Welcome to Debbie Ballard's Transgender Information Site.
Deborah Ballard aka Debbie Lawrence is a transgender woman with nearly 40 years of IT experience, nearly 40 years of transformational programs including 12 step programs, leadership training programs, open source support groups, transgender support groups and websites. Debbie has written 6 books on transgender issues, so far.
Transgender Dimensions
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- Written by Debbie Lawrence
- Category: Transgender Information
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I originally posted this on Facebook Jan 13, 2018
There are many dimensions of transgender. I created the transgender matrix to help identify the different needs. Different people have different needs, and are at different places in terms of where they are currently, and where they want to be.
The cross-dresser still in hiding, the tom-boy fighting for acceptance, the drag queen who cries when she takes off her makeup, the girl taking hormones on the internet, and the transsexual getting her GRS all have one thing in common. The gender they were ASSIGNED AT BIRTH, based solely on what the doctor or midwife saw between the legs seconds after we were born, does NOT match the GENDER we actually are inside.
Many of us could prove that the doctor got it wrong. DNA tests, CT brain scans, and even body chemistry and internal MRI scans may show that the soft tissue between the legs doesn't match the brain or the genetics, or the overall biology.
In some cases, we were even surgically modified at birth, and all records destroyed. A "boy" whose penis was to short was turned into a girl, a girl with a penis had her vulva sewn shut because daddy wanted a boy. Often the surgery was followed by high doses of hormones, testosterone to masculinize the ovaries into testes, or estrogen to shrink the clitoris. About one in 100 births exhibit one of about 30 forms of "gender ambiguity", one in 50 people have gender ambiguity biologically. 1 in 15 exhibit gender ambiguity behaviorally before they are 7 years old.
In elementary school, there is often a "forced normalization", boys are kept together, and separated from the girls. Ambiguity results in teasing, verbal abuse, rejection, bullying, violent assaults, even group assaults by large groups of boys. Much harder to suspend, expel, or arrest 15 boys when only one sissy was attacked, even if they ended up in the hospital.
Often the bullies are encouraged by parents, preachers, Sunday school teachers, and athletic coaches, to even escalate the abuse. Since many principals and school administrators started out as coaches, they often side with the bullies, saying "boys will be boys".
Years of daily cruel and unusual punishment, without knowing anything other than that they called you a "sissy" while beating you, can lead to a LOT of emotional problems. PTSD, depression, isolation, distrust of others, and general anxiety are common.
Then comes puberty, slamming the door on any hopes of escape. Trapped in bodies we hate, terrified to let anyone know how upset we are, we act out. Many of us turn to booze, drugs, sex, and self mutilation to escape the pain, even if only for a few hours. For many of us, suicide seems like the only permanent solution to a permanent problem.
If we survive, we begin to build a mask. We create an image that is "accepted". We might be funny, or tough, a tom-boy might dress more sexy, whatever it takes to survive.
Our mask helps us win. We succeed at school, date, make friends, and even succeed at work.
The problem is that the more we win, the more uncomfortable the mask gets, each win is like another jagged edge, a spike, a nail. Meanwhile, others are perfecting the mask. Putting a pretty smile on it, decorating it with praise and awards, making it tighter, and worst of all, those close enough to see the real person underneath, add locks, to make sure we can't ever take it off. Children, property, house, career, all locks to make sure the painful mask can never come off without losing everything.
Only 1 on 10 transgender people are able to take the mask off. For the great majority of those still locked in their iron masks, seeing us transition, and blossom into our true selves, is just another nail in the mask.
It's Absurd to Think That Transgender Kids are Being Rushed Into Transitioning
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- Written by Super User
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The Johns Hopkins Experiment vs WPATH
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- Written by Super User
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Hormones reduce the size of penis and testicles to the point where even finding them is difficult. Ejaculation is no longer possible. Orgasms are possible, but very different, more like those of a woman. Some trans-women find that they aren't in that much of a rush to get surgery once they are living full time on hormones.
As you can see, the treatment protocols are vastly improved from the days when Johns Hopkins would just perform surgeries on any woman who requested the procedure, paid for it up front, and met minimal screening criteria.
Transgender Biology
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Evolution
In a completely uncivilized society, the weakest males would have been killed off before they could reproduce. Male aggression would have been similar to other mammals where only the strongest men and the best hunters were allowed to SURVIVE let alone reproduce.
Yet even in ape and monkey cultures, the omega males survive by emulating the behavior of females. They help with the children, they act subservient, and they REPRODUCE by having sex with a female while the alpha males are fighting it out.
India has had Hajiri, boys who become women, often running away from home to join the Hijri before they go through puberty.
In many cultures, those who voluntarily had themselves castrated were considered mystical, magical, and wise. Many of the Oracles in various cultures may have been castrati, transgender people who had themselves castrated. Much easier to guard the virginity if she is incapable of having vaginal sex.
The magical and mystical characteristics may have happened because they would help the women gather food and plants, learning which would be good and safe to eat, and which could make you sick, and which could kill you. With such knowledge, it would be easy to put a bully in his place by making him deathly ill with tainted food prepared by others, then to "Cure" him, because only you know the antidote.
On the flip side, alpha males, in civilized societies, often were quick to go to war. They could fight and kill each other, and the result would be a shortage of alpha males. Even beta males would be killed because they were less able to fight in wars. This would result in a few alpha males and many omega males who were clearly unfit to fight in a war.
Given 20-30 thousand years of this kind of evolution, the omega males would reproduce more often, with their sons being even more feminine. The violent and aggressive alpha male would be considered a criminal. United States prisons are full of alpha males who could not control their aggression and their anger.
Even the hormone therapy was possible. For many years, transgender women used to take a medication called Premarin, which actually stand for PREgnant MARe urINe. Castrati who wanted to grow breasts and live in a harem, usually as servants, would drink the urine of pregnant animals to enable themselves to grow breasts, because it was extremely high in estrogen. This may also have been used to prevent pregnancies - the earliest version of what we now know as birth control pills.
We know that there are genetic conditions such as XXY chromosomes, Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, and a few other genetic disorders that can produce an omega male, which would most likely prefer life among the girls to life among the boys.
In addition, modern medicine has also been a contributing factor. From the early 1950s until the early 1980s, many women who were at risk of miscarriages were given an extremely strong dose of estrogen known as DES. The medication flooded the mother's bloodstream with estrogen which got passed on to the baby. If the baby was a girl, no problem, except a higher risk of breast cancer, uterine cancer, and ovarian cancer. If the baby was a boy, the body would be so flooded with estrogen that the baby would form not only a female brain, but a female skeletal structure. Many transgender women had the biological characteristics of women even though they had male reproductive organs.
Transgender Girl Biology
The male reproductive organs are formed late in the pregnancy, and many of those with any of the biological indicators have smaller than normal penis and the testicles are still up inside, sometimes not even in the inguinal canal. in some cases, the doctors may not even know, without an MRI or CAT scan whether the reproductive organs are ovaries or testes.
The shocking part is that there are about 100 different forms of "gender ambiguity" with almost as many different causes, often a combination of factors. As many as 1 in 15 males may have been born with some version of gender ambiguity.
The biological brain of a transgender woman very similar to the brains of MOST cisgender women. They have a smaller limbic system, which means they are more calm, more observant, less inclined to fight, less violent, and less competitive.
This can be a big problem for a transgender girl who is still living as a boy. Because they don't fight back, they are often the target of ALL of the other boys in a group. The alpha considers him an easy target, someone who can be easily intimidated. The beta male considers him an easy way to gain rank within the male hierarchy. As a result, as omega males, they are often violently attacked on a very regular basis.
If it's just slapping or taking a toy, it's not a big deal, but often the damage is far more severe. Ruptured spleen, damaged kidneys, damage to liver, intestines, and other vital organs are entirely possible. Examine school records and you will often find that transgender girls living as boys have been to the nurse's office, doctor's office, and hospital far more than normal. Often they are sick more often and for longer periods as well.
Most transgender girls living as boys don't tell their parents or teachers or other authorities anything about the attacks. The other boys make it quite clear that any attempt to report them will result in even worse violence. Furthermore, because the attacks usually involve a large number of boys, many of whom have influential parents, the school authorities can do very little to prevent such attacks or to prosecute the group of violent criminals.
Socialization Issues
Transgender girls living as boys often prefer the company of other girls whenever possible. They prefer the games the girls play, and often act like girls even though they appear to be boys.
ALL of this is biological, not social. The irony is that trying to make the transgender girl look more like a boy, by shaving his head, putting him in over-sized pants and flannel shirts, just makes the problem worse.
During this pre-transition phase, which can last anywhere from a couple of years to several decades, transgender girls become very isolated. Parents often don't like that their daughters are playing with a boy, the girls often "close ranks" and exclude transgender girls who appear to be boys.
The result is that transgender girls become very perceptive. They are keenly aware of what boys do (they hate it but have to participate due to social pressures) and what girls do (they love it but are usually forbidden), and they struggle to understand this strange world that treats them like a boy.
When a child in 3 or 4 years old, she might say "I'm a GIRL", but if adults try to correct them, to humiliate them, or to punish them, they may change this to "I wish I was a girl", wishing on stars, wishing on birthday cakes, wishing for Christmas, going to church and praying, yet publicly saying "I want to be a girl"
With enough negative reinforcement, they will stop talking altogether. They may even appear slightly autistic, avoiding people, avoiding eye contact, reading intensely, writing, music, computers, technology, a variety of hobbies, sciences, and so on. They may even become a bit like Sheldon Cooper on Big Bang Theory, intellectual and full of factoids, so they can keep people from finding out the secret they are forced to keep.
Often, as puberty starts, a transgender girl who has been repressed will become self destructive. They may try to castrate themselves, they may start drinking and drugging, often to the point of overdose. Only their closest few friends will realize how close they come to killing themselves or having someone else kill them. Police investigations of teen suicides suggest that more than half are gay boys or transgender girls who have been bullied and harassed.
To a transgender girl, the prospect of growing hair all over, of a deep voice, of erections and ejaculations, is a nightmare, a fate worse than death, because it could mean spending the next 50 to 60 years in the horrible isolation they have already experienced.
The more severe the dysphoria, and the more repressed, the higher the risk of suicide. A transgender girl who secretly would castrate herself, living in a Fundamentalist Christian home where there is zero tolerance for any LGBT issues, has nearly a 100% chance of being dead before their 30th birthday.
Those who do find support, even if only from a spouse or one parent, have a better chance. Often, a mother will encourage the feminine expression in socially acceptable ways, doing housework, helping with shopping, and encouraging socialization through music, theater, dance, and other non-threatening environments.
The transgender woman living as a man is more likely to suffer from obesity, alcoholism, heart conditions, stroke, and cancer, because he is living in constant stress.
Transition can reverse many of these issues. Once they are perceived as being girls, they will tend to be happier, more socially interactive, they listen more, they laugh more, they care about their bodies, so they may exercise more and eat a healthier diet . I've seen 60 year old men transition and literally get younger and younger, medically as well as physical appearance.
What is Transgender?
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- Written by Debbie Lawrence
- Category: Transgender Information
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Transgender is an adjective. A transgender person has a desire to live and act like a member of the opposite sex.
A transgender woman is a male who has the desire to live and act like a woman.
A transgender man is a female who has the desire to live and act like a man.
The opposite of transgender is cisgender. A cisgender person has NO desire to EVER live or act like a member of the opposite sex.
Transgender is a comprehensive term describing an entire spectrum of this desire to live and act like a member of the opposite sex. This includes social behavior, activity preferences, mannerisms, speech patterns, and appearance. A transgender person may dress and appear cisgender and yet prefers friendships with the opposite sex, prefers activities that are typically enjoyed by the opposite sex, behaves more like the opposite sex, or speaks more like the opposite sex.
Harry Benjamin studied a wide range of people and attempted to define a range, similar to Kinsey's range of sexual preferences. The criteria for the range values has evolved over time as larger survey groups are studied. The most recent survey group was over 700,000 respondents.
Gender is one's identity, how you see yourself, how you think, how you act, how you interact with others.
Sex is one's biological characteristics.
One's sex may be clearly male, clearly female, or ambiguous. An ambiguous male may have a very small penis, undescended testicles, or even urinary abnormalities. These are obvious forms. More subtle forms that are often not detected until surgery, MRI, or CT scan, include organ abnormalities including testes that are shaped more like ovaries, known as ova-testes, internal uterus, internal ovaries, even a malformed uterus that empties into the bowels. Brain variations include a smaller hypothalamus, which results in lack of aggression, most common in women, less common in men. Also skeletal variations including hip width and position, and even finger lengths. There are about 50 forms of gender ambiguity, so the odds of having one or more are actually pretty high.
There are a number of different causes. The current theory related to sexual ambiguity has been that there was a deficiency of testosterone in the male fetus, or too much testosterone in the female fetus. Possible causes for this include high levels of stress (children born in concentration camps, prisons, and refugee centers have higher incidence), medications (DES to prevent miscarriages, birth control methods such as Norplant or oral contraceptives taken after pregnancy), and other environmental factors. Recently, research has shown that there is a genetic pattern that causes something called Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS), which prevents the fetus from assimilating and processing testosterone during early pregnancy. There are also a number of genetic disorders including having XXY chromosomes.
There are similar issues with girls. Girls may be sensitized to testosterone produced by the mother's kidneys, testosterone introduced into the mother's bloodstream by a partner, or possibly even a genetic sensitivity that makes a girl exhibit more masculine traits, including an enlarged clitoris, closed or partially closed labia, and internal organ differences.
Gender Identity - how one perceives themselves, may be influenced by various forms of gender ambiguity. For example, a boy with a lack of aggression may find that it is too dangerous to play with other boys because he cannot fight back. A girl with a strong aggressive nature might be frustrated or bored with the passive and fine motor activities enjoyed by cisgender females.
Transgender females were so common that Freud called it "Penis Envy". This may be because aggressive and competitive girls are encouraged and supported as "Tom-Boys" and are often able to compete with boys even into early puberty.
On the other hand, boys who exhibit feminine behaviors are often ridiculed, derided, abused, even assaulted, terms such as "Sissy", "Pussy", "Wimp", "Girlie", and "Mama's Boy" are frequently used. During puberty, homosexuality based terms such as "Fairy", "Queen", "Queer", and "Faggot" are often misapplied. As a result, it is more common for boys who are transgender to go into "Stealth Mode", doing their best to hide or minimize feminine behaviors and desires from public view. In many cases, they hide by isolating themselves, becoming "book-worms", "Nerds", "Egg-heads" and similar terms.
Transgender males and females are often very intelligent, because they have to be smart to survive. They are acutely aware and observant of things that most people take for granted. They are acutely aware of the activities of their desired gender as well as those of their forced gender (the gender they are forced to exhibit based on birth traits). Their isolation often involves intellectual pursuits, solitary hobbies, as well as a wide variety of interests. In some cases, they may enjoy activities of both their desired gender and their forced gender. For example, they may love cooking, housework, and crafts, but they also enjoy science, technology, and philosophy. Many also have strong spiritual beliefs.
Here are some characteristics of the various levels.
- Cisgender - This is someone who is quite happy in their gender role, often very invested in that gender role. For example, an Alpha Male, or a "Girly Girl". These people take great pride in their gender, which matches their sex.
- Secretive and Periodic - These people are mostly happy with their birth gender, but enjoy certain aspects of the opposite sex. They might enjoy cooking or fashion, and may even enjoy cross-dressing - but usually any overt feminine behavior such as cross-dressing, are kept very secret.
- Secretive and Frequent - This is someone who struggles with their gender role, but enjoys aspects of their birth gender. They have exhibited a number of "acceptable" behaviors that are traditionally those of the opposite gender, such as cooking, sewing, babysitting, and have many female friends. They also enjoy cisgender activities and non-gender activities such as hobbies, dancing, or reading several books a week.. They may secretly engage in overt feminine activities like cross-dressing, often on a frequent basis. They may elude discovery for years, even decades, because they are very good at avoiding discovery. There are some level three cross-dressers who even hid their "stash" in secret compartments in the walls or ceilings. An important warning sign is if they are frequently bullied and avoid socialization with others of the same gender. This is often an indicative of someone who is more severely transgender and living in terror of discovery.
- Public and Periodic - These are people who openly exhibit transgender behavior, and enjoy living and acting like a member of the opposite sex, but only for brief periods. One transgender woman called it the "Vampire" stage, because it was usually only at night on the week-ends. Some engage in theatrical activities such as drag shows, however not all drag queens are transgender and most transgender girls are not drag queens. Drag queens are often more cisgender, but enjoy dressing up and doing shows where they can earn tips and other money. Periodic public transgender women often look for "safe" environments where they won't get attacked if they are read. This may include gay bars, lesbian bars, or activities at LGBT community centers. For many, these are the first steps toward transition itself.
- Public and Frequent - These are people who like to fully interact as the opposite sex on a regular basis. They may be out most evenings and most week-ends. Often they lead a double life, maintaining a cisgender identity at work, church, family, and socially, but they get great happiness being out in social environments as transgender. Most of these people have little trouble "passing" but may be a bit too beautiful to "blend" when they first start regular outings. This is often because they are only going to clubs and recreational events, so they dress to party. Again, for many, these are early steps toward transition itself.
- Severe and constant - These are the most severe type. These are sometimes called "Do or Die" Transsexuals. They can barely stand to look in the mirror when in forced gender mode, and willing to consider extreme measures to be able to be their "True Selves". Many have tried to castrate or emasculate themselves as early as 2-3 years old. Sometimes they injure themselves pretty seriously. Puberty is an especially terrible time for them as they see their bodies changing into the forced gender. Many have strong faith and study multiple religions, including Christianity, Hindu, and Buddhism. They often begin to consider reincarnation as the only way to be rid of the body they so hate, with the hope of either heaven as a girl, or reincarnation as a girl. They are often seriously contemplating suicide, and likely to attempt suicide multiple times. Suicide triggers include rejection by family, lover, and/or friends, often in combination with being "Outed" or Kicked out of their childhood home.
The difficult part is that the behavior may not be an indication of the actual severity. Experience treating many more transgender people and more comprehensive surveys have shown that there are many people who may have only exhibited as cross dressers, maybe even in private, yet they were type six transsexuals with a history of suicide and castration attempts. WPATH attributes this to the social pressures and constraints one experiences. If a child lives in a home with intolerant parents, they are less likely to exhibit transgender behaviors publicly, but they are more likely to commit suicide. See the "Pressure Cooker" notes below.
How many transgender people are there?
This is very hard to determine. We know that there are at least 1,400,000 transgender men and women who have sought out Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) and Gender Correction Surgery (GCS). But we know that this is only the tip of the iceberg. Estimates today suggest that there may be more than 3 million transgender people in the United States. Part of the problem is that so many in the transgender community are so secretive, living in stealth. Many live in stealth before their transition, and again after transition. Other than their early transition period, they are not really visible as transgender. The image of a guy in "Camp Drag" is extremely rare. By the time a transgender woman comes out in public, she has practiced walking, talking, dressing, make-up, and behavior. In many cases, it took great effort to exhibit forced gender behavior, so acting more like their "True Gender" is actually quite natural.
Gender Dysphoria is often misdiagnosed as depression, bipolar, autism, or PTSD. Gender Dysphoria has many of those elements. There may be depression do to the conflict of being forced to accept birth gender, PTSD may actually be present due to the frequent, violent, and severe bullying, especially when authorities made no attempt to intervene. Many transgender children isolate. Unable to play with girls and unwilling to play with boys, they may become avid readers, spend hours on their computers, or other solitary activities deemed "acceptable" by parents or peers.
Another difficulty with knowing how many is that many repress it so deeply and so hard. Often, without a "push" from someone, a sister, a cousin, a girlfriend, or someone else they trust, they will not only avoid talking about being transgender, but they will also become very upset if someone threatens to expose their secret. A woman calling a man a Sissy may seem like a cute phrase, but to a young man who has faced years of violence for being "Sissy" or "Girly", the word can trigger flashbacks of extreme violence.
The other problem is the "Pressure Cooker" syndrome. Both transgender men and women are often literally forced to conform to their birth gender. A transgender girl is sent to play with the boys, where she is physically attacked, often by large groups of a dozen or more boys her own size and age, who take out anger at older sisters, stronger girls, and any other girl they aren't allowed to hit, by hitting, kicking, and even clubbing and stoning, the "Sissy".
As a result, many of those who might even be a 4, 5, or even a 6, may not show up on anybody's radar until they are full-grown, and even then, may not want to risk losing spouse, children, job, career, social standing, status, even their home, because they "come out". Some transgender women don't transition until they are old enough to retire. Others will transition only after a divorce.
According to some surveys done back in the 1970s, before transition was a viable option in the United States, 1 in 3 men admitted that they had dressed up as women, and enjoyed it. In an average classroom of 30 boys and girls in roughly equal proportions, there will be at least one "tom-boy" and at least one "sissy", but there will also be 4 to 6 "book-worms". It's entirely possible that as many as 1 in 5 people are in the 3-6 spectrum of the transgender scale, but many may still limit or try to control overt behavior such as cross-dressing to avoid discovery and the fear of the persecution they experienced or saw as children.
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