Transexual furore

I used to have a transsexual customer who was very pleasant. A lot of men seem to to overdo the make up and sexy clothes but this one just wore jeans and jumpers like most of us. Only the deep voice made you look twice. I once commented on how young she looked and she told me the hormones were having a wonderful effect on her skin. I haven't seen her for several years but she seemed to be getting on very well.

My 97 year old Aunt played golf until she was 93. She was most put out when a transgender lady joined the Wednesday ladies group, not because of that reason, but because said lady was 6', had a viscious swing and won all the cups!

One of the bravest people I knew was a friend who underwent gender reassignment. My late DH and I knew both 'him' and her and she was a lovely person. Sadly, she died from complications of all the drugs she had to take; but she did say that it was worth all she went through to outwardly be the person she was inside.

Well said absent

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It must be complete s**t to live in a world where you feel in every part of your being that you have been assigned the wrong gender. Nevertheless, that does not mean male transsexuals can dictate to what might be called birth women what being a woman is. No birth woman can understand what it must be like to be trapped in a male body. A bit of tolerance, perhaps, wouldn't go amiss and it might be a good idea to remember that no one owns a woman's body – except that individual woman.

Jingle - I am not the forum police! You can think any damn you like about transexuals. I don't actually have an opinion about them or the argument.

whenin64, thank you for your informative answer.

Ideal look for women these day, tall, thin minimal hips and breasts, look at most successful models.

Very much like ladyboys.

and I am going to get told off by Greatnan for this now...........

I saw an obviously transexual woman in a little market town in Suffolk just before Christmas. She was very elegant. Fur coat, very high heeled pointed toe boots, loads of makeup. But she was very big. You could tell.

Can anybody follow (want to follow?) that article?! I haven't got any idea what they are on about.

I think it's about one journo defending another journo. Do we care?

From the linked to article: " Moore suggested that, increasingly, women felt they should look like “Brazilian transsexuals”.You knew exactly what she meant."

No! I'm sorry, but I haven't a clue!

They could never know what it's like to have been born a woman, and their experience of being a woman will be coloured by the amount of prejudice and/or sympathetic treatment they've received. So my answer to the OP would be no.

I would think it might depend on how long that person had been living as woman, or more accurately how long they had been treated as a women by others.

Hilda the transexuals who are born with male characteristics and feel they should be female have male chromosomes that cannot be altered, but an endocrinologist can give them artificial female hormones so that they become more feminine-looking, and surgery will complete the transition. They have to continue taking some of the hormones in order to keep that feminine appearance. There are some children incorrectly identified at birth, or ascribed a gender because they are judged to be more likely to live comfortably in that role, who have both male and female characteristics (hermaphrodite), but there are fewer such children. Gender dysphoria doesn't arise from having female chromosomes and male characteristics. Having worked with colleagues and offenders who have transitioned, I was saddened to learn that they didn't all find the answer to their problems in changing sex.

Not being an expert but I had always thought that 'men' who have various proceedures to become women are actually deep down women anyway. They feel as if they are a woman trapped in a male body. So I suppose they are just as likely to know what its like to be a woman.

Jill Nicholls on Twitter:

John Stuart Mill's distinction betw causing HARM (bad) & OFFENCE (tough) explained and championed by @NickCohen4 in "You Can't Read This Book".

Sounds good to me. I have the book but haven't read it yet.

Agreed. I've been reading about this silly furore. I read Burchill's article several times to try and understand what all the fuss was about. She used what might be called strong language. So what? The furore isn't about any real insult to anyone. It's about manufactured outrage and people trying to be ridiculously politically correct. Stuff that.

Just by the way, I saw a show by Thai ladyboys in Kualar Lumpur yonks ago. What struck me, apart from their beauty, was that they didn't move like women. People with a male bone structure walk from the shoulder; people with female bone structure walk from the hip.

The show was great.

Very good article Lilygran. Says it all as far as I'm concerned.

Thanks for link.

vampirequeen what a very brave lady your friend is.

A friend is transgender. She said she knew from quite young that she was in the wrong body and hated it and herself. She thought she was a freak. She didn't know there were others like her. As she grew older she decided to make the best of it and got married etc but it never felt right. Finally she had a break down and tried to kill herself. Over the years she discovered she wasn't the only one and finally decided that she had to get help. It has taken years to get to her current stage....she's awaiting surgery. She had to spend 3 years living as a woman and prove that she could be accepted as such. Then she was given female hormones. Believe me PMT has nothing on what she went through. But this gave her one of her high spots when she finally didn't have to shave her face and chest anymore. All this time she was under the care of a psychiatrist and felt that she coninually had to prove herself. She even had to get written and verbal references to prove she was accepted as a woman.

It has been a long and often painful journey for her but her goal is now in sight.

I thought this was an interesting take on the row: www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/allison-pearson/9806112/Why-taking-offence-is-Britains-new-national-sport.html.

I'm not sure they can in the early stages, and they don't experience some of the hormonal ups and downs that women do, but I would guess that the longer they live as women, the more they share many of the feelings and experiences that women do, in general. Some transexuals have lived as women for about 50 years, like April Ashley, so I would assume there is little difference for her.