Hi Lisa, I am finally taking up your invitation to comment on TS-Si.

You know we have a difference of opinion as to the utility of the blanket usage of the term “transgenderâ € as being inclusive of a class of people that has as its single common feature not having all their “sex markers” falling completely in natural conformity with the societal sex assignments of male or female.

I do appreciate your crediting the umbrella usage to Leslie Feinberg.

HBS people “do not conform to social norms for typical men and women” based on the sex assignment they are given at birth. To assert that we suffer little “political” oppression as the result of having HBS is totally contrary to the experience of many HBS people in the courts.in the United States. Treatment is inconsistent:

range for females (and vice versa for those female assigned at birth), and I will happily agree, Assert that those whose sex identity is not totally opposite-sexed (either bisexed or asexed, with alternate presentations or “fluidity” of identity) is not based on some intermediate BSTc neuronal density, and all I can say is that the issue hasn;t been studied but cannot be ruled out.

Post-op women who had HBS still have some sex markers that do not match up with a female assignment. (the situation even more perilous for post-op men, whose surgeries are less satisfactory int erems of appearance and functionality).

The initial imposition of a sex assignment on a child usually relies on a single marker, the appearance of the newborn’s external genitalia. This is an amazingly accurate predictor of the actual sex – with the large majority having all their little sex marker “ducks” in a row. Some, though, assigned to one sex at birth, don’t have all their markers goign one way. In many cases, this isn;t an issue as the individual feels appropriately sexed. (A CAIS female may well be assigned female and feel properly sexed, but she has testicles and a 23rd chromosome pair that is XY (male) – which doesn’t make her male.)

The correction of sex assignment shouldn’t have to wait on surgery, for those with HBS. This is particularly true for those who are deemed to be such poor surgery risks that none of the surgeons will operate.

To assert, as in your column, that the goals of those who use the blanket definition of “transgenderâ € only care about bathrooms, or workplace attire, is disingenuous. In New York, we have a pending human rights bill that would include the whole “umbrella” as well as bills addressing the protection of children in schools and in public care (homeless and orphaned youth, and youth in the juvenile justice system), I am drafting an insurance bill to address the anomalies in insurance coverage, primarily useful for people with HBS or already post-op. Once that bill is finished, I will be drafting a “sex assignment recognition act” (loosely modeled in the British law) , to address the correction of sex assignment to conform with sex identity. Knowing the flaws in the Brit law, I will try to avoid them (Those who are post-surgical should need only their surgical record for birth certificate correction, but those who are not post-surgical should have to jump through certain hoops – rather than the “panel” approach, the bill will model on the regulation proposed for the New York City Health Department in 2006).

Of course, being someone with HBS who does work with the other people who fit in the umbrella for political action, I am quite aware of those areas where the needs are not identical. Many “transgenderâ € activists see no reason to support gender-neutral marriage laws, a position I personally see as short-sighted while at the same time understanding that people who live in cardboard boxes on the piers and do sex work to feed themselves their next meal, whether they have HBS or not, are more concerned about where their next meal is coing from than whether they can get legally married.

I can see some HBS people not caring about marriage rights for same-sex people – and depending on the jurisdiction, some can have legal same-sex relationships already.

As usual, you write well, but I still think your aim is somewhat misguided. The problem isn’t with “transgender activists” including people with HBS in the umbrella after all, it’s with the people who oppose human rights and dignity for people with HBS as well as other people, based on their stereotype-base d prejudices, their twisted religious beliefs, or their fear of any people who are “different.”

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The problem with GERBIL as with much well intended legislation is that it has been subjected to misuse. The legislation as it was intended has merit. In my view your criticism of it is well founded but I don't think it fair to blame the legislators so much as those who seek to abuse it's loopholes. Those who identify as Transgendered have manipulated burocrats into issueing certificates to those who probably should not qualify. I am not sure how one can prevent actions like these without accusations of prejudice and inequality being put before the courts.

I also find it curious as to how one can correctly define the parameters of the RLT. Especially as it applies in GERBIL where it says "lived as a female" (the legislation actually says as "the preferred gender" but I will leave THAT issue for now) I mean if someone wears their hair long, wears make up and insists via threats of taking employers and purveyors of services to court that they are called "Penelope" when in reality they behave and look like the boxer "Frank Bruno" (no offense to dear Frank) In addition everyone and I mean everyone KNOWS that they really are Frank Bruno, are they really living as females? Patently they are not and to my mind are failing and have failed the "Real Life Test" Unless that is they succeed only by threatening to beat everyone up with the legal system. The whole thing it seems, has become totally potty to me.

For the genuine HBS born there should be a clear path to full recognition of their nuerological sex with all the legal protections and privilages assigned to those of their birth sex. They should neither demand nor expect any more nor any less. It seems to me that "Transgendered" want it both ways and are prepared to bully their way into getting it both ways. Well ok fine so far as it goes. However let them get what they demand but let them get it on the merit of their own arguments and do not use the merit held within the plight of others i.e.HBS women and men. The one has nothing whatever to do with the other.

Carolyn

I think Joan is way off the track with her comments; citing case law decided by flawed courts/judges is of no help and is proof that we should NOT be included under the Transgender umbrella nor should we be incorporated into the so-called GLB "community" whose strident demands for "same-sex marriage has a negative impact on those of us that have cured our HBS. I also feel that states that change BC's and various legal documents without corrective surgery are also hurting us. That said, I know many who fall under the Transgender definition and indeed some of them are good friends; but their goals are not necessaily mine.

Where to start?

I mean…WHERE to start.

How about here:

It really does not make sense to treat people whose surgery has been complete as a special case for all purposes … To make the claim that those who have HBS and seek surgery are not transgendered: and are completely different from those who are merely transgendered is at best the use of a definition of transgendered that is not consistent with the ordinary usage, and at worst, it is a distortion of fact.

So says Joann Prinzivalli. I don’t know this person. I do know that a brief search of the internet, if that data is to be believed, sets her up as yet another transgender-adv ocate-non-op with the GLBT construct stamped all over her. The rest of her posting(s) are just more of the same TG party line donkey dung.

When will it stop? Simply put, it won’t.

A part of me (an extremely small part of me I might add) has a bit of sympathy for someone like Joann Prinzivalli for she doesn’t know what she doesn't know. The transgender advocates live and experience within the framework of the transgender construct. They can no more empathize with an HBS woman or man than someone who is black and has been raised in the rural South can understand what it is like to be Caucasian and brought up in privileged affluence.

I was heartened to read that Diane Kearny actively opposed transgender legislation simply because it was transgender law. Good for you, Diane. A few years ago, I wrote every transgender advocacy lawyer I could find on the net and laid out the position of myself and others of whom I knew felt the same way: Make a distinct differentiation between the transgender construct and transsexualism (HBS) or not only will we not support anything on the transgender agenda, we will actively oppose it.

Predictably, I never heard a word from any of them.

HBS women and men discussing the inequities of the transgender construct amongst those of us who have no argument is a bit fruitless. I think it is way past time we take the so-called trans advocates to task on the misleading information they distribute on the net. At my blog, Enough Non-Sense, we have made a conscious decision to selectively challenge the trans advocates when they dish this misinformation. To try and reason with them on their sites is an exercise in futility. Many HBS women and men, particularly in the early stages of transition, are desperate to read any information on the issue. Predictably, due to the extreme volume of trans activist blogs advocating the GLBT construct, when they are flooded with this claptrap, they accept it as the only perspective.

I would like to hope that all of us agree that the homosexual movement has merit in its own right. And, as has been said on this site (and mine) before, the crossdressers and others who fall under the transgender umbrella probably have legitimate concerns/issues as well. But, whatever those issues are, except for those of which might affect every other single person the planet…they are NOT the issues of HBS women and men.

Many of us ... MANY of us ... are fed up to the brim with being included in the transgender movement as though we are somehow a part of it. Perhaps a few of us thought it would simply go away…or that it didn’t affect us…or wasn’t our concern. After years of watching the GLBT mature, however, I have come to realize that if HBS women and men don’t become much, much more aggressive, correct the pundits, correct the advocates, challenge the misinformation, our inaction will do nothing more than fuel our demise and absorption into a construct in which we do NOT belong.

I may not agree with the characterizatio ns about me (I'm *not* a non-op, I have health problems making me a poor surgery risk - find one of the surgeons willing to operate and I'll happily make the appointment tomorrow).

I do find the discussion interesting.

In the more common usage, many cissexual people will assume that "transgender" means someone with HBS. There are others whose assumptions range to the idea of mentally unstable men who drsss up as women to fool other men into having some sort of sex with them. And still others who think it means "freaks and deviants." (And given the overlaps among them, there are enough of them out there who think the very idea of a "man" wanting to be a "woman" is a mentally unstable deviant freak who only wants to fool men.)

Reading some of the dreck coming from the religious right wing, they're attacking people with HBS as much or more than they are attacking drag queens and crossdressers.

I still maintain that the real enemy out there is not other sexual minorities, and it isn't whether or not we're all fitting or not fitting into a broadly-defined umprella, but it is those people who want to deny reasonable accommodation to any of us.

But there is the issue, after all - there *are* some needs that really are in common and some needs that are not. Legitimate needs should be met.

It is sad that Diane is proud of having "fought" against the New York City Health Department regulations proposed in 2006, that were tabled in anticipation of Homeland Security considerations. There are some of us born in New York City who have not had surgery for reasons other than "not wanting it." By opposing the provision of an alternative for the correction of sex assignment, Diane weakens the idea that we have an innate sex identity opposite that assumed by the initial assignment, and reduces the nature of female for anyone erroneously assigned male at birth, to proof of completion of a surgical procedure, regardless of actual sex identity.

Of course, who would have SRS without having a sex identity opposite that assigned at birth? On the other hand, one can certainly have the correct identity without being able to have the surgery. If I were to err in the administration of the law in this regard, I would prefer to err in the benefit of the doubt than to exclude people like me. Of course, I have a personal stake in this particular matter. Perhaps that is what makes me more sensitive to others who fall in the gray area, rather than those who can smugly state that they've got theirs and to hell with everyone else.

So it goes.

Joann

Sorry Joann but NYC was prepared to make it appear that a person with male genitalia would be able to have his birth certificate changed to female. I would forever under NYC labeling be a transgender and not a woman at all. I was not the only person born in NYC who fought this attempt but was aided by many including supervisors of penal correction facilities, hospitals, public accommodations, etc.

I must wonder why it would be necessary for someone who advocates for transgender inclusion to be able to simply state their sexual identity as an illusion rather than a reality and be able to present as the opposite sex legally when they are clearly their physical birth sex? That to me expresses the main concept of GID and not HBS or even transsexualism and it further confuses those who are dealing with our HBS born issues in legislatures, courts, research, etc. Or would it be further welcomed as I saw posted in a UK newspaper, "Are women now to be asked if they have balls or not"? Not a joke but a question that actually was asked after the GERBIL in the UK was passed into law.

Yes I fought against the NYC transgender law being proposed. I did not have to really since I did have an amended birth certificate although without the sex marker and it allowed me to marry my husband, change my documents, get my passport and drivers license, amend my social security record, etc. I also was certified by Meadowbrook Hospital on Long Island where the State of New York Court required me to be evaluated. They determined I was female both physically and mentally. That was the criteria and a welcome one for it determined what and who we are and does not deal in supposition which transgenderism has added to the mix. How might a court of law accept an illusion as if an actuality? How are women or men to deal with a person still in possession of their birth sex genitalia but presenting legally as the opposite sex in such places as hospitals where our bodies are exposed? How do you explain to a child in a public shower at a beach that the person in there is really a woman when clearly a male? How do you think that vision helps to advance the needs of those who suffer so much before surgery and now you would label as being no different than someone who might live as one sex but be the other?

We are not elitists at all but caring people who find it difficult to sympathize with those that would limit our identity to be not at all different than the transgender laws that you and others support which attach us to them. I sympathize with some of the transgender but do not accept that they are in need of further illusionary focus and add us to their gender variance no matter the very limited common needs we might have shared before surgical correction.

Diane

Joann, you made a statement without documentation: "I've got mine, to hell with everyone else". Now you say that principled opposition to the 2006 New York City Health Department proposal is an "example" of the "I've got mine, to hell with everyone else" attitude.

One can agree or disagree with the policy position, but it is essential to respect the sincerity of those who present their views in a responsible manner, even if you disagree. One can oppose the New York proposal and support a set of alternatives without vilification.

Simply put, supporters of the NY proposal were intolerant of significantly different views. Even if you don't agree with that statement, you must know the NY activists lacked tactical sophistication. By the way, here in the Washington, DC area, we see a lot of that fumbling on the National level.

You talk about our "genital shape" as though we females are a collection of piece parts arranged in a visually acceptable configuration, like a Lego set or - shiver - Britney Spears dolly. Some men talk this way - we don't have to do so. It is a gross oversimplificat ion of the situation.

It is a matter of substance and function, not just form. The genitals of post-op HBS females undergo rapid and permanent reversion to their default cellular composition. Moreover, once HBS post-ops have a vagina, fully experience the female space within in a unified way, and understand their vulnerabilities , offhanded dismissal of our reality is taken as offensive.

You speak of "those who would qualify in every way except for having surgery completed". The qualification remains incomplete until the completion of surgical correction.

TS-Si supports interim identification for the HBS-born who can demonstrate they are in transition and working toward surgical correction. We do not support the use of public facilities to support adolescent impulses, psychosocial fantasies, and/or ideology-driven posturing for political effect.

I would not agree with this from Diane's last:
"I would forever under NYC labeling be a transgender and not a woman at all."
Now, how would that be?

Under the proposed regulations anyone who submitted a letter from a medical practitioner, (one or two, not sure), stating that they are GID and link to being the opposite 'mind set' in contradiction to their physical sex would be classed as transgender and be able to request to the NYC Dept. of Health that their birth certificate be amended to read other than their physical sex. Understand, when this regulation was proposed it was clearly listed as being transgender, not transsexual and would have affected me as well since I was born in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Having surgery is not evidence of being HBS. You obviously have not read our website. HBS is an intersex birth condition that is realized long before puberty; not something that one becomes aware of after their first encounter with adolescent sexuality which seems to be what most transgender identify with. We do not grow into or learn how to be HBS... it is not nurtured but a matter of nature. You mention 'one sort of evidence of HBS' then you must think that there is another. May I ask what that might be?

You are requesting that society accept a flawed diagnosis, GID, and place us all in that category as well. That is exactly what the NYC birth certificate change would reflect for those who claim to be something they are not. And from what I read on this issue all of us would be classed as transgender with or without surgical correction. I even spoke with some of the Health Dept. personnel and they could not explain how any of us would be listed on the documents that would be filed with our request for BC correction. Yes, I would be listed as female finally on my BC but so would any man who was able to convince a shrink that he was going to live full time in the female role much the same as does Charles Virginia Prince . Only difference it seems is that I would actually be physically female and he would not. That then would permanently define me as being, "a little different, but not the same", and that I strongly object to. It would also fit right in with the religious bigots who claim I am not a woman and no different than a crossdresser.

If you mean by "I've got mine, to hell with everyone else", to be somehow discriminatory or selfish then I think I am not the one forwarding that thought but yourself. I lived 35 years with a birth certificate without the sex designation on it so how did I have mine? And during that whole time 'I had mine' I had a vagina. How then might someone with a penis claim that mine should also be theirs if they are talking about sex and genitalia? Or are we talking about GID which rightly is a disorder and not a physical correction of sex under which HBS/TS's never should have been included since our brain sex from birth was in order and still is?

Yes, that actually would be the case and I think you know it. You must be rather naive to think that a full time crossdresser would not want to take advantage of a regulation that allowed him to change his birth certificate to female. From the hate letters I read it seems many of them would do just that and have demanded all transgender get behind this 'regulation'. Surgery is evidence whereas a psychological testament is an identity... on that I agree. But your point of being, 'provisionally assigned on the basis of birth genital shape' is what you seem to be arguing is it not? Yes, in our case the brain was one sex and we recognize our genitals were 'provisional' but in our case it is not the brain that is being changed on the BC but the no longer provisional state of our genital sex which is exactly what the BC denotes.

No dear, you are talking about 'gender identity', ---trans-gender . And that is where the confusion begins since gender is a construct which has seemingly taken on the full value equal to physical sex identity which is genitalia. Transgender deals with the attitude of gender and transsexual deals with the actual correction of genitals to conform with gender. Big difference as I see it.

'Other' would not bother me in the least. My concern is that it might be the category those who are post surgical might be classed as well since no distinction made between those HBS/TS born from that of a transgender. In the final analysis, which the NYC Health Dept. was forced to examine and affirm is, there are only two sexes, predominant or not. There is no third sex or a box on an information sheet allowing one to list as being 'other'. Simply this NYC transgender proposal was an attempt for inclusion not deserved so as to allow intrusion where not welcome as stated by many others beside HBS born. Want to dress as the opposite sex then carry a letter on your person stating the reason why from your doctor or psychiatrist just as most in actual transition do today.

Diane Kearny