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From A Friend's Facebook Page, With Permission [message #103836]

Wed, 09 June 2010 17:38

Katie

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Registered: October 2007
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Sevastian! What the HELL qualifies YOU to write about transsexuals?????

Recently I have said to a number of people that I see a complete vacuum of realistic transsexual characters in fiction. Usually when a fiction author tackles the task of writing a trans character, they write a comically pathetic, clownish reject climbing out of a box in the basement of the sequin factory. Fictional trans people are far too often nothing more than bad Cher Impersonators, or overly sexed freaks who seem like they were weaned too young from their mommy's breasts. Too many of them are freaks, and not enough of them are doctors and school teachers. I aim, in my fiction to rectify that... to show real sorts of characters rather than grossly exaggerated stereotypes. Still though, there is the question of my qualifications to write such characters. After all, I am a man who was born with a penis. (Not all men in this world were born with penises) So what is my story? Why do I even get a say?

For most of my life, though I am now happy to be a man, I did not fit in my body or the life I was assigned. Something was wrong and I didn't know what it was. As early as 4 years old, I remember thinking girls' clothes made a lot more sense to me than boys' clothes, and I explored that as often as I could, secretly, when no one else was watching. Over the years I went through bouts of gathering and then purging mini-wardrobes of clothing that somehow just made me feel better. As I reached adulthood I began to pay more attention. By then, I had heard of things like "sex changes" but I never thought it could apply to me.

When I was 24 I went so far as to call a clinic in Scottsdale Arizona to ask more about it, but the process seemed very complicated. Once again, I went back to thinking it was not a possibility for me. I went back to gathering and purging clothing... doing what I could to try to "soothe the savage beast". By the time I hit my mid 30s, I came to a point where I had to figure out a solution for my discomfort. My wife at the time was quite upset by the whole affair. While she could have tolerated a cross-dresser for a husband, I was quite certain that there was much more to it than that for me. She could not abide that her husband felt like and needed to be a woman. In time, that opened the door to other problems in our marriage and we split up and divorced. Before our split I started on HRT (Hormone Replacement therapy) and I spent 15 months on HRT before coming to a point where I found my answers... the ones for which I had searched for nearly 37 years. In the end I did not transition physically and I figured out that I am more man than not. Gone was the uncertainty. Gone was the limbo. Gone were the desires to experiment with womens' clothing or femininity. I was and I am a man, but that was only MY path. EVERYONE's path is different. I am satisfied now with my place and there is a sense in which while my body was not transitioned, that I did in fact transition from a place of incongruity to wholeness. Those who know me personally and were aware of my path while I walked it can attest to all that I am saying here (and I hope that they will)

You see, in my journey, I discovered that gender exists on a continuum, not on opposing sides of a fence. Each of us falls in a different place along the gender continuum. In fact, there is biological evidence to suggest that the issue of transsexualism should not even be classified (as it is now) in the DSM-IV...a guide used by mental health professionals to classify "mental illnesses". I believe fully that is is a biological disorder. Medical science recognize hundreds of types of biological hermaphorodism at this point. Children are born with chromosome "abnormalities". They are born with ambiguous genitalia. We are all, each of us, conceived as female and gender is decided after conception, during gestation. It is a fact that what we don't know about the human brain far outweighs what we do know about the human brain. We can't see a brain the way we do genitalia, but the brain is the nerve center for all of it. It only makes sense that if genitalia can be ambiguous and chromosomes can be ambiguous, that so too can be the workings of the brain. It is my contention then that being transsexuality is not an abnormality at all, but a simple truth of human gender. We each fall somewhere along the gender continuum and some of us fall closer to center than others.

Too often in our misogynist society, we attribute femininity among men as being related to sexual preference, or masculinity among women being related to sexual preference. In reality, there is no relationship at all. There is no relationship between the gender a person is and the gender that a person wishes to sleep with. Had my path lead to physical transition, I would now be classified as a lesbian.

For some of you reading, this makes perfect sense, because you live this reality every day. For others it is weird and foreign. So let me try to explain to those who don't understand.

Have you ever raised a glass in a drunken stupor and exclaimed how "fucking cool it is" to be a girl/guy? Guys? When you raised that glass, were you thinking about your penis or about sleeping with women when you shouted it? Ladies? Were you thinking about your vagina or how great it is to sleep with men? I submit that in most cases, you were shouting joy for something different.... something more ethereal.... the intangible things that make it wayyyyyy better to be the gender you are than the gender you are not.

The truth is that it is actually quite silly to base our understanding of gender on sex and genitalia. Think about it. Is there any other aspect more frustrating in our lives than sex and genitalia??? guys are always wondering if it's big enough.... bragging about how big it is as if that makes them more manly (Because everyone knows that what all women want is a guy with a dick long enough to puncture their cervix LOL) Guys know nothing about sex, but at 11, are already claiming to know how to "rock a girls' world". Lots of bragging, very little substance. You aren't exempt either ladies. How much does sex and sexuality screw with your head and screw with relationships? Why on EARTH does ANYONE think that the two things in our world that MOST complicate our sense of self should be used as determinants for anything, no less something as important to us as gender.

Now imagine that tomorrow you woke up with a body completely different than the one you have now.... the opposite physical gender that you now possess. WAIT!!!! Guys.... don't go play with it. I'm still talking here. Okay... now.... your friends are at the door and will relate to you as the gender of your new body and you will be expected to act accordingly. How do you feel? Now, imagine you have no choice but to live your whole life that way. There is a gun on the table, loaded. You can shoot yourself in the head, or you can go on and live your new life. What do you do? Far too often, because of social stigmas, trans people do use the gun. They would rather die than live in a body that doesn't fit their soul. BUT, medical science can change that. Medical science can help people find a place where they fit.

No one that is truly transsexual BECOMES a person on the opposite gender. They simply match their bodies to the truth of who they are. When a transsexual person presents as female, then the proper pronoun is "SHE" and the same goes the other way. It's not just a matter of being polite or understanding. It is a matter of respecting what is true. Gender is not seen with the eye. It is seen with the soul. Transsexual people, despite the myth, are not confused. Trans people are Transsexual. It is everyone else that tends to be confused. I hope that this note serves two purposes:

1) I hope that trans people reading will understand better how it is that I am qualified to write about trans people. I have walked that path.
2)I hope that non-trans people will understand better the issues faced by those who are transsexual. It doesn't matter if you agree or if you don't understand. What matters is that the sum of what makes us different is far smaller that the sum of all of those things that make us the same...and I am living, breathing proof that ANYONE is potentially transsexual... ANYBODY.

My book "The TroubleMaker" (which you can order RIGHT NOW at http://sevwinters.com/) is the story of a person who deals with a number of the things that we all go though in life. The protagonist also happens to be transsexual. I hope that you will get your copy of the book, read it, and get to know a new friend.... We are all in this world together. Let's continue to find better ways to live together in it.

Please feel free to share this note....and links to my book too if you are willing. Thank you!

Sev

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