I disagree. Our cultural expectations of gendered are flawed, any who want to be the other gender are a victim of the flawed cultural view of sex, not a sex problem in and of itself. But then, I'm a big believer that people have the right to do things I disagree with. And I disagree with hormone therapy less than I disagree with plastic surgery, anyways.

You know, this opens up a can of worms that doesn't go in the main forum.

A male-to-female transexual has the brain chemistry and makeup of a female.

No, it's not just societal expectations.

Yes, but the body is still male or female, regardless of whether it's the wrong one.

And that matters how?

Because that's what their bodies are.

"The state of their bodies matters because it is the state of their bodies."

Want to try something a bit less circular?

I don't really see how else to say it.

Well, if you can't think of any actual reasons why the sex of the body is important, maybe you should concede the argument that it is?

I guess. I'm not even really sure what you're arguing about.

Why is the body the only thing that matters?

What's between your legs governs who you are?

While I've known people where that maybe true...

I'm not even sure physicality has as much of an impact as most people think. Attractiveness is highly subjective. And all things considered, I have to wonder if our bodies matter much at all aside from a vehicle for our consciousness.

Socially they can call themselves whatever they want. Freedom of speech and all that.

Male.
Female.

When you look at the noun for these there is no fuzzy area. If you have male reproductive organs - you are male.

The adjective can get a little fuzzy:

Following up on the word feminine is the related definition.

However,
The passive voice is used a lot here - "qualities or behaviors deemed by a culture or society, less frequently, culturally believed" ... ETC.

SO we can say that the person is not feminine, but we cannot say the person is not female.

In our culture we can call the person whatever they want to be called - thats part of what culture IS. The scientific world however has few requirements for the definition.

Im not against them doing whatever they want and being called what they want to be called - Just pointing out the facts that support Ou's side of the argument. Culturally speaking GJ is right, Scientifically speaking Ou is right.

It depends on what you talk about exactly. Genetically, the person is still a certain gender, no matter what the brain says or what parts of the body get altered. I think I remember somewhere that if your birth certificate reads you're a male, the courts will consider you male.

I'm not saying it's right, but it could be one point of argument. I honestly believe that if a guy would be happier as a girl or vice versa, he or she should be given the chance to be that way.

No, it says that you have male reproductive organs and have an XY chromosome set. What about XXs with penises? Or XXYs? But hey, I guess lumping everything into black-and-white is easier.

And of course, the idea that a dictionary definition is the "scientific idea" is laughably wrong.

And bringing up "well, they have a penis" in a transexual discussion is comparable to bringing it up in a discussion about homosexuals. "He's a woman," "But he has a vagina!"; "He's attracted to men," "But he has a penis!" Gynosexuality is linked to having male genitals just as being a man is linked to having male genitals. Some people have abnormal wiring that makes them different than the vast majority in this regard.

First off, you're the same sex no matter what, not gender. Gender is the social construct, sex is the biological chromosomal construct.

Secondly as I understood it, once you were done with reassignment surgery, in many states you will get a new birth certificate with your new gender.

Seems that I wasn't making a distinction between being males (biologically), and men (the social role), and GJ was.

The thing is, transexuals have incredibly high rates of suicide, being murdered, and STD-infection (the last because they often can find no work besides prostitution). This is because they're treated now like (or maybe even worse than) homosexuals were in the early XX century. And that is because they are misunderstood and hated for that. Going out of your way to point out that yes, the body's still mostly male or female... why? Yes, you may be correct, but it's not doing anything to help to point that out and it every time it's brought up it slows the erosion of the necessity of the connection between the physical body you were born with and what you actually are.

Warning - blunt post head.

3 people have basically repeated what I said to varying degrees of agreement, but appearantly it needs repeating again.

Biologically one gender and mentally another. Deciding what to call them is a social or cultural decision. I'm fine calling them what they think they are.

Hermaphroditics are off topic. This is specifically a conversation about transgender people. Your really terrible at staying on the topic - I would go on, but then I'd be digressing.

Your using the refutation of the dictionary as an argument? (Linked refutation since some people need help with long words- oh wait we can't use the dictionary in the argument well crap.) You know what, your right. What am I thinking using an encyclopedia or a dictionary to argue a point when there are far more reputable websites on the subject matter (we should take this argument to the /di/ board). Maybe its just an allergy to facts - since facts aren't something one is supposed to bring to an opionated senseless flamewar.

But why fucking bother making sure everyone's clear that yes, the genitals are a specific way? It just seems assholish.

Funny that you didn't even bother reading the first link you use. Hermaphrodites have both sets of genitals. It's entirely possible to be genetically male or female but physically the opposite sex (which is what I was talking about). Yes, so much so that even doctors can't tell.

Or maybe you didn't know it at all because apparently to you all knowledge ever needed to be known is contained in the dictionary?

Either way, it shows that yes, there is fuzzy area.

And you're terrible at not being a passive-aggressive asshole, apparently. Your point?

Apparently the point is slipping right past you (makes sense, since apparently if it's not in a dictionary, it's not important). If all of the important information (especially from a "scientific view") was contained in the dictionary definition, you know, the thing that's supposed to be a brief overview so people will know how the term is used in normal usage, why would people ever both spending money on college when they can just plunk down twenty bucks on a Websters?

Or maybe if you're going to say something is a certain way "scientifically speaking", you should have more to go on than a naïve reading of the dictionary?

To be clear, I am not saying that a person with a male body does not have a male body. I'm arguing against the repeated statements along that line, because they imply that it is an important thing to bring up. To reuse a previous analogy of mine, that's like trying to make sure it's clear to everyone in a discussion about homosexuals that even though gay men prefer men, they're male.

I don't know if this is being argued so much because the statements were already made and they don't want to retract them on an emotional level or if it's actually thought of as important to point out repeatedly. I'm hoping it's just the former.

On a side note, I find it amusing that the person in question that started this whole thing isn't even in a male body. The beard and lack of breasts should clue people into the fact that all of his secondary sex characteristics are male.

However, the question isn't over people who are intersexed or have genetic abnormalities. It's about people who are, undeniably, one physical sex, but desire to be the opposite gender socially and mentally.

Hermaphrodites are obviously a questionable subject. I don't think anyone's said that they don't have the right to choose which gender they want to live as.

I was brining them up to show that "male" and "female" are not pure, black and white definitions.

Is someone who has male genitals and XX chromosomes male or female? Is someone who has female genitals and a male brain male or female? I don't see why the physical makeup of the brain should have less to do with the question than, say, the genetic makeup, especially since sometimes the only phenotypical difference caused by the genetic abnormalities is sterility.

And again (not to mordy, but to everyone),

Trying to explain something to you is a waste of time.
Learn to do more than spout your opinions over and over again if you want to have a debate.

What kind of debate are you even trying to have? That the dictionary says anyone with male genitals is a male? It doesn't, according to the link you provided. Trying to enforce lexical precision? It can't be that, either, because you use "gender" for ever aspect: physical, mental, and societal.

So what are you trying to argue? Why is it so important that you to make it clear that "anyone with male reproductive organs is male"?

True story: A girl growing up never develops breasts, and so is given hormone therapy. As an adult she has a very small vagina and doesn't enjoy sex, but marries someone and they want children. After failed attempts, they go to a fertility clinic where they discover she is male, XY, and has internal testes. Is she male or female?

She would say female. She was raised female, and has a female identity. In Scotland, however, her marriage would be illegal for being same sex.

But hermaphrodites are not the point. Demener says they're the gender they physically are, and with most people that is pretty clear cut. Why the hell are we arguing about this?

GJ agrees, but says insisting on pointing that out is hostile to transsexuals. It should be up to individuals to define themselves. In this essay, someone smart articulates that better than GJ does. In summary of that, gays were considered transsexual because liking males is a female trait, regardless of their protests or actually being bisexual. The scientific community is historically bad about dealing with sex. Take, for example, the couple who brought this whole debate up.

GJ adds their brains are physically the other gender, so they don't fall in the clear cut cases anyways: anyone who is mentally gender disphoric is by definition like a hermaphrodite in they've got masculine or feminine neuron chemical receptors in their brain absorbing the masculine or feminine hormones that both bodies produce naturally, in different amounts. This is a physical difference fairly easy to detect: inject any subject with estrogen/progesterone or testosterone, 15 minutes later take a blood test and check whether the chemical has been altered by the subject's brain. Every human brain reacts with one set or the other.

Now, because I am a bastard who refuses to outright agree with anyone... Not everyone with a brain that absorbs the chemicals associated with the opposite gender is transsexual. True Story above has a brain that responds to testosterone, but is happy as female.

True. If they have the brain chemistry of a male and yet for whatever reason still identify as female and don't feel the need to change, then they're a woman regardless.

Um...I'm kinda-sorta a male-to-female transgirl. I feel like I should say something in this thread, but I really have no idea what I should say.

If anyone has anything they want to ask, I guess ask it and I'll do my best to answer?

Wow, first off, Veemon, I applaud you. That is not something most people would admit in a public forum.

Let's start with the basics as that is what this argument seems to be about at the moment, and we might be able to use this as a catalyst to move on. Do you consider yourself as male or female?

Female. No doubt whatsoever in me brain.

Because some people think that you're supposed to call FTMs women and MTFs men because it's "scientifically correct", well, it's not.

Scientific papers in Nature use the term "sex-inversed XY female" or "XY female" for transsexual women (and thus "sex-inversed XX male" or "XX male" for transsexual men).

...I think I prefer "XY female" and 'XX male" over mtf and ftm.

After all the t stands for 'turned' doesn't it? What turning is there? Isn't it all in the brain?

MTF is an acronym for "male to female", and FTM is the inverse (they're actually meant for those who's completed the transition, but I've seen them used for those who haven't yet). They're not the most idea terms here, but I used them because I've seen transsexuals use the terms themselves and because I thought they'd be familiar or at least understandable in context, and I couldn't think of any other ways to word it without getting all long and awkward.