This is <i>exactly</i> the same thing as the 'Bitch' thread. Transsexuals have their own personal definition of the word, and the rest of the world has theirs.

Most people's definition of gender is "men have penises, women have vaginas". The medical definition is, "You're female if you lack a Y chromosome". We'd have to do an informal survey to prove this, but i'm willing to bet most people feel this way.

Therefore, I unequivocly <i>win</i> the bitch thread debate. Hooray for me!!!! :)

Re: Questions
 

I find it amazing that you feel this way. I personally am very prejudiced against Christian fundamentalists, and I really don't care one whit about what makes them feel bad. Hell, i'd probably do things just to annoy them (Heh..Dar can attest to this). Just shows how insenstive I am, I guess. :)

Still, your response was very educational, and I feel like I know a lot more of where you're coming from now. I definitely need to meet more people like you.

I'm also surprised at how accepting the communities you've lived in are towards gays. Perhaps the world really is progressing nicely, after all. Is Arkansas the only barbaric holdout?



I'm willing to bet that these people, like me, have seen gays seriously abused on a very frequent basis. They probably assume you've been hassled a lot, when in fact you haven't been. Therefore, they're trying to console you, but you don't have the same experiences as them, and so it just annoys you. Very interesting.

Well, you can "call" a relationship between a post-transition female-to-male transsexual and an unsuspecting, otherwise heterosexual woman "homosexual", but I maintain by doing so you achieve only an appearance of accuracy by completely sacrificing descriptive and predictive power. When gender is not constant, "heterosexual" and "homosexual" become multivalued terms.

I think you're all wet on the medical definition, by the way. Especially in a world with genetic mosaics, interesexed conditions, androgen-insensitivity syndrome, and peripheral hornome conversion.

I've got a notarized letter from my surgeon certifying me as a functional female., so we could count that as one medical votefor the "innie/outie" standard, I suppose. It was good enough to amend my birth certificate.

Hmm.. I don't think I follow you. Care to expand on that?

Re: Questions
 

How does that stack up against "the sin of pride"? Like where you concentrate on the mote in your neighbor's eye before dealing with the beam in your own?

Sure. In a genetic mosaic, the genotype is not the same in every cell. You can have an individual with Y chromosomes in some cell lines but not in others. An intersexed individual can have sexually ambiguous genetalia, the differentiation that occurs in one stage of fetal growth can be incomplete, or this can result in a hermaphrodite or other outcomes.

All embryos start off fundamentally female, but some of them get exposed to testosterone in utero, which casues them to develop male. This is *supposed* to be consistant thoughout development. and *supposed* to only happen when the baby is genetically male, but sometimes shit happens. Then things get interesting.

One very well-known theory about transexuality is that it may be a neurological intersex state, where the brain is constructed, say, female while the body develps male. (this differentiation occurs at a different stage of fetal development from the genetalia). We're only discovering today how many estrogenic compounds are *extremely* comnmon in the environment and getting more so, and lots of pregnant moms in the 1950's were taking DES "to prevent miscarriages", so that didn't help either.

Peripheral conversion and androgen insensitivity result in individuals whose hormone balance doesn't match their genetic sex on a chronic basis. Peripheral conversion can change testosterone into estrogen or vice versa, while in AIS there can be boatloads of testosterone around but the receptors are somehow blocked.

I feel like a trubblemaker today
 

So where in this whole discussion do hermaphrodites fit in?

No one has mentioned them yet and since I count one as my friend (but I'm still wrestling with a definition for my own personal comfort) I'm looking at an empty slot (no pun intended) in the whole LBGT thing.

Maggie? Can you address this as well?

Brian

back to lurking

Re: I feel like a trubblemaker today
 

I loathe Joan Rivers.

Re: I feel like a trubblemaker today
 

Well, I'm not really qualified to speak for the frankly physically interesexed, hermaphrodites included; I don't even know any such people personally--at least to know that I know them.

But--as you have already discovered--just by existing, they serve as paradigm-breakers for the binary gender system most folks subscribe to, and without which even the distinction between heterosexuality and homosexuality breaks down.

What sort of relationship there is or should be between the transsexual community and intersexed folks I'm at a loss to say, and it is indeed a cause celebre in some gender politics circles.

My personal belief is that you are more defined by what is in your brain (what you think you are and what you are attracted to) than by any dangly bits or the lack thereof.

As for hermaphrodites, what gender does your friend identify with?

True enough. But when we speak of "homosexual vs. heterosexual relationships" (whatver that actually means), what's in the mind of *both* participants is important. In the case in question, both players saw a heterosexual relationship; what the spectators think in retrospect doesn't count for much.

I'm somewhat at a loss to answer that Beletseri...it refuses to even allow gender-specific pronouns. And I'm at a loss to decide wether or not I should be holding the door! :rolleyes:

From my own personal views, it leans towards the feminine, which really comes as no surprise to most of us. It tells me that it's female reproductive systems are operational but it isn't sure about it's male ones. It gets erections, acheives orgasm and ejaculates like a male, but does not know if it produces viable sperm from it's (undescended) testicles.

It also can have intercourse like a female, but has a harder time with orgasm (still no surprise) since it lacks a true clitoris. (insert witty misogynistic female sex joke here) :p

It makes me think more about this thread that it really deserves, but I'm actually considering inviting it to the Cellar just to get it into this thread and offer it's uh, unique insights here.

Brian

I think that would be terrific. If I remember my developmental anatomy, the male penis is the homologous tissue to the female clitoris. but someone should check me on that.

So your friend really is hermaphroditic even in his/her brain. Sorry, I just can't refer to a person as it.

IMHO
 

This is just my simple opinion. If you have an XY chromosome then you are male if it is YY then you are female. That is it. Simple DNA tests can be done to determine this. Now granted there are certain things that can adversely affect this such as Turner's Syndrome or Klinefelter Syndrome as well as several other unnamed and named X&Y chromosomal disorders.

If someone suffers one of these disorders then perhaps I can see where one would say they are trans-sexed. I am under the impression from looking at MaggieL that he/she does not suffer from any of the aforementioned conditions, although I could be wrong.

I know this may make some people mad but you can't just choose; there is VERY clear science on what makes a man and what makes a woman.

Besides all that. That is not what this whole thing is about it is about the absurdity of having specialized 'Gay Games" if you think about it even sounds absurd. I mean it is a free world and you can do what you want. . . .but I have the right to laugh my ass of at you doing it. Freedom has a bitchy way like that.

Here is the origin of the bits.
http://www.people.virginia.edu/~rjh9u/sexdev.html

As you can see, it isn't as simple as XX XY, Oh and Philgump, you might want to make use of the edit function.