In Brief
- Transsexuality manifests itself in many forms. The underlying psychology varies, but most transsexuals feel an unhappy mismatch between their biological sex and their gender identity.
- By studying transsexuality, scientists have realized that biological sex, gender identity and sexual orientation are three distinct, independent variables.
- Culture also influences who becomes a transsexual—and not always in expected ways. In traditional cultures, for example, people may turn to transsexuality as a way to conform to social norms.
The reigning queen of Belfast, Northern Ireland, is the “Baroness” Titti Von Tramp, a deeply bronzed, thoroughly waxed and statuesque figure approaching seven feet tall in stiletto heels, wearing tinted couture glasses and crowned with a perfect platinum mane. On any given night, you can find the bosomy Von Tramp at one of the local nightclubs, pursing her strawberry-colored lips in a photo-op for one of her many fans or perhaps making an Ulster businessman turn bright red by deviously running one long, manly finger down the man’s cheek and judging, “That’s a good year.”
For many people, the term “transvestite” is synonymous with such larger-than-life characters, an entertaining coterie of mostly gay men and their oversexed female alter egos. But as with any human demographic, transvestites are a very diverse bunch, and it is only a select few who can turn their minority status into such a lucrative career in drag theatrics. For more modest individuals, the limelight is hardly a desirable place to be. Furthermore, the psychological motivation to dress or act as the opposite sex varies widely—transvestism is but one of the many manifestations of cross-gender behavior in the human species.
This article was originally published with the title The Third Gender.
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37 Comments
Add CommentMr. Bering does a generally good job with this subject, but gives perhaps too much ink to Ray Blanchard's autogynephilia theory. The vast majority of TG persons are rather uncomplicated heterosexual crossdressers with wives, children and successful careers. http://www.tri-ess.org/whatis.html (Society for the Second Self) serves this largest segment of the TG community.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNature is rarely simple. What about Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome? The patient may be genetically male (ie:XY) but their body is unable to recognize the testosterone hormone, therefore their body develops on the default XX traits, either fully or partially?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAh, see an exception; you will find nature is quite full of these.
This is a bad defect leading to extinction of human race. It is abnormal. We need rteproduction and transactuals cannot have children.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSorry Thim, Extinction? We seem to have an awful lot of people already that we're not taking very good care of. I'm sterile, does that mean I'm evil? I'm intersexed, chromosomally XXY, an aberation, naturally occurring, but you can call me an abomination, if it makes you feel better! Yeah, guess I'm a transactual (?)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFocusing on the bizarre and poorly researched concept of "autogynephelia" instead of more widely accepted theories made this article nearly meaningless at best and demeaning to MTF transsexuals at worst. Clearly the author is completely out of touch with this subject and didn't inquire into mainstream transsexual therapies. I expected more scholarship from Scientific American.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSorry but this article is absolutely dreadful and I cannot believe how many column inches you gave to Lawrence and Zuker who are complete idiots with pet theories that serve only to advance their narrow world view and do far more harm than good. Quite honestly, in 2010 I'm shocked that they get anything more than a passing mention in a paragraph about outdated ideas on gender theory.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAny transsexual person will vouch for the fact any article that actually gives any credibility to Zucker and his associates is not science. Zucker when he's not believing he can use therapy to cure the trans(which was already ruled out almost 40 years ago), he believes only people who act like "real" women and conform to gender roles that can basically be summed up in 1950's housewife but with more pink, are the only real transsexuals. Even in his real life, why not read some of the stories by his ex-wife and his former neighbors on how he would throw a fit if dinner was not made ready by the wife the second he was home.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou also in the article title call transsexuals a third gender which goes against everything we've tried to work for over the past 45 years. Next up you say in large type on the side culture plays a role in who becomes a transsexual which would go against near all psychological and medical consensus, culture may play a role in a whole displays transgendered attributes such as crossdressing who's definition can change depending on area, transsexuality itself is not caused by how you were brought up.
Which leads to the biggest issue, something I'd expect in a high school newspaper. You title the article as about transsexuals, then begin completely going on about transvestites, people who enjoy dressing up and presenting as the opposite gender for whatever reason have in no way any connection to transsexuals who actually feel like their gender is the opposite of their physical sex except for the fact transsexuals and crossdressers can be lumped under the umbrella term transgender.
I expected more from SA. At first I tried to take the "well any publicity for us might be good", but no, because it's one thing when a TV show or say Maxim further emphasizes misinformation and asinine stereotypes, but people generally put more faith into what they read in SA.
Please for the love of transsexuals everywhere regroup and try writing another article in a future issue.
As a trans person, I'm offended by this horrifically outdated, ill-informed article which lent an incredibly large amount of credence to incredibly controversial theories pushed by people who formed their ideas based on interactions with closeted gay men and crossdressers who were distressed by the stigma surrounding their particular tastes. They've obstinately ignored neuroscience in lieu of these pet hypotheses, and to anchor an article in such murky waters is a damning statement about the author and the publication.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAdditionally, the othering (literally calling everyone under the trans* umbrella a third gender) is so absurd as to be unbelievable. Transgender people are the gender they identify as, no more and no less, and to push the idea that they're strange and exotic actively contributes to hatred and violence against them.
Sounds like Bering struck a nerve with you ladies! All this article does is relay contemporary scientific theories to the public. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Science is science, even if you don't like it. SciAm isn't some postmodernist "gender theory" debacle of a journal where you can pick and choose the theory that you like best and is least "insulting" to you personally. Rather than pander to people's (yes, even trans people's) preferences about how they'd like to be portrayed, the author is just presenting what's circulating out there in scientific circles. If you don't like the discourse happening in these circles surrounding trans people, then get involved in the science rather than the back-slapping, mutually affirming chat rooms, group therapy sessions, and self-affirmational graduate theses. Talk about closed-minded!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisContemporary ideas! NO I don't think so! Blanchard and Zucker should be tossed out with the dionsaurs and those who think that Homo Sapians was soley created by God as his ultimated expression.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBlanchard and Zucker are not worthy of any space in SA.
The murders on a regular basis of trans -folk is a sign that Baily, Blanchard and Zucker help perpetuate the myth that Trans folks are simply crossdressers. is an oversimplification of a more complex reality.
We are human beings! Let us live as humans, we are not curiositys, nor are we freaks like the "elephant man" said: "I am not an animal".
Stop denying us employment.
Stop denying us housing and medical care.
You might find out that we really are nice people.
If Mr. Bering really wanted to present a balanced view of what is the reality, he might have looked at the body of work done by Harry Benjamin, Leann Etscopvitz and Aviva nubel to name a few, who have done much for the trans community.
Baily's and Blanchards ideas fail to address the issue of female to male transexuals, and further fails to address the actual structual differance in brains of trans-folk verses non transfolks.
In trans-folks the brain is structually more like the brain of the gender we associate with.
Sorry, SA, you guys mised the boat on this poorly written piece of witchcraft and snake oil salesmansship.
SA missed the boat there. Mr. Bering , I suspect is a non-de plume for zucker or blanchard or one of thier stooges.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf SA really wanted to address transfolks, a truly scientific review would have been in order. The study from Holland showing the structural differance in brains of Trans-folks from non-trans folks, showing that the brains trans-folks are more structured those of the opposite gender.
Mr. Bering completely missed the body of work done by Harry Benjamin and Leann Etscovitz.
Further fails to address the horrid discrimination faced daily by trans-folks in the workplace, trying to find employment, housing or proper medical care!
Voodoo science espoused by Blanchard, Baily, Zucker et al perpetuate the myth that trans-folks are just cross-dressers.
Sorry, SA you need to do better than this poorly crafted piece of hogwash.
We are Human beings desirving of better treatment, and respect than that showing by SA in this article.
Aside from everything else that's already been said about physical medical differences, the fact Zucker's theories completely ignore FtMs, and the fact the evidence by both his ex wife and former acquaintances that Zucker has a very specific idea in mind of what gender roles should be, is the fact the only reason Zucker has any credence is because for his god forsaken role at CAMH. Zucker is the minority still screaming out ideas from 50 years ago that near the entire psychological community with any training in the issue on census refutes and has for decades, from the asinine idea that environment creates transsexuals to the belief you can cure them with therapy. Heck even Dr. Phil on his show tore down Zucker a bit and Dr. Phil is a raging idiot. The only reason Zucker even has an opinion is because him being where he is at CAMH gives him a larger voice then most and like the Milgram experiment people are willing to listen to people of authority when they have no knowledge on the subject themselves. How Zucker even keeps his job is beyond me because there's more then a few trans people, generally kids, who have gone back years later demanding his resignation for the "therapy" he provided.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is nothing scientific about this article. None of the "facts" are cited (75% of trans women are lesbians? According to who?) and it focuses on the pet theories of someone who is all but completely discredited and pushing treatment and therapy proven to not work. Please don't call people closed minded just because they know more about a subject than you in the future, thank you.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAny credence given to the thoroughly discredited theory of autogynephilia (as proposed by the Bailey, Blanchard, Zucker etc) crowd, is as scientifically valid as that of "creation science". It's nothing more than opinion masquerading as fact.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJust to throw more gasoline on this raging little prairie fire, a decent writer might want to check on the revisions going into the DSM-V. They utterly refute the suppositions posited in this heinous article. The punk band the "Sci Ams" (after you did a cease and desist) knew more about current science, but thanks for the trip down Memory Lane. What's next? The Spanish Inquisition?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe link of this article was sent me by a friend of mine, usually I do not read articles about Gender problems. However - it is an interesting issue. I admit, I can't be entirely neutral, because I underwent SRS too (18 years ago). But once again I see a great dilemma of gender sciences and also in general audience: what is primar - the body or the soul? I think, the sexual behaviour of human is a very interesting theme fo research, but I also think, there's too much attention for the 'visible' items. High heels, make up, wigs, overacting etc. That all is not the essence of the problem. I have been married to a man for 15 years now and I think, I've got everything what any 'T-girl' could get - good relations with my parents and siblings, loving husband, good job, good friends etc. Would I be so happy without my transition and SRS? I doubt. I think that actually all those TG people do not use more feminity than the society offers. Look all those women's magazines - Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan etc., they all are made for 'normal' women. And yet - if some TG person will follow those advices, printed there, people would say "they're overacting!" I think, it all is a prejudice. Actually two best compliments what ever was said to me were "You are looking now as an average houswife from the neighbouring supermarket!" (said by an old friend) and "Tell to your husband, he is the luckiest man on the Earth (said by an customer of our company, after he asked if I am married). I can not say it behalf of crossdressers or drag queens, but most of transsexual women just tryin' to get a 'normal life'. If transition and SRS (and maybe FFS) can make it possible, what's wrong with it?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiserm, you *do* realize that Zucker is a core part of the working group for the DSM-V? i hardly believe that he would "utterly refute" his own theoretical suppositions about autogynephilia.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe're all painfully aware Zucker is on the DSM-V team because of his standing at CAMH and his previous work on it, how about everything else we said. Why not go to Canada and actually ask trans people how going to CAMHs is near torture and every trans Canadian avoids it at all costs. Take note of the fact though despite Zucker actually being one of the main people working on the DSM-V, autogynephilia again gets shot down as part of the entry because every other psychologist who isn't a Zucker lackee working at CAMHs regards it as illogical pseudo-science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso, why don't you actually look into Zucker's personal views of gender roles, someone stuck in a 1950's completely binary thought process on gender has no business being a gender therapist. For example, go to CAMHs as a transwoman, state your sexually attracted to women, get months of "corrective therapy" trying to fix the problem since women are generally attracted to men and if you're not, well it's obviously something else besides the trans and you don't actually feel like a woman, obviously.
These theories are neither contemporary nor science. Blanchard's theories about "autogynephilia" and "homosexual transsexuals" both fail to explain trans men (by focusing entirely on trans women and pathologizing trans women's sexuality) and uses methodology about as advanced and accurate as phrenology. He has no theory, he has prejudicial beliefs about transsexual women.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm surprised that, considering Blanchard did unethical research for his book (he more or less canvassed opinions about the matter in a bar, without telling the people that it was for a book) that he's referred to so much.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere are so many things wrong with this article one doesn't know quite where to begin. I'll just add two essential points to those already made by the various responders.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1. Anne lawrence is not an authority on this subject. The amount of print given to her by the author illustrates how off-base he is. She's not a "psychologist." She's a former MD/anesthesiologist who lost her license because she got caught checking-out the genitalia of a sleeping patient. Read Andrea James' account of Lawrence's inappropriate sexual advances vis-a-vis her. After that, Lawrence got a degree in sexology and self-promoted herself into the role of 'expert.' Her claim to fame is as a post-operative male-to-female apologist for the 'autogynephilia' quackery.
2. The article makes no mention whatsoever of the abundant clinical evidence that we're all born with an innate sense of gender. Thousands of intersexed children have been involuntarily operated upon by doctors,mutilated, really, with the infants' parents' approval, because these adults are freaked-out by the infants' non-standard genitalia. Years later, many of these children reject the sex to which they were assigned because their inner core selves tells them what gender they really are. The author couldn't be bothered to research the subject, otherwise he would have found and included Dr. Milton Diamond's pioneering work in this area.
3. Blanchard-Bailey-Lawrence ("BBL") conveniently ignore the now thousands of post-operative women who exhibit none of the sexed-up behaviors that underlie the autogynephilia theory. Similarly, they ignore the reality of the thousands of children, too young to know anything about sex, who manifest gender identities that do not coincide with their phenotype (i.e., their physical sex.)
4. The author conveniently dismisses those who oppose autogynephilia. I suppose they're just 'angry radical trannies.' Similarly, according to Bailey, any transwoman who disagrees with him is "lying." So much for science.
Bottom line: The editors at Scientific American bear primary responsibility for publishing this tripe. They should be identified in print and called to account.
This article is an insulting disgrace and promotion of anti-scientific ideas.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe hate mongering masquerading as being understanding in this article, is straight out of the creationist-global warming denying handbook.
For years I have read the magazine Scientific American and the Scientific Journal Nature. No longer.
For years I have seen Scientific American as a good clear magazine for explaining scientific ideas and new ideas. I will never again recommend it to anyone, as the magazine now seeks to encourage hatred of a minority group.
It is obvious that Scientific American has embraced absolute hatred of transsexual people and has turned away from science, scientific principles and embraced hatred of minorities as well as quoting so called clinicians who have been connected to eugenicists.
In the Journal Nature, there was an article some years ago on transsexualism which shows the present Scientific American article for what sort of nonsense it it. This is the link.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v378/n6552/pdf/378068a0.pdf
Quoting Blanchard, Lawrence and Zucker as experts om transsexualism is equivalent to quoting Mein Kampf on Jews. The article quotes some of the worst hate mongers against the existance of transsexual people, in all of academia.
Scientific American stands at a cross roads. It needs to decide weather to turn back to science or to turn away from science in abject horror, as it has in this article and embrace all other forms of lunacy such as creationism and denying global warming.
Anyone who disputes what I say, I can suggest you goto this site of an esteemed scientist and read the facts about Kenneth Zucker, Anne Lawrence and Raymond Blanchard.
http://www.lynnconway.com
That site is of Lynn Conway who Scientific American once covered some years ago. She is now Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Emerita, at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
Here they go again....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe anti-autogynephila folks haven't stopped demonizing scientists who believe in a theory, not disproved, that arousal to the idea of oneself as or becoming female explains some MTF transsexualism--a theory for which there is objective physiological evidence, as well as supporting evidence that there are two clusters of MTFs.
The "controversy" was studied by someone who thought Prof. Bailey must have done something wrong, but found out the trans activists had orchestrated a campaign of innuendo and character assassination to suppress dissemination of the theory. See http://www.bioethics.northwestern.edu/faculty/work/dreger/controversy_tmwwbq.pdf for the report.
Why do some transwomen get so angry about a theory they disagree with? Somehow they link it to violence against them, as if the criminals who attack minorities pay attention to sexologists. Maybe they think it must be shameful (I don't, and no one should.) Maybe they are wounded and disordered to the point that they insist on everyone viewing and understanding them in the way they themselves do, and they act out with narcissistic rage (in the sense of the painful disorder, not the derogatory sense) when anyone wonders if the theory might explain some transsexualism. It must be something beyond simply not resonating with their own experiences of their transitions and identities.
I would welcome the day when autogynephilia is disproved, partly because knowledge will be advanced. But also partly because the shrill suppressors of sex science will move on. To that end, I would ask them to help advance science instead of terrorizing people they disagree with.
(How? Why not help fund, design and participate in studies of MTFs, including arousal and brain imaging.)
So, just how could autogynephilia be disproved, as a possible aetiology for transsexuality? How indeed could it be proved? Certainly not by showing that some trans women are aroused by the thought of themselves as women - unless, of course, you can also show that cis women are NOT so aroused (even then it's not strong evidence). Otherwise, so-called autogynephilia is simply part of the normal range of female sexuality. Has any research on that question been done? Not much, admittedly, but what there is suggests that "autogynephilia" is common amongst women both cis and trans: http://home.netcom.com/~docx2/AGF.htm.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOtherwise, much of this labelling of trans women as hysterical reminds me of nothing so much as a bunch of 1930s psychiastrists telling women that they're all suffering from penis envy. After all, what would they know about it?
Dear Scientific American Mind,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI’ve got a great idea for an article! Would you be interested?
I’m going to call it “Gay men – the third sex” (a reference of course to Rev. Kent Philpott’s classic 1975 study). To catch people’s attention, I’m going to devote the first two paragraphs to describing a female performance artist and mother of two who has formed her own Village People tribute band. However, I will then scrupulously point out that not all gay men are heterosexual women.
Later, I’ll be reporting on the latest cutting edge research on the gay phenomenon: looking into its aetiology (apparently it’s all to do with having an unhealthily close relationship with one’s mother: http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/narth/mothersof.html), and its treatment, including that of Dr. Kenneth Zucker - er, I mean Joseph Nicolosi, who specializes in curing boys who show gay tendencies such as being “introverted” or “artistic”. Finally, I’ll point out that some people choose to be gay because of their environment – e.g. because they want to make it in the fashion or hair styling industries.
As you’ll see, I’ve taken your reporter Jesse Bering as my role model, and particularly his recent piece on transsexuals, the research standards of which I have been careful to match in the outline above.
When do I start?
/sarcasm
Steepholm, thanks for the measured response and the link to the Moser paper. I am not at all surprised that some natal "cis" women are aroused by the idea or image of themselves as attractive women. Hence, AGP may be normal in cis women as well as in trans women; and since paraphilias as commonly understood are mostly found in males, AGP may not be a paraphilia.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't think many or most MTF transsexuals are hysterical about the AGP issue, and I've discussed it with some who do and some who do not believe they fit the description (and a description is not an explanation or etiology.)
However, some--only some--MTF transsexuals have acted in hostile, over the top ways to rag on Blanchard, Bailey and Lawrence, making false claims about them being discredited, advocating eugenics, etc. False claims.
The account in Dreger's research, which predictably became a target of the same detractors, explains that some--only some--MTFs opposed to Bailey played very dirty pool and misled many people, in addition to attacking others (including MTFs) who argued for a more civil and constructive dialog.
I mention this here because some of the same old deception appears in comments above, written in the same style. (Oddly, one commentator, transplantedinfl, voices suspicion that Blanchard or Zucker or their "stooges" wrote the SciAm article. I sense that the author may be among those who savaged Bailey, as detailed by Dreger.)
To my thinking, Steepholm's and Moser's points don't disprove AGP (although falsifiability is a point well-taken) and don't "prove" that MTFs are "really" "women," as their subjective experience, beliefs and worldview often "prove" to themselves, and sometimes--only sometimes--trigger rage and attacks against anyone who disagrees (even if that person is also MTF and/or a natural ally.)
Wow. What to say about this article?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI find it odd that FTMs are represented only by a charming photo of the successful Chaz Bono sitting in a suit and tie. That Chaz, who is presented as a regular guy who hid out in lesbian culture to avoid the harsh pressures of society's expectations, is the one and only representation of FTMs. It all seems very normal, non-threatening, and just a sad twist of fate for a few individuals.
I find it even more odd that the counter to this, the MTF crowd, is represented by a photo of a man, (heavy underarm hair included), with his head thrown back in apparent pleasure because he is wearing a bra. It's not even a photo of an MTF transsexual, let alone a charming and successful one. Why not? We exist. Why the HUGE RED TYPE next to the MTF photo screaming, "may be aroused"? Bras don't arouse me. Sure, this presentation likely represents some part of the MTF transsexual crowd, just like Chaz likely represents some part of the FTM crowd, but it's such an incredibly narrow take. The article even states that there are a variety of reasons for the MTF experience, but then only presents one... and the most sensational, highly sexualizing one available at that.
I suppose none of this should be surprising. Society can't seem to avoid over-sexualizing women, be they trans or other. Manhood is so commonly a highly prized trait in our society, that an effort to embrace it seems normal. Womanhood is so commonly downgraded to a sexual status, that an effort to embrace it seems perverse.
I can't say autogynephilia is a false hypothesis; I don't know many MTFs. But I will say that it has nothing to do with my experience, so it is an incomplete hypothesis at best. And I can certainly say that an article that states that there are many different reasons for the MTF experience should then explain more than one reason. Being a woman isn't always about sex. Sorry to disappoint the author of this article, but some of us just aren't that entertaining. Some of us are more like Chaz: charming, successful, non-threatening, and just trying to deal with society's pressures. Popping pills doesn't change us as dramatically as it did Chaz. We don't drift into the appearance of our proper gender so easily. It is for this reason, I believe, that society has a harder time with the MTFs. And this is another reason why we must continually push to relieve the pressures placed on women to look and be very certain ways. It benefits MTFs, and more than that, it benefits women of all shapes, sizes, and kinds.
Woah!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHang on a second, people. You're acting as if the article is suggesting transsexuals ought to be burnt at the stake. It says nothing of the sort.
You all seem obsessed with attacking some guy, instead of actually explaining why the theory is incomplete. I honestly don't care what the social views of the guy who proposed it were; what matters is the idea, the idea expressed in this article.
I read this and found it mildly interesting. I'm unsure where all this vitriol is coming from. If someone could explain, without resorting to 'Well a nasty man wrote the theory AND THE ARTICLE SAYS TO KILL US ALL' then I'd appreciate it.
If I understand the theory, it is essentially that there are 3 variables that exist in everyone. Certain combinations often correlate with transsexuality. Is that right? If so, what the hell are you upset about? Do you think it's just an on/off switch or something?
Hi Sovereign,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI really hoped that my comment on 5-2-10 would give a calm explanation as to why this article is upsetting, but I must have missed my mark. I'll try again.
The autogynephilia hypothesis, (it is not an accepted theory, but only one hypothesis), is a fairly flashy and sexualizing hypothesis. The article struck a common imbalance by presenting FTMs as regular guys, and MTFs as perhaps a little frightening due to a highly sexual component of their experience. It's very flashy. It's very common. And it's very narrow.
The article was not well rounded, and it failed to give a good overview of the MTF; instead it presented a good overview of autogynephilia. The two are not the same, and neither is all encompassing of the other. Many of us have never experienced anything like autogyn. On a personal level, it makes me feel left out of an article meant to explain me to the broader public. Slanted information being distributed about me is upsetting. From what I've read, the autogyn hypothesis holds true for some people, but it is incomplete, thus making the article very narrow in its explanation. There could have been, I dare say should have been, other hypotheses presented, many equally as accepted as autogyn if not more so, that do not sexualize the MTF experience. Such hypotheses exist, (they tend to be based on brain structure variations and fetal development), and I think a science magazine has a burden to be thorough so as to avoid being misleading.
This article is a bit like writing an authoritative article on global warming and pointing to nothing beyond the methane gas from cows as a cause. Perhaps there is truth in it, but it is still contentious, and it is at best horribly incomplete. Such an article would instead be about the effects of methane gas from cows, much like this article is instead about the effects of autogynephilia. Such an article would not be about the possible causes (plural) of global warming, much like this article is not about the possible causes of someone being a MTF transsexual.
Transgender is more complicated than any of us think. So let's stop being dogmatic. Bailey had his own agenda, much as Raymond had hers. Blanchard was a psychologist who observed what he termed autogynephilia, or "misdirected heterosexuality". It is misdirected because the (male/trans) person (ie some of us) has an imprinted female psyche within. ( "A woman trapped in a man's body"). The dress is in fact not that of the opposite sex, but the "right" clothing for the cross-gendered person. The vital clue is that the person experiences arousal, not by the cross-dressing, but by the thought and desire of having a woman's body, and of bringing this to reality. Not all autogynephilics are transsexual, but many are. And some feel they do not fit the binary gender categories, and are more like a "third gender". So please don't denigrate this terminology. Let's explore this difficult terrain with compassion and where necessary, inclusivity. NB I have not accessed the whole article, so am not commenting on that.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSome things such as this are not even worth studying . These are private practices. It would be more productive to study sexual reproductive issues that have an impact on others -- such as women who do not have chemical mothering instincts or an inability to couple and get invitro fertilization or adopt children they really, later, don't want. Transexuality, transgendered behaviors and theatricality or resistance to gender norms are, ultimately, choices. We need to stop feeding things to dumb people who think everything is destiny since we've mapped the human genome.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere are some serious cases where children have gender dysphoria due to sexual abuse and need therapy for clarity. To remove choice removes the option for people to turn around behaviors they don't feel intuitively comfortable with because they aren't choices.
Additionally, I have known male and female actors in New York who have done 'drag' for a few years to enhance acting abilities and from what I hear, it is the best practice not only as far as acting for trickery but to get in the mind of the exact opposite.
It is ultimately a sort of reaction-formation prejudice which drives us to try and understand the blur away from heterosexuality through biology. Ultimately, subconciously, parents are looking for a 'cure' in this investigation but don't want to admit it. It is a subconcious way for parents to have hope of re-subverting the child to their expectations. Alfred Adler wrote fairly robustly about gay and lesbian behavior as forms of the compensation to overcompensation spectrum and that choice behavior is not necessarily bad. If a man prefers to adopt the behaviors of a 'woman', so what.
This also makes the mistake of assigning some evolutionary reason for things like, oh, women wearing make-up. Men have worn make-up in other cultures. We all, to different degrees, decide how much we want to engage in social ideals of beauty for self-satisfaction. Maybe some dude just REALLY likes lipstick more than any other woman on the face of the earth. Should we find a genotypical connection?
I hope my tax money isn't paying for this stuff. I don't care why anyone wants to get a sex change, it's a cool, lucky thing to have for a few and that's that.
The "science" that Mr. Bering is reporting on is nothing of the sort. The alleged studies being referred to are terribly one-sided, performed without any control group (which would be a group of cissexual (that is, non-transsexual) women). Can you imagine running a clinical trial of a medication without a control group?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOr imagine running the Michaelson-Morley experiment and ignoring the fringe shift evidence? Julia Serano at UC Berkeley theorizes that the sexual arousal experienced by many trans women in the early stages of transition is better explained through a feminist interrogation of the sexualizing stigma laid against women and articles of femininity in society (just as the hyperfeminine behavior required of trans women by psychotherapist gatekeepers in the 1950s through 1990s, and even today though with less universality, was used as evidence of "falsity" of trans women's identities by second-wave feminists who failed to recognize that the grudging willingness of trans women to submit to such degrading conditions was a measure of their desperation to transition).
Any psychological science in which an expression of sexuality is given a pathologized definition is bad science. Doubly so when it is impossible to extricate oneself from the bind of that definition, even when it clearly does not apply. Bering is practicing bad science and repeating bad science.
I was excited to see an article in SA Mind called "The Third Gender" because when in college, I did a research project on gender variance in Native American tribes and found there was a wide diversity of gender variance, including what we would label homosexuality and what we would label transgender, in many tribes (including Zuni and some Plains Indians). Third gender, while maybe not a very accurate or correct term, indicates the presence of more than two genders in people's worldview. But then I read the article and it was very confusing and not very informative. I don't know a lot about transgender or transsexual folks, but I think I know that a person should be referred to by one's actual gender, not one's gender at birth. Throughout the article, the author confused me repeatedly by referring to people who have transitioned to female as "he" or people who have transitioned to male as "she", which I think is rude, inaccurate, and just plain confusing for the reader. The way the author parses out the sexual orientation of transgender people is also very confusing, because again, Bering seems to be referring (at least sometimes) to the person in question's physical sex at birth when referencing whether they are hetero or homosexual. I didn't know which end was up when reading the article (and I'm pretty smart, usually). I'll leave the arguments about the science of the article to those who know more, but I will say I agree that transvestitism and transsexualism are NOT the same, and that any article this confusingly written makes me wonder if the science behind it is confused too. I was also disappointed not to see any reference to transgender or crossgender people in ancient cultures. It seems to me this is an integral part of the science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHmmm. And what's the definition of a 'third' gender. Not male, not female? How about a gender 'continuum'. No 'third' involved. Males and females are simply on that continuum, most not even competing for the same spot. In other words, there are not two genders, there are not three genders, but there is a continuum of gender.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOk, ok, I know there's specifics such as the DNA combinations (XX, XY, XXY, etc) and hormonal drivers (testosterone, estrogen, etc) and sociologic influences (boy = baseball cap; girl = bonnet)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHowever, what I refer to as a continuum is how gender manifests itself between individuals.
I never really considered TG to include simple cross dressing of a heterosexual family man. With zero judgement value, I would have called such a situation as "Simple Cross Dressing of a Heterosexual Family Man". To me, transgender encompasses more than can be described by characteristics or behavior. It is a gender identity. Transgender is when the person is of a different gender than that assigned. And only the individual can truly know that for themselves. The medical/psychological community can assist the person and provide tools for them to use in the pursuit of understanding their own identity, but nothing more lest it take re-assignment into its own hands.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut transexual brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, can contribute to the well being of your offspring and the community at large while the breeding population focus on reproduction and the competitive needs of their family. We can all have a role in the community. All of us.
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