h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Transsexualism in the 20th Century - A807662
Author: Zed, Please visit the Bookworms Club! @A745544!! (and I can't spell but am not stupid) - U185843

There's been several attempts to put an entry on this topic into PR, I hope this is better than the others. Be brutal if you need to be.

Z

Amazing coincidence!

Good article though, well done you.

That's what I thought...I'll grab a cup of tea and have a have a good read of yours.

That's what I thought...I'll grab a cup of tea and have a have a good read of yours.

Hi Zed,

Thanks for writing an entry on what many would think of as such a difficult topic. The Edited Guide will certainly be much better if an entry on this subject gets in . I like this entry a lot, and the comments that I have after reading it are -

1) Perhaps you could actually define what a transsexual is, as many people won't know the difference between a transsexual/transvestite. A quick, dictionary-style definition of what the word 'transsexual' actually means would help prevent many readers becoming confused.

2) Perhaps you could add a footnote explaining why you've used the word "Womyn" in the paragraph about the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival. A lot of the 'zines and websites that I read use the word 'wimmin/womyn' as an alternative too, but they often include some explaination as to why they've used this alternative spelling

Perhaps you could run the entry through a spell checker? Spelling isn't something to get massively hung-up about at this stage, as the Sub Editor will sort it, but you might to improve the spelling all the same.

I noticed a few places in the entry where it seemed like there was a word missing. Perhaps if you read slowly over the entry, you'll be able to spot them for yourself

Hi Zed,

Nice entry. Seems to me that you and Mark have approached a complex subject from two different angles. It might be a good idea if you both got together on a colloberative project. What do you think?

Reminds me of a story a Transexual friend told me once.

When God created the earth, he thought he would have a little joke. He created twelve different sexes, then told the world there were only two.

Regards

Stuart

Rocket Man. Thanks for you kind words, I have included a defination of transseuxality that is reworded from a recent edition of a Kumar and Clark, a textbook on clinical medicine, all I have really done is removed the jargon and reworded it enough to avoid copyright infringement. I've removed the use of the Womyn spelling of women, apart from in the title of Mitchegen Womyn's Music Festival and the direct quote from there rules. I have fun the artilce through a spell check again, though I had done that before it went into PR in the first place.

Stuart. Glad you liked the article. Having thought carefully about your sugestion of a colaboration I'm afriad I don't agree that it would be appropriate in this circumstance. Transseuxalism is in not in the most part connected with Cross Dressing, Transseuxal's certainly are offended if you suggest that they may being doing this for fetishist reasons and Cross Dressers are oftne happily married heterosexual men who wear womens clothes part time. I have added an entry to the artilce explaing this.

Thanks for both your comments and I hope you like the updated verison.

Z

Oh and the other thing I wanted to mention was that Cross Dressing is mainly practicsed by men who wear womens clothes, transsexuals are both male and female.

i wanted to make a comparison between TS and TV an CD.
All are different.
The TS arguement is far removed from the CD case.
It is chalk and cheese.
If Mina used to be the Muse of Bondage, ask how varied are D/S relationships.
CD and TS are not the same thing.

I have no objection to an article on Transsexualism , but after having read the article I feel it is not labeled correctly.
Anything say x in the 2oth century should deal with that subject
in the previous century and end with how it stood at the eve of the millenium. A better label would be transsexualism since the 1950's

Great entry, all in all -- just a few comments.

What is Quim? Also a GLBT magazine, I'd guess, but -- what is it?

I've also heard about doctors requiring people who want to change to live as a member of the opposite sex for a period of time, to get used to the idea and find out if they really can "make it".

You've said you've run it through a spell-checker again, but there are still mistakes there. How about trying a different spell-checker? If you've used Word, try your email program or another word processor. There might even be somewhere online that'll do it for you. There's *probably* somewhere online that'll do it for you.

i wouldn't worry overly much about the spelling. This has all the earmarks of an article that is going to be edited, and when it is assigned to an editor, they will catch any remaining spelling or grammar issues. Best of luck-shagbark.

Quim like on our backs is the lesbian equivlent of FHM, I've added another paragraph about the treatment routes and explaining the real life test, I'm at Uni now so I'll do another spell check when I get home. Is there anything else that should be included?

I don't know if it is relevant to mention it, but there is an awfull lot of cross-over in the transexual / transvestite website scene.

to see just how prevelent this is look at zyra's page http://www.zyra.org.uk/tranny.htm for a large number of links.

Wow, it looks like we will soon have an entry on transsexualism for the edited guide. Good work zed, your entry is certainly better than previous attempts. A few possible improvements:

The entry is a bit vague on what drives transsexuals, I think you should say something on possible causes (prenatal hormone imbalance etc) and talk about gender dysphoria and the problems it causes.

I too think it needs more about the difference between crossdressing and transsexualism. There is much confusion about this.

Add some more links, The Transsexual Phonominam (sp) is interesting, but rather out of date. Take a look at http://www3.mistral.co.uk/gentrust/ and some of the links it lists. This site has lots of detailed info and unlike many isn't just one person's theories and opinions.

"persuaded a surgeon to make her psychially a women" psychially???

Did the European Court ruling say the refusal to change birth certifcates was unlawful? I was of the impression it only said the refusal to allow TSs to get married was.

MP

First off, standard kudos for writing the entry. Packed full of info, and well-written, and I like the historical bent to the structure - showing how we as a race have changed.

If you'll permit me to nit-pick...

Footnote 1 and 2 shouldn't be footnotes: work them into the text instead.

> "...people who feel that they posses the wrong body have been able to use medicine to enable them to {in most cases} make their psychical bodies match their minds"

medicine and surgery, I think. Medicine is just pills and such, IIRC?

> "Despite his using incorrect pronouns throughout"

Incorrect? That's a point of argument (as you admit in 'current criticism'). I think you could drop this clause - it reads as an attack on a man who did much for transexuals merely because he used the same language as his contemporaries. That's not fair, IMO.

> "She also claimes that effeminate men should..."

Argued, not claimed. It's a moral position, not a factual one.

--

And from the threads...

> "Cross Dressing is mainly practicsed by men who wear womens clothes, transsexuals are both male and female."

Isn't the split like 90%/10% amongst transsexuals?

--

Good Stuff, anyway.
-Martin

Yeah, well, let's face it, these days it's pretty bloody difficult for a woman to dress up as a bloke and have anyone even notice...

Sorry- that was relevent to cross-dressing, not transexuals. Sorry for any confusion caused...

Wow thanks for all the kind words.

Mammuthus Primigenius, (hope that's spelt right):, the reason that I'm a bit vaugue on what drives transsexuals is because so is medicine science, I've read most of scientfic papers I can find on this and none of them have come anything near to a vaild hyptoheses. I've added a paragraph explaining this. As for the gender dysphoria statement many problems are caused but they are different for each indivdual I'm worried that this is just random whittering and personal experience not scientfic or factual which is the approach that I'm aiming for. Some individuals do not present at all for pscyhiarty until they have decieded that they are transsexuals, they may have had many successes in relationships and other areas of their lives, so it is difficult to measure it by scientfic measures. Though it's my instict to include everything that's suggested in PR, I think I'd like to leave this out, the article is fairly long anyway and any futher long sections would mess up the structure. As for the website that is included becuase the site contains the full text of Harry Benjamins classic text which I'm refering to. The site it's self also contains the full text of many articles that have been published in scientfic journals so it isn't just one persons opinions, I'll include a link to the site you mentioned because it's valuable. I've corrected the typo about psychically sorry my dyslexia strikes again. As for the recent case yes it did say that the birth certificate should be changed, I've had the full text of the ruling e mailed to me which I'll happily forward on if anyone's interested, but the important quote is "The decision in Goodwin & I v UK Government held that the
government's failure to alter the birth certificates of transsexual
people or to allow them to marry in their new gender role was a
breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. "

Lucinda et all. thanks for the nit picking, on hte issues of the spilt for transsexuals, at the present time about 60% of those presenting for treatment are male to female, however in the past this used to be a lot higher. I've removed the pronoun reference for Benjamim, I think at the moment it's certainly considered polite to refer to people as the gender that the wish to be refer to certainly in civil situations. Certainly if someone refused to use the correct pronoun (no appolgies for the word correct) persistantly then this could be counted as sexual harrassment.

KerrAvon, from personal experience I agree! people don't notice a women dressed as a man unless they're in a setting women and men dress significantly different for instance a women in a dinner jacket at a formal occasion.

That's all folks, for all the feedback,


Z

> "...I think at the moment it's certainly considered polite..."

Oh, I agree - but I suspect it was different in Benjamin's day, that's all.

Kerr - have you tried adding facial hair?