is dedicated to the acceptance, medical treatment, and legal protection of individuals correcting the misalignment of their brains and their anatomical sex, while supporting their transition into society.
Leave a comment.
TS-Si supports open access to publicly funded research.

TS-Si supports open
and immediate access to
publicly funded research
Patterns of Gender: Conflict and Confusion (1 of 3) Print E-mail
Opinion - Guest Columns
Evangelina Carters   
Monday, 25 August 2008 17:30
Patterns of Gender: Conflict and Confusion (1 of 3)
Somewhere, Planet Earth. The stories of cross gender behaviour can be traced back into the mists of time. Not only throughout Greek and Roman mythology but in the histories of every nation on earth, even the Roman Catholic Church. Vehemently against the concept, the Church is not free of cross gender episodes, such as the reign of Pope Joan. [N1-1] 
 
Pope Joan is recorded as Pope Johan VII and was only discovered when she went into labour on her way to the altar. [N1-1] She was then stoned to death by the Cardinals present and any record of her existence written out of papal history with some very creative book keeping by the very embarrassed clergymen.
 
Unfortunately for the Catholic Church, historians keep digging up records proving her existence.

Transsexuals Endure

TS-Si Opinion Columns
Fairfax, VA, USA. It was the best of times; it was the worst of times, the best of all possible worlds and the worse. It was politics as usual on Planet Earth. The President, an articulate speaker of prefabricated speeches, ...
Palenville, NY, USA. Apparently there actually is a transgender prime directive. It basically is "thou shall never ever ever mis-gender a transgender identified person. Let's examine exactly how this is applied in the re...
Fairfax, VA, USA. Meet me at the crossroads where psychology engages neuroscience and biology. Join me at the sharp edge where cultural anthropology and sociology confronts the higher maths and scientific methodology. There ...
Lancaster, PA, USA. Somebody needs to check Pennsylvania’s water supply. Perhaps it’s something those guys are drinking, or maybe smoking, that explains the faux pas outbreak spreading in the Keystone State. Either way, i...
Fairfax, VA, USA. It is always difficult when discussing humanity — Homo Sapiens as a species — to separate what is biologically driven from what is culturally imposed. There are genetic and hormonal differences between ...
Fairfax, VA, USA. Those of us who learned to pass as male, who learned to playact so we could meet however uneasily the expectations of our parents and grandparents, our priests and ministers, our friends and our culture, som...
Fairfax, VA, USA. I am not one of the most beautiful women in the world, but then who is? Forty years ago, when I was a sweet young thing, the only olive skinned women on the cultural radar were Sophia Loren and Raquel Welch...
So we can say that transsexuals have existed throughout time and are not new to our modern society. Many cultures around the world hold transsexuals up as divine and revered figures. Others ostracise them, ridicule them, or most often do both; often they are treated very badly by their communities. What is new to modern society is the apparent prevalence of transsexuals or those who lay claim to being transsexuals.
 
As a very young child it was the Greek and Roman mythology that I first came across while looking for answers to my own sex vs. body conflict. It was not until I read about Christine Jorgensen [N1-2] and I learned that something could be done about my very strong feelings that my body was wrong. In that regard I am like many others of my generation. Christine turned the light on for many of us and she certainly turned on the light for me.
 
This however is not in any way about me but rather about my observations made and conclusions I arrived at during a little more than two years that I spent counseling those who experienced conflict and confusion to varying degrees concerning their sex, their sexuality, and gender.
 
I am not now a particularly religious person in any way, my Mother was a lapsed Catholic for various reasons that are not relevant here, but at one time my own (non Catholic) faith led me to work with Samaritans [N1-3] for a time and as a result gained some knowledge of counseling techniques.
The large numbers of transvestites and transsexuals who called (or those who claimed to be transsexuals) caused me to work in that field, especially given my own feelings and personal experience in the field.

It also helped me sort out a few things for myself during a very difficult time in my life.
I will always be very grateful to that organisation.
 
Helping Others Sort It Out
 
At first I worked the support group call centre for transvestites and transsexuals not connected with Samaritans and later began one-on-one counseling for them. Over the course of a little more than two years I saw around two hundred members or clients and spoke with many hundreds more on the telephone. The vast majority who called our help lines were transvestites. Some just looking for company — some looking for “cures” — some distressed and confused about whether or not their transvestism meant they were homosexual.
 
Our strategy was to get them along to at least one group meeting and let the very normal and social atmosphere of the group meetings sort out a lot of their problems for us. Most of their stress is caused by the sheer isolation due to the fact they feel they cannot tell anyone. Back then transvestism did not enjoy the relative social acceptance of today; the internet had not been established along with the vast amount of information available to today’s internet savvy generations. So finding and meeting others who felt the same urges was often more than enough to calm their angst.
 
For those who came to me for one on one counseling I began to notice some similarities. I always made copious notes during and after consultations to keep track of where we had got to in our sessions and comparing replies to questions posed after exposure to the general group compared to the same question posed during our first encounters, I got different replies. As a compassionate counselor, the temptation is to write off the disparity with the conclusion that the calming influence of the group had encouraged a clearer understanding of themselves. That was a tempting conclusion but I wanted more evidence because I was suspicious that there was a pattern emerging.
 
As their exposure to the social atmosphere of the group increased, and an air of normality crept into many of the transvestite men’s lives, so for some their desire to expand the length of time cross dressed increased. In some ways it seemed to behave much like a narcotic drug. The more they had of the drug, the more they wanted and needed to obtain satisfaction. There were a few transsexual women within the group and I knew their narratives since I had talked at length with every one of them.
  • Some of those individuals, who had previously presented to me as transvestite, came to me later expressing a belief that they were beginning to believe they were transsexual. I had observed these men talking with the transsexual group members or those who claimed to be transsexual on many occasions.

    I resisted the temptation to simply dismiss their claims and instead explored their feelings with them over again and also their childhood memories, their medical history etc.
     
  • I then compared results with my earlier notes when the same topics were explored. In all such cases there were some glaring contradictions. Much of the newly claimed narrative was remarkably similar to those of the genuine transsexuals in the group. As a caring counsellor I became concerned for their welfare. It did not matter that they were lying to me, whether as a result of plain lying or delusion it didn’t matter.

    It did matter that they were either lying to themselves or deluding themselves.
What had happened was that much of the narrative of the transsexual women had been assigned to their own life as if it were their own. Or, (and I am being kind here) events in their life adapted to suite the needed story. It became easy to spot.
 
— Continued in Part 2 of this series, Patterns of Gender: Tales from the Support Centre (2 of 3).
Notes[N1-1] Pope Joan is the name of a female pope (La Papessa) whose alleged reign lasted less than three years in the 850s CE between the papacies of Leo IV and Benedict III. Joan is often alleged to have been Pope John (Johan) VII. The elaborated form of Pope Joan's story dates mainly from the 13th century chronicler Martin of Opava in his Chronicon Pontificum et Imperatum. The author was known to the Germans as Martin von Troppau (or Martinus Polonus — Martin the Pole.

Despite widespread discussion during the time of Joan/Johan, the Roman Catholic Church no longer recognizes Pope Joan. The story was universally known and accepted as truth well into the seventeenth century, but the Church has expended considerable energy in later centuries to disavow the story as a medieval legend. Both the now public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) and the The Oxford Dictionary of Popes acknowledge the story was widely believed for centuries, even among Catholic circles. However, the Oxford reference states there is … no contemporary evidence for a female pope at any of the dates suggested for her reign and that … the known facts of the respective periods make it impossible to fit [a female pope] in.

These and other critiques are based on official Vatican records and dismiss contemporary accounts of the period, such as the Liber pontificalis, a continuous record of the ninth century Popes. Some Catholic historians dispute the accuracy of Liber pontificalis, saying it reflects what was known at the time, and subject to correction by later scholarship.

[N1-2] Christine Jorgensen: Do You Remember? TS-Si News Service. (3 May 2006; update 25 August 2008).

[N1-3] Samaritans is a confidential emotional support service for anyone in the UK and Ireland. The 24-hour service is affiliated with Befrienders Worldwide.
 

Ms. Evangelina Carters.

Ms. Evangelina Carters was corrected in 1984. She has been happily married for over 12 years. All of Ms. Carters' signed articles contain her own personal opinions and do not necessarily convey an official position of TS-Si, its partners, or affiliates. You can see a complete listing of her work at TS-Si.org by following this link.

Evangelina welcomes your comments. You can use the public form below or send private correspondence via the TS-Si Contact Page. We will not divulge any personal details or place you on a mailing list without your permission.

TS-Si News ServiceThe TS-Si News Service is a collaborative effort by TS-Si.org editors, contributors, and corresponding institutions. The sources can include the cited individuals and organizations, as well as TS-Si.org staff contributions. Articles and news reports do not necessarily convey official positions of TS-Si, its partners, or affiliates. We welcome your comments. Use the form below to leave a public comment or send private correspondence via the TS-Si Contact Page. We will not divulge any personal details or place you on a mailing list without your permission.

Quote this article on your site

To create link towards this article on your website,
copy and paste the text below in your page.



Preview :

Patterns of Gender: Conflict and Confusion (1 of 3)
Monday, 25 August 2008

Comments (2)Add Comment
feedSubscribe to this comment's feed
min/maxShow/Hide comments
So very true
26 August 2008     
..., "Anybody who has been involved in support groups ca
27 August 2008     

Write comment
feedShow/Hide comment form

busy
< Prev   Next >
Last Updated on Tuesday, 10 February 2009 07:47