Sex vs identity- and the controversy begins

[Ayla]

Veronica

I think we each seek that point at which we feel present, authentic and most comfortable. For me it is at a point of equilibrium which I have found between M and F. I needed hrt, the dysphoria was crippling. Low dose hrt shut down the dysphoria and provided me with an emotional richness that I had not known existed. I try to keep the hrt as low as I can to minimise physical changes, but they progress, albeit slowly. As I adjust and learn to express myself I am less concerned with slight or even increasing feminisation, and quite frankly, have taken a number of steps to appear more androgynous as befits my non binary identity.

Safe travels

Aisla

[Leena]

Dec 22, 2014 20:15:28 GMT 8 Ayla said:

I try to keep the hrt as low as I can to minimise physical change, but they progress, albeit slowly. As I adjust and learnn to express myself I am less concerned with slight or even increasing feminisation, and quite frankly, have taken a number of steps to appear androgynous as befits my non binary identity.

I don't think I have exactly the same type of dysphoria you, and others have, if I were to go on HRT, it would be because I wanted certain feminizing physical changes, though I don't want others, and you can't pick and choose. I also don't think I'd physically benefit that much from it, based on genetics. I also know that I naturally look rather androgynous, if I keep the weight way down, which is easier said than done, especially around the holidays. I'm not against others being on HRT, to be clear. I can't even say for sure I won't want it later down the line, but right now I don't think I need it.

[kristina]

they say there is two kind of TS, i feel im neither, i dont dress so im not a fetishist whos life is about dressing and feeling frisky and sexual, i just feel like a girl... i dont want to be seen as a crossdresser or transvestite, i dont understand it i find it rather scarey at times that they are under the trans umbrella , it feels like wolves and sheep under the same umbrella. but the bullshit religion of science knows best , i didnt like how i saw recently on one site attempted to throw mtf and pedophiles in the same light , or at least thats how it came across to me, that we have a location lost undefstanding that we dont know what we are supposed to desire and linked it to pedophiles shows me how much we are still discriminated against and all this comes from the minds of non trans people who think they know best, cant wait to see what hoops im gonna have to jump through at the Gender identity clinic, why do i feel that its gonna be full of misunderstanding people too...

[Ativan Prescribed]

There shouldn't be any hoops to jump through.
I see a psychologist at the University here, and we talk about the 'grey' area's of gender all the time.
My original psychologist was the President of WPATH at the time the 'new' SOC came out.
Which was written as the stepping stone of acceptance rather than as a 'bible' of gender variations and how the medical profession could easily accept it.
It in no way states that it is all black and white.
That there are terms and labels, is simply because they are demanded in order to talk about various aspects of gender, especially to those who are cis and have never questioned gender.
It was right around the time that the SOC came out that I started seeing my psychologist there and since he has moved on in location, I see a different one now.
There has never been a question of category that I or anyone else needs to fall into.
Much of the labels used are in fact used in overlapping ways, as a way of being descriptive of gender, the labels themselves are not absolutes.
The gender psychologist that I see is involved with the younger generations and we discuss not only my views of myself, but how they are in relationship to those younger than me.
I suppose she learns from me as I learn from her as well.
Labels are not used, except as a reference point or points most likely, in these discussions.

I also see a therapist who is the manager of a LGBT therapy center that is closer to me.
I see my psychologist monthly and my therapist weekly.
I've been seeing therapists and psychologists for pretty much six years now.
They are more important to me than the low dose HRT.
But the low dose, when I started Spiro, it kicked the noise of dysphoria out from under me.
It's pretty common for this to be for many people, but it isn't always the same, either.
It depends on the person as well as the level of dose.
I started using a low dose E patch soon after and it smooths out the rest of the dysphoria.
That's just my view of it. It isn't the same for everyone, again.
I see my therapist for things that I should have a therapist for, but one who understands gender, as most things seem to revolve around that and the other things that I see her for.
No labels, simply the same use of them at times to establish a reference point in discussions, a way to keep clarity to them, no more.
That is the downfall of labels, when they are used to classify people.
It's wrong to use them in anyway for this.
Nobody fits a label, and if they do, they won't fit other ones quite so much, because they are boxes and we don't don't live in neat little boxes that stack one inside of another.
We're people, not things.

Most everything that determines who we are as individuals can be viewed as you are at the center of many things.
You have threads that tie a lot of them together that is yours and yours alone.
The distance and the thickness of those threads is one way to visualize the differences between you and anyone else.
That determines the relevance they have for you.
And those relevance's can change at any time and they should, you aren't some static thing, you are evolving, you are always changing, even your environment can influence these at any given time.
It's all very flexible and it has to be.
You move through life, you don't stand still in it, never changing, as a thing could.
The views of many in the medical profession have moved past the intention of the SOC and if they keep up with things, they use it as a reference and nothing more.
If they treat it as the bible of care, they missed the point and you should move away from them, as they are stuck in their treatment plans.
There are upgrades that are in the works for the next version of the SOC and there always will be.
They could have included a number of them in the version now out, but the thinking was that it wouldn't have been as accepted as it was at the time.
There are so many people working on revisions and it is for the most part, a coordinated effort that dispenses this information to others.
If they aren't keeping up with it, and you disagree with any medical professional, you should move on to one who is familiar enough with you and the information that pertains to you.
Not always easy to do, but not impossible either.
The number of professionals out there is growing at a pretty fast rate, as well as new information that is changing and reforming the old information.
There is no such thing as only two kinds of TS.
There are varying differences that are particular to individuals.
Anyone who strongly believes that labels are definitive and unchanging are fools.
Gender is fluid in virtually every person and in every way.
For some, it may be so slight that it makes very little difference, while in others, it is always changing, always variable, always fluid.

You should be able to walk into any good gender clinic and have not only someone there who understands this, but everyone there should.
At the local center that I go to, a new therapist was let go simply because they couldn't understand this and held to the definitions of labels as absolutes.
The world doesn't work that way.
Gender most certainly doesn't, neither does anything related to it.
I said I see a therapist for various reasons, and that they all revolve around each of them it seems, gender is one of them, it's important, but not at the top of the list, at least not all the time.
It changes, especially as we work out just how it all relates and what that means for me, to me.
Very few things in life are linear, and that's what labels do, they place you one a line.
There is no line, there are various aspects that are there, and there are only lines that connect them to you in your individual way(s).

I wrote somewhere on this forum, that time isn't linear as well, that there is only now.
Now is the center and everything in the future and everything in the past is moving towards now and away from now at the same time.
Now can be seen as a singularity in time. (Mindfulness is based on this.)
Not as a place on a line between the past and the future.
If it was, then we would all experience the same things at the same time, which would be pretty useless as far as how we use time to determine where we are as individuals.
The very same thing is what gender and everything that relates to it, is.
Gender is a whole lot of things, connected in ways that are for you, that are different from everyone else.
Otherwise we would all be stuck in some gender quagmire that we become stagnant in.
We don't, we are always moving about in all of the things that concern it, and how we do that is by the threads that we are connected to them, the ones that are ours as individuals.

I kinda like to think of them as zip lines that we use several at the same time.
I like the perception of that, it caters to the way I think.
How we use them is how we are connected to them.
We each get our own to use, we don't have to wait in line for someones else.
Because we are individuals, not a labeled box inside of another labeled box.
Have fun and use a safety harness...
Ativan