spamasaurousrex 2009-11-15 22:22:07

the word transsexual, unlike the word transgender, has a precise medical definition.[17] It was defined by Harry Benjamin in his seminal book "The Transsexual Phenomenon".[17] In particular he defined transsexuals on a scale called the "Benjamin Scale", which defines a few different levels of intensity of transsexualism; these are listed as "Transsexual (nonsurgical)", "True Transsexual (moderate intensity)", and "True Transsexual (high intensity)".[17] Many transsexuals believe that to be a true transsexual one needs to have a desire for surgery. [18] However, it is notable that Benjamin's moderate intensity "true transsexual" needs estrogen medication as a "substitute for or preliminary to operation."[17] There also exist people who have had sexual reassignment surgery (SRS) but do not meet the definition of a transsexual, such as Gregory Hemingway.[19][20], while other people do not desire SRS yet clearly meet Dr. Benjamin's definition of a "true transsexual".[21] Beyond Dr. Benjamin's work, which focused on Male to Female transsexuals, there are cases of Female to Male transsexuals for whom surgery is often considered to be not practical.[22]

Outside of the above medical definition there is a wide range of gender expressions which are contrary to the norm. Cross dressers, drag queens, transvestites, transvestic fetishist etc. It is notable that many transsexuals go through one of those self identifications before realizing that they are in fact transsexual.

Some transsexuals also take issue with the term because Charles "Virginia" Prince, the founder of the cross dressing organization Tri-Ess and coiner of the term "transgender",[23] did so because she wished to distinguish herself from transsexual people. In "Men Who Choose to Be Women," Prince wrote "I, at least, know the difference between sex and gender and have simply elected to change the latter and not the former".[24] There is a substantial academic literature on the difference between sex and gender, but in pragmatic English, this academic distinction is ignored and "gender" is used mostly to describe the categorical male/female difference while "sex" is used mostly to describe the physical act.[25]

There is political tension between the identities that fall under the "transgender umbrella." For example, transsexual men and women who can pay for medical treatments (or who have institutional coverage for their treatment) are likely to be concerned with medical privacy and establishing a durable legal status as men and women later in life. Extending insurance coverage for medical care is a coherent issue in the intersection of transsexuality and economic class. Most of these issues can appeal even to conservatives, if framed in terms of an unusual sort of "maintenance" of traditional notions of gender for rare people who feel the need for medical treatments. Some trans people might express this by saying "I don't challenge the gender binary, I just started out on the wrong side of it."[2

JamesKnox 2009-11-15 22:36:12

wut