[shay_562]

Originally Posted by Links234

I like the concept, but I still see gender as a sense of self. Someone who just flips through gender roles doesn't speak to me as someone who finds a very real and painful discomfort in her own physical sex. Especially as she says she doesn't have a vagina, that it's still has a penis turned inside out, just an "inny instead of an outy".

Way to validate other transgender women.

With respect, because I'll acknowledge I have very little experience or knowledge of transgender issues, isn't it just as offensive to dismiss her view because you don't think she's suffered enough pain and discomfort? Or to condemn her feelings and classification of her own genitalia as being 'hate speech' because it's at odds with your view of transgendered genitalia? The problem with transphobic people who dismiss it as 'an inside-out penis' is surely less about the ontology of vaginas and more about the way that they interact with transgendered people - dismissing their feelings, ignoring their opinions of their own bodies and seeking to impose societal norms on them that they don't fit, irrespective of the discomfort caused. Yet that seems to be what you're doing here.

[hare05]

Can't we just leave it at this?
http://transgirldiaries.com/?p=1000
Crack a joke and move on. Everyone's different no matter the label they live under.

http://transgirldiaries.com/?p=933

http://transgirldiaries.com/?p=82

[Links234]

Oh gawd!!! Can open, worms everywhere!!!

This was not my intention!

Originally Posted by shay_562

With respect, because I'll acknowledge I have very little experience or knowledge of transgender issues, isn't it just as offensive to dismiss her view because you don't think she's suffered enough pain and discomfort? Or to condemn her feelings and classification of her own genitalia as being 'hate speech' because it's at odds with your view of transgendered genitalia? The problem with transphobic people who dismiss it as 'an inside-out penis' is surely less about the ontology of vaginas and more about the way that they interact with transgendered people - dismissing their feelings, ignoring their opinions of their own bodies and seeking to impose societal norms on them that they don't fit, irrespective of the discomfort caused. Yet that seems to be what you're doing here.

Ok ok ok, I have NOT dismissed her views because I don't think she's suffered enough pain or discomfort!
I know a lot of trans women who don't even feel they have any pain or discomfort with their physical sex and still feel the need to transition anyway, and I do not think they themselves or their reasons are less valid than mine at all!

I respect a person's right to self-identify as well, so many people don't find the terms transgender or transsexual (personally I like transgender) suits them, and some people are deeply offended by other people calling themselves shemales and such because it's supposedly offensive and demeaning to trans identities. But then I've heard from some who think that to prefix a woman with trans is demeaning.

I can only offer that what Bornstein says regarding her genitalia coasts far too close to what transphobic bigots would say for my liking. It has nothing to do with if she's felt the same pain and discomfort I have, I have no way to measure that.

Originally Posted by hare05

I didn't mean to cause offense. I don't define womanhood as being able to reproduce as a woman, but you've gotta admit, if you had the choice...

I'm not belittling transwomen. I simply think the current solution isn't exactly... elegant.

Sure, if I had the choice I'd much rather a fully functional vagina the same as any other woman and have the capacity to get pregnant, and I admit the current solution isn't perfect. But what choice do I have? Continue on with something that I can't even bare to have touched at the best of times, or have it surgically rearranged into something that I would be happy to have?

Surgically constructed vaginas can be perfectly elegant and beautiful, and that is something I would much rather have with the current options that are open to me.

Originally Posted by Johnnymcg

Is it that subjective? I'm genuinely asking here because I don't honestly know!

Yes, I suppose it is subjective.

To play devil's advocate, everything that a trans person is is subjective. How do we defy the genital-obsessed norms of gender definition if we don't look at what makes a man and a woman in subjective terms?

[Links234]

[whirlpool]

Can someone point out the individual differences in appearance to me please? I can see there is a massive difference, but I can't work out exactly what has changed.....

[Links234]

Originally Posted by whirlpool

Can someone point out the individual differences in appearance to me please? I can see there is a massive difference, but I can't work out exactly what has changed.....

ok well if we look at this one for example: http://i.imgur.com/SDMw8.jpg
Take a look at the difference of her cheeks because in the later picture her cheeks are fuller, more rounded out, more feminine. You can see it very well in this picture too: http://imgur.com/Sshcr.jpg
What you are seeing in all of these pictures is a general softening of the features.

It's these softer features that we read as typically female, so when you're looking at a before and after picture of a transgender girl it's almost as if you're looking at brother and sister. If you ever look at a brother and sister that closely resemble each other, you can see they look very much the same, but one will look distinctly female and the other distinctly male.

[livlondon]

I just remembered my grandmother saying that I was looking a lot like my sister the last time I was home (they have no idea as I was in my old-mode) and said it completely out of the blue. Very strange and odd. I noticed my shoulders and cheeks changing slightly (only 6 months here on the pills) but to me it's too slow to notice. It's other people that notice so much of it.

Oh and if I could live as a lad/man/boy and be happy I'd do it in the morning in less than a heartbeat, believe me.

[Katherine Jane]

:DWow.. She looks amazing!

[Freiheit]

I've had a consultation about f.f.s......which most people think sounds crazy.....well to uninformed minds....the pain and the expense...very,very expensive,don't think there's any limit..if money was no object I'd jump at it though.....Interesting to see how hrt alone can change a face.....

[Katherine Jane]

It gives the rest of us hope. If I can turn out THAT good without FFS, yee ha!

[Links234]

Hi there Katherine. Welcome to boards, glad you like this thread!

This is a picture I really want to share.



I don't know who she is, she's on the wikipedia page about transsexualism, but whoever she is, I think she is beautiful beyond words. I often look at her picture, it always makes me happy for some reason. Maybe because of the statement she's making? I love her.

[Katherine Jane]

She is beautiful! If I turn out half as well!

[spurious]

I think the fact that transitioning people are usually becoming happier in themselves has a lot to do with how much more 'feminine' (or 'better') they look in their photos.

[Katherine Jane]

Well, it definitely helps if you are perceived as a woman, instead of as some sort of "freak" as some in society would put it. I do NOT want to be an advocate, or a spokesperson for any movement. I just want to fit into life as a woman.

[Freiheit]

Well it's about expressing on the outside how one feels on the inside, and I wouldn't limit that to the physical realm either.....in that there's more to gender reassignment than the shape of the body one inhabits.......