The Shape of Acceptance

A Transsexual's Perspective

by Gina Rochelle Dumas

(The Gender Centre advise that this article may not be current and as such certain content, including but not limited to persons, contact details and dates may not apply. Where legal authority or medical related matters are cited, responsibility lies with the reader to obtain the most current relevant legal authority and/or medical publication.)

Introduction:

In this paper I have pressed very firmly my belief that there is a "core" or "control" form of self-acceptance that takes pre-eminence in human psychology. This self acceptance being that our body's sex, and the gender role appropriate to that sex. I have also put forward some matters on the nature of gender and it's importance to us.

You will perceive that this paper is very "broad brush" in it's comment and is intended for a wide audience within the world of transsexuality. Where I have used the term "self-acceptance", I have intended it in the above sense.

I was laying in my hospital bed in Bangkok, Thailand, still marveling at my brand new post-operative self, tubes running everywhere. There was time now to assemble my thoughts on a simple, but hard to express concept of why it is that we in the transsexual community have lived such tormented lives.

Why? I had asked myself over many years, do our societies seem to be totally unable to comprehend our struggle? What is it that we have been unable to communicate to them?

Twenty pages later I thought that I had a focus on my simple notion, but twenty pages!

The notion was still simple but I had to condense it, attempt to write a synopsis.

Of one thing I am certain, the population of the non-gender dysphoric world (nearly everyone other than us) are self-accepting in an automatic or "non-thought of" way, we are not.

For transsexuals, the concept of self-acceptance is inextricably tied to our life experience of confusion, fear, frustration and loss.

This inability to be self-accepting lies at the epicenter of our torment, but is not the underlying explanation, this warrants further consideration.

As a community, we transsexuals have been unable to offer a better concept of our plight than "a woman trapped in a man's body" and vice versa. This serves us very poorly, and doesn't sell, for the simple reason that it offers a seemingly implausible resultant, not a reasoning of this rare medical phenomenon.

People judge that what we have between our legs signifies our totality as being male or female. That self-concept" as male or female is dependant to a very large extent on gender is not something that accords people's self-knowledge.

To the general public and to some in academia, gender is not an entity, it is merely another way of spelling sex.

Matters of Gender

My arguments and line of reasoning from this point, focus on the need to re-conceptualise gender and give it the primacy that it's critical function in our psychology demands.

I am confident that my understanding will resonate clearly with the experiences of those who have suffered so much, for want of an adequate means of sharing knowledge of our dilemma with leaders in our societies and those who are best placed to influence them, academics. I propose that gender is a direct construct, i.e. that it exists as an independent factor in the framework of human psychology. That gender is derived from tiny structures in the brain, which in nearly all humans' accord with their physical sex, has been demonstrated by autopsy against control groups also at autopsy (see note 1).

Just as breasts and penises are sexually derived structures, so too are the gender structures of the brain. As we know from the many forms of intersexuality that inflict our intersexual brothers and sisters, things physical can go most horribly wrong. To identify transsexuals as gender/sex crossed, or "brain intersexed" would be appropriate I feel, and justifiable in the light of evidence gleaned both in the successes and failures of experimentation worldwide.

If we accept that all consciousness is derived from a biological structure, the brain, then we may discern the difference between biological outputs and social construct more clearly.

Gender needs to be examined in concert with the construct of gender roles, for it is here that most people's concept of the two become blurred. Gender and gender roles need to be conceptualised separately, although gender impacts heavily on gender roles, gender roles do not impact on gender, one is downstream of the other.

Gender is the internalised biological focusing of an individual as being male or female! Before howls of protest fill the air I would ask you to consider the following in conjunction with the remainder of the paper.

I proposed that gender may be likened to two colours, say green for females and blue for males. Every shade of green or blue is equally male or female, the depths of the colours being comparable to the force or pressure with which the deep drives and desires of gender act in any one person's being, but the colours are distinctly different be they pale or deep. So central is our gender to the way in which we prioritise our thoughts, process emotional inputs, love, dream, hurt, focus on life's goals, see each other and so very much more, that it may be said that our gender is our intellectual lens.

I will further propose that so powerful is gender that it inclines us to learn selectively from society's offerings, i.e. that as children we learn and adopt those traits of interest and expression that find congruence with our gender, unless or until forced to do otherwise. And so enters society into the building of the human self concept. Society provides models of gender roles on the unthinking assumption that one's sex will signal one's gender, and that a self accepting development is always the case.

Gender roles are complex structures, being a mixture of a society's expectations with regards to sex specific presentations, mannerisms, clothes, group compatibilities etc, and of those elements of gender driven expression and desire, which are of a more innate personal nature, and vary between individuals. Gender roles are susceptible to many variables between societies. some of which have historically been powerful modifies e.g. religious taboos, patriarchal dominance, lack of education etc. It is gender role that society impacts upon, not gender, that is our own.

In support of this concept of gender being discreet and innate in our make up, I would like to draw the readers attention briefly to the repeated failures of experiments aimed at changing gender. Many of these experiments have been long term and very inhuman in their cruelty. That they have never succeeded, serves to demonstrate that immutable nature of gender, you may change gender role, but not gender.

From this vantage point, I ask the questions "do we transsexuals really suffer gender dysphoria? Or do we know our gender innately?" Does the true transsexual's dilemma lie in a lifelong "self acceptance" crisis? Perhaps the problem is best seen in a simple diagram that looks at the essential elements in a non-gender dysphoric person's ability to be self accepting, and the way in which these elements are interdependent.

Where one's sex agrees with one's gender, it is appropriate to learn and adopt the gender role signaled to society by one's sex, a gender role that is natural to the gender both innately and by association. In the transsexual person, these three essentials do not find congruence, and a three way, or triangular, clash develops between the immutable gender, and the gender role they cannot live. It is the nature of gender that makes a sex and gender role appropriate to that gender. (see note 2)

The early expression of confusion and distress among transsexual children coincides with their first experience of suppression of their behaviour. Transsexual children have only their gender and a natural desire to express their feelings, occurring innocently in their limited self-concept. The consciousness that society (expressed primarily through parents and early schooling) will drive the wedge between their innate gender and it's expression, occurs slowly through childhood even though they may be unable to articulate this increasing distress. Slowly then, the triangle of self-acceptance is destroyed.

If the disapproval of their parents (in particular) is severe enough, and if enough fear develops, these children will hide their troubles at remarkably young ages, but the trouble does not go away.

I am convinced that some of the transsexual community never get to a point where they are able to get a crisp and comprehensive view of their dilemma.

Perhaps too many of society's expectations are mixed into their attempts to understand themselves, both by themselves in confusion, and by analyst's searching for factors that are of little import to the transsexual. The sexual preference of the transsexual being a case in point. Expectations that a transsexual will evince a strong interest in being sexually attracted to males in the case of M.T.F., or females in the case of F.T.M. transsexuals, are primarily those of the society and members of that society, into which the transsexual is adapting. Transsexuals feel these expectations for they have lived their whole lives adjusting to society's expectations, and many find it confusing that these feelings do not occupy any significant part of their thoughts, if at all. Often I feel, in attempting to create these feelings in order to conform, transsexuals cause themselves much unnecessary distress, for the true nature of their struggle is focused inwardly in learning to find self acceptance.

There is, or at least should be, no need to display particular interest in sexual activity in order to claim one's gender, for these matters lie outside the triangle of essentials that make for self-acceptance.

It may be, that once a therapist has completed the task of differential diagnosis, and is sure that he or she is assisting a transsexual, that a focusing on the construct of self-acceptance will prove to be a timely and very healing tool. Self-acceptance for us is at least a two stage achievement. First, we must accept our transsexuality, and come to an understanding of the parameters of our dilemma; an essential but difficult task. "They have no right to dictate to me" etc.

The health profession know these feelings are directed towards them and recognise this form of expression as a "gatekeeper" perception among transsexuals. These perceptions of the professionals as "gatekeepers" are in my opinion the result of the transsexuals' inability to see a picture. Their view of the way ahead and the road behind is disjointed, with fragments of their dilemma recurring in random order so that they see disparate components separately and in isolation. For them, there is no "one picture". Seeing one's key health professional as an obstacle, rather than as a confidant and source of guidance, is a recipe for embitterment and diminished outcomes.

The early introduction of a visual into the transsexuals self-concept is very important, the justifying of the two year trek through gender role and on to sex reassignment and finally home to one's gender, is utterly crucial. To be wandering around in all this new territory by trial and error, maintains the transsexual in a state of heightened anxiety, and can only add to the battering these personalities have experienced lifelong. It would be comforting to be able to know where the therapist places the transsexual at any one time, on the perimeter of the triangle.

Transsexuals should understand that they are proving, both to themselves and to their helping professionals, that this trek is one on which they belong - that there is no way back once the final corner has been passed. I remember so clearly the afternoon when my therapist smiled at me and said "you should go ahead and arrange for surgery". I don't think my feet touched the ground again that day. I was rushing home to my gender in such joyous relief that words can't explain.

For those who experience this inexpressible joy their triangle is closed and for the first time since early childhood a complete human being is able to look around and enter freely into life with all it's fascination. A mixture of drainage tubes, smiles, plastic containers slowly filling with odd coloured fluids, happy tears, nurses fussing tenderly, injections and the haze of relief, I'm there.

I am now surgically shifted from an unbearable intersexual state (gender/sex crossed) to a quite survivable intersexed state (chromosome reversed female). I would be correct in assuming that many of you are not aware that naturally occurring chromosomes reversed females and males exist (see note 4). These people are incorrectly labeled as "sex-reversed". I challenge this label on the simple ground that the reason they live comfortably until "discovered" is that their sex and gender, and gender roles, are all in agreement. Chromosomes are no more an infallible link to sex than sex is to gender.

While it is undeniable that sex and chromosomes are most often in congruence, it is equally demonstrable that sometimes they are not.

Conclusion

Around the world, our little communities of intersexuals and transsexuals are increasingly showing a willingness to speak out, and a determination to be heard, that bodes well for our fight to be understood and to gain our human rights.

This paper grew out of my need to understand what happened to me and to fit my understanding into successes and failures of those who have extended that hand of science compassionately in our interest. I have included with my notes the definition of some of the key terms used in this paper.

I shall end with the hope that the matters expressed here may help some of my friends to see a way ahead, as I walk in the footsteps of all those who have held a light for me.

Glossary of Terms

Chromosomes: small bitties that most often work with our genes to assure the alignment of our sex and gender (a process subject to error).

Gender: Derived from sexual structures in the brain, our intellectual lens focusing us as male or female.

Gender Role: A life posture signaled to society by our sex and a mix of societal norms and the deep innate drives of gender.

Sex: The visible and invisible physical parts of a female or male body.

Sexual Preference: The expression of attraction towards the visible and invisible parts of the physical structure of the male or female body.

Notes:

1. In 1995 Professor Louis Gooren from the Netherlands published the results of the examination by autopsy of the brains of heterosexual males and females, showing that the gender structures were measurably different. The brains of males treated long term with female hormones as an anti-prostate cancer treatment, were unchanged from heterosexual patterns and dimensions. The brains of homosexual males and females were the same structurally as those of heterosexuals. The brains of six male to female transsexuals examined demonstrated female patterns of development. Six was the total number of transsexuals in a population of 180,000.
2. Perhaps transsexuality would be better described in our system of labeling everything as Isolated Gender Syndrome.
3. I recently attended a party where eight transsexuals, all F.T.M. were enjoying themselves. During the evening the topic of sexual attraction was broached. I was not overly surprised to learn that seven out of eight still longed for their former spouses. I think we love in a total person way, with sexuality less focal in our concept of love.
4. According to Professors J. Hughes, Charles Brook and Mr Ramsley, who have set up a collaborative research project focusing on intersexuals in the U.K., "There are a surprising number of sex reversed people running around out there" (B.B.C. 1999).

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