We Got Mail!

We received several great responses to our Sex Versus Gender Post (Thanks!).
The first is from JoannaS:

" Hi Cyrsti I feel it's about personal choice and whether you are happy as you are. If your gender dysphoria is mitigated. Since you and I are gynephilic what would be gained? And yes people who aren't trans don't get it not sure that's going to change any time soon"


And from Mandy: "That's a tough one...getting the public to understand. And the ball appears to be rolling the wrong way right now. Not sure if the political mess will ever permit it to happen...

Just remember to vote in November..."

I agree!!!!!

And Connie:

I would say that a person's strong need (or even only a desire) to have a vagina can only be determined to be a good thing by the person herself. I agree that she must put much thought into how it may affect her current, as well as future, relationships - sexual or not. There is still much of sex that takes place between the ears (no, I'm not referring to the mouth), and it is impossible to completely separate gender from it. The scales of both sexual preference and gender identity fit together like a slide rule (if you're a nerd old enough to remember those), with an infinite number of combinations. As I said in my comment to your earlier post, sex (that which is only between my ears) would only be desirable for me now if I had had a vagina, and with another woman who desired me sexually with said vagina - as well as all of the rest of me.

 I don't need sex to live a meaningful life, however, and so I can reasonably expect that I will never have a sexual relation with anyone again. I'm not less of a woman because I have a penis, but I'm not a man just because I happen to have one; that's how I see myself. Only a very few others can see that, though. Furthermore, I wouldn't be more of a woman because I'd had my penis surgically altered into a vagina. Maybe a few others would understand me better if I did, but only because I would be moving myself along the binary scale with which they are more comfortable. This all goes toward what I've said many times before, that being the fact that we all have our own realities, and we draw conclusions of others based on that. It's funny, though, that our individual fantasies are derived from our individual realities. Now, that can be on a sliding scale, as well, but it can also be a slippery slope."

• I have always thought cis women as well as men have some sort of sexual curiosity towards transgender women and trans men. Plus cis women don't have the tendency to be paranoiac about their sexuality as cis men. Which indeed can make for strange bed fellows or women!

Sex Versus Gender-a Debate?

No, we all should know there is no debate. Put very simply sex is between the legs and gender is between the ears.

This post is part of a conversation Connie and I had concerning having a "brand new shiny vagina" at her age and what would she do with it? I gave her a partial pro/con answer using a woman in one of my support groups who is actually older than me who is going through (or has just) had SRS.

She considers it a life long culmination to a transgender struggle. Now and only now she can proudly claim "woman" hear me roar. (Sorry Helen Reddy.) In the same breath though she was telling me how her sister would kick her out of the house after SRS.

Of course only each of us can answer the separation of sex and gender we all experience and how far we are willing to go to achieve it.

For example, I live with a woman who would have no problems with me having a vagina because she has always seen me between the ears as a transgender woman. On the other hand, my deceased wife never would have.

Should the trans woman going through SRS only to join many of her transgender sisters on the street, do it and why?

And, where does sex enter back into it either way? Unless you had a hell of a sex drive as a man, estrogen/spiro does a pretty effective job of chemical castration. Plus as a woman, I can't see myself settling down any time soon with an elderly gentleman in the suburbs. Imagine being brought home to meet the the family on Thanksgiving? Either way, my idea of wild passionate sex is somewhere -lost in my dashboard lights (Sorry Meatloaf.)

Like almost everything else a trans person goes through in life, sex versus gender hassle is yet another which seemingly never goes away.

Now, if at least we could get a majority of the public to understand we are not just gay or playing dress up.

What's Next and Why?

Sometime ago at one of the transgender veteran support groups I go to, I found it interesting in the amount of push back I received when I mentioned my desire for a breast job. Specifically from one member who is 68 and going under the knife for a full blown sexual genitalia reassignment surgery. She could barely pee straight telling us all about it (and may not be able to afterwards.)

Good for her. I am glad she could achieve her life's goals and tell her detractors that once and for all she was a woman, including between the legs. I have said it many times though, there is so much more into "becoming a woman" than surgery. Somehow I don't think all the knives in the world can add or subtract the little extra which comes with being a "woman." It is my belief no matter your birth gender, you start the SRS process between and ears and finish between the legs.

Maybe I am wrong and when I see her next, she will be smiling ear to ear, still has a place to live, etc. (Yes, it still happens.)

In the mean time, I'm told by my partner Liz I can research having my breasts done if I prove I can go through the pain of a tattoo. The problem is what kind of a tattoo and where on my body. I keep telling her if I had the boob job first, then I would have extra space for the tattoo but so far she doesn't believe me.

So much for credibility, I might as well be a politician!