Transsexuality, Discordianism, and Self-confidence

[Zenpeanut]

Today, as I was reading an anthology of short stories by other transgender folk, I realized that some of the basic principles of Discordianism applied as the essential positives of transsexuality. Discordianism states that, rather than scorning strife and discord, we should embrace it as a driving force for enacting positive change. It's also about deconstructing basic issues and assumptions of systems in order to use them for your benefit. In this, Discordianism and transsexuality come together.

All transsexuals are astoundingly tough individuals and not necessarily through inherent personality, but through basic necessity of our transsexuality. We are tough because our environment demands that we be tough. Another benefit of transsexuality is our ability to gain insight towards how gender works. While others see gender as simply something that is, we get to see the inner workings. Our transsexuality has given us a backstage pass to gender. Which is not to say that gender is nothing but performance. No, gender is a very complicated beast, but only we see that. And some of us see this machine and start pulling levers and throwing switches in ways that others can't. They just see the shiny smooth business end of it.

CT Whitley, a trans man in a corporate office, did just that. He manipulated gendered behaviors to advance up the corporate ladder by understanding the crucial social interactions and speech patterns of both men and women and was able to switch between them depending on who he was talking to. As a result, we was known as the best communicator in the office, and served as a crucial bridge between the women and men in the office, especially in times of stress. The best part is no one even knew that he was doing that. All they saw were the results.

People often assume that transsexuals are timid, shy creatures, terrified of being found out and poked and prodded. I've found that the opposite is true. When I was a boy, my self-confidence was nil. I never got a real date, and it was during that period that I was worried about being found out. When I came out, that was the very peak of self-confidence. In fact, I found my first girlfriend just a month after coming out.

Us trans folk have a special confidence in our gender because, rather than being handed it at birth, like someone handing you a cup of pre-made soup at the store, we have hand crafted ours. For us, gender isn't some lukewarm thing that just happened, it is a fiery passion piece that we have made our own. We aren't confident in spite of the strife of others, we are confident because of it. Transsexuality isn't a curse, birth defect, or mental disorder. It's a goddamn blessing.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Um.

Being born rich is a blessing.

Being born outside of equatorial Africa is a blessing.

That thing the pope does from his balcony is a blessing.

Your sexual orientation is about as much a blessing as being right or left handed.

[Freeky]

Um.

Being born rich is a blessing.

Being born outside of equatorial Africa is a blessing.

That thing the pope does from his balcony is a blessing.

Your sexual orientation is about as much a blessing as being right or left handed.

Still, seeing it as a blessing, as misguided as that is, is better than seeing it as a curse.

But then, isn't that just letting the mainstream decide your thinking for you anyway?

[BabylonHoruv]

Um.

Being born rich is a blessing.

Being born outside of equatorial Africa is a blessing.

That thing the pope does from his balcony is a blessing.

Your sexual orientation is about as much a blessing as being right or left handed.

Transexualism isn't a sexual orientation, it's a gender orientation.

The backstage pass to gender part could be considered a blessing. Having to be tough is generally considered a curse, even if being tough is a good thing.  After all, trans folks who aren't tough tend to end up dead.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

The concept of transgenderism is a product that was sold to you along with color-coded science kits for girls. Gender itself is a product. Congratulations, you bought it.

[Zenpeanut]

Um.

Being born rich is a blessing.

Being born outside of equatorial Africa is a blessing.

That thing the pope does from his balcony is a blessing.

Your sexual orientation is about as much a blessing as being right or left handed.

What I'm arguing is that having spent male identified for 20 years and then having the switch to female has given me a unique viewpoint of male and female perspectives. I find this rare bit of knowledge to be a blessing (not in a religious sense, but as more of a luck based thing)

[Zenpeanut]

The concept of transgenderism is a product that was sold to you along with color-coded science kits for girls. Gender itself is a product. Congratulations, you bought it.

This is an entirely false concept. While gender is highly exaggerated by society and certainly someone can act out being a boy or girl, there is definitely an innate sense of boy or girl for the majority of people. Many others don't have this sense and do fall out of the male/female spectrum. Gender is way too complicated to attribute to one source and there is still far more that is unknown compared to what is known.

Saying that transgenderism is merely a product and that all trans people are dupes for buying it is incredibly insensitive to the sense of wrongness that is dealt with on a constant basis before coming out.

I can say this with certainty because my gender identity switched completely about 2 years ago. There was no trigger for it and it was a very explicit feeling. It's really hard to properly emphasize how profound this change because most people are born with matching identity and body and never change from that. It becomes a really hard concept to grapple with because there is nothing to compare it to. An overly cliched analogy would be comparing it to attempting to describe water to a fish.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

The concept of transgenderism is a product that was sold to you along with color-coded science kits for girls. Gender itself is a product. Congratulations, you bought it.

This is an entirely false concept. While gender is highly exaggerated by society and certainly someone can act out being a boy or girl, there is definitely an innate sense of boy or girl for the majority of people. Many others don't have this sense and do fall out of the male/female spectrum. Gender is way too complicated to attribute to one source and there is still far more that is unknown compared to what is known.

Saying that transgenderism is merely a product and that all trans people are dupes for buying it is incredibly insensitive to the sense of wrongness that is dealt with on a constant basis before coming out.

I can say this with certainty because my gender identity switched completely about 2 years ago. There was no trigger for it and it was a very explicit feeling. It's really hard to properly emphasize how profound this change because most people are born with matching identity and body and never change from that. It becomes a really hard concept to grapple with because there is nothing to compare it to. An overly cliched analogy would be comparing it to attempting to describe water to a fish.

And I'm really a dragon.

Inside.

Listen, I don't disagree with you about the sense of wrongness and the suffering that people have to deal with due to a stupid society that tries to force girls into a girl-shaped box and boys into a boy-shaped box. What I am saying is that the idea that your body and your "self" don't match is a part of the institutionalized social product. Yes, it's a real disorder; one that has been manufactured. You can be a pretty princess with boyparts and a bad, bad man with girlparts (ask me how I know) but your body is your real body. Just as I am not "really" five feet eleven with silken blonde hair and a sweet double d rack, I am also not "really" a dongled person inside and I think that the manufacture and sale of transsexuality is a crime against humanity that results in far more anguish and suffering than if people were encouraged to simply grow up being who they are instead of thinking they need to have certain bits sliced off in order to fit into that fucking box.

[Zenpeanut]

I feel like we're defining things differently and that's causing some confusion. What is your definition of transsexuality? How about transgenderism? Or gender for that matter?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Um.

Being born rich is a blessing.

Being born outside of equatorial Africa is a blessing.

That thing the pope does from his balcony is a blessing.

Your sexual orientation is about as much a blessing as being right or left handed.

Transexualism isn't a sexual orientation, it's a gender orientation.

The backstage pass to gender part could be considered a blessing. Having to be tough is generally considered a curse, even if being tough is a good thing.  After all, trans folks who aren't tough tend to end up dead.

Sorry, BH, I don't consider you as being an authority on the subject, seeing as you're a snuff freak.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I feel like we're defining things differently and that's causing some confusion. What is your definition of transsexuality? How about transgenderism? Or gender for that matter?

I think that's up to you.

What I'm saying is, it's an attribute of a person, not a definition.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I feel like we're defining things differently and that's causing some confusion. What is your definition of transsexuality? How about transgenderism? Or gender for that matter?

I wish search still worked, I've written about this before at length and I don't really feel like doing it again.

Simply, gender is the assignment of certain behaviors to the "girl" box and the "boy" box. I first started questioning transgenderism when I first became aware of two facts: One, that the trannies I know are profoundly miserable and deeply neurotic attention-whores who are, not unsurprisingly, not made happy by having gender reassignment surgery, and two, that in order to qualify for the transitional surgeries you have to "live like" the sex you're transitioning to for a year.

Whatever the fuck that means. What does that even mean?

I started thinking about what that means, and I concluded that, for the purposes of sex reassignment surgery, I do not, in fact, live like a woman. Which must mean that according to the psychiatric definition of being female gendered, I am not actually a woman. Neither are any of the other women I know, either gay or straight.

The farther you go down that fucking rabbit hole, the less it makes sense. And you have people doing profoundly destructive (and expensive) things to their bodies because they have become convinced that they have a real disorder, which is that their bodies don't match their "real" identities. This is not dissimilar to the "beauty" product that women have been oppressed with, and it's a lot more destructive.

My feeling is, you can be "really" girl gendered and boy bodied or boy gendered and girl bodied. It's not that your body doesn't match your self, it's that fuck them for telling you it doesn't. Live your life the way you want to live it, and take care of the precious healthy body you have. Boy or girl, it's the only one you're getting and it's your real body.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Live your life the way you want to live it, and take care of the precious healthy body you have. Boy or girl, it's the only one you're getting and it's your real body.

This, right here.

And don't go fucking around with hormones.

[Zenpeanut]

I need to leave, so I'll give my definitions and come back to this thread later tonight.

My definition of transsexuality is the phenomenon when someone who is male-bodied feels an innate sense of femaleness or who is female-bodied feels an innate sense of maleness. This does not mean that any means of transition (cross-dressing, hormones, numerous surgeries) has taken place.

Transgenderism is any person who goes against mainstream gender ideas. This includes cross-dressers, transsexuals, transvestites, drag kings, drag queens, genderqueer people, and any whom identify as either neither or both male and female, or those who reject the male/female spectrum entirely.

Gender is a lot harder to define. For instance, I make a distinction between femaleness and femininity and maleness and masculinity. Another hard point is regardless of one's sex or gender identity, society gives one a gender. It becomes necessary to then split it into personal gender and perceived gender with personal gender tied towards either femaleness or maleness. Perceived gender is determined through both femaleness/maleness and femininity/masculinity.

I can't stress it enough that these are my personal definitions and not anything absolutely official. Because of how immensely misunderstood gender, and anything to do with gender is, everyone is entitled to their own definitions of these things. However, if any good discussion is going to occur, it's necessary to present these definitions.

[Cramulus]

Us trans folk have a special confidence in our gender because, rather than being handed it at birth, like someone handing you a cup of pre-made soup at the store, we have hand crafted ours. For us, gender isn't some lukewarm thing that just happened, it is a fiery passion piece that we have made our own. We aren't confident in spite of the strife of others, we are confident because of it. Transsexuality isn't a curse, birth defect, or mental disorder. It's a goddamn blessing.

That's awesome that this whole thing has been such a positive growth process for you. I can see what you mean about having some chords with discordia -- you're making a conscious decision to escape a default setting that most people probably aren't aware of. If this way of looking at gender / yourself helped you become the person you want to be, that rocks, and it is a blessing.