For those of you who didn't figure it out, LGBT stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgendered. Sometimes I see it as GLBT. Society in general views all those categories to be the same types of people.
This is a problem because Transgendered, while likely being the minority of those in the LGBT umbrella, consists of 2 basic groups and neither of them has anything to do with sexual preference. While the definition of LGB people has to do with sexual orientation, Transgender is all about gender identity. A 'T" person's sexual orientation is independent of their gender. Some T's will be gay or lesbian and perhaps bi. Others are heterosexual. Of course, since I'm a woman, if I were to have a sexual relationship with a man, it would have to be considered heterosexual. However, is it gay if I have this pre-op? Heck, some people will claim I'm a guy anyway and say post op is still being gay. Of course, if I have a relationship with a woman, I'm a lesbian - or going by the same logic in reverse, perhaps some would say I'm still being a heterosexual!!
From my perspective, I don't plan on having any sexual relations until I'm post op, and at that point, I would certainly hope any relationship I have with a man is heterosexual, and one that I have with a woman is considered a lesbian relationship. (I'm not going into my sexual preferences here, I'm just saying how it should be considered).
As I was saying, I believe there are 2 basic types of Transgender people, ,and there is quite a difference between them. Cross dressers are those that from time to time like to dress in the clothing of the opposite sex. The reasons are basically that it's a sexual turn on, and perhaps just a release from stress to put one's self in a completely different role. I may be generalizing too much on the reasons for cross dressing or gender bending or whatever you want to call it, but the bottom line is that these people do not believe themselves to be of the opposite gender and have no desire to transition. As an aside, most of these people are also heterosexual, which again makes you think about why they'd be grouped together with the LGB crowd.
Finally we have transsexuals, who are those born with mismatched body gender & mind gender. This is an important concept to grasp, to understand how different transsexuals are from all the other categories. I do agree that homosexuality is not a choice, and one day they'll find a physiological cause for it. As for transsexuals there are some findings already to prove that there is such a cause, and it's basically a birth defect. When hormones go off at the wrong time or not at all, it can cause the brain to be the wrong sex from the body. There may be other causes as well, and some gender related genes don't have to exist on either the X or Y chromosome! So it's easy to imagine the myriad of possibilities for sexual/gender expression of genes, and we're not locked into XY always being male, and XX always being female.
It's been said that the only correction for this is to transform the physical body to match the brain gender. For the sake of argument, the other approach is to change the brain. Until we know specifically what all the areas are that need to be changed, brain surgery or other chemo treatments and such are out of the question. Many people believe that with counseling and supportive environment, the individual can become accepting of the mismatch and be happy with themselves. I think in some cases this may be possible and the reasons they decide to accept it probably vary quite a bit.
But how many women really want a penis, and how many men want breasts? Not that this is the only sexual body part that people may be uncomfortable with, but I think it most strongly conveys my point that for many people they won't be happy and accepting of themselves until they transition.
One might wonder what Transgendered people did before all these amazing medical procedures were around. I'm sure you had lots of suicides, depression, and a lot of confusion for people to understand why they feel the way they do and they've generally been social outcasts. Ever wonder what mankind did before antibiotics or live saving surgeries? I guess they got sick & died allot. For centuries people have been born with various birth defects, and until medical science came up with a fix, people had to live & deal with it. Depending on what it was, it could mean death or a short life or one that required constant care. My whole point here is that now there is something that can be done about it, so why wouldn't I want to take advantage of a fix? If my arm were born deformed and useless, wouldn't I want some new prosthetic arm, that allows me to function and look normal? Gosh, what would I have done in the old days before they could do that?
I guess this turned in to more of a rant, but that's how I see it and I don't expect everyone to agree. Feel free to submit any anonymous questions about it and I'll be happy to respond in the Q & A section, or just email me and I'd be happy to correspond directly with you.
