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Transsexuality

It's 2009 and we're an advanced society, yet transsexuals are a group of people who still face disproportionate discrimination and everyday hassle for who they are. Ignorance and a lack of understanding are partially responsible for a lot of hate crime.

This section of the website aims to dispel some myths and promote understanding about what it means to be transsexual.

Introduction

It's 2005 and we're an advanced society, yet transsexuals are a group of people who still face disproportionate discrimination and everyday hassle for who they are. Ignorance and a lack of understanding are partially responsible for a lot of hate crime.

This section of the CUSU LBGT site aims to dispel some myths and promote understanding about what it means to be transsexual.

Only a few decades ago, homosexuality was illegal and thought to be a mental illness. Things have since moved on a long way for 'LBG' people – but the 'T' situation is still extremely difficult. Transsexuals have recently been recognised by UK law, under the 2004 Gender Recognition Act – but in everyday life, it's not something most people know much about, nor really understand. Cambridge University is a fairly tolerant place, but discrimination, from the serious down to the petty, exists everywhere - no matter how 'forward thinking' a society or institution may be. Knowledge and understanding are vital to promote tolerance and hence the purpose of this site in making just some information more easily available to us all.

To be transsexual means to identify with the gender of the opposite sex. Whilst a person is born with 'male' chromosomes (XY) or 'female' chromosomes (XX), a transsexual person born physically female (XX) will identify as male – emotionally, psychologically and in a social sense. Vice versa for those born physically male. In the third section some of the recently discovered biology behind this will be explained.

Before continuing, one point about vocabulary: the words 'transsexual' and 'transgendered' are sometimes used interchangeably. On this site when the word 'transsexual' is used it is to mean someone who identifies as the opposite sex and desires to undergo, or has undergone, a partial or full transition to become physically the opposite sex. This can be done through lengthy hormone treatment, and surgery. 'Gender dysphoric' is the term used in the law for someone who identifies as the opposite sex.

Gender is not black and white

The slogan 'Gender is not black and white' is intended to start moving away from the idea that there are two types of person: the physically male and the physically female. The fact that transsexuals exist, people who identify so strongly with the 'opposite sex', is evidence that gender identity is based upon much more than just our genitalia. Some people argue that it is entirely a social construct, but the developing scientific knowledge has something to suggest that it is at least partially to do with our brains.

There are also more ways to be born than XX and XY. Some people are born XXY, or XYY, or XO. Last year Channel 4 screened a documentary, 'Secret Intersex', which showed the early lives of two sisters with AIS – Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome. Outwardly they both appeared what we would deem 'female' – inwardly, each had a womb but also testes. Fortunate to have extremely open minded parents they had been brought up to think of themselves as not male, or female, but as 'intersex'.

Gender is not a black and white construct.

There are more ways to be female than to have female genitalia.

It is possible to be physically 'somewhere inbetween' the two sexes but identify more with one than the other.

It is possible to have a body and a gender identity that do not match each other.

This last type of case is the focus of this section, but there is a wealth of information available both online and offline for anybody interested in finding out more about intersex conditions.

Not a choice

It's not a choice to be transsexual: it is thought to arise from the brain structure determined at the foetal stage of development, which is influenced by hormone development.

Parts of the brains of transsexual people have been found to have more in common with their identified sex than with the sex they have been born into. The central region of the bed nucleus of the stria terininalis, (BSTc) is normally larger in a man than in a woman. In a transsexual male, therefore, the size of the BSTc tends to correspond to the size of a biological female's BSTc. Regardless of their genetic sex and their genitalia, children born with a 'female brain' typically prefer female play and activities, and vice versa for children born with 'male brains'. These preferences extend into adult life, and are generally so strong that the person will seek to undergo hormone therapy and surgery.

This knowledge about the brain is consistent with the fact that many transsexuals say they have always known they were born into the wrong body. In cases where someone only 'comes out' as transsexual quite late on in life, it is typically as a result of repressing the identity for many, many years.

History

References to, and examples of what some may term 'gender-blending', can be found across our history and literature. Virginia Woolf's 'Orlando'; Hermaphroditus from Greek mythology; St. Joan of Arc, possibly. Transsexualism and other such exceptions to our apparent 'norm' existed long before we had a name for them, and long before any scientific knowledge became available.

Occasionally a child is born with what the medical profession terms 'ambiguous genitalia'. The history of this is sad, and although the situation is improving there are still some archaic practices continuing today. When children were born, who for some reason had extremely small penises or very large clitorises, the immediate reaction of the doctors was to operate as soon as possible and in effect 'turn the child into' a boy or girl. The stigma attached was so great, that in many cases the parents would bring the child up in whatever gender they had been 'turned into' and never tell them. In some cases, the genitalia imposed on the child corresponded with the child's actual gender identity. Others were not so lucky, and were brought up as one gender when they actually identified with the other, leading to huge psychological and emotional issues later in life.

As science progresses and so does our society things are improving slowly, particularly in law – see Gender Recognition Act 2004.

Discrimination

As the idea of the heterosexual male/female is so strongly ingrained in our society, it is obvious that any departure from the 'norm' attracts some attention and unfortunately often some negative attitudes. Undergoing hormone treatment with a view to eventual surgery is a long process and also a very public one, as transsexuals are required in the UK to live as their identified sex for a certain period of time before they can have surgery.

As it is relatively uncommon – there are an estimated 5000 transsexuals in the UK - there isn't a huge community out there to spread awareness and get stories into the public eye. Hopefully, time will balance this out, but as with any examples of discrimination anyone can make a small difference by offering accurate information about what it actually means to be transsexual and how it isn't a 'weird' or 'unnatural' occurrence.

Gender Recognition Act 2004

In 1996 it was made illegal to discriminate against transsexuals in the workplace; in 1999, gender reassignment surgery was made available on the NHS; and in 2000 in the European Court of Human rights it was established that transsexuals should be be afforded legal status in the sex that they lived in – this was effected in the UK last year, in the form of the Gender Recognition Act, July 2004

The act means that transsexual people can marry in their acquired gender, obtain a birth certificate recognising the acquired gender, and obtain benefits and a state pension just like anyone else of that gender.

To get this legal recognition, transsexual people have to apply to the Gender Recognition Panel and demonstrate that they have 'gender dysphoria', that they have lived for at least the last two years in their acquired gender, and that they intend to live in that gender until death. They must also be backed up by medical reports.

View the Gender Recognition Act in full

Promoting Understanding

Hopefully this section of the CUSU LBGT site has proved helpful. There is plenty more information available online, and for support and interest in Cambridge University feel free to contact a member of The Exec or join one of the Mailing Lists.

Further Information

More in-depth information:
www.gires.org.uk

Gender Recognition Act 2004:
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2004/20040007.htm

Gender Recognition Panel, which offers information and advice to those wishing to apply for gender recognition:
http://www.grp.gov.uk

Guardian newspaper article 'Boys will be girls', from 2003, about children with GID:
http://society.guardian.co.uk/health/story/0,7890,1022281,00.html

Channel 4 website, good overview and details of treatment processes – also good links to more sites:
http://www.channel4.com/health/microsites/0-9/4health/body/gen_transsexuals.html