though that “physically transitioning” was the only way I could be “complete.” Upon telling my friends, and outsiders I was willingly educating (such as my speeches), I got the same phrase repeated to me upon saying that GRS wasn't very likely for me:

“Why would you only go half-way?”

That notion of being “incomplete,” “half-finished” and so on sort of struck a chord with me. I had been an “incomplete person” for so long and the feeling of being “incomplete” even after transition struck me hard. I never wanted to be incomplete again. And so, I considered the nuclear option of GRS, to make myself “complete.”

Semi-frequently, the media will do a story on how a transsexual or transgendered person “made a mistake” and went back to living in their “original gender,” even after SRS. There are many reasons for their decision. Sometimes it can be a case of a multitude of issues manifesting themselves as gender identity issues. But, what they don't report is this constant pressure to push the transition just a little bit further in terms of physical effects almost constantly, beyond their own sense of identity or body dysphoria. Especially when you consider the transgender spectrum of gender identity, in terms of Queer or alternated self-identities that either manipulate or disregard gender. (And whether either is based on “cold, hard science” is irrelevant to me.)

There is a lot of pressure, especially from the traditional and reactionary medical fields (those who will “treat” people like us, anyhow) for a person to “completely” transition. SRS/GRS are marketed as the only real way to express transsexuality. After all, in many places, it is the only way to get an M changed to F, or an F changed to M. The wrong gender label on ID can be dangerous and an auto-outing of oneself in many situations, such as dealings with the police especially if one passes well. That's not even getting into the sexual orientation aspect of it, where the main bigheads at the APA (Dr. Kenneth Zucker and Dr. Ray Blanchard) won't even consider you “really transgendered” unless you are a MtF who is stereotypically female and interested in men and getting GRS. Non-op transgendered lesbian woman? Sorry, you're just a confused straight man. (Of course, straight MtF women are simply “homosexual male transsexuals,” according to them as well.)

With transgender and queer theory, we separate gender identity and biological sex almost all the time. The basis of Queer theory, which admittedly many transgendered people cannot identify with, is that gender is a social construct, and that gender should not be linked to physical sex; so too should “gender” be recognized as inauthentic and worked around as much as possible. Of course, this doesn't work in the case of transgendered people who identify with the binary. But, the main tenet of queer theory, that mental gender and physical sex are not intrinsically linked, is an important aspect of transgendered identity.

Of course, this doesn't mean that there aren't transpeople who refuse to identify as trans, and only as men/women.

In order to understand this sex/gender dichotomy, you must go back to the day you were born, named, and had an “M/F” (or I) placed on your birth certificate. If you were biologically female and had female anatomy, you are placed in the female gender role, and from that day on you continue your life as a female, with the entirety of the world treating you like a “little baby girl,” “little girl,” “preteen girl,” “teenage girl,” “young woman,” and so on. Every stage of you is defined socially based on your physical sex. And so, when your entire life is based on that sex-gender identification, and you choose to reject it, the outside social world cannot reconcile that. Nearly every person in the world has been raised through this sex-gender system: thus, you have women who identify as a woman because of their reproductive system, and of course male culture which is focused almost exclusively on the implied power of the phallus/penis.

This is not to disregard the identities of cisgendered people as illegitimate. Surely if their gender identity did not fit them, then they would not embrace it so readily. But it applies to both trans and cis people: sex-gender identification and socialization affects everyone, and many people define themselves as man/woman based on their anatomy. It is a carefully constructed social role, which many people fit into very well. “I have a penis/vagina, obviously I am a man/woman, and should behave in a masculine/feminine way.” Society then prescribes masculinity/femininity to people ad nauseum, and it quickly becomes a mould for every person on the planet.

This goes back to my original point, that trans people usually have a hard time overcoming this dichotomy. If a young trans girl is treated like a boy because of her penis, she begins to think, “Oh, I guess I'm a boy, then.” It becomes internalized quite quickly, that to “be a girl,” you must have that female reproductive system. Same goes for a young trans boy, who is delegitimized and objectified by male culture as a sex object useful only for his looks and reproductive organs.

I personally rejected this dichotomy after much personal self-discovery. I would be lying if I didn't say a little part of me didn't continue to desire GRS because it would make me a “real” girl, all very much tied to external sources beyond my personal identity. Again, I feel no body dysphoria personally that makes me desire GRS, but the constant assertion that without GRS I'm “half way,” “incomplete,” “not really a transsexual,” “just a straight man who likes to crossdress,” etc., all becomes internalized. With the female form so played-up in society, it becomes idolized to extreme amounts by both cisgendered and transgendered women.

To put it very crudely, there is the idolization of the “empty crotch.”
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Even growing up, I have never really hated my penis, not even during this transition. It's just a sexual organ to me, nothing more and nothing less. It became confusing to me because of the above-mentioned dichotomy, that I did not desire a female reproductive system yet still saw myself as a woman.

And so I end with that phrase that I mentioned at the beginning: “Some girls have penises, and some guys don't.”

My Iron Mask

As my first word in this blog beyond my introduction, I’d like to invite anyone reading this blog with beyond a passing interest in transgenderism to take a look at Families In Transition, a resource guide developed by the Central Toronto Youth Services (CTYS) in an attempt to help people become informed about transgendered issues relating to people they’d know. It also doubles as a guide for anyone interested in information relating to transgendered issues.

http://www.ctys.org/about_CTYS/FamiliesInTransition.htm

When I was younger I knew I was a girl. By younger, I mean around the ages of ten or eleven; I’m not too sure. It came in waves, until finally setting in and causing a great deal of anxiety, depression and angst. What caused this was a sense of “body dysphoria”, where I was unhappy about my appearance. But I was unhappy not because I was fat, or too short, or any of that. I was unhappy because I wasn’t cute, like the “other girls.” It became increasingly painful, to the point I attempted to crush that identity in any way I could.

But my personal history aside, I’d like to talk about the assumptions that prevented me from pursuing my transgendered identity throughout my adolescent and teenage years.

Keep in mind that all points I make are under the assumption that transgenderism is a natural part of humanity and in no way a “disorder” as the psychiatric industry so condescendingly puts it.

1. “Not Normal” vs social expectations

The number one thing that got to me was the educational institution of my school system and the psychiatric industry. So much emphasis was placed on me as a kid who was “different” to conform and be complacent. I knew I was different from an early age, and saw any attempt to curb my “abnormal” tendencies as an attack on my fledging identity. And so I acted up and resisted authority.

This quickly brought the psychiatric industry down on me. The schools no longer wished to deal with me so they moved me to “special care.” The rule of the child psychologists and psychiatrists was one thing: teach me the rules, teach me the norms, and curb anything that could hurt conformity. And so I was taught repeatedly that anything that isn’t “socially acceptable” isn’t tolerated. Eventually I internalized this “normality” and decided that I was somehow broken.

“I'm not a freak, I'm normal. I'm not a behavioural kid, I'm normal. I'm not a girl with a penis, I'm normal.”

2. I’m not a girl.

According to much of society then and now, I am a boy. My mother was proud of her boy, I was always broken up into groups with the other boys, boys don’t wear girls clothing or act like girls. Society so strictly emphasized the gender dichotomy of boy/girl at such an early age. It is almost half of the entire child socialization process: girls play with Barbies and dolls, and boys play with trucks and army tanks (not so stereotypically in actual practice, but…) So when a transgendered child has BOY BOY BOY or GIRL GIRL GIRL driven into their heads, they begin to wonder if they’re the ones who are broken, and it isn’t societies’ fault for having such rigid views. The current system of gender socialization essentially expects transgendered children to become full-fledged sociologists by the age of nine just so they can understand who they are and where they want to go.

3. “Transgendered people are all emotionally broken prostitutes.”

This one is one I have had difficulty discussing in the past because it is such a controversial, and sometimes deeply personal topic. I am in no way advocating that transgendered people who engage in street work are “emotionally damaged” (whatever that means in this context), nor am I saying that sex work should be stigmatized, or that a transgendered person is any less legitimate in their status as an oppressed minority because of their identity and personal choices. I also understand that many transpeople go this way because society and their social situation leaves them no choice and forces them between a rock and a hard place. I do not believe sex work is “wrong, freakish and disgusting.” Many people do, and this entry is about mainstream oppression's view, not those such as myself who at least attempt in some way to be anti-oppressive.

But none the less, this is a common misconception that is popularized through much of the mass media. Shows like Jerry Springer parade transgendered people around and engage in healthy schadenfreude at their expense, all for the purpose of allowing people go point, laugh, and say “ha ha, look at that freak.” On the opposite side, sex work is also the first thing that is presented in much of the literature out there for transgendered people, especially that which relates to health care. Entire sections of “trans health” manuals, usually near the front, consist entirely on information on sex work.

Again, there should not be such an extreme stigma on sex work, yet there is. When a prospective transgendered person looks at this situation – where both the antagonizers and supporters essentially reinforce the notion of “sex work is the only job for a transgendered person” - it becomes next to impossible for someone to see themselves in that position, and often scares them out of pursuing that identity.

Add onto that “the internet's” obsession with non-op transgendered men and women (girls who have penises and boys who don't) as a form of “shock comedy”, where the only function transgendered people perform is the ability to be “freakish”, it again becomes another reinforcement of “transgenderism is wrong, freakish, and disgusting.”

4. “How am I a girl if I like girls?”

The number one thing that got to me was my attraction to other girls. I have always been attracted to women, and I have never considered men for sexual partnership. The stereotype of transgendered women is that transgendered women transition and have a sex change so they can be straight women. And so, myself as a transgendered girl growing up, as someone who didn't particularly hate my genitals and was attracted to other girls, I simply thought I was “messed up” in some sort of way. Penises are for boys, vaginas are for girls. You can't be a girl with a penis. Obviously that's shortsighted and wrong, but it is the way I thought of it. Girls like guys, guys like girls, obviously I am a guy, QED.

5. “I wore a mask, and my face grew to fit it.” (-George Orwell, 'Shooting an Elephant')

When you live in society as a gender and everyone respects you for that gender, it becomes difficult to simply throw that away and say that the glove that fits really doesn't even when all of society tells you it does. When you're socialized as that gender, treated as that gender, and essentially shoehorned into that gender role in every way from sport to school subjects to social meetings to the way you dress, it is next to impossible to throw away that constructed identity until you land at some sort of emotional ground zero where you have nothing left except the rest of your life. For me, it was being unemployed, recently dumped by my ex-girlfriend, with no friends or acquaintances, out of school without a diploma, steeped in depression and with a motorbike I wouldn't be able to afford in a few months when I realized the only thing I could do was attempt to start from nothing and see what would happen. As soon as I laid the ground work to get back into school, I realized that my body dysphoria hadn't gone away despite my success – and finally it clicked that I was, in fact, a girl, and it wasn't simply a “phase” I was going through.

Causes and results obviously vary, but that is my experience.

And so this is mostly my own subjective opinion, and I'm not sure what exactly someone will learn from this, but I hope it sheds just a little bit of light on where I'm coming from. Again, I do not represent even a quarter of transgendered people and their experiences. If you have anything to add or dispute, please leave a comment and kindly tell me where I went wrong.

--Alice