Society & Politics

Are Post-Op Transexuals *Really* Transformed Into The "Opposite" Sex?



Are post-op transexuals *really* transformed into the



This myTake will undoubtedly anger most people here for which I apologize in advance. Sexuality is a touchy topic for many people, and for society is general. Society, and by this I mean the average, majority view of the United States, prefers to view sexuality as a binary phenomenon: a person's sex is determined at birth and one is either male or female - not both or neither. This simplistic view is naive or evil depending on your world view. In reality, there are, and always have been, people of indeterminate sexuality as well as rare instances of people who were both: the traditional hermaphrodite. One example of this would be that of Thomas(ine) Hall, c.1603, who was an English servant in colonial Virginia whose alternation between male and female attire and mannerisms provoked public controversy in 1629. The local community responded to his/her inconsistent gender with a physical inspection by several neighbors, and the case reached the Quarter Court at Jamestown, which ruled that Hall was both a man and a woman, and ordered him/her to dress in male and female clothing simultaneously.



There are various relatively rare intersex conditions including Klinefelter's syndrome, which results from two or more X chromosomes in males. Symptoms may include weaker muscles, greater height, poor coordination, less body hair, smaller genitals, breast growth, and less interest in sex. These individuals are usually unambiguously male however. Another intersex condition of note is complete androgen insensitivity syndrome, in which the individuals are genetically male (XY) but appear phenotypically female, without any signs of genital masculinization, although the gonads in these women are not ovaries, but instead, are testes, and they do not have fallopian tubes, a cervix, or a uterus, and the vagina ends "blindly" in a pouch. These women are typically very attractive, and are usually tall and full breasted.



Returning to the subject of myTake, there are in addition, there are people who physically demonstrate one sex while claiming to feel that they are actually, in their minds, the other. In 1969, Dr. Harry Benjamin claimed to have been the first to use the term "transsexual" in a public lecture, which he gave in December 1953. He later wrote a book, "The Transsexual Phenomenon" which described "true" transsexuals as people who feel that they belong to the other sex, want to be and function as members of the opposite sex, and who regard their current sex organs as disgusting deformities that must be changed.



There have probably been many attempts over the years to change one's sexual physiognomy to match the person's belief in their mental or emotional sex, but prior to modern medicine these cases probably ended in the death of the patient. In 1921, a person known as Dora R of Germany began a surgical transition, which ended in 1930 with a successful genital reassignment surgery. The same physician, Dr. Hirschfeld, reported in a peer-reviewed journal in 1930 that he had supervised a second successful genital reassignment surgery.



So, clearly sex is *NOT* a binary phenomenon. Humans are *NOT* always male or female. So where does this MyTake take me? Let's look at the law. The law is full of unreal theoretical concepts that are sometimes destructive to our society. An example would be the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to recognize corporations as people despite the obvious fact that corporations are not alive and are not even physical entities. This decision, known as "Citizen's United" has allowed the rich to control our political process to such a degree that only their candidates have a reasonable chance of being nominated or elected. Some people feel that while the United States and certain other countries have chosen to recognize these surgeries legally as a way to change a person's sex, this is a legal and social change, not a biological one.



Let’s look at this psychologically. An obviously false belief, especially one in which a person believes themselves to be something that they manifestly are not, would in *all* other circumstances be considered a delusion. Where this false belief interfers significantly with normal functioning, that delusion would normally be considered a psychotic delusion. It could be argued that transsexuality is one such delusion since it takes a body capable, in most cases, of functioning in a manner consistent with its design, and surgically altering it so that it can no longer function.



However, let’s look at this from a technological perspective. We are rapidly coming to the point technologically, at which transexuals *will* be able to change their sex. Gene editing *may* allow the actual genes to change, and 3D tissue printing techniques *will* allow *functioning* replacement tissues to be put in place. When this will be actualized is anyone's guess - certainly not for at least 40 years, almost certainly in less than 100 years.



So, what’s my answer? Transsexuals, as currently created should not be crammed into society’s binary male/female box. They are not newly minted males or females, they are themselves. This does *NOT HOWEVER* give us the right to treat them poorly, or to deny them the common courtesy of addressing them as they wish to be addressed.

Are Post-Op Transexuals *Really* Transformed Into The "Opposite" Sex?
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