Stephen P. Cseplo writes:

>>> (For the record, I am a transsexual, I have considered SRS, and at present I don't have a compelling reason to have SRS.)

> This comes from some other post and the post it comes from is really of no consequence.

> Here is the question.

> Is it proper for a person to claim the term transsexual if that person has no intentions of pursuing SRS?

I wrote the quote in question, and I still feel the same way.

One can draw the lines anywhere; they're only labels, and we know what labels are worth. For me, a person crosses the line into being a TS by wanting to change his or her body, and proceeding to do exactly that. SRS is one way. Hormones are another. Perhaps electrolysis is another; I've heard people say that electrolysis is what separates the boys from the girls. (Or, as my own electrologist put it, it's a test to see if I'm man enough to become a woman.)

What happens if a person is "only" cross-living and does some but not all of these things? What if a person who espouses androgyny does some of these things? Hey, it's a free country, last time I checked. The labels are a part of how we see ourselves, as much as how we identify ourselves to others.

Intent and pursuit are nebulous terms. I'd like to have SRS; I would find my body much more pleasing esthetically. Is that enough reason to spend the money, plus take the time from work, pain and suffering, etc.? Not for me, and not at the moment. I don't need SRS to validate myself, and I don't need it for sexual function. But what of the future? It ain't here yet, so far as I know.

Perhaps the best way for me to look at this is how I identify myself, not in transgender terms, but as a person. I believe that I am a woman. That's enough for me. What does my body have to do with it? What do labels have to do with it? For me, "transsexual" is a term for a person who believes that his or her body is the wrong gender. That's me. SRS is a tool that partially corrects that situation, and no more. If the feminists can say the biology is not destiny, don't we have the choice to say that surgery is not destiny?

Additional Thoughts

In thinking about my previous post, I realized that it was not internally consistent. I began by talking about defining TS in terms of behavior, and ended by talking about defining TS in terms of attitudes. That happens sometimes; I've learned to use writing to explore thoughts and feelings, and that is a process that happens automatically with me. You just now saw it in action.

On the other hand, these are really two aspects of the same thing, and those nebulous words "intent" and "pursuit" form the boundary. We first define ourselves as TS by reaching a state of peace with our internal gender conflict, where "peace" is simply acceptance, acknowledgment of what is, and a vision of where we might go from there. No hormones, no surgery, nothing at all at this point except feelings. Intent and pursuit can take us to many new places, but whether the feeling changes can depend on any number of other factors.

When do intent and pursuit end? Now that is a hard question. They don't necessarily end with SRS, for those who choose that route; as transsexuals we have chosen a journey with few markers, and those that exist aren't really intended for us. We want to become a woman, or a man? We know what those are; we see them around us every day. But we didn't grow up that way; becoming our new gender is much more than learning to pass, or taking hormones, or having surgery. The whole journey, from recognition of transsexualism through the remainder of our lives, is perhaps the most accurate definition of a transsexual. It is an odyssey through a land that our biological and historical foundations never intended us to see.

In that sense, transsexualism can perhaps best be defined as an adventure. We have the opportunity to explore, an opportunity that lasts a lifetime. Perhaps a transsexual is simply a person who seizes that opportunity, and refuses to let go.

Yet More Thoughts

Stephen M. Gardner writes:

> Why is it that some TSs take the attitude that SRS is some sort of initiation ceremony or rite of passage? SRS is not for everyone, even for all TSs. I hate to sound bitchy but why isn't this obvious? (Okay so I love to sound bitchy--so sue me. ;-)).

Well said, Stephen.

The reason that all of us are here is that we have been given a particularly "interesting" set of gender characteristics. We are here to figure out who we are, who we want to be, whether those are different, and how we'd like to resolve those differences. Surgery is one tool. Taking the grand leap across the gender chasm is another. But they are all means toward an end, where that end is a state of being the person we want to be. In this case, it is the end that is important, not the means.