So I found this interesting article – way more measured and frankly, sympathetic, than most articles about transness that throw around the word “mutilation,” so instead of ignoring it as I’d normally do, I responded.
I certainly understand where you’re coming from, Josie, but tell me this: what do we do with the people who could be either? Who are both?
My husband is. She never knows what bathroom to use. We worry about someone disagreeing with the M on her license.
A lot of people who are innately gender variant, or androgynous, may transition only because more cards fall on the F than on the M when they fall from the sky.
And at the moment, the only way to get your ID changed is to get genital surgery.
I think a lot more of them would keep their healthy, operative genitals if that weren’t the case, but you try telling the DMV you want neither gender marked on your license.
Go ahead.
Or, just read some of Dr. Harry Benjamin’s work. People have tried to relieve transsexualism via therapy, spirituality, and all sorts of other non-operative means. But what Benajamin notices is that it doesn’t work. So he fixed their body (since their minds wouldn’t be changed).
There are plenty of us working within the trans community who would like to see people be able to peacably live as either gender, or both, or fluid. But living that way is, for now, brutally hard work. I’d agree with you, philosophically, if I didn’t see what my husband and other friends go through every day, all day long, day after day after day. The world just beats the crap out of them, puts them at greater risk for hate crimes, and insists on them being “ma’am” or “sir” when it comes to buying a cup of coffee to using a public toilet.
So, join us. Make the world safe for the gender variant, with us.
helen boyd
www.myhusbandbetty.com
There are a lot of other ways to respond, but this was the one that struck me. I’m sure some of you can add other important facts. Just please, be polite and be reasoned.