Topic : 01/17 Gender Identity Crisis

 if god really cared why did he make us like this in the first place myself i have prayed and prayed but i am still the same i still feal the same why? if i beleve he will heal me shure

I was so pissed off when the first lady who wants to be a man said it's just like being Black.

 

I was disgusted and offended on sooo many levels.  I am Black and I feel that this along with homosexuality and Lesbianism should not ever be compared to a whole race of people.

 

It is unfair and it is totally different.

 

I wish I was in the audience. 

I've been following along and reading a lot of "its not natural to change your body"

makeup is natural.... shaving one's legs is natural (cutting one's hair is too), the body naturally does all of these things to us while we sleep... Oo

I once heard someone say "it isn't right for people to take hormones and alter their chemestry that way" and it was interesting because we learn to think about certain things at certain angles. That person is going to go home and eat food, and alter their body's chemestry and hormone levels etc. oh, oh but that's natural, right? fast food, natural? cooked food, natural? LOL. I'm just amazed at how boxed some peoples' thinking happens to be. 

 

fashion is natural... boys have naturally played with cars since the dawn of time, girls have naturally played with dolls. boys have always like blue, girls have always liked pink. rape exists in all cultures and the domination of women by men is a universal concept too. not.

 

 

Even as a lesbian I find this issue a difficult one to understand.  In the past, I have reminded myself not to judge another human being who may have gender issues or cross-dresses.  Then today, this showed aired, and it made me think again about how confused we all are about this topic, even today in the 21st Century.

 

I only have two questions to post:

 

a) Who defines what girl's clothes are and what boy's clothes are?

 

b) Does God care what gender we truly are if we love as God loves?

 

These two questions ran through my mind, and I knew the issue was moot.  It does not matter what are outer shell looks like, or what we clothe it in.  It's our hearts, and intents that matter to God most of all.  And so, that should be the only thing that matters to other people, too. 

 

Food for thought and God Bless,

~Byrd

hm. he did seem quite defensive. but you can kind of see his point. the most important people in his life are telling him that he isn't who he knows he is, and that he's gonna burn in hell for being who he is. I think it's amazing he even has the strength to stay in contact with them. It would probably be easier to just disappear. he's amazing. I can't imagine there is any decision my kid could make in that would be so hard for me to deal with that I'd rather ADD to her pain than help ease it. I think I'd just put my feelings aside to deal with at a more appropriate time, and tend to my child's obvious pain.

 I was born with Complete Androgen Insensitivity 32 years ago and found today's discussion about Kayleigh very interesting.  I missed parts of the show, and might've missed hearing about how the condition was diagnosed.  I wasn't diagnosed with CAI until puberty passed me by, even though I had a hernia at the age of 4, which is one of the signs that this condition exists.   It was difficult being diagnosed later rather than sooner, and learning that my body development might've been different had I been giving hormone therapy earlier.  I think knowing about the condition and being able to talk honestly with your child about it will help them deal with being different.  I felt a lot of shame because I didn't know what was wrong with me.  I knew something wasn't right, but I never knew until I was older.  The hardest fact to overcome was not being able to have children, but that's something that many women with reproductive organs, have to deal with as well. 
  Inside, I don't feel like I'm 100% a woman, or 100% a man.    Much has been written about the female brain and the male brain.  I feel like the perfect blend of both.  I'm extremely sensitive and empathic while also being analytic.  The most disturbing part of Kayleigh's family's account of their experience is having medical professionals refer to their daughter as a "freak" or an "it."  That is extremely unprofessional.  If I were in that situation, I would never go back to that particular doctor.  I've always been treated with the utmost respect from medical professions, from the doctor who diagnosed my condition, to my gynecologists and primary care physicians. 
  I wish there were more resources for people with Androgen Insensitivity and their families. 
I apologize for this rambling message.  I just wanted to pass along the fact that I live with this condition and lead an extremely happy life. 

 gender identy is not new it has been around for ages it has been documented throughout history of people dressing as if they were the opposite gender in fact in some cultures crossgenderd persons were considerd shamans gifted with extraordinary psychic powers and they assumed special ceremonial roles. also in many religions the gods themselfs can transform their sex at will cross dress or are androgynous meaning having the characteristics of both male and female but in western civilization " our judeo-christian heritage founded on a belief in an exclusive male deity" has frowned on such gender fluidity. acording to historian vern bullough" gender crossing is so ubiquitous that genatalia by it self has never been a universal nor essential insignia of life long gender"

After reading through all the comments here I have been alternately amazed and disgusted by what people have said.

 

Let me tell you briefly about myself.

 

I am a 24 year old female-to-male transgender. I have been on hormone therapy for almost a year, but I have yet to have any of the surgical reassignment surgeries. My partner of 4 years is also a female-to-male transgender. And I have to say I was amazed by the reactions I found. My family (before I came out to them as trans) knew my boyfriend was transgendered, and totally accepted him. In fact, my family adores him very much. But when they learned that I was the same, it became sick and wrong and all those other things that ignorant people say. When I first came out to my parents and my brother, their first reaction was that I decided this because of my boyfriend being that way, and I was just doing it to make him like me better. I’ve since pointed out to my family that I met him online, and at that point, I was already using the male name I chose for myself (Erik). In fact, for the first 2 months of our relationship online, neither of us had any clue that the other wasn’t genetically male. (Quite a shock when we came out to each other, I can tell you that!) Things are still rocky. My parents refuse to use my chosen name, even though I have officially changed it, and my dad thinks I am mutilating myself. My brother and sister-in-law accept it now, except about what they’re supposed to tell my niece when she gets old enough to ask.

 

This is not something I woke up one morning and decided. I remember as young as 6 or 7, I would tear up my dresses and skirt to get my mom to let me borrow my brother’s clothes. By 12 I was stuffing socks into my underwear. And when I got a job and started buying my own clothes, I shopped only in the men’s department for everything, even down to socks, shoes, and underwear.

 

Like most trans-people, I went though a brief phase of trying too hard to fit into the gender role that was expected of me. (shudders at the remembrance of tight blue jeans with pink glitter.) And also a phase of deep depression just after puberty hit. I really thought when I hit puberty that things would even out and my body would fix itself. Instead it got worse, and I did have a problem with depression and self-mutilation.

 

I’ve been lucky with my friends. Not one of them had any problem with my transition, and even said that they expected it.

 

I don’t care if you think that I am wrong or that I am right. I just don’t understand why you can’t leave us alone and let us lead our lives they way that we want. How does it harm anyone if we want to dress in a way that makes us comfortable? How is it considered "special treatment" when we ask to be called by a name we prefer. How is me asking someone to call me Erik instead of Tabitha different than John asking people to call him Jack?

 

And regarding the bathroom issue: I don’t have a penis, but I do have facial hair and a deep voice. Is it right to force me to use a women’s restroom, where I’ll make women nervous or uncomfortable, instead of a men’s room where they wouldn’t know the difference unless I tried to use a urinal?

For her to compare herself to Blacks was disgusting and unfair.

 

If Cameron wants to be seen as a man..........FINE!  But he or she needs to respect others as he/she wants to be respected.

 

I would love to run into her/him on the street.

and intersexed people should...pee behind a bush?? and other people who don't fit into your neat little boxes? would you like someone who felt like a man, was taking male hormones, lived as a man, dressed as man and identified as a man - but had a vagina - to use the women's restroom too? what if someone with a penis has sexual reassignment surgery to get a vagina - then you're ok with taht person using the women's restroom? are you going to ask for a look so you can decide who you think fits into which of your little boxes? such a complex continuum of gender for such a simple little solution based on outward appearance of genitals.