Suggestion

A suggestion to all the tranwomen with blogs anywhere. Please do not give out medical advice or even make suggestions other than reminding anyone wanting to transition or starting a transition or to anyone just curious about a transition to seek experienced medical professionals.

I not against transwomen giving suggestions to find and get a physician, to visit a local clinic for transgender people, or to suggest they consult with a professional therapist for advice and help. But please don't discuss Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT), even your own.

I say this because HRT drugs are powerful drugs which permanently change the body, especially testosterone for female-to-male transpeople. Female HRT drugs constitute a variety of drugs with a range of types and dosage with varying effects for each person.

This is why it can be and sometimes is dangerous dispensing pseudo-medical advice on a blog. You get people to follow your experience or advice without consulting physicians, buying them over the Internet or elsewhere, which can get people in trouble or worse, physically or mentally hurt.

HRT drugs should only be dispensed under the care of an experienced physician or endrochronologist to follow the patient over the duration of their transition. It requires routine blood tests and personal evalutations.

It also requires a letter of recomendation from a therapist to the physician or endrochronologist  confirming your condition under the DSM-IVTR standards with gender related issues and a clear decision to transition.

I read quite a few young transwomen who seem to freely and openly discuss their HRT, and while it's good to document and public show the effects over time if you want, it's not good to be specific about your HRT drugs and dosages.

This is because with HRT, it really is the old adage, "Your Mileage May Vary", as everyone reacts different to HRT, including some who can't tolerate it or have adverse effects or reactions to it. These will magnify with more types of HRT drugs and increasing dosages.

I think it's cool that young transwomen talk about their transitions and even mention HRT as part of the overall program to monitor a transition. Transitions should not be taken lightly and there are Standards of Care (SOC) defined by WPATH from the DSM-IVTR standards for diagnoses.

And that's what should be the advice, always get good, experienced medical help for a transition. It's good medical practice, but most of all, it's best for people who wants to or are starting a transition. It's your life and health at stake, mistakes can be dangerous and permanent.

That said, I'm over-reacting a bit, but it's a concern when I read the responses people ask these transwomen about transitions and read advice which, while good, isn't the best, when the best is to advise anyone to seek medical professionals.

Anyway, just a thought and a personal suggestion, one from personal knowledge and experience.

Why

Why do we consider female-to-male transpeople (ftm or transmen) who complete their transition become "real" men, despite keeping their vagina, and heroes for a cause, representing transpeople, but consider male-to-female transpeople who complete their transtion less of a woman, even though they have a vagina?

I ask this because some of the most prominent transpeople are transmen who the public loves because they transitioned from being girls or women to men and expressed in the most sexist tone and tenor. Transmen such as Buck Angel (porn star), Loren Cameron (self-promoting "transgender" photographer), Ben Barres (Standford professor), etal.

They're treated better than transwomen. Even Ben Barres noted the sexism which arose when Joan Roughgarden, evolutionary biologist, transitioned and lost her credibility with the scientific community and her standing in the department. She was ostracized and Ben Barres gained in respect as a man.

And we expect these and other transmen will know what it's like to be a tranwomen? They can speak about the internal frustration in the childhood and work with their transition, but they rarely speak about society's view that they got better and transwomen got worse.

Yeah, really. A transwomen loses credibility and respect and transmen gain credibility and respect. Yet it's the same thing, transition from one gender to another. Almost all transmen pass after a short transition, testosterone is a powerful hormone to lower the voice, grow facial and body hair, and grow muscles.

Only some transwomen pass, and mostly either being young and hormones work better on their body and faces to become at least androgynous but mostly female, or from considerable cosmetic surgery, usually facial feminiation surgery, but most range from mostly passable to not passable as the face, body and voice are giveaways.

You can't undo the effects of male genes once past your late 20's so transitioning after that has issues the transwomen has to face. Some do it successfully because they have the money for the surgeries. Most don't have the money and live with the reality.

And this is the crux of the issue, their visibility, but there is another factor, society's perception. Transmen don't get put in to degrading boxes of identity. They're treated as men and that's the end of it. Transwomen are treated not just differently but mistakenly too.

Transwomen are seen and treated as drag queens, crossdressers, transvestites, sex or porn workers - some are for the money for their transition, and the always "men in dresses" class. Rarely are they seen and treated as who they are, just regular and normal people.

When was the last time you read a newsstory about the rape and/or murder of a transman? But transwomen are frequently raped and often beaten or murdered. In many states that's a lesser crime than the rape of a woman.

Even the public and celebrity ones never gain status as "real" women, always treated with the adjective "transgender" to ensure their history and their status isn't like other women. And the rest have to keep their past hidden from all but the few people in their life, and of course their employers.

And that's the issue, transmen lose their identity as transgender once they transition, and only have to reveal it to loved ones. Transwomen never lose their identity, it follows them throughout the rest of the life, in private and more so in public.

Sexism and transphobia is alive and well in the public view of transwomen, but not transmen. Why, beside the obvious reasons, do we accept it and tolerate it? And why should we accept and tolerate transmen as representing transwomen?

They Don't Get it

The simple truth is that gay people, meaning gay men, just don't get transpeople. They consider drag queens, female impersonators and crossdressers transgender when the almost all are just straight or gay people who like to play dressup, either for show, for fun or for personal pleasure.

They hate transwomen because they want to give up the very thing gay men value the most, the genitals, in short, their dick and balls (yes pun intended). They hate that transwomen just want to be women in every day life, with families, friends, jobs, and everything female. To forget they were ever male, let alone men.

And gays take every opportunity to ridicule or humiliate transwomen. Case in point is the show "TrAnnie" by cabaret performer Trevor Ashley and the Sydney Opera House. They apologize but still put on the show which treats transgender people as caricatures and jokes?

What don't they understand? They rail when people joke or make fun of gay men as effiminate despite the reality many are. They rail when people try to mock or put gays into subhuman catatogies of people, like pedophiles.

And then they don't blink an eye when they do the same to transgender people, citing it's just a joke, just a show, just a comment, just this or that. Just. That's their word, just.

When Joe Salmonese promised transgender people would be included in ENDA in Congress, he lied. When Representative Barney Frank promised transgender people would be in the final ENDA bill, he lied stating too much opposition to their inclusion.

When gay people talk about LGBT rights the "T" is for appearances than substance as they always drop transgender from the discussion when things get serious. It's their history and their practice, something they've never changed.

As gay people have always said, "Just wait, your turn will come honey.", and often adding the demeaning, even degrading, word at the end to downplay transpeople as less than equal to them, less than equal to be in the same issue or fight for rights.

We see this time and again with their antics. Treat transgender people as trash, jokes, whatever because you can always apologize later, "They'll undersand since they're in the back of the LGBT bus anyway.", or worse, "They should be happy their on the our bus."

Like we're what? And gays get angry when transpeople stand up and speak. Stand up and tell the truth. Stand up and demand fair and equitable treatment. Stand up for themselves as individuals and a group. And stand up to walk out and achieve more by themselves than with the LGBT community.

It has been President Obama who has included transgender people in his administration's policies and regulations because of transgender people, groups and organizations working for all transgender people, and not for gay or lesbian people. Just themselves.

Yeah, that word, just. Gays use it to apologize. Transgender people use it to succeed. Big difference, but I doubt gays understand that, because gays are too busy being gay to understand. Transgender people are being human beings and real people.

God, Fate & Will

If a woman has breast cancer, does a Christian person tell her to accept her fate as God's will and not seek medical treatment to live? If a woman can't conceive a child, does a Christian person tell her to accept her fate as God's will and not seek medical proceedures to have a baby?

If a person has a mental condition, does a Christian tell them to accept their fate as God's will and not seek professional help to feel better and have a good life?

If a person is depressed and even suicidal, does a Christian tell them to accept their fate as God's will and not seek help to get better and put suicide aside?

If a person become unemployed, does a Christian tell them to accept their fate as God's will and not seek new employemen, seek training to learn a new job, or explore their own talents and skills and pursue a new career?

If a person is born with a crippling disease or condition, does a Christian tell them to accept their fate as God's will and not seek to overcome their physical liabilities and become the person they want to be?

If a person is born with a physical abnormality, does a Christian tell them to accept their fate as God's will and not seek medical help to find a treatment if not a cure to become normal?

If a person is succombs to a rare disease, does a Christian tell them to accept their fate as God's will and not seek the best medical treatment to extend their life if not overcome the disease to live a long life?

So why does a Christian person tell a transperson, who has a physical condition treatable with medical help, tell them to accept their fate as God's will and not seek  medical help to become the person they know they are and have a good life?

Why does a Christian tell them to accept their birth sex, even when their gender is different, as fate and  God's will and then call them sick with a mental condition and not the wrong physical condition it is?

Why does a Christian tell them God can heal them to be normal with the birth sex when they have no idea if that is true?

Why does a Christian tell them their gender is not what you know you are but what they think your are?

So why does a Christian decide what God thinks? Why does Christian get to tell you what your fate is in God's eyes? Why does a Christian get to decide anything for you in the name of God?

Doesn't God what transpeople to be happy too? Is that between you and your God? Not them and their God?

Stereotype

If a transwoman before and during her transition isn't interested in makeup, dressing up and shopping, meaning presenting as a stereotypical woman and all things expected of woman, can she still be approved for sex reassignment surgery to be what she's wanted all her life, a complete and whole woman?

And even if she is reasonably to easily passable (that age old criteria) and she has no interest for the things woman are expected to be, can she still be called female and a woman? If women have butch dykes, adult tomboys, and even transitioning transmen who keep their vagina, why can't she just be herself too?

Why do transwomen have to be the imagination of women in the minds of medical professionals than the reality of them? It's her life isn't it? Why do therapist and physician get to decide if she's "woman enough", to be approved for surgery despite the diagnosis and treatment?

If she knows what is expected of women when it matters and in public, who cares who she is in private? If she passes as a woman, is accepted as a woman and is legally female, who cares?

The answer is obvious but tell that to the medical community.

When

When all the imagination and hope won't change what you see in the mirror to who you know you are and know what you want to be. The reality of your reflection won't make the pain and hate go away. The truth of your body won't heal the deep mental and emotional wounds.

Nothing changes what you see in your eyes, only in your mind and in your heart, to know what isn't there isn't seen. The obvious isn't and the hidden isn't either. It depends on that very imagination and hope. It's all you have.

Do Not Argue with Them

One rule I keep in mind on trans issues. Do not argue with anyone in the transcommunity about trans issues, especially activists, advocates, and those who like to express their opinion or argue with anyone on the issues. You won't win.

This is why I have this blog on trans issues, because I can say what I think or feel and then decide if any of the comments, which I rarely get anyway, are fit to keep. I can simply choose not to allow the post or delete the post completely (eBlogger has a delete and remove choices).

The reason I stopped arguing is that I tend to look at the larger picture of the trans community in the world, relative to where it fits in the larger discussion. A case in point is the case of the inmate in the Massachusetts prison on a life sentence being granted sex reassignment surgery at state expense.

I, as well as many in and out of the trans community, disagree with the judge's ruling, even though the inmate qualifies under the standards of care for the surgery, because he brutally killed his wife and the surgery is not life-threatening, one of the standards for healthcare for inmates.

But the louder voices are arguing the principle of the issue, the person qualifies and therefore should get the surgery, even though few of the rest of the transwomen who do qualify for the surgery get theirs paid by health insurance, employer or other public or taxpayer programs.

They argue that isn't the issue when it is the larger issue, about appropriate use of taxpayers' money for prisoners, especially those serving life sentences. The point being, no one budges on the their view, so discussion and debate are irrelevant. Intransigence is.

Another case is the always present issue of public bathrooms. Granted almost everyone agrees transwomen should have the right to use the women's restroom in public places and other public-use places (malls, stores, restaurants, etc.). And they fight when a transwomen is denied, rejected and especially arrested for trying.

Even when cross-dressers use them and the obvious or questionable passing transwoman (case in point) uses the women's restroom and unpleasant events happens, and the inevitable lawsuits follow. While the anti-use extremist argue wrongly about "men in dresses" being the dangers (they're not, people just want to do their business and leave), sometimes transwomen don't help make the case for the right.

But you can't argue that with activists and advocates. They believe it's a transwoman's right even if they're cross-dressers presenting as women or she's not overtly passable and raises questions if not concerns from women using the restroom. They believe other people, other women, have to understand and accept.

For me, it's the really big, fuzzy gray area. I'm not in full agreement about cross-dressers being allowed to choose the restroom unless it's pre-arranged to ensure they don't cause problems, and rarely does, only when it's obvious and not planned and agreed.

I say this because in- or post-transition women have enough issues and don't need to be confused with the other groups under the transgender umbrella or confused by the perception of people about who they are, meaning not often seen as women but as transvestites or cross-dressers.

I believe transwomen have rights when and where it's legal, but that alone doesn't remove the likelihood of problem where there are plenty of in-transition and some post-transition women who don't readily pass and only add to the problem with the issue.

Anyway, my point is arguing with trans activists or advocates is like sitting in a room full of people talking and no one listening let alone hearing anyone else. No one wins and the best choice is to get up and leave, and then live your own life as you see it.

I won't argue the positive things achieved by trans activists and advocates, but I will argue all too often they take and talk about themselves too seriously and too important, thinking they're a "voice" for transpeople. They're not.

This becomes worse when other transgender activists and advocates, the rest under the transgender umbrella, love to argue for inclusion and argue for the rights of all transgender people, using their own definitions and views for others who didn't choose them and don't want to belong to their view.

It's why the vast majority of transwomen disappear into society once they transition, for the same reasons I don't get involved, to put distance between themselve, their past and the trans community. Back of the napkin estimates put 80-90% of post-transition women don't recognize or aren't involved with the transcommunity.

It's the same with transitioning women. Their goal is to get through their transition and on with their life. Their focus is their life and career, to become legally female with the least number and severity of problems, so being active in the transcommunity and vocal on the issues isn't on their priority list.

They don't want the problems as most are publically quiet or stealth as possible and don't want to go back under the umbrella. Who does? And have to listen to the crowd under it? To be ignored? To be told who or what you are?

Yeah, it's the obvious answer. And me? I'll just keep my voice here thank you.

Why

Why is it that the (trans)woman knows who she is and wants to be, but the therapist has to learn, and the therapist is the one who gets to decide who she is and wants to be?

Why is that a normal person who knows she's normal except for a issues about her body, but the therapist gets to decide she has abnormal condition and gets to decide what treatment is best for the patient?

Why is it that past their transition, 99+% of (trans)women are happy with themselves, but the therapist is the one who decides if she gets there?

Why is that genetic men and women can have any type of surgery on their genitals without therapy to question their decision, but someone who wants surgery to change the sex of their genitals can't without  therapy which questions and then decides if their decision is right?

Why is the therapist the one who gets to decide the life of a normal woman to get surgery for fix an abnormal physical condition?

Why is the necessary therapy with a transition really an excercise in morality about sex and gender than real, medical help to resolve the (trans)woman's problem with her body?

Why is the control of a transition by therapists an excercise in morality than a treatment to help?

Why does a therapist get to decide if the (trans)woman is woman enough?

If they require this for (trans)women, why don't they require is for genetic women to prove they're really women enough?

Simple Truth

The simple truth is that transwomen aren't "born into the wrong body", as many life stories are told or explanation are given. They simply want to have been born female. They want to have been born a girl, grow up a girl, socialized as a girl and live their life as a woman.

They want to have the complete life experience of girls and women. All inside the body and mind they already have. It's why their body isn't wrong, their genes are. All they want to change is the effects of the mistaken genes. It's a simple physical problem, readily solved with surgery. That's the simple truth.

Please Explain

Can someone explain to me something I've never understood about transitions? Really, not the process, not the medical issues, and not even the surgery, but something more simple, even common sense. Yeah, the obvious thing.

The first thing a person notices about someone else to identify and characterize them into an identity is the person's face. This is done in the first 5-10 seconds and it's almost permanent in the person's mind, meaning once they see it, they'll remember it and their labels for them.

The second is the voice if they're speaking, but otherwise, other clues come into play, such as the person's behavior, mannerisms, presentation, body, etc., in other words, all the rests of them. But the face is always the first and most persistent clue.

So with that in mind, why do some transwomen go through their transition, some even getting the Sex Reassignment Surgery (SRS) to meet the legal requirements to get the legal change of the sex marker on their documents, and not get facial surgery?

Why do they go through the process, even learning makeup techniques and all, and still not see their face isn't female or even seen as female by others? Some are good at makeup to hide a lot, even the initial impression of being seen as female, but not enough to hide it after a second look.

So why do they not see their face isn't helping the perception, the impression and the acceptance of them as women when their face doesn't match the rest of them? Even an androgynous face would be better than a transwoman's masculine face.

I ask this because I saw a story about a teacher starting the year after the summer to prepare for her transiton and live as a woman. She was starting the year presenting as female, and had the hair style, the clothes, the whole suite of behavior and mannerisms and a reasonable voice, but the face, even with makeup, is a man's face.

I've read life stories of tranwomen who say they have it all right and still have problems in public, from just second looks to harrassment, until you see a picture of them and it's all clear. It's why the transcommunity calls it passing, which starts with the face.

People will accommodate the rest around the face because it can always reassure them the person is still a woman by her face, and it shows the person is serious enough to want to look female. I know why they don't get cosmetic facial surgery. Money.

In many countries SRS is paid by the government or private health insurance. It's free if you go through the hoops, which people have to anyway to transition, but cosmetic facial surgery is never free, and always costs between $10-40,000 or more, but often around $20,000, something not easily affordable.

Many young transwomen don't need cosmetic facial surgery because youth and hormones works wonders, but even some opt for the surgery to be more feminine looking and easily identifiable as women for themselves and to others.

But the majority of older transwomen, especially over 50, don't get the cosmetic facial surgery. Many lived as cross-dressers for years if not decades learning makeup and think passing as a woman is the same as passing as a cross-dresser.

How wrong they are, when they discover living fulltime as women isn't the same as occasional cross-dressing where people see you as the proverbial "men in dresses" and not women. Then they wonder why the public doesn't understand, when it's them who doesn't understand.

And it's why I don't understand. It should be the first thing they consider in a transition for themselves and in public. It's not rocket science, it's simple public acceptance. Face and all.

Transition Without HRT

As anyone who transitions knows under the Standards of Care (SOC), Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) is both prescribed and a necessity to change the body, adding a form of an anti-androgen and an estrogen catagory drugs which counters the testosterone production and increases estrogen production in the body.

In effect, depending on which drugs and the dosage along with your genetics, age, body, and other factors, the drugs will change the male characteristics to more female ones such as breasts, fat distribution, body hair, etc., and it will cause either weight gain, most often result, or weight loss, less often result, along with changes in their thoughts and emotions.

There are no consistent results with HRT, which means it's the old adage, "your mileage may vary." And for a few people in transition, their body simply can't tolerate more than low dosages of either, if at all, meaning there are some who can't take HRT, especially the estrogen side which creates the female changes.

This forces those with this problem to transition without HRT, meaning few and little, if any, changes in the body and mind, and relying on their given physical and mental characteristics to get through their transition to surgery.

And then they don't know what happens after surgery since their body isn't producing the minimum male hormones their body needs to function physically and mentally. If they're young, then they have a lifetime of potential problems, and if they're older, especially old, they it's the old adage, "Good luck."

So, to all those in transition and taking HRT, especially high dosages, be thankful your body and mind not only tolerates it but works with it. And give grace to those who can't. They'd love to be like you but can't, so remember how lucky you are.

It Is Simple & Both

To genetic women, or "cis-females" according to some in the feminist and transgender communities - a word I hate, who don't understand why male-to-female transpeople want to undergo vaginoplasty to transform their male gentalia to female, ie. having a vagina, it is very simple.

It is both ridding themself of the physical male identity which society defines them by their sex, excluding genes which we know now is not an fair indicator of gender (different than sex), and getting what every woman was born with and experiences everyday.

It is the freedom to be complete and whole, even if the vagina was not a gift of birth but of medical science. It is the freedom to have the experience free of the former body sex for the rest of their lives, just like every woman already knows and feels.

It is the freedom to wear clothes, from the most intimate to the most fashionable, without having to hide something you hate and fear the discovery would give the opportunity for people to not just hate you but to attack and even kill you.

If  you don't understand this idea, consider the question Jennifer Boylan asked Oprah when she didn't undestand, a question which can be asked of any woman who doesn't understand why, "What would you do if you woke up tomorrow with a penis and testicles?"

Yeah, see, it's very simple isn't it?

Why

Why do medical professionals have no problems or personal issues to determine the sex of and perform surgery on intersexed patients, especially when they're a child and later when they're an adult and want surgery, but have a mental health requirement for non-intersexed patients?

Why do they feel the need to intercede in the live of an intersexed person but interfer with the life of a non-intersexed person? Aren't both the same moral issues than a medical issue? Who and what gives them the right to decide for someone but against someone else?

Why does it matter that the person is intersexed? Won't they decide their sex and gender later in life when surgery isn't so life-threatening to them and it's what they want than what was decided for them?

Why does it matter that a person has known most if not all of their life they have a physical condition that their sex doesn't match their gender? Why can't they get surgery like an intersexed person?

Why can't the medical establishment let a person decide for themself and let the health insurance cover both and not just one (intersexed since it's called a birth defect)?

Why? Or do we already know the answer about white men (doctors) wanting to decide for everyone else who and what they are?

Why

Why is Gender Identity Disphoria (GID) the only mental condition mental health professionals can't prove because it's totally based on the trust of the patient to be truthful and honest about themselves, meaning their history, their experience and their view and belief of themselves as a gender different than their birth sex?

With all the advances in neurobiology of the brain and in genetics, they're discovering physical and genetic sources for the potential for GID in people, but it's not absolute and it's conclusive the individual has GID, only a possibility.

But all the research is on dead people so they can't test live people to confirm if they say they have GID, and even if there were medical tests, it still can't prove an person's innate thoughts and feelings about their gender. It's still in the mind of the person.

And all the mental health professionals can do is believe the presentation, behavior and expressions of the individual, but they will always use stereotypical criteria for the determination of GID, very few will allow deviation from the gender norms for their patients to diagnose them with GID.

It's why the whole GID catetory in the DSM-IVR, while better in the DSM-V, will still be nonscientific diagnosis and entirely based on the patient's ability to convince their therapist of themself to have GID and get the prescribed drugs and surgery for the legal changes in their gender.

In the end, what few mental health professionals understands is that it's the patient who wants to be complete and whole. The person will settle for whole since none of them can have the reproductive system of the other sex, they can have some semblences of the body and the life.

And that's what it's about. Nothing else. It's not a mental disease, illnes or even a condition, which is why it can't be proven through psychological or psychiatric tests, which are more about social acceptance than personal acceptance, since their greatest worry for the patient isn't them but society.

They disguise the Real Life Experience (RLE) not for the patient, because they already know who they are and how they want to live as a person, but for the rest of the world to see the patient as they are and want to live in society.

Some call it a reality check, which has some merit because it's the reaction of society to the person, but it's more trying to convince the patient they don't have GID. It's a reverse test, if you survive, you win, if you don't, the professionals win, and the patients loses when the professionals say, "See I told you this would happen."

But through it all the patient is still the same, always wanting to be the person they weren't born. And all the DSM's in history and all the mental health professionals can't change that, the person, something very few of them understand.

And that's why the mental health professional don't want to remove it from the DSM, to lose control over the criteria for gender. Give people freedom to be the gender they are, give them the medical help they need, and give them the mental help to succeed, and you'll be surprised to discover we're all just people, normal like everyone else.

We just want to be happy with ourself. Is that so hard to understand?

Who cares

I have a question. If a male-born person wants to be a woman but still live pretty much androgynously or even in more boy clothes, who cares? Why do medical professionals care how the person lives after they have sex reassignment surgery?

If the woman goes accepts the risks of the surgery, pays the costs for the transition, including therapy, drugs, medical tests ad naseum, and the surgery itself, why should medical professionals, from therapists to physicians, really care how the person lives before or after for the rest of their life?

Right now, to get the letter for surgery you have to go through the mental tests, the physical tests, the period on hormone replacement therapy, and the Real Life Experience, living fulltime as a "woman" for up to a year, longer by some therapist's standards but not the protocols. But what does that prove?

If you pass, it proves nothing since you pass and no one cares. The problems you'll have will all be legal, with only a handful of social ones if other people discover or are told of your history. But you won't get humiliated or embarrassed very often.

If you don't pass, it also proves nothing except you'll be walking around with a "kick me I don't pass" sign on you for anyone to verbally tease, joke about, humiliate, hate, and so on down to threats. But the truth is that it won't matter if you have a vagina or not because no one will see it.

And that's the point. It doesn't matter if you have the surgery first or last, it doesn't change the outside, your public presentation or public behavior. It will change the inside since you'll have what you've always felt was right, a vagina.

But the medical profession hold the surgery out for reasons they've never proven has scientific merit, just their personal views of social standards. That's because the RLE requires you dress, behave and act, voice optionally, like a stereotype woman.

Really? Yes, really. Who's definition and description of a woman? The truth is no one knows and no one cares as long as you wear the clothes, which is what the RLE is really about, public presentation, meaning dressing and acting "womanly", and little else.

So why does it matter if a transwomen dresses very androgynously or even male like? If they would get in trouble using women's bathrooms, then this affords them some measure to use the men's bathroom without the public outcry, just some weird looks or bad jokes at most.

And there are many butch-dykes who aren't very feminine looking, some even only female by the obviousness of their body, face and voice. But no one asks them or worries if they're really female with a vagina.

So, if the RLE hasn't been scientifically proven to be a good or reliable test - and it hasn't been studied let alone proven, and it's known that once past the point she gets the letters for surgery and then the surgery, no one cares about her public presentation anymore, who cares before?

In the end the standards for the letters isn't based on scientific reasons, it's based on social and moral values, something even many women don't meet. So why should a transwoman if she doesn't want to be so overtly feminine?

The Question

The often asked question of transwomen is one of several but really all are the same, "Do you have a vagina?", meaning to ask if you have had the surgery or when, or not, did you have the surgery. Either way, it's the most personal, and stupidest, question you can ask of any transwomen.

And if you notice the guys don't ask transmen the similar question, "Do you have a penis?", because of course that would be rude to ask any man about their penis, to many, and almost all gay men, their most prized possession. In reality very few transmen have a penis beyond and enlarged clitorius because the surgery is very invasive, very extensive and very expensive (over $50K).

And it's not a guarranteed solution. But that's not the point here. Only transwomen get the question asked by men, women rarely ask it. Within the transcommunity, however, it's the thing, and often cited as the final step in a transition that separates post-transition women from in-transition women.

It's often the defining difference of a woman, and often used by others as the indicator, of your seriousness to be a "real" woman since all women have and want a vagina (never mind transmen have them). It's a whole separate argument about sex and gender.

Anyway, that's also not the point here. Which is? Well, to post-op (trans)women, next time a man asks you about "the surgery", ask him, "So, when do you plan to have the surgery removing your brain from your dick?"

Yeah, if they get the point.