 |
| Transsexual syndrome is a clearly defined congenital
condition treated
by major teaching hospitals world wide. Medical opinion is now that it
is an organic (physical, biological) condition originating in the womb.
Other
congenital conditions include hair, eye, and skin colour, and maximum
height. It
is thought not to be hereditary.
|
|
| Every baby of every
mammal begins
potentially female. During the second month of foetal
development,
hormones released within the foetus determine whether the baby will
remain
female or change to male. The tiny body and physical brain are very
strongly
influenced at this stage, overall sexual identity then being largely
fixed.
This is why all males have nipples and the scar remaining of their
original
female sex. 1, 3 The crucial period, when the genetic
trigger
activates the process to remain female or change to male is over very
quickly.
This information has been known for over 25 years. |
|
|
| As with any part of foetal development, the process can go
wrong.
Baby may be born with the body of one sex but the brain and mind of the
other, leaving it stranded across (trans) the sexes. Brain research has
all but proven this ætiology.2 In autopsies carried
out
on ts-born people, all had the brain-sexing of the sex opposite that
ascribed
to them at birth. (In nature and medicine, if something is dimorphic
this
means it comes in two distinct types. In this instance, being dimorphic
means the layout of parts of the brain, and the prioritising of
thoughts,
differ between males and females.) |
|
|
| To alter the mind to suit the transsexual body is not
medically
possible. It is not the mind that is wrong. The solution is to alter
the
body to match the brain/mind. This is called sex reassignment
or
sex confirmation. Taking several years, it typically includes hormone
replacement
therapy, (and electrolysis and often speech therapy for the
ts>female),
plus an enormous amount of hard work and financial cost on the part of
the sufferer. Surgery is but one final part of the treatment. |
|
|
| Transsexualism has no connection with transvestism.
Transvestites
are men who wear women's clothing for gratification but are glad to be
male, are usually heterosexual and are proud of their masculinity. |
|
|
| Transsexualism has no connection with homosexuality. Gay
men are
attracted to gay men. Usually both partners in a homosexual
relationship
are proudly masculine and neither would seek nor agree to removal of
their
male organs (neither would a lesbian woman seek nor agree to removal of
her female organs) unless to counter a serious disease such as cancer
of
those organs. In this respect they are no different from anybody else.
Homosexuality is about relationships. Transsexualism concerns identity,
not sexual orientations. Like anyone, the ts-born person might be
attracted
to men, women, both or neither. |
|
|
| Ts is not a mental illness. Every sufferer of the syndrome
who presents
for treatment is assessed over years by psychiatrists and/or
psychologists
to ensure they are stable and sane. If psychotic, deluded, mentally
ill,
unstable, "in a phase" or acting on a whim, they will receive no direct
treatment for transsexualism until they are stable. They must be
considerably
more stable and sane than "average". |
|
|
| Ts is not dressing up or going in drag. The transsexual
person must
wear the clothing, and live exclusively as a member, of the apparently
"opposite" sex - as a clinically necessary part of the treatment - for
a minimum of one year before referral for surgery. |
|
|
| It is not "a man wanting to become a woman", or vice
versa. Before
treatment, the individual is neither a man NOR a woman but is transsexual.
Only a percentage of their body is of the sex erroneously ascribed to
them
at birth. Their brain, mind and therefore identity, are not of that
sex.
Referring to them as members of the sex ascribed to them at birth
(he/him/his,
or she/her), using only convenient parts of their body as a reference,
would be pure ignorance. Transsexual people have feelings too. |
|
|
| The syndrome is not "curable" other than by sex
reassignment. Were
it possible for the sufferer to "accept their body as it is", few would
seek reassignment. Indeed, were they able to accept their wrong body
they
would not be transsexual in the first place. After sex
reassignment
the person no longer fits the clinical definition of "transsexual" and
is now simply a woman or a man.; |
|
|
| Completely unpredictable, ts syndrome can arise in any
family. You
can never know that your child or grandchild is not
transsexual.
The majority of sufferers spend several deeply unhappy decades trying
to
be of the sex everyone else insists they be and, if questioned, may
strongly
deny being anything other than of that sex. It may take the maturity of
years for them to fully understand what is wrong, and then more years
to
pluck up the huge amount of courage needed to do something about it.
Because
nobody can "become" transsexual, you can know that you, personally, are
or are not, and be thankful if you are not. (There but for the
grace of hormone receptor insensitivity ... ) |
|
|
| Ts is something to laugh about IF one laughs also at
kidney failure,
heart disease, diabetes, blindness and all other clinical conditions.
It,
and its treatment, are no more unusual or unnatural than the wearing of
spectacles to correct a vision defect. No medical treatment is
"natural"
otherwise doctors, dentists and pharmacists would not be necessary.
Congenital
conditions cannot be "approved" or "disapproved" of. They are facts. |
|
|
| In terms of choice, ts is no different from ms. Untreated,
it can
- and too often does - result in premature death or insanity through
intolerable
anxieties and multiple frustrations because nobody can suppress their
entire
identity for life. Before sex reassignment over 80% of sufferers
seriously
contemplate, attempt or commit suicide. Postoperatively, this figure
reduces
to well under 1% - the same as for the rest of the population. The
British
Medical Association has estimated there may be over 25,000 ts-born
people
in the UK at any time. In Britain, most are denied proper treatment or
understanding although elsewhere in Europe they are not. |
|
|
| Transsexualism is no trivial matter. Typically, it costs
the sufferer
their family, home, friends, job, status, assets, savings and respect.
Treatment additionally costs the sufferer approximately £9,000 -
£15,000 (in 1998). |
|
|
|
Lack of treatment may well cost them
their life.
|
|
|
| These losses are all due only to public
unawareness of the
realities of the condition. Being born transsexual is no choice. It is
not "something in the mind". |
|
|
| Were your body altered to that of the opposite sex but
your mind
remained as it is now, you would then be in the situation of the
transsexual
person before any treatment. Forced to live totally as a member
of the wrong sex - and not just for one day. |
|
|
|
|
TearS is COPYRIGHT © K Redding, Trinity Workshop,
1992 - 1999
This revised edition published 1999
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 1. Brain Sex - Anne Moir
& David
Jessel, published by Michael Joseph (London), 1989, remains one of the
most comprehensive reviews. It includes a strikingly thorough and
colossal
bibliography containing many pointers to research work around the
world.
-- ISBN 0 7181 2884 2. |
|
|
| 2. A sex difference in the human
brain and
its relation to transsexuality - Jiang-Ning Zhou, Michael A
Hofman,
Louis JG Gooren & Dick Swaab; Graduate School Neurosciences
Amsterdam,
Netherlands Institute for Brain Research & Department of
Endocrinology,
Free University (VU) Hospital, Amsterdam. Report published in Nature,
Volume 378, 2 November 1995, pp 68 - 70. Article indicates several
other
research reports. To
read this important report click here (external link). |
|
|
| 3. Transsexualism: The Current
Medical Viewpoint.
Click here - to read this document
prepared for
the Parliamentary Forum on Transsexualism, by Dr Russell W Reid,
Hillingdon
Hospital, et al. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
For further information concerning foetal development and
intersexuality,
try web search tools (such as AltaVista, Dogpile, Excite, and Yahoo)
using the
key:
intersex* SRY
"brain sex"
(And it's best to include those quotes!)
|
|
|
