Dedicated to the acceptance, medical treatment, & legal protection of individuals in the process of correcting the misalignment of their anatomical sex, & supporting their transition into society.
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Springfield, VA, USA. HBS men and women come from all walks of life, all races, all nationalities and ethnic groups, all social strata, and all levels of intelligence and education.
Reflecting the mores of the society that produces them, HBS women and men can be conservative or liberal, altruistic or racist, religious or atheist, the most rational person on the earth or the most emotional.
Those born with HBS can be all of these or a combination of any of them. In that, they are no different that the world around them, no better or no worse. Knowing this, that some HBS men and women are uncomfortable with homosexuality should not surprise us, that some label crossdressing a social problem better left in the closet should startle no one.
The general misconception, if it can be called a misconception and not blind, blissful optimism, rises from the mistaken belief that all gays and lesbians, all bisexuals, transgenders, crossdressers, transvestites, gender queers, and HBS men and women share the same politics and cultural outlook, that every last mothers’ daughter and son of them is socially, politically, and religiously liberal. Politically Correct Liberal. Leaning towards socialist liberal, anti-capitalist liberal. Anti-war, anti-organized religion, anti-sexual binary, anti-patriarchy, anti-the powers-that-be and whatever you’ve got liberal.
Not so.
Not even close.
HBS men and women are no more a unified block than the rainbow is a single color. There are bigots among them just as there are perfect universe idealists and all the shades in between – just as the world around them. To pretend otherwise is naïve.
Two precepts of liberal political correctness with which HBS men and women sometimes disagree are the social acceptability of homosexuality and crossdressers/transvestites. (Transgender is a third area, one that is ardently argued in other forums). Let’s explore the reasons that some HBS men and women disagree with accepted liberal philosophies.
First, obviously, HBS women and men aren’t all liberal, socially or politically. Some are moderates, of course, but some are social conservatives who don’t see the need for change, who may even oppose change.
How can this be?
We are not created liberal or conservative, a lot depends upon the social and economic situation in which we were born and raised. Despite what you may have read or heard, being socially conservative is neither worse nor better than being a social radical or a progressive – it’s just different. You may not like it, but social conservatism is just as valid as liberal activism and the great democratic middle falls somewhere between the two.
That there is nothing wrong with homosexuality is still a relatively new concept. Boys in schoolyards around the world still use the local equivalents of queer and fag in disparaging boys who do not quite meet the local young male standards. Knowing this, why would it be a surprise that some of those born with HBS are uncomfortable with homosexuality?
HBS men and women understand themselves as male or female. By definition, they believe in the sexual binary, both physically and culturally (even if it is only in relation to the opposite sex). HBS sexual preference falls along the same spectrum as the general population: most of those born with HBS are heterosexual (post-op HBS women preferring males as sexual partners, post-op HBS men preferring females), some are bi-sexual, and some, ten percent or less, are homosexual (post—op HBS women preferring females, post-op HBS men preferring males).
And, just as in the society around them, some straight HBS men and women would prefer not to associate with homosexuals, would prefer that gays and lesbians be invisible in the day to day life of the straight world. Some of that uncomfort manifests itself in emotional tirades against gays and lesbians -- especially on those days when the straight HBS man or woman grows tired of being lumped in with the G, the L, and the B; when the media, religious organizations, election politics (or liberals in general) assume that HBS is just another word for gay or lesbian.
Still other HBS belong to mainline religious organizations that disagree with portions of what they term the liberal agenda. You can’t win a discussion with someone whose religious faith hinges on believing that homosexuality is an abomination in the eyes of their god – you can only suggest they read their scriptures better.
As long as religious freedom is protected by the United States Constitution, there will be those who will feel free to express their religious belief that homosexuality is a sin and gays and lesbians sinners. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your viewpoint) some HBS men and women are members of socially conservative religions, whether that be Jewish, Christian, or Muslim, or some other belief system that condemns homosexuality for reasons not founded on good science.
This is no different than the general population, except the straight world is not regularly assumed to be homosexual. One mistake in judgment often triggers another.
The prevalent HBS dislike for crossdressers and transvestites is more easily understood if just as intractable sometimes as being anti-gay. Before transition those born with HBS are men and women, after transition they are women and men. Normally it is only during transition do HBS men and women encounter discrimination aimed at those born with HBS, most of which is born in the public’s confusion of HBS with transgender and crossdressing.
For the HBS woman early in transition, having to prove that you aren’t a man in a dress – that you aren’t transgender, that you aren’t a crossdresser, that you aren’t a transvestite, that you have legal reason for being in the bathroom – constantly demands the HBS woman show her papers, her carry letter that says she is a pre-op HBS woman under medical treatment in transition.
The necessity to out oneself to prove they are HBS can turn to anger against crossdressers and anger to rage when an HBS woman sees cross-dressers publicly demanding to be treated as if they are female when they are in feminine attire and transgendered males, unhormoned and fully penised further confusing the public and the media by claiming to be transsexual. Transition rage can turn to hatred and post-op hatred to public contempt for crossdressers and transgendered.
Unlike the transgendered community, after HBS is treated — after hormones, after transition, after surgery — HBS ceases to be a medical condition. Proper treatment allows the formerly HBS men and women to lead lives in society, in most cases, without reference to their birth condition. The discrimination post-op, post transition HBS men and women face is the societal discrimination against men and women but that necessarily reconcile their feelings towards transgenders, crossdressers, and transvestites.
The rage and contempt is understandable but it doesn’t make it right.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Homosexuality is a normal birth variant in most all species, certainly within the primates. The human animal is no different. We are not exempt from evolution and our genetic heritage.
If someone is gay or lesbian, what business is it of anyone (certainly not the state)? If someone crossdresses, so be it (it’s their money and their weekends). If someone is transgendered, why should anyone want to refuse them that.
To deny the reality of our existence is a path that only leads to repression, destruction, and state fascism, whether that be driven from the Left or the Right on the political spectrum. The United States is a democratic republic whose constitution protects the least of us from any majority that might wish us harm.
On the other hand, don’t go telling an HBS woman or man that they are transgendered, no different from a crossdresser who has no intention of ever changing their body’s outward sex. That too is fascism and it makes HBS men and women very, very angry.
Ms. Lisa Jain Thompson is the Co-Founder & President of TS-Si, Inc. She also serves as a Contributing Editor and columnist for the TS-Si website. Ms. Thompson's signed articles contain her own opinions and do not necessarily convey an official position of TS-Si, its partners, or affiliates.
Lisa welcomes your comments. You can use the public form below or send private correspondence via her TS-Si Contact Page. We will not divulge any personal details or place you on a mailing list without your permission.
The Human Genome Project (HGP). The HGP identified all of the genes in the human genome and mapped their individual sequencing. Basic work began in 1990 and reached completion in 2005, sparking continuous refinements and new projects. Though the HGP is finished, data analyses will continue for many years.
A genome is all the DNA in an organism, including its genes and other materials. Genes carry information for making all the proteins required by all organisms. These proteins determine, among other things, how the organism looks, how well its body metabolizes food or fights infection, and to an extent even how it behaves.
DNA is made up of four similar chemicals (called bases and abbreviated A, T, C, and G) that are repeated millions or billions of times throughout a genome. The human genome, for example, has 3 billion pairs of bases. The particular order of As, Ts, Cs, and Gs is extremely important.
The order underlies all of life's diversity, even dictating whether an organism is human or another species such as yeast, rice, or fruit fly, all of which have their own genomes and are themselves the focus of genome projects. Because all organisms are related through similarities in DNA sequences, insights gained from nonhuman genomes often lead to new knowledge about human biology.
Video:An introduction to the ongoing Human Genome Project, courtesy of the US National Institutes of Health NIH) (18 May 2007). Time: 00:03:33. Creative Commons license: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs.
Ms. Lisa Jain Thompson
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