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I may have a bit of the Alberta rube in me, but hey, I knew what the Kinks were singing about when they sang Lola. Or so I thought, up until about age 19 or 20.
That’s when a older friend of mine ended up separating from his wife. He wound up staying for a time in a massage parlour, of all places, doing odd jobs and helping keep the peace.
I was out of work so we would often burn away a few hours playing backgammon when the place was quiet.
The place was decorated in early ’80s kitsch – velour drapes and shiny wallpaper and was all very exotic for a young middle-class white kid.
The manager of the place was a very intense guy named King. His partner Robin, or Rob as everyone called her, was way taller than him and kind of strange looking, but very nice.
King was about 50 at the time, dressed all rockabilly, with white t-shirts, cuffed stovepipe jeans and slicked back hair. He was tough as nails.
He didn’t say too much, but when he did, he had a fairly high-pitched voice that he could use to great effect at a high volume whenever a customer got out of line.
Still, I couldn’t help but comment to my friend that King sometimes sounded like a girl. “That’s because he is, you dummy, or he was,” was the answer I got.
Oh.
After my initial shock wore off, I was cool with it. I had heard of drag queens, but never thought about it going the other way.
Somehow, I ended up talking to Rob about it, telling her that I thought King did a great job acting like a guy.
“He’s not acting; he is a guy inside,” was her reply.
Oh.
I hadn’t really thought of transsexuality as being a state of mind, but more of a sexual fetish, but hey, it’s a free world and who was I to criticize. Still, I couldn’t help commenting to my friend, in my stupid logical sort of way, that if King was physically a girl, that made Rob a lesbian.
“She’s not a lesbian, you idiot, she’s a guy or she was,” was the reply.
Oh.
Now Rob may have been kind of odd looking and quite tall for a girl, but she was the epitome of middle-aged femininity, so it didn’t take my shrunken head long to put it all together; If King was a guy in his head, then Robin was just as much a girl in hers.
My friend eventually moved out of the massage parlour, and I didn’t see Rob or King again, although he told me they eventually split up.
Neither of them had undergone surgery, they had just assumed as best they could, the gender roles that existed in their heads from birth.
He said their break-up wasn’t much sad, as their relationship was more of a protective partnership than a romantic liaison, living as they were at a time when such a thing was barely tolerated, especially in conservative Edmonton.
I’ve had nothing but sympathy for transgendered people ever since.
Can you imagine growing up boy or a girl in your head (or some shade in between), but not having the physiology to match? And then adding puberty’s freaky side effects and general teenage cruelty on top of it all?
No wonder transgendered people endure rates of violence, depression, substance abuse and suicide many times greater than that of the the general population.
I’m not going to pretend to fully understand the subtle nuances of transgender issues. But in my view, these people should be fully supported by society in general, and the medical community in particular.
I know there’s many who think of transsexuality as deviant behaviour, but ask yourself this simple question; would someone knowingly put themselves through all that hate, prejudice and pain just so they could get off wearing a dress?
I don’t think so.
john@kelowna.com
250-575-0521.
15 Responses to “Transgendered people deserve to live the lives their mind dictates”
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Tags: gay, Kinks, lesbian, Lola, transgendered, transsexual
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Very interesting article ending with a simple way to look at the entire situation. I began my transition from male to female about 6 months ago and am trying to get prepared for the hate and discrimination. Not sure if anyone can actually be prepared for that, though.
Thanks for your support!
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Thank you for this column John.
Our world seems to revolve around hatred and fear of anything we don’t understand, or our religious and social institutions tell us to. Without any personal responsibility to think for ourselves whatsover.
I have lived 10 years as a woman and it certainly has not been for the hatred, prejudice and fear for my life that I’ve experienced.
Interesting point: It can be impossible for a lot of trans people to find work except in the sex trade industry. Where all the manly he men putting us down publicly,are now paying for a chance to bed us. Hypocrisy, hallmark of the “good citizen” it seems?
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I applaud you for your column John. Everyone needs to be a bit more understanding. I can’t imagine how difficult it must be for some of these people to be “out” in a town like Kelowna.
Live and let live.
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“I know there’s many who think of transsexuality as deviant behaviour, but ask yourself this simple question; would someone knowingly put themselves through all that hate, prejudice and pain just so they could get off wearing a dress?”
A pretty common thing to hear is that transsexuals transition for sexual reasons, but male to female transsexuals take anti-androgens in order to stop further damage from testosterone. This also effectively kills libido. If someone has no sex drive, it seems difficult to say they are doing it for sexual reasons.
We don’t know the actual suicide rate for transpeople, as there is no way of identifying the entire population – many trans people kill themselves before seeking out a mental health professional and being identified as such.
We can only really study the people who have accessed mental health resources and currently, we study people who have had attempts (and not actually been successful) – of that group, 34% have had at least one attempt, 14% at least 3 unsuccessful attempts.
To put that in perspective, the suicide rate in Canada is approximately 11.4 in 100,000 people or 0.000114%
About 1 in 20 suicides are “successful” – and 34%/20=1.7% vs 0.000114% – the risk appears to be at least 15,000 times higher – again, this doesn’t count successful suicides, or suicides before people are labeled as trans.
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I view it as a mental illness and will continue to do so until some real scientific evidence is put forward, proving that this is even remotely possible, because this smells an awful lot like Schizophrenia;
Schizophrenia – A mental disorder characterized by abnormalities in the perception or expression of reality. Distortions in perception may affect all five senses, including sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch.
Undifferentiatied Type – Psychotic symptoms are present but the criteria for paranoid, disorganized, or catatonic types have not been met.
I hold no ill for the transsexualists themselves because it isn’t their fault, but the people presenting false evidence and the people believing said false evidence are standing in the way of these people recieving the help needed.
To believe the crazy man is to suffer it yourself, to believe the liar is to ignore the truth.
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Thank you John, for this article. It gives some much-needed perspective to a an issue that is far to often misunderstood in a way that leads to hatred and violence.
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Sean, there is quite a bit of scientific research on people who suffer from gender dysphoria. It is not a case of being unable to perceive or express reality.
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“I view it as a mental illness and will continue to do so until some real scientific evidence is put forward, proving that this is even remotely possible, because this smells an awful lot like Schizophrenia;”
Sean, thanks for your contribution.
Unfortunately, you don’t seem to know anything about the condition and haven’t cared enough to do any decent amount of research on transsexuality (or schizophrenia) before you typed your post.
If you had, you would have discovered that during the assessment process in the treatment of transsexuals by mental health experts, schizophrenic psychosis must be ruled out – otherwise the patient will not be permitted to proceed to the next stage (whether that be the start of cross sex hormones or the more comprehensive assessment done by 2 independent psychiatrists / PhD level psychologists before surgery)
This is relatively easy for the mental health professional, since;
1.) The assessment period normally involves multiple, regular visits over a period of several months. During that period, psychosis would be discovered.
2.) Schizophrenic psychosis presents completely differently.
If you do actually have any theories that are even somewhat plausible, I welcome you to post them here.
I’d be interested in hearing about “people presenting false evidence”
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“Seàn says: I view it as a mental illness and will continue to do so until some real scientific evidence is put forward, proving that this is even remotely possible.”
For some of us, the scientific evidence is there, chromosones are not absolute. We assume that there are only two possiblities but even that is in error.
In my situation I found out that I was XXY not XX (female) or XY (male). I was born with the outward male characteristics but as puberty arrived massive doses of testosterone where pumped into me to keep me that way. I am now much older and have fought the depression, anxiety, suicide and ultimately being myself until I could fight it no longer. I am well into transitioning and now feel more alive, healthy and passionate for life than I ever did in the past.
But the lack of understanding and education of others makes it scary to head out each day to live a normal life. It shouldn’t be that way for anyone, but many of us live in fear for our lives everyday in a country that is one of the safest in the world.
In answer to Seàn, yes there is a mental component to it, Gender Dysphoria which is rather well documented. But then everyone has a mental component to who they are. Why would you need scientific proof?
That would be like asking one to prove oneself “normal”. For most of us the only way to get any where near “normal” is to transition to who we are, so that our presentation matches our expectations.
John, as far as the “man in a dress” I would venture to say that when one’s mindset is female it’s hard to understand what “man in a dress” really means, knowing full well that when that has been directed at me it has really hurt deeply.
Thank you for venturing into this subject.
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See seminar s10 at the APA’s annual meeting:
S10. The Neurobiological Evidence for Transgenderism
1. Brain Gender Identity Prof. Sidney W. Ecker, M.D.
2. Transsexuality as an Intersex Condition Prof Milton Diamond, Ph.D.
1.DF Swaab, WC Chung, FP Kruijver, MA Hofman, TA Ishunina
Structural and functional sex differences in the human hypothalamus
Horm Behav. Sep, 2001; 40(2): 93-8.
2. DF Swaab
Sexual differentiation of the human brain: relevance for gender identity, transsexualism and sexual orientation
Gynecol Endocrinol. Dec, 2004; 19(6): 301-12.
3.IE Sommer, PT Cohen-Kettenis, T van Raalten, AJ Vd Veer, LE Ramsey, LJ Gooren, RS Kahn, NF Ramsey
Effects of cross-sex hormones on cerebral activation during language and mental rotation: An fMRI study in transsexuals
Eur Neuropsychopharmacol. Mar 2008; 18(3): 215-21.
4.H Berglund, P Lindstrom, C Dhejne-Helmy, I Savic
Male to female transsexuals show sex-atypical hypothalamus activation when smelling odorous steroids
Cereb Cortex. Aug 2008; 18(8): 1900-8.
The brain is a sexually differentiated organ. Trans people have cross-sexed brains in certain areas. This can be shown by MRI scans and autopsies. As Prof Ecker wrote :
“We spoke for 2 1/2 hours on why cross gender identity was a normal inherited variation of humans. We showed how Transgender Brains think, smell, and hear like the opposite sex.”
Why this cross-sexed neurology universally leads to a cross-sexed gender identity is less well understood, but Prof Milton Diamond’s Biased-Interaction Theory of Psychosexual Development explains at least some cases very well indeed. Testing it is problematic, we have to rely on “Nature’s Experiments”, those with rare Intersex conditions for experimental data. So far its predictions have been born out with amazing accuracy, but data points are so few the best we can say is that it appears plausible, and that no other conjecture does.
There’s been quite a lot of progress on this since the 1996 paper in Nature.
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There’s been one thing that changed dramatically in Kelowna in the last year in terms of trans people – and that is the fact that it’s a lot less lonely for us.
If you’re in the OK Valley and are interested in seeing what’s out there, you can either stop by our weekly meetings (they’re incredibly informal) or get in touch with me.
Info can be found on the link below.
http://www.gayokanagan.com/groups.html
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Yeah yeah yeah, TS’s are sexual deviants.. heard that a thousand times. He doesn’t have a clue who TS’s or TG’s are. What an ignorant fool! I see that whatever education John has, it surely didnt get in the way of his ignorance!
> I know there’s many who think of transsexuality as
> deviant behaviour, but ask yourself this simple question;
> would someone knowingly put themselves through all that
> hate, prejudice and pain just so they could get off wearing
> a dress?
His lack of knowledge puts him right along with the rest of the stereotypes, thinking were sexual deviants LOL!. This is more like it Mr.> TG’s love to be a ‘man in a dress’ and will do anything for this! There ya go, now he could be learning! He would of known dam well this is what transgender people do if he had done any research on Transsexuals! I agree with a certain comment, Im of course also female mindset.. Yes, that was ugly when I did witness this from a so called friend “under the pretense” of a woman, TS. That was f ing gross when I came witnessed that.. I deserve to speak my piece> their is nothing more gross to me then when a guy (TG)pretends to be a woman and “is a guy” (that gets in my space) cant help but to gag. TG=male, TS=women understand that firstly and youll do fine.
~Angie
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John has got it right . . . transsexualism in not a behavior. There is also a lot of evidence from DES exposure (pregnancy vitamins) . . . enough that the dictionary of organic compounds, 6th ed. listed diethylstilbestrol as causing transsexual changes in the mother’s offspring exposed while in the womb. Prior to the arrival of Paul McHugh at Johns Hopkins in 1975, patients at Hopkins SRS clinic were screened and found to be “remarkably normal”. McHugh came to Hopkins with the intent -as he himself has said- of killing the SRS program, and in the blink of an eye, McHugh with Jon Meyers follow-up study of post operative transsexuals (with McHugh’s ‘modifications’ to assessment criteria)found transsexualism to be a psychopathology. (McHugh also labeled transsexualism a “fad” and a “craze” that would eventually go away.) Interestingly, McHugh was experienced at modifying scoring methods before he came to Hopkins . . . while at the U of Oregon dept. of psychiatry, he modified existing scoring methods of a mental status interview of psychopathology, to create his “powerful tool”. If you don’t have the facts on your side, just change the criteria, when that doesn’t work, argue psychiatric superstitions and speculations, and when those fail you, start pounding the table: Paul McHugh has been pounding the table for decades now.
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John doesnt have anything right concerning Transsexuals, If you think he does then you are your also ingnorant. He uses TS in two statments.
>I hadn’t really thought of transsexuality as being a >state of mind, but more of a sexual fetish, but hey, it’s >a free world and who was I to criticize
OPEN YOUR EYES !!!! What an idiot!
>I know there’s many who think of transsexuality as >deviant behaviour, but ask yourself this simple question; >would someone knowingly put themselves through all that >hate, prejudice and pain just so they could get off >wearing a dress.
WHY WOULD HE REFER TO THIS AS TRANSSEXUALITY? When this is clearly a case of Transgenderism!
This is a good example of how more crap ends up screewing TS’s lives up, gets into academic circles and their crap gets cited in other academic papers, which causes TS people unending problems!!
~Angie
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Angie,
Gee whiz, relax child. There’s no need to get tumescent with me. John is not saying that he agrees with those that think of transsexuality as deviant behavior. He makes the point that the stereotype of “getting off by wearing dresses” is absurd and incorrect concerning transsexuals. He admits at first he did not understand the distinction between TG and TS, but now he understands that TRANSSEXUALISM is not about cross-dressing behavior. No, he doesn’t use those exact words. There is also a distinction between reading and comprehending what you read. It doesn’t help US transsexuals when one of us misunderstands what they’ve read and then flies off the handle. Understand?
Please continue discussion on the forum: link