Excerpt From My Memoire: A Life In Transition
It won’t work out
It started the first weeks of my Junior year. I met the “Terrible Trio”, Barbara, Liz, and Barby, three freshman girls who had been friends since Kindergarten. Barbara was clearly the leader of the three. Somehow her outgoing nature made it possible for her to make instant acquaintances of everyone. She latched onto me the first day! She got the notion into her head that she was going to have me as her boyfriend. If you know Barbara, you just know that she gets her own way. She was forever telling everyone that she and I were an item. This presumptuousness amused me greatly at first, but began to pall. She even started writing romantic love poems and gave them to me, hand written, in a ‘blank book’. Now for some silly reason this made Cassie very jealous. Never mind that I wasn’t really going with Cassie, just friends with her, she was not going to let Barbara have me. Never mind that I had zero interest in going with Barbara, she was determined that I would. It was funny in retrospect but at the time this was very distressing. One morning, just a few weeks into the school year, they squared off for a shouting match in the hallway. I was so distressed by the spectacle, (over me? why? Nobody was going to win me anyway!) I just sat down on the concrete and hung my head in exasperation. Barby later recounted to me that that was the moment that she fell in love with me, head over heels, no turning back.
Apparently Barbara has a very good heart because when Barby told her this, Barbara turned all of her energy into helping win me for Barby instead of herself. Barbara and Liz made sure that Barby was sitting next to me, all of the time. Barby began to ‘puppy dog’ me. I couldn’t turn around without her there. I ignored her completely. This went on for weeks.
My mother insisted that my sibs and I have a Halloween party that year. She said we were not to be going out and doing anything like what she suspected had happened the year before. (I seem to recall there might have been something about my brother Mark being seen near where eggs landed on a patrol car over on Edith Avenue as it crossed the bridge over the creek?) She said that we each could invite some friends over that night. I invited a few friends (all girls, no boys, as they all had other, less “wholesome” plans) including Cassie, Kathy, Beep (short for Beatrice P.), Barbara, Liz, and Barby. Well, I found out later that Barbara had gone around telling everyone but Barby not to go. So come Halloween night I was disappointed to find that only Barby had come. I was actually hurt, Barby was not my favorite. But she was still a nice kid, if a little too ‘puppyish’. We pulled taffy together, played Frisbee and ping pong in the garage (silly three car, three door monstrosity that virtually hid the rest of the house from the street), bobbed for apples, and swapped tales of previous Halloweens. Barby was ecstatic. I was actually paying attention to her!
But back at school… I ignored her completely!
A number of more weeks go by. One night I get a call from Barbara. I remember the conversation very well. I was very distressed by it on several levels.
“Did you know that it was Barby’s birthday today?”
“No, I didn’t”
“She had a birthday party today.”
“Oh,” I said, wondering where this was leading to and why it should concern me.
“Yes, and she was crying at her own birthday party!”
Now I was feeling sorry for her. I did not feel close to her but I did like her and would never have wanted to see her feeling blue. I asked very concerned and perplexed, “Why? Why was she crying, I don’t understand?”
“She was crying over you!” She burst out in a very accusatory tone, “She was crying because you won’t even notice her! You know that she’s in love with you and you treat her like dirt!”
Now I felt very defensive. I had done nothing to encourage Barby. On the contrary, while I was never cruel, I had irritatedly snubbed her, repeatedly.
“Why won’t you be nice to her?”
“I am not interested in her.”
“Why not? She loves you! Why can’t you just be nice to her? Why can’t you just take her out some? Why can’t you just take her to the Christmas Dance?”
“Because it would never work out! That’s why!!”
“Give me a good reason!”
“Look, it just wouldn’t work out!” I was thinking, yeah, right. I’m going to just tell Barbara, the biggest gossip on campus, that I’m not attracted to girls but I am to boys, Yep, and I’m going to tell her that I’m already researching how I’m going to get sex change surgery!
“I’m not going to get off the phone until you tell me why you can’t just take her to one lousy dance?!”
We went in circles for half an hour with me telling her that it wouldn’t be a good idea and would she please just drop it. I knew from prior experience that just hanging up wouldn’t do. She would call back. If I left the phone off the hook she would just give me hell the next day. Barbara is very persistent. Finally in exasperation I caved in, “Alright, alright! I give up. I will invite her to the Christmas Dance if it will make you happy.” Since I loved dancing, I actually wanted to go to the Christmas dance. But it was the one dance a year that one couldn’t go stag. Though it wasn’t a school rule, it was socially required that you go with a date. I had thought I would go with one of my friends, perhaps Cassie or Kathy, if either didn’t have a real date lined up. I knew Beep had a steady boyfriend, so she was out. So, if I had to have a date, it might as well be Barby.
Having gotten her way, Barbara’s tone instantly turned friendly, “Oh, she’ll be so happy! You won’t regret it, you’ll see.”
“OK, OK, What’s her number?” I said resigning myself.
“Well, she isn’t home tonight, she’s baby-sitting. But I have that number too.” She hung up after giving me the number.
Feeling like I had been had, I dialed the number. “Hello?” a very uncertain voice answered. It was Barby, and it did sound like she had been crying and sniffling. My heart broke. I didn’t want to be the cause of that. And I didn’t want to be her ‘boyfriend’. But I told myself, just one date, just one date. “Hi, Barby, it’s XXX.” I heard a sharp intake of breath. I had definitely surprised her. Well, I thought, no sense in delay, “Would you like to go to the Christmas Dance with me?” I could clearly hear her stifle a squeal as she began jumping up and down. I groaned inwardly, what have I gotten myself into?
“Yes, Yes, I would love to!”
“Good then, I’ll see you tomorrow, bye.”
“Bye.”
I could hear her give full throat to that previously squelched squeal before the receiver actually made it to the hook. I just chuckled and shook my head.
I took her to the Christmas dance, bringing her a very lovely corsage, as the dance was a formal affair. I felt like I was humoring a small and precious child. Afterwards, she still puppy-dogged behind me, but I no longer snubbed her. She even tagged along by signing up for the same science class the next semester. It forced me to have to spend a lot of time tutoring her, to keep her from falling hopelessly behind. I learned that she was actually a very sweet and generous soul. She volunteered at Agnew’s State Hospital, helping the mentally retarded. She was very happy, because I was her “boyfriend”. It stayed that way for months, until I began to trust her and finally told her that I was transsexual that next summer, the summer I had the nanny job. I had to tell her, as she was beginning to push for sexual intimacy, something I just couldn’t give her. She reacted with deep disappointment and discomfort yet with sympathy. She wanted to keep me as her “boyfriend”, and only slowly stopped tagging after me. It took six months to convince her I was serious. After that she went from being a kid that I was humoring to being a good friend.
I finally came out to Barbara at next year’s Christmas Dance, my Senior year. That is when I told Barbara why it hadn’t worked out!
Family Memories
My father died a year ago. I’ve been thinking of him a lot lately, missing him. So I thought I would share some memories of him and my family, a bit more detail than I shared here in the past in my “About” page.
My father was a very loving and devoted father. He had very high aspirations and expectations for all of us. He spent many hours encouraging us in school matters and tutoring us in various STEM and business topics. My siblings and I were all expected to do well in life and all of us did. I became a high tech executive and entrepreneur. the older of my two brothers became an engineer, then next became a doctor, our sister, the youngest, became a business woman. She inherited our father’s last business and continues to run it today.
My parents separated and divorced when I was in high school, around the same time I began to socially transition and was officially diagnosed as transsexual and accepted into the Stanford Gender Dysphoria Clinic’s program in 1975. Each remarried later. But my mother remarried just as I was leaving home at 18, as “requested”. Though I was already living full time as a girl, my mother insisted that I wear a men’s suit and tie to her wedding to her new husband so as not to “embarrass” her.
As teens, our families freaked out when they learned that the older of my two brothers best friend, Don, and I were lovers. Don had been a frequent and welcome guest at my mother’s house until that discovery. He was devastated when that was no longer the case. Under pressure from his father, he broke off our relationship.
Some years later, the younger two of my three siblings had gotten married with the collusion of ALL of my family, to keep it secret so that I wouldn’t show up uninvited. I have literally never met their spouses. The older of my two brothers told me it was because they were afraid I would dance with a man at the receptions, further embarrassing them.
I met Jeff the summer of 1997. We’ve been an “item” ever since. In early ’98 he proposed. I made a point of introducing him to both of my parents, on separate occasions, before then, as I felt we were headed in that direction. My mother pulled me aside to ask me “Does he know?”
When visiting my father’s house in southern Oregon with Jeff, my father surprised me by refusing to let Jeff and I stay together in his guest room. We had to find a motel room for the night. Since I knew for a fact that my father would have had no qualms about me sleeping with a woman, as he was often trying to get to do so since I was a teen, falsely believing that it would “cure” me, it was clear that it was homophobia. At that point, he still hadn’t gotten to the point of admitting that one of his two brothers was gay.
Jeff and I had a long engagement, a bit over a year, during which I planned a small and very elegant garden wedding at a nearby, Wine Country, Bed & Breakfast. I rented the entire B&B, ordered flowers, cake, catering, and bought airline tickets for my Matron of Honor and another friend. I invited all my siblings; the younger two didn’t even bother to respond. My Uncle, a Methodist minister, and his wife planned to drive out to attend and to officiate. The older of my brothers agreed to let his son to be the ring bearer. Liz was to be one of the flower girls. My father said he would come, perhaps even walk me down the isle, while his wife guaranteed it. Turned out that her mother lived nearby so they would be staying at her place.
My mother offered to help me find my wedding dress. On the day she drove up to Jeff’s house to meet up to start shopping, I described my dream dress in detail, nothing else would do. She sighed, believing that I was going to be a bridezilla. But I was optimistic. We went to the local mall, to the main department store with a bridal department. I walked in, headed for the ‘sale’ rack, pulled open the dresses in my size… and there it was, exactly as I had described. The dress had some minor flaws and tears given that it had been on the show room, so my mother negotiated on the price, which I knew she would, being the reason I agreed to go shopping with her. Later, I repaired all the issues by hand sewing to near perfection.
So, onto the wedding. But instead of my writing about it, please allow me share what, Magdalena, my Matron of Honor, wrote about it. But let me add, that because of events that surrounding the wedding, I haven’t had any contact with my mother or my two younger siblings since, that’s 25 years now. While Jeff and I are still happily married and love each other very much.
Matron of Honor…
by Magdalena
I wish that I could say that from the first moment I heard about Jeff and Candice’s relationship that I was supportive. That wasn’t the case. While I trust Candice’s judgment, there was a part of me that wondered, “Is this guy a user, a loser, a freak, or all of the above in some sort of David Lynch inspired combination?”
I get ahead of myself. Let me start by saying that one of my favorite “pop” songs is Winter, by Tori Amos specifically because of this lyric:
“When you gonna love you as much as I do
When you gonna make up your mind
Cause things are gonna change so fast
All the white horses are still in bed
I tell you that I’ll always want you near
You say that things change my dear”
This song reminds me of Candice, because while she has an incredible capacity to love, at times that capacity does not extend to herself. In addition, I am a woman who has experienced abuse. Unfortunately, this is something Candice and I have in common. Understanding that a history of abuse makes it more likely that you will end up in another abusive relationship makes me evaluate my own relationships and those of my friends with a careful eye.
So when Candice called to share with me that she was a: getting married and b: asking me to be her Matron of Honor, I was happy for her, genuinely happy, but cautiously so. I remember thinking, Dear gods, what will I do if I have to, out of love, say, “Candice. I love you. No. By all that is holy, no.”
Luckily, within moments of meeting Jeff, I saw that she had found, not just a good man, but a wonderful, responsible, intelligent, loving man. A man that would love her as she deserved to be loved. I watched not only an unaffected and completely genuine love for, and cherishing of, my dearest friend, but I saw that for Jeff, giving that patience and love was a way of life. From the cats that shared his home, to his immediate gentle concern for my young daughter, Jeff is the kind of man that showers all around him with gentle good humor, kindness, and compassion.
At that point, I turned my sights to the next hurdle.
Candice’s mother, the wire monkey woman.
Please understand, Candice’s mother is a lovely woman. If you ever meet her, she will be polite to your face. Excruciatingly, terrifyingly, absolutely polite. She will carefully assess your family and social class, (while refraining from checking your teeth… she is a lady, after-all!) and then she will graciously engage you in a perfectly correct, yet entertaining conversation eminently appropriate to all of the above and the occasion. Miss Post and Martha Stewart have nothing on Candice’s mother.
I should have been able to get along with the mother of the bride. In fact, we didn’t have an out and out confrontation. I think it would be more accurate to say that she and I treated one another like dignitaries from sovereign nations – both of which had thermonuclear weaponry. I’m sure at first, she was even comfortable with me; I was raised in a “good” family (outwardly anyway). I know when to nod and smile, I know the difference between a shrimp fork and a salad fork. I understand that proper Methodist etiquette for any disaster is to bring a casserole along with just the right amount of sympathy, nothing outlandish, mind you, a simple, “Ah, now that is too bad” will suffice.
However, I did make one immediate tactical error. I admitted that I absolutely love and accept Candice. We are more than friends. This is a woman I consider the sister of my heart, one of my dearest friends, and the person I have chosen to care for my children should I ever be unable to. While I’m sure it was expected that I, as the Matron of Honor, would be gracious in respect to the nuptials, I’m also quite sure that my unqualified support was considered a bit unseemly.
My second tactical error came when I found a charming group of women who enthusiastically offered to care for my six month old while I attended to last minute details. Any new mother can attest that when a group of obviously intelligent, clearly compassionate caregivers offer to watch your child for you – for free, no less, you jump at the opportunity. Clarity had spent less than ten minutes with her adoring new friends when I was approached by MoB. She took me aside, (What, did you think she would cause a SCENE? Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. We do not do such things.) Honestly, when she came up to me I thought a small Wedding Disaster™ had occurred, perhaps the flower girl had socked the ringbearer to kingdom come, or maybe someone had picked up the wrong cake and we were now faced with a “Happy Bar Mitzvah, Bart” cake instead. As an experienced Matron of Honor, I was well prepared for those types of Mother of the Bride disasters. However, I was dumbfounded when she kindly said to me, sotto voice, “You really don’t want to leave the baby with THOSE people do you?”
…
I will admit. I was distracted. I was not quick on the uptake. My first thought was, “With a pianist? With women in hats? What kind of people is this woman talking about?” Her lip curled. Yet, remember, MoB is a lady. Ladies do not openly call other ladies “Stupid idiots” in public. She gestured again towards where my daughter was being lovingly cradled and entertained with classical piano.
I was stunned as it hit me like a slap to the face. Those people? The ones she did not feel were fit to even hold my daughter… were trannies. In that moment, I have to admit, I began to hate this woman. I hated the fact that she could not, no, she flat out refused to see any of this group of women for what they were – talented, kind, loving individuals. I hated the reality that she considered “them” a class so poisonous that she felt my baby was somehow in danger — From what? A lipstick kiss? Being spoiled? Having a cultural experience?
Was she afraid that someone would say the T word in front of Clarity? Was she concerned that somehow Clarity would “get the gay” ? Whatever her fear was, whatever anger she had, I could not, nor would I ever participate in it. My exact words to her are lost in my memory at present, but I will assure you that I did not say what I wanted to, “Who the FUCK are you, you pompous BITCH to presume that I would ever leave my child with someone I thought was inappropriate.” If my daughter is being cared for by another person you may presume that I feel that person is perfectly safe, sane, and appropriate as a caregiver for that situation. Unlike some, I do not consider transsexualism a deadly contagion.
Another surreal moment for me as we prepared for the wedding happened as I was making small talk with MoB. As mothers often do, we began sharing stories from our children’s childhood. I found myself aghast as Candice’s mother said, sadly, “You know, (deadname) was such a good boy until he was seventeen.”
How was I supposed to answer this? What do you say to someone who is so self righteous that she believed that she was entitled to sympathy. Sympathy for what? Not accepting her daughter? For torturing her child with rejection? There are many things I would dearly love to give to Candice’s mother. Sympathy is not one of those things.
I do not want to leave anyone with the impression that I regretted meeting Candice’s mother. I appreciated the chance to have had a taste of the civil ugliness that Candice lived with every day of her childhood and adolescence. I had the opportunity to see just how much hatred Candice experienced in her own home and just how much strength of character it took to leave that hatred behind.
I did, however, decide that I would place myself squarely between Candice and her mother to deflect any possible nastiness. Frankly, as a person who grew up Irish Catholic, married a Methodist, and then became Wiccan, I am more than capable of handling a prissy, uptight, bigoted bitch. With the help of another friend, and using Candice’s nephew, Matt, as an unwitting accomplice, we occupied Dianne quite effectively with many small, “Oh, dear… do you really think Matt should be doing that?” episodes, thus making sure that she had little time to dig at the bride.
One of my most treasured memories of that afternoon was helping Candice dress for her wedding. It may sound trite, but she was radiant, beautiful bride. The sun streamed into the bridal suite at the Gravenstein Inn making the beads on her dress shimmer and sparkle. The flowers I pinned into her hair smelled sweet and old fashioned, and I remember having to brush tears away as I fastened a blue band around her wrist, my old ring dangling from it. Brides wear something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue for luck, but that day it was clear to me that Candice and Jeff didn’t need luck, they had each other and that would be more than enough.
As Candice made the final adjustments, I went downstairs to assure myself that Candice’s father was going to walk her down the aisle as agreed. I steeled myself ahead of time, prepared for anything after having met Dianne.
Candice’s father is the kind of man that could easily explain to you the inner workings of a nuclear power plant, how to best secure the resources of a venture capitalist, or how to make an industrial strength solvent from ingredients found in your kitchen. More importantly, whatever he’s sharing with you is made interesting by the fact that this brilliant man can actually communicate. Perhaps he wasn’t the perfect father when Candice was younger. There were probably many things he could have and should have done differently. Yet on that May afternoon, he was warm, he was kind, and he was there to support his daughter. For that, I loved and respected him.
One might think that once the wedding was over, the bride and groom off to enjoy a romantic dinner, and guests dispersed, that any opportunity for drama would have evaporated. One would be wrong. In the evening, after a long and tiring day, I sat down with Candice’s (adopted foster) daughter, Elizabeth, to chat. It was then that I discovered that Gilroy’s answer to a Stepford wife wasn’t done spreading poison.
I listened with growing fury and disgust as Elizabeth shared her experience with her grandmother, Dianne. Apparently, she asked Elizabeth something along the lines of, “So now that Jeff is in your family, which one are you going to call Daddy? Jeff or Candice?”
I was absolutely stunned. Truly, I knew the woman was a sick, vile, twisted bitch. I honestly didn’t think that she would go so far as to use her granddaughter to strike at her daughter. To this day, it makes me sick to my stomach when I think about the bitterness and the ugliness that would twist a person’s heart to the point where they would say something so utterly cruel, confusing, and inappropriate to a child.
There are no words.
As I look back on that time, I realize one important thing. People like Candice’s mother do not like being proven wrong. In fact, fundamental to their lives is a smug insistence on just how “right” they are. Once, years prior, this judgmental wire monkey of a woman had told Candice, “No man will ever love you.” On that day, it was abundantly clear in more ways than one, that she was wrong. Rereading this piece, I do not want to leave anyone with the impression that a bitter self righteous woman dominated my best friend’s wedding. She didn’t. Thankfully, Janeen and I were able to insulate Candice from the attitudes of hatred and prejudice that she grew up with if only for that one day. If we had no other role, I am glad that we were able to fulfill that one. The lesson that I wish Dianne had learned was that the wedding wasn’t about her. In fact, nothing about Candice’s life was, or ever has been, about this woman. Perhaps if she could see that she’d be a little more accepting and a little less judgmental. Regardless, it was a beautiful day and everything a wedding is supposed to be – a commitment between two people who truly love, honor, and accept one another and I feel very honored to have been a small part of it.
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The REAL Takeaway From The CDC Study On HIV/AIDS In Transwomen
The CDC is clueless.
Seriously, they are. They conducted a study in seven urban areas of Male-To-Female transsexuals, regardless of surgical status, asking about HIV status along with a number of other questions, but like so many who have no clue as to the Two Type Taxonomy, simply assumed that everyone who is “trans” is in the same etiological taxon, with similar behaviors. Clueless.
Because of this, they seem surprised that unlike in the gay and bisexual male population, black and latina transwomen were more likely to use PrEP medications (anti-viral drugs that protect one from HIV) than white. Of course they are! As was documented by Nuttbrock, most white transwomen are heterosexual autogynephilic (AGP) while most black and latina transwomen are Homosexual Transsexuals (HSTS). White AGP transwomen are simply NOT at the same high risk of getting HIV as HSTS of any race and they know it, thus are less likely to use PrEP.
Only 11% of the CDC’s study respondents were white, which is dramatically lower than the percentage at the national level. This indicates that the study, given its urban catchment and the networking effect of how the subjects were recruited from other subjects, this study was very likely mostly of HSTS transsexuals. This is born out by the fact that 77% reported receptive anal sex during the past year — and 55% reported condomless anal sex — but only 14% reported vaginal sex with women.
So, why did the CDC researchers ignore the two type taxonomy and fail to report that the single highest risk factor for HIV infection in the United States among transwomen is being an HSTS and that AGP transsexuals are at much lower risk? Healthcare workers need to know this differential risk factor.
The write-up did acknowledge that the study was limited by the fact that they had not captured those that would likely be at lower risk… but failed to note that that difference came from the disparities experienced between AGP and HSTS transsexuals.
Further Reading:
Nuttbrock data on HSTS/AGP ratios by race
Further External Reading:
Reference:
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New California Law to End Abuse of Transsexuals From Pharmacies
In the early 1980s, about a year after I had SRS, I went to my local pharmacy, on the boarder of Mountain View and Los Altos (“Silicon Valley” California) to get a refill of my HRT. The pharmacist saw the prescription and demanded, very loudly so that everyone in the area could hear him, that I explain what medical condition I had that required such a prescription. I told him it was none of his business. He got even louder and said that no woman needs such a high dose of estrogen and progesterone as I was taking, twice daily. He then demanded, again, very loudly, that I tell him what medical condition I had. I knew what he was trying to do. He was trying to out me to my neighbors at the pharmacy. Again, I told him it was none of his business, but I told him I had had the same prescription since I was a teenager and I needed my prescription refilled. He refused unless I told him what medical condition I had. I walked out of the pharmacy in tears.
I was informed by a friend that I could simply go to any other pharmacy and ask them to call the first pharmacy to get the prescription transferred. This I did, though the process meant a delay in getting my HRT. My friend, then a medical student at Stanford, also recommended I write up the episode and put in a formal complaint to the Board that oversaw pharmacies. This I did. But literally, nothing came of it.
Now, literally forty years later, something did come of it (though not directly), because my experience was not unique. Bigoted pharmacy employees have mistreated transsexuals for decades. California has created a law the pharmacists and technicians must take a trans cultural awareness course to renew their license. The behavior of that pharmacist back in the ’80s is now actionable.
Further External Reading:
Webinar on Transsexual Cultural Awareness
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A Life in Transition
I promised myself that I would wait until my father had passed before I published this material. He died last March. I finished and published this on Father’s day, yesterday. Here is my memoir of my youth. I am providing it for several reasons, one being that so many young people today have some rather odd ideas of what it was like to transition 50 years ago. It was neither as bad nor as good as some have imagined. Second, because of so many personal misunderstandings of my own background and history. They know that I am doing well today and have had a good life, but don’t know about the unfortunate things I had to overcome to get here. And third, I’m publishing it as a companion to my other two books on Understanding Transsexuality for academics to get a better picture of our history, at least as seen though one person’s perspective having lived it.
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Straight Men Viewing Nudes Of Pre-Op Transsexuals
In a very recently published paper by a graduate student in Vasey’s team, Heatlie added to our knowledge that straight men can and do find pre-op transsexuals sexually arousing to a small degree when viewing static images. This adds support for Hsu’s earlier work. The paper is available online so I highly recommend reading it. However, I do have some comments about it to share.
The study used pupillary dilation response while viewing to measure arousal and compared that to subjective responses while viewing nudes of four different stimuli sets, men, women, and two types of gynenadromorphs (GAM).
Heatlie used two “types” of gynadromorphic stimuli, one “with breasts” and one “without breasts”. Surprise surprise, straight men found those with breasts more arousing. Sadly, we do not have examples of the stimuli. This is a serious deficit in evaluating the paper in that we don’t really know just how “feminine” those without breasts are. Those with breasts most likely have been on feminizing Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) for some time, even if they had elected to have breast implants. We simply do not know whether those “w/o breasts” have had any HRT. Thus, these stimuli subjects may look rather phenotypically male in other respects, not just genitally. They may just look like normal boys in the nude!
Note that the straight subject’s pupils actually contracted upon seeing the nude men, indicating that they found these images aversive. But the GAMs with no breasts were not aversive, but not very arousing either. A bit of a side comment here: The paper said the difference was “not significant”. This is NOT a measure of the meaning or size of the difference, but rather a comment on the statistical strength of the evidence, the measurement being somewhat noisy and the number of subjects being measured rather limited (N=65).
Some of the comments in the paper suggest that the authors do not understand the difference between control men and “chasers”, men who specifically seek out gynandromorphs, even though they cite Hsu’s work on this very subject, “Many men who seek out gynandromorphs as sexual partners cite the femininity of such individuals as being a key motivator (e.g., Kulick,1997; Mitsuhashi, 2006; Operario et al., 2008; Reback & Larkins, 2006; Rosenthal et al., 2017). Some studies have characterized the femininity of gynandromorphs as more accentuated than the average cisgender female (Gerico, 2015, Operario et al., 2008, Reback and Larkins, 2006). These findings could be viewed as at odds with our results, given that participants were more sexually aroused to cisgender females than to gynandromorphs, with or without breasts.” They fail to note that most (perhaps all) such men are also autogynephilic, experiencing a paraphilic interest, not a conventional interest, in gynandromorphs.
The study also used nude static stimuli, which the authors recognize may not capture the salient factors that conventionally heterosexual men may find attractive that overcomes their aversion to gynandromorphs, their genitalia, “Consequently, our nude stimuli may have failed to capture many of the qualities (e.g., clothing, voice, and body movements) that communicate femininity, or accentuated femininity, and elicit sexual interest from gynephilic males in naturalistic contexts. Conversely, given that our stimuli were nude, the obvious presence of gynandromorphs’ penises may have negatively influenced participants’ subjective ratings of sexual arousal and their pupil dilation.” My response is “No shit, Sherlock”
Further, there is a classic behavior in such gynandromorphic individuals being “avoidant”, disliking letting their partners touch or view their genitalia. This widely shared behavior reduces straight men’s aversion. The use of nude photos of gynandromorphs unnaturally circumvents this, distorting the data.
The paper makes a claim that I just can NOT agree with, “These data are consistent with the conclusion that the capacity for some, albeit low level of sexual interest in gynandromorphs is an invariant capacity of male gynephiles, even in cultures such as Canada where sexual interactions between gynandromorphs and gynephilic men are relatively rare…” These interactions are only “rare” because GAMs, pre-op androphilic MTF transsexuals are rare. If they had surveyed such they would learn that we have no trouble finding straight men who find us sexually desirable.
Update 2/23/2023: The lead author responded:
Hi Candice, thank you very much for your thoughtful essay. I had some thoughts as I read it: 1.The feminine males were characterized as such on the basis of having traditionally feminine hairstyles, make up, and poses. However, we do address the limitations inherent to this approach in our limitations section. Because we will likely be reusing this stimulus set for another study (in order to triangulate our findings using another measure), I am unable to share the images online. 2.Participants’ pupils did not constrict in response to images of males. Pupil change was standardized (i.e., converted to z-scores), and negative values simply suggest that most measurements fell below the mean. The difference between cisgender males and gynandromorphs without breasts was both non-significant and small (d = .37). In general, psychologically relevant stimuli do not elicit constriction. 3.I feel it is important to note that when we say that sexual interactions between gynandromorphs and heterosexual men are relatively rare, we are simply referring to the prevalence of such relationships. As compared to many other cultures such interactions are reported less frequently by Canadian men. We are not making a statement about the attractiveness of gynandromorphs.
Further Reading:
Essay on attraction to gynandromorphs
Essay on pre-op MTF transsexuals being “avoidant”
Reference:
Heatlie, L, et al, “Heterosexual men’s pupillary responses to stimuli depicting cisgender males, cisgender females, and gynandromorphs”, Biological Psychology (2023), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2023.108518
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Is The “Non-Binary” Fad Ready To Fade?
Social fads tend to have rapid rises and rapid fades. They begin with just a few people, early adopters, then grow exponentially when highly influential celebrities or “trend-setters” adopt it. They begin to fade when the novelty factors no longer operate and the celebrities and trend-setters abandon it. One of the factors that begins the fade phase of the fad is when a growing number of people point out how silly or nonsensical the fad is.
Such may be what is happening with non-gender dysphoric / gender typical / straight people, mostly teenaged girls and young women claiming to be “trans” and/or “non-binary”.
This concept probably originated in the autogynephilic male cross-dressing (i.e. transvestite) community. Decades ago, they would often describe their cross-dressing as “exploring their feminine side”. There was an organization called the Society for the Second Self, often simply called “Tri-Ess” for short. Many such men would sometimes describe themselves as “Bi-Gendered” in a direct reference to the term “Bi-Sexual”, having both a male and female gender and expression.
But sometime in the early 2010’s, a number of women started claiming first to be “trans” when they clearly were not, to be “cool”. Why? Hard to sort out the beginnings of any social fad, but I strongly suspect it had to do with the unfortunate practice of Hollywood using non-trans actors to portray transsexuals.
The use of non-trans folk as transsexuals has the unfortunate effect of misleading people about the nature and expression of transsexuality. It was bad enough when young transitioning, naturally feminine, exclusively androphilic, Male-To-Female transsexuals were represented in film and television by masculine straight men, trying to act “feminine / gay”, giving the distinct impression of such transsexuals as being more like overly dramatic drag queens. But when young, feminine heterosexual women are cast as Female-To-Male transsexuals, especially if the actor is popular and admired, portrays transmen as “cool”, as was happening in some shows and movies (e.g. Hillary Swank), it misleads teenaged girls to falsely believe that they too could be “cool” and trans.
But then, actual transmen pushed back, pointing out that claiming to be transsexual when they were clearly not gender dysphoric (the definition of “transsexual”) was “uncool”. These young women likely picked up and modified the original “Bi-Gender” concept, making a reference to “asexual” to be “agender” and then “non-binary”. The value of claiming to be “non-binary” was that one didn’t need to be gender dysphoric, nor even gender atypical. It was the perfect way to claim to be “trans” without actually being “trans” anything.
Sometime in the 2010’s, the fad took off when such celebrities as Demi Lovato declared herself to be “non-binary”. Here was a very feminine, heterosexual woman, who could be emulated by teenaged girls and young women, without the cognitive dissonance of knowing that they were NOT actually “trans”.
Looking at some data in a relatively small study by Katiala-Heino, et al, comparing 2012-13 scores to 2017,
“The aim of this study was to explore whether there has been an increase in prevalence and changes in sex ratio in feelings of gender dysphoria (GD) in an adolescent population in Northern Europe, and to study the impact of invalid responding on this topic. We replicated an earlier survey among junior high school students in Tampere, Finland. All first and second year students, aged 16–18, in the participating schools were invited to respond to an anonymous classroom survey on gender experience during the 2012–2013 school year and in the spring and autumn terms of 2017. Gender identity/GD was measured using the GIDYQ-A. A total of 318 male and 401 female youth participated in 2012–2013, and 326 male and 701 female youth in 2017. In the earlier survey, the GIDYQ-A scores, both among males and females, were strongly skewed toward a cis-gender experience with very narrow interquartile ranges. Of males, 2.2%, and of females, 0.5% nevertheless reported possibly clinically significant GD. The 2017 GIDYQ-A distribution was similarly skewed. The proportion of those reporting potentially clinically significant GD was 3.6% among males and 2.3% among females. Validity screening proved to have a considerable impact on conclusions. GD seems to have increased in prevalence in the adolescent population.”
The authors noted that testing for dishonesty was highly correlated with positive answers to GD questions, especially among males. But note that the number of girls claiming to be “trans” jumped nearly five fold, from 0.5% to 2.3%, from 2012 to 2017.
This caused the exponential growth of the fad though “social contagion”. Such ridiculously high percentage of teenagers and young people, mostly female, claimed to be “trans” and “non-binary” (the two were very often lumped together as “gender diverse”) in polls that soon headlines with claims that transfolk were common in young people. It also lead to the false notion that there was an epidemic of actual gender dysphoria, because of the use of superficial trappings of FtM transsexuals to become known as “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria”. This became weaponized in the current culture and legislative war against transkids and their medical care.
To be sure, the number of female teenagers referred to therapists and clinics because they claimed to be “trans” increased, but the numbers who actually transitioned were not really out of line with the small number historically expected based on the number of adult transmen transitioning in past. Though, it was obvious that some of the increase was caused by non-gender dysphoric girls mistakenly referred to the clinics.
As I said, fads eventually fade. When will this one fade? Could it be that it already is? Demi Lovato went back to “she/her” pronouns last year, indicative of the “influencer” effect fading.
Consider that in Turbin, et al, they used a very large poll from two different years. They found 2.4% (similar to the 2.3% from Finland that same year) and 1.6% respectively. If the numbers can be trusted, the drop over the two year period from 2017 to 2019 of 50% would indicate that the fad is fading. Another researcher with extreme numbers, Kidd, found in her survey that it had dropped from 10% a few years ago to 7% in 2022, a 30% drop, also indicating that the fad is fading. What of the numbers being referred to clinics?
Our favorite Netherlands clinic recently published a paper on 20 years of treating transkids. This is a graph from that paper showing the number referred to the clinic each year.
Note that the number of those older than ten years old (pre-teens and teens) peaked in 2017 and then dramatically dropped (nearly 45%) in 2018. We don’t have more recent data, but this does agree with the other data points we have.
It looks like the fad may have peaked in 2017. I shall be keeping an eye on this to see if the apparent fade continues.
Addendum 5/9/2023:
Another paper, this one from Sweden, showing the same trend from 2012 to the sudden downturn in 2017/18 by 40% in 2020, essentially duplicating the other studies, as the authors clearly state,
“We find that the increase of young transgender men seems to have peaked around 2018 and find
no evidence for further increases in 2019 and 2020.”
Further Reading:
Falsely Claiming To Be “Trans” is Cool, (NOT!)
External Reading:
References:
Katiala-Heino, R., et al, “Gender dysphoria in adolescent population: A 5-year replication study” Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry (2019)
https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1359104519838593
Turbin, et al., “Sex Assigned at Birth Ratio Among Transgender and Gender Diverse Adolescents In The United States”, Pediatrics (2022), https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2022-056567
Kidd, K. et al., “The Prevalence of Gender-Diverse Youth in a Rural Appalachian Region”, JAMA Pediatrics (2022), DOI:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2022.2768
van der Loos, et al., “Children and adolescents in the Amsterdam Cohort of Gender Dysphoria: trends in diagnostic- and treatment trajectories during the first 20 years of the Dutch Protocol”, The Journal of Sexual Medicine, 2023;, qdac029, https://doi.org/10.1093/jsxmed/qdac029
Kolk, Martin and Tilley, J. Lucas and von Essen, Emma and Moberg, Ylva and Burn, Ian, Demographic Trends in Sweden’s Transgender Population (1973–2020) (April 24, 2023). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4427508 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4427508
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Is Ehlers–Danlos Syndrome Really Associated With Gender Dysphoria?
A couple years ago, I got an email from someone who felt that I was failing in my exploration of the science by not writing about how Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome causes one to be transgender. I was confused. I had never seen any paper to suggest such a connection. Plus, something about the way this correspondent wrote about it set off several red flags of someone seeking confirmation and affirmation, not information.
Now there is a paper that purports to provide evidence of a connection. But how and why this should be so opens up more questions than answers as I will explain.
First, one must understand that Ehlers-Danlos is one of those syndromes that is both rare and not easy to diagnose. It has been associated with several genetic variants that deal with connective tissue development. The syndrome is defined as causing very loose, “mobile” joints. Something most people call “double jointed”. It’s also said to cause “stretchy” “smooth” skin. Doesn’t sound very bad until one learns that this hypermobility is associated with disabling, even crippling, dislocations of hip and other joints.
But why should a connective tissue problem cause gender dysphoria?
In Jones, et al, he reports that among his TEENAGED patients, 17% reported gender dysphoria. Had this been published in the 1970s, I would have been astounded and would be strongly urging further research into the connection. But this was published in December of 2022. This suggests a far simpler explanation: teenagers falsely claiming to be “trans” and “non-binary”.
We already know that in some other studies up to 10% of teenagers making such a claim. Add to that number the idea of being diagnosed with a rare genetic variant and a social network of teens with said variant, all feeling “special” and told that there is an association with being “trans”, we get a perfect storm for a classic fad. A super majority of 89% of these patients claiming to be “trans” and “non-binary” were female, which fits the recent trend of “tucutes”.
But the ultimate suspicious hint that this is a social imitation phenomena among teens is this statement from the researchers, “To date, there have been no reports of prevalence of TGD youth in pediatric patients with EDS.”
But now we need to look at other data, from the other direction. We must never be blinded by confirmation bias or cherry picking. What of those who are adults receiving medical transition services? Here we find another paper, published in 2022, that reported that of over a thousand patients being treated for gender dysphoria, 2.6% had a diagnoses of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, which is ~136 times more than is found in the general population. Further, 67% of them were female.
So we are left with a conundrum. How is it that a connective tissue syndrome is associated with gender dysphoria?
References:
Jones JT, Black WR, Moser CN, Rush ET, Malloy Walton L. Gender dysphoria in adolescents with Ehlers–Danlos syndrome. SAGE Open Medicine. 2022;10. doi:10.1177/20503121221146074
Najafian, A.; Cylinder I.; Jedrzejewski B.; Sineath C.; Sikora Z.; Martin LH.; Dugi D.; Dy GW.; Berli JU. Ehlers-Danlos syndrome: prevalence and outcomes in gender affirming surgery – a single institution experience. Plast. Aesthet. Res. 2022, 9, 35. http://dx.doi.org/10.20517/2347-9264.2021.89
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One’s Job or Education Do NOT Define Either HSTS Nor AGP Transwomen
— Just as one’s job or education do NOT define men nor women.
For over a decade, I’ve been writing on the Science of Changing Sex, explaining how the science supports the Two Type Taxonomy. This after spending years researching, teaching, and writing about our history. (Trivia: many of the current texts on our history have borrowed rather heavily from that earlier work. No, I’m not upset by that, but pleased it has become so well known.) That after having worked as an early transsexual rights activist, including joining with several other transsexuals to form the ACLU Transsexual Rights Committee in 1980. This early work almost certainly set the stage for later activists to join in that work.) Sadly, while there has been progress in understanding the nature of the Two Type Taxonomy, there is a continuing denialist opposition to it. That opposition has not restricted itself to respectful scientific arguments, but often descends into personal attacks, calumny, and character assassination.
Please Read “What The Next Wave of Transgender Activists Need To Know”
One of the silliest of these is based on mistaken sexist stereotypes about the differences between the two types, sadly started by several of the top sexologists that researched the taxonomy and support further research and education, to wit, that Autogynephilic (AGP) transwomen are very likely to be “geeky” and become scientists, engineers, and technologists while Homosexual (HSTS) transwomen are not. This is based on the totally erroneous idea that straight men are more interested in these careers than either women or gay men, by nature. The other false stereotype is that HSTS are too stupid to have such careers, having lower IQ than average. This too was started by an offhand personal obsersation by a sexologist.
Please Read “Stereotypes Are Dangerous” and “The Right Stuff”
The reality is that women are just as likely to be interested in such educations and careers as men, when given the chance and not discouraged from doing so. And HSTS show the same average IQ as the general population, though very rare, there are HSTS with very high IQs.
Please Read “Tech Bros and Silicon Valley’s Misogyny Problem”
From the graph, we can see how women, when the sexist limits on their enrollment in the physical sciences, legal, and medical fields were reduced, the percentage of women seeking degrees in those fields climbed and now has reached near parity with men. Computer Science is the only field where the enrollment initially climbed, then fell off. It was NOT that women didn’t like the field. It was and remains a problem of a toxic culture in computer programming where immature, misogynistic, young men make studying and working in the field a hostile environment for women.
Women have long wanted to be scientists and technologists. Consider these women: Ada Lovelace who worked with Babbage on the concepts of computer programming before computers existed; Maria Sklowdowska Curie who was awarded, not one, but two Nobel prizes in physics and chemistry; her daughter Irène Joliet-Curie who also won a Nobel prize in chemistry; Lise Meitner, who should have won the Nobel Prize for the discovery of atomic fission that led to nuclear power. The list is long. Although these are extraordinary women for their accomplishments, they are not unusual for being interested in science.
I would argue that gay men are also just as likely to be interested in these fields, though we don’t have as much documentation to prove it. But consider Alan Turing, one of the most celebrated mathematicians and computer pioneers of the 20th Century, was gay. Today, we have Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, Inc., one of the most successful Silicon Valley companies. The most amazingly brilliant technologist who ever reported to me was an undergraduate summer intern from MIT in the early ’80s. When he later came out, he asked me if I knew he was gay before. “I knew the day I hired you!”. He later earned a Ph.D., published a textbook on robotics, and became a Silicon Valley executive.
The stereotype of autogynephilic transwomen being geeky also fails to hold water when we look at them and note how many have careers that are not at all “geeky”, but are stereotypically male/masculine coded like law enforcement, military, construction, transportation, etc. Then there are the number who are living in poverty and squalor because they have no marketable skills acceptable to (accepting of) women post-transition.
Thus, women and gay men like and pursue education and careers in the physical sciences and technology just as much as straight men. But straight men will avoid fields that are coded as “women’s work” or feminine/”gay”. Autogynephilic transwomen notoriously have the same aversion pre-transition. So, while we can NOT use pursuing an education in the sciences or working in technology as a useful marker for autogynephilia, nor as exclusionary of being homosexual (transsexual or not); we can use female coded careers and jobs, especially those pursued before transition, as likely exclusionary of being autogynephilic and also increasing the odds that such an individual is homosexual (transsexual or not).
Back to the issue of what does define and differentiate the two types of transwomen. Very simply, their sexuality. One is gynephilic and autogynephilic, the other is androphilic (homosexual w/ respect to their natal sex). Nothing else defines the two types.
However, there are indicia that highly correlate with the two types. In my years of examining the science literature I have found seventeen independent lines of evidence that correlate and supports the two type taxonomy. None of them are educational / career interests. Some of these correlates can only be used at the population level, but several can be used at the individual level: gender atypical behavior as a pre-adolescent, age of onset of gender dysphoria, age of social transition, and of course, definitionally, sexual history (showing actual sexual orientation).
Please Read the first few entries in the “FAQ on the Science of Changing Sex”
The Personal Is Political
Back to the problem of the denialism and of the calumnious attacks, specifically, those attacks on me. In an ironically revealing, one might even say, self-own, they simultaneously claim that there is no two type taxonomy and nearly in the same breath tell me to shut up because I must be AGP as well because of my interest in the sciences and my long career in Silicon Valley! But as I showed above, that does NOT define nor differentiate the two types. But if one examines my bio, one can find all the indicia needed to determine which etiological type I fall into.
Please Read “About”
Consider this section to be an expansion of my bio, focused on those indicia. As I said in my bio, the only honorable defense against lies is the truth.
My mother, during an interview with Dr. Fisk at the Stanford Gender Dysphoria Clinic, complained bitterly about my early gender atypical behavior, under the false impression that he would be attempting to “cure” me. I was but 17 years old at the time.
“I have known for years that he wanted to be a girl. But I thought that was [morally] wrong. He was very different than his brothers. All their friends were boys. His were always girls,” naming several of my friends over the years, starting with those when I was five and six years old, but couldn’t remember my friend who had been my only guest on my tenth birthday. “Marian,” I interjected for the only time during the whole interview. “He was always very prissy. He would walk clear around even the shallowest puddles. When he was little, I would put him in clean clothes on Monday and on Friday they would still be clean.” She confirmed that I had been sent to a therapist about my behavior when I was ten years old and again when I was 15/16.
When I was nine years old, at the end of 4th grade, our elementary school was planning one of those embarrassing shows where students perform for their parents and friends. I’m sure you know the type I’m talking about. I was cast for a part but when told the details of the part, I had a total emotional melt-down, tears, loud drama, refusing to take a male role. It set off a chain of interviews and behind the scene discussions with my parents that I only learned about years later. The next school year, I was required, by the school district psychologist, to be sent to a very special therapist some miles from our home, to “play” and talk with Dr. Peters every Friday afternoon. Interesting thing about the playroom. It had only boy’s toys, which held zero interest for me. Sometimes, we played chess, but otherwise, we only talked. Why?
Please Read, “Shameful History of Reparative Therapy of Transsexual and Gay Children”
I’ve already disclosed a few details about how in Jr. High, I spent my time at the library reading about girl’s fashion, make-up, etc. I also practiced putting on make-up, borrowing my mother’s, given that we had the same coloring, etc. I was always careful to put everything back exactly as I found it and to wash my face carefully, but she knew I was doing it. She just couldn’t catch me at it.
One of the stories my mother would tell other mothers, often in my presence to try to embarrass me, was about the day she was sitting out on the lawn pulling weeds when she saw me at a distance walking home from school. When I saw her, I discretely adjusted the stack of books I was carrying (female style, books against my chest, if you must know), sadly not discretely enough. She would tell her listeners that she was convinced that I must be bringing home and attempting to hide, pornography, so she later searched my room. What she found instead was a book on manners and etiquette for teenagers, mostly for girls.
When I was fourteen, my freshman year in high school, Debra asked me to the Sadie Hawkins dance. I loved dancing and she was one of my friends so I agreed. A couple weeks after the dance, she invited me over to her house. Her mother wasn’t home as I had expected her to be. Debra went into her bedroom and changed out of school clothes and into a very revealing, slinky dress. She literally draped herself across me as I sat on the front room couch. Disturbed, I pushed her off of me and jumped up off the couch. She tried to cajole me into rejoining her on the couch but I refused, as I paced the floor. She gave up and changed back into more modest jeans and top. The next day, as school ended, she again invited me over to her house, but I turned her down. Debra broke into tears and ran away. We never spoke again.
During the next summer, just after I turned 15, I took square dancing classes with one of my female friends. I paid special attention to the girl’s part, intending to attend square dances as a girl, and dance with the cute boys. My friend supported this plan and lent me one of her square dancing outfits. My mother discovered the plot and forbid me to attend any more lessons and forced the return of the outfit.
Another girl, who was in the square dancing crowd freaked out and cut me off when I came out to her. Thank goodness we didn’t go to the same school. But I hated losing friends.
We moved to a new house in a nearby suburb a couple months after that and I transferred to the local high school. I joined up with a crowd of kids that included a boy, Greg, I had known in Jr. High. He now lived with his mother and new stepdad, while his brother Jeff (Not my husband Jeff) lived with his dad and attended my old high school. Thus, my circle of friends doubled as I kept in touch and occasionally met with my old friends. One of those old friends, Dennis, would meet me half-way, at Cassie’s house. Dennis was very comfortable being affection with me, often letting me massage his back or just sitting close. One day, at Cassie’s, the two of them started making out hot and heavy right in front of me. The green eyed monster joined us and took over. I stormed out, slamming the door as hard as I could. For the next week, Dennis tried calling me several times a day. I just hung up on him as soon as I heard his voice. After a week, Cassie called. I wasn’t mad at her. She could make out with any boy she wanted as far as I was concerned. Cassie said to me, “You have punished him enough.”
So, with that we agreed that I would go to Cassie’s and talk to Dennis, to patch things up. But I had a plan. Cassie agreed to let me come early and borrow her clothes. She was two inches taller and a bit bigger, but her dress size was close enough to mine. I met Dennis wearing a cute blouse with a jumper dress over it, panty-hose and nice shoes. Dennis and I talked pleasantly, never once making any reference to how I was dressed. I was trying to let him see that I was attracted to him, etc. He didn’t reject me, but wasn’t going to be dating me either. Oh well… I tried. Skipping forward three years for just a moment. Dennis visited me right around graduation. During a walk around the block, away from other’s ears, he asked, “You going for that sex change?” I answered simply, “Yes.” Upon which he said, “Good luck.” and hugged me.
That same year, aged 15, my mother decided it was time she dealt with me and my “homosexuality”. She first took me to our family doctor for a physical and a consult about it. There didn’t seem to be anything physically wrong, save that I was “underdeveloped” (and stayed that way, thank the Blessed Goddess… At 15 I was perhaps at Tanner stage 3, I never reached stage 5). He recommended a therapist, Dr. Kanski, who I had to see once a week to “talk about my problem”. I would talk very pleasantly about almost any subject, but my sexual orientation and gender dysphoria / identity. Dr. Kanski later told my mother that I was “uncooperative”.
Around this time Jeff introduced me to his best friend Kevin. I had a huge crush on him for the rest of my time in high school. Jeff and Kevin occasionally came over to our house. My mother would notice that I got excited each time they did this, but thought it was Jeff that I had a crush on.
Later that year, as I was helping Cassie with her homework (I was often asked to help others and gladly did so), she reached under the table and grabbed my genitalia, saying in coquettish voice, “My mother won’t be home for hours.” I was horrified! I pulled her hand away from me and pretended nothing had happened. She started to slide her hand to my crotch again but I grabbed it and held it tight against her leg, while continuing to explain the homework problem. I was hurt and angry. She knew about my transsexuality. Why would she should do this?
The summer, just after I turned 17, I got a job as a full-time nanny taking care of two boys, ages ten, and four. Their mom later wrote a letter of introduction and recommendation using my new name and gender. The family also gave me some of her older, but stylishly appropriate for a teenager, clothes that would fit me.
Our house was next door to our community pool. We often had friends over for a swim, including Cassie and Barby, among others. One day, I picked up Barby from her house in our family’s spare car to go for a swim. She was wearing a skimpy bikini and nothing else. As we were going down the street, she grabbed my hand and pulled my hand to her crotch. (You just know that a straight boy would have loved it and also be having ‘trouble’ with his own.) I was never more grateful that I was driving a car with a manual transmission as I removed my hand back to the gear shift knob.
It was past time I came out to Barby.
My senior year I called our family doctor and asked for female hormones. His reply was, “You can do anything you want with your life, but I won’t be any part of it.” Soon after that I found a reference to the Stanford Gender Dysphoria Clinic. On the phone, they said I needed to have my parents make the appointments, etc. After some serious family drama, my Dad did. After the intake interviews with Dr. Fisk, I filled out their required paperwork at school, with friends looking over my shoulders, offering comments. Both of my parents tried to talk me out of transition.
Please Read “Cognitive Dissonance…”
A few months before graduation rolled around, I was out to all my close friends and word was getting around. Of course, the fact that I was often seen around town or at the mall with friends dressed as a girl helped that. But, I still had to present as a boy in class. I openly hung up my new wardrobe in my closet, earning silent glares of disapproval from my mother, but gave her a ‘I dare you’ look back. But after graduation, I was living full time as a girl.
At one point my father strongly suggested, “Have sex with a girl. I’m sure that will change you. What about one of your friends, Barby, or Cassie? Wouldn’t they do it to help you?” I replied angrily, “I’m sure they would. But that won’t change me and I DON’T want to have sex with them!”
I turned eighteen a week before graduation. My dad came over to wish me happy birthday and give me a present, the only one I got from anyone, a nice clock radio. I would need it as he also told me I was being evicted from my mother’s house and not allowed to move in with him.
I won’t go into details, that’s not anyone’s business; I dated several boys/young men from my circle of high school friends starting then and for the next few years. But one of my boyfriends, Jordan, from that time, later introduced me to his wife as his “first girlfriend”. Think about that, a straight man was proudly telling his wife that his first relationship was with a pre-op transwoman! Of the others, my mother had accused Jeff of being my lover. Wrong, he had rebuffed me… his brother Greg on the other hand… The one that really created family drama was Don, my brother’s best friend.
Barby complained, bitterly and unkindly, that I was “boy crazy”.
The relationship that lasted the longest was Bob. His mother was an engineer, president of the Silicon Valley chapter of the Society for Women Engineers. I was a welcome guest at their family dinners. She strongly encouraged me to study engineering. When he was away at Rensselaer, back east, we handwrote letters often and occasionally talked long distance on the phone. I learned from one of his housemates on the phone that when Bob was lonely, he would open the drawer where he kept my letters, just for the waft of my perfume I scented them with. When he was home… we dated on and off like that for several years. in the end though, he married my best friend Jan and raised two girls with her. But we remained friends. In fact, Bob attended my wedding to Jeff.
I remained friends with several female friends, most especially Jan and Robyne, occasionally sleeping over in their bedrooms. Think about that for a moment. Their families had known me for years…Robyne’s since Jr. High, do you think for one moment that they would let me be alone, in their teenaged daughter’s bedrooms over night, if they thought I might be interested or capable of having sex with them?
As to choice of careers. I love teaching and have been an instructor/tutor in several schools in several subjects, from teaching little kids swimming to teaching teens and adults flying. I started my career in Silicon Valley as a secretary / administrative assistant. I worked as an electronic assembler (a female coded job) and proceeded up the ranks of supervisor and management, all while earning a degree by examination after self-study. That’s not the career arc of a typical AGP.
So, remembering the definitions and indicia of sexual history & orientation, childhood gender atypicality (as reported by my mother), age of gender dysphoria onset, age of transition, etc. What type am I?
I have no doubt the AGPs in denial, haters, disappointed chasers, and TERF/GC folk will all still tell lies. But I know who and what I am.
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Sex Reassignment Surgery Demographics in the Netherlands
Our favorite folks in Amsterdam have provided data set on MTF transsexuals receiving SRS in their clinic covering 40 years. The paper is openly available online, not behind a paywall, so you may read it for yourself. But I have a few observations and comments regarding the data and the authors’ comments.
First, let’s look at the data, reorganized into putatively HSTS vs. AGP. (Yes, given all we know about MTF transwomen, I will assume that all non-exclusively androphilic transwomen are AGP.)
Table 1
Demographics of transgender women undergoing primary genital gender-affirming surgery at the authors’ institution between January 1980 and January 2020
| Demographics | Total | Vaginoplasty | Orchiectomy | GCV |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number | n=1531 | n=1468 | n=44 | n=19 |
| Age at surgery (SD=1) | 33 (25–44) | 33 (24–44) | 32 (26–45) | 54 (45–60) |
| Sexual orientation (self report) n= | 699 | 645 | 42 | 12 |
| HSTS n= (%) | 372 (53) | 357 (55) | 13 (31) | 2 (17) |
As the authors noted, “Individuals who opted for GCV (vulvaplasty only, no vaginoplasty) were generally older, had no history of puberty suppression, and were more frequently sexually oriented towards women.” The same could be said for orchiectomy as well. HSTS are much more likely to want/need vaginoplasty over other possible choices as one would expect, so as to be able to have vaginal intercourse with men.
The authors made a comment that I found ahistorical. They believe that GCV is a relatively new procedure. It is not. In fact, Christine Jorgensen had GCV only in 1952, as reported by her surgeon, Dr. Christian Hamburger, as neither of them desired to facilitate sex with men. Similarly, “orchies”, as we called them back in the 1970s, was common for both HSTS and AGP in the early 20th through the mid- to late-20th Century due to greater ease of obtaining them. (Some of this was due to the Eugenics Movement, which was only too happy to sterilize “perverts”.)
Finally, the authors wrote about encouraging “fertility preservation” but seem to lament that it isn’t possible for those who begin puberty blockers early, “The increase in individuals starting puberty suppression at early pubertal stages, when serum testosterone concentrations are insufficient for spermatogenesis, may lead to an increase in individuals without options for preservation of fertility.” This strikes me as “unclear on the the concept” as why would such MTF early transitioners, who are all HSTS (as even this clinic’s own data attests), want or need to cryostore sperm. Just who will they impregnate, their future husbands?
Reference:
Van der Sluis, et al., “Surgical and demographic trends in genital gender-affirming surgery in transgender women: 40 years of experience in Amsterdam”, British Journal of Surgery, Volume 109, Issue 1, January 2022, Pages 8–11, https://doi.org/10.1093/bjs/znab213
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