The Psychological And Medical Views On Transsexuality Essay

Scholars have been critical of the medical establishment’s and state’s involvement in constructing and policing of transgender identity. These kinds of pressing issues have occupied the small existing literature. There is not much information and studying what is being done on transgender in traditional areas, family studies research, such as their dating behavior and formation of intimate relationships in adulthood. There is little research on the issues around being parents, their children’s experiences with having transgendered parents, as well as relationships in the family as a whole, and relationships in work and school.

In “Intro-How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality in the United States,” Joanne Meyerowitz writes about the beginnings of transsexuality. She beings the article by defining cross-gender identification, as “the sense of being the other sex, and the desire to live as the other sex” (Meyerowitz 432), while transsexuality, “being the quest to transform the bodily characteristics of sex via hormones and surgery” (Meyerowitz 432). According to Meyerowitz, transsexuality began in the early 20th century. Experiments on changing sex, began in europe on animals. Then in 1920, on humans. Joanne Meyerowitz writes that “the debate on the visibility and mutability of sex” began after Christine Jorgensen, an american who went to Denmark to get a sex change in 1950, became a media sensation in America. While professionals were figuring this out, people “who identified as transsexuals, transvestites, lesbians, and gay men” (Meyerowitz 433) were having the conversation and creating the language within themselves. This conversation on sex change, occurred alongside the sexual revolution in the 60’s, opening “the movement of the organizing of programs, clinics, conferences, and associations to promote study of and treatment for transsexuals” (Meyerowitz 434).

From the moment a child is born, the society in which they are born into begins to teach the child what is normal, and what is not. If the aforementioned child has a vagina, they will be labeled a girl and assumed to be heterosexual, and the same principle applies if the child has a penis. Yet the human world is not as simple as this established gender binary. For example, there are people who identify with a gender other than the sex assigned at birth.1 There are also people who are not sexually attracted strictly to the opposite gender, or at all. Such diversions from societal normality are more often than not greeted with opposition, as what is considered normal is also deemed right. The LGBT community has had to deal with fierce societal

In the documentary Middle Sexes: Redefining He and She, the prejudices towards transgender and intersex individuals, as well as the fear they experience because of these prejudices, are underlined. A transgender individual is one that identifies with a gender that is not associated with their biological sex. An intersexual individual, however, is one that is born with indefinite sexual anatomical characteristics, making it difficult to identify as a male or female (Croteau & Hoynes, 2013). In addition, this documentary emphasizes the impact of cultural expectations on sexual orientation and gender identification.

Between the Sexes is a compelling narrative. Through several anecdotes, it illustrates the devastating psychological implications of early surgical intervention on intersexuals. According to the article, the surgery robs individuals of their sexual gratification, their gender identity, and their innocence. It's argument is noble, yet flawed. Authors Christine Gorman and Wendy Cole spin several sad yarns of intersexed people who are upset with handling of their gender assignment. They tell horror stories of people kept in the dark about their intersex, about a child forced to stop acting like a boy and become a girl, a teen who was raised to be a girl, but developed into a male. Gorman and Cole stumble into the fallacy of hasty

Through examining the ways intersex individuals are treated in a medical setting, one can see how science only allows binary bodies to be created. Crawley et al. (2007) discusses intersex individuals and the standard treatment of intersex children, being to alter their ‘abnormal’ genitalia to resemble one of the two genders. This has become the normal treatment as if this is necessary, but the only threat the child is in danger of is not fitting perfectly into the heteronormative standard of correct genitalia. Because surgical intervention proves we alter and change one’s sex, it becomes difficult to claim that sex and gender are solely biological, when clearly one’s gender and sex becomes largely altered the moment they are born into society. Anne Fausto Sterling, outlines her concept of the five sexes, explaining that intersex is a term used to describe any individual that doesn’t fit into the narrow categories of male and female. She explains that the same process that was in play in the Middle Ages is

On June 26, 2015, same-sex marriage was legalized in every state across the United States by the Supreme Court. Before this time, support surged for the LGBT movement (also known as the Gay Rights movement). The T in the abbreviation LGBT stands for Transgender. A person who is transgender feels as if their gender is different than what was assigned to them at birth. A transsexual is a transgendered person who feels the need to undergo sex reassignment surgery or a person who already has underwent said surgery. The LGBT movement typically portrays transgenderism and transsexualism as normal expressions of human behavior and gender identity. However, according to most modern psychiatrists, it isn’t a normal expression of behavior. Still, people in the LGBT community have petitioned to get the American Psychiatric Association to declassify Transgenderism and Transsexualism as mental illnesses. They equate its definition as a mental illness to being political discrimination similar to whenever homosexuality was considered a mental illness by the APA. Both transgenderism and transsexualism should still be considered mental illnesses because they meet the general definition of a mental illness, are clinically similar to other mental illnesses, and have high levels of risks in several aspects.

Now, that is a lot of power. We often entrust a doctor’s judgement wholeheartedly because they just want the “best” for us, and in the cases of interesexed individuals, the physician simply wants to rid them of all the adjustment horrors that comes with such configuration, but seldom do they question the inadequacies of our role system, nor have they considered the possibility of such individuals developing into a perfectly happy and capable human beings without reassignment. Perhaps this is due to their inability to associate normalcy with anything outside of the binary. Inevitably, problems began to emerge from these reassignments. Some reassigned individuals felt aligned with their prescribed gender, but most did not. Some of these cases are extremely unfortunate, because their genitals had already been mutilated at birth. Such outcomes had prompted physicians to take more precaution when dealing with intersex babies. Sterling’s noble effort in assimilating intersex individuals through further categorization will help them find a classification system where there is a place that they can fall under, but it does not change the views of the masses, nor does it make it much easier for them to appreciate themselves as who they are, although it is a

379). The authors then explain that there is an ethical dilemma that cisgender individuals have an easier time accessing medical interventions compared to transgender patients and this is based on the immediate need of the patient (Bouman, et al., 2014, p. 380). Later, some arguments are brought up as to why two signatures are necessary for transgender interventions including: removal of healthy tissue, irreversibility of surgical procedures, limiting regret of sex reassignment surgeries, loss of fertility, and protecting clients from single practitioner errors (Bouman, et al., 2014, p. 380-382). Then there is a comparison made between the need for two professional referrals/signatures and the lack of consistency of two referrals. The authors conclude that two signatures/referrals should not be necessary for genital surgeries and that two signatures should be implemented only if the mental health professional is uncertain of diagnosing a client with gender dysphoria and needs a second

Within the first five hours of the birth of a baby, several things are recorded on a document that will determine their whole life. Their parentage, their place and time of birth, their citizenship, and their gender. Two boxes are available for gender: male, and female. So when 1 in 1,500 children is born and does not fit into these boxes, a decision must be made. What will they be assigned? The criteria for this decision that will determine the child’s entire upbringing and place in a patriarchal, binary society is based, mainly, on the clitoris. In the world of sex assignment, size matters– a child with a larger clitoris is more likely to be assigned male, and a child with a smaller clitoris is generally assigned female. This is a big decision to hinge on a tiny sex organ within hours of birth. Intersex Genital Reconstruction Surgery (IGRS) should be a choice, and not a necessity, which is why non consensual IGRS should be classified as genital mutilation; it violates basic human rights, forces assimilation to a rigid and incorrect

Hermaphrodite children should not have gender-assignment surgery as an infant but should rather have the choice to do so as an adult.

Transgender individuals feel that they are in the wrong body. This feeling can be described as Gender Dysphoria. In an early research study, Devor (2006) wrote how gender identity starts at the age of eighteen months and they can understand that they are part of a specific gender grouping. He also writes, how children defer between gender based on physical attributes, and not biological traits, but as they get older, they start to understand more (Devor, 1992). Gender reassignment surgery holds a lot of controversy, especially when it comes to children. In a research study Kennedy (2015) wrote that some communities are opposed to having transgender students use bathrooms where they feel more comfortable. In his research study, he stated how advocates of transgender students want transgender students to be allowed to use the restrooms that correspond with their gender identity. Some schools are not allowing students with sex changes to attend their schools anymore. In Kennedy’s research, he wrote some public schools are starting to put unisex personal bathrooms on their property so that everyone will feel comfortable. Putting unisex restrooms as an option, will limit bullying and ultimately make a more inclusive

One in every 2,000 babies born every year are neither male nor female, they are what is known as hermaphrodites. These children and their families are forced into a life of hardship and encounter many conflicts, which need to be addressed. Should the parents choose the assignment of the sex to a newborn child and subject them to a life of surgery and doctor visits? There are 100 to 200 pediatric surgical reassignments every year. Many of these children are subjected to doctor visits for the rest of their childhood. Worst of all, many of these children find themselves resembling or identifying with the gender opposite of that which their parents chose for them.

On the date of June 26, 2015, same-sex marriage was legalized in every state across the United States by the Supreme Court. Before this time, support surged for the LGBT movement (also known as the Gay Rights movement). The initial T in the abbreviation LGBT stands for Transgender. Transgenderism is the belief that a person is a different gender than they were assigned at birth, while transsexualism is whenever a person goes through the full transition of Sexual Reassignment Therapy and Hormone Replacement Therapy. The Gay Right’s movement typically portrays transgenderism and transsexualism as normal expressions in human behavior and gender identity. However, according to most modern psychiatrists, it isn’t a normal expression of behavior. Still, people in the LGBT community have petitioned to get the American Psychiatric Association to declassify Transgenderism and Transsexualism as mental illnesses. They equate its definition as a mental illness to being political discrimination similar to whenever homosexuality was considered a mental illness by the APA. Both transgenderism and transsexualism should still be considered mental illnesses because they meet the general definition of a mental illness, are clinically similar to other mental illnesses, and they have high levels of risks in several aspects.