Reply to I guess I still don't understand transgender definitions of gay and straight

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I refuse to embrace the doublethink. Identify how you will, and I wish you every happiness, but as a woman, I'm not accepting anyone telling me their penis is a female sex organ. It's actually incredibly offensive to women, with all our history of oppression by men, to say things like that. [/quote]

Agreed. I find that I have limits regarding a lot of this especially in terms of what I feel comfortable teaching my children. I have to draw a line, and I leave it at a respectful distance from all of this detail. I can't expect their minds to make sense of this and am guessing they will end up teaching me along the way to find a comfortable place. One of my daugthers said to me, if you are a boy and you grow and up and you don't like being a boy, you take a pill and then you can be a lady !!! - Like it was the coolest thing in the world. I have no idea where she learned this, but I literally had nothing to say. I can't say that seems like a truthful version of what trans people go through, but there it was, a 4 yr old version.... [/quote]

As a parent of a transgender teen,  I completely understand how bewildering all this seems to most adults.

Let me offer a true story that may help other parents understand.  When our child -- whom we understood was born female and raised that way -- was about  9 or 10, a very smart young boy -- maybe about 6 at the time, often would play with our child -/ sometimes alone and sometimes with his older sister.  One day the boy's mom called and said, "I know this sounds like a stupid question and please don't be offended, but you have a daughter right? Your  child  x (female name) is a girl, right?"  We confirmed this to the Mom's relief and then she explained, "My son is insisting x is a boy.  He says X acts like a boy, talks like a boy, and is way too cool to be a girl."  This neighbor's young boy intuitively knew something we didn't  or we didn't want to know -- that x was a (transgender) boy -- I am sure the neigjbor's boy didn't know the word transgender or what it was -- he just knew our child was a boy.  That is something our D.C. didn't come out to us about until several years later.

I tell this story to illustrate a point.  This neighbor's  child made a judgement about another child's gender based  on many social interactions.  He didn't think it was necessary to see if our child had the same sex organ he had -- he was sure our child was a boy.  We have been raised to define gender based on a sex organ -- and that seems to work out to be right the vast, vast majority of the time.  But sometimes the biological brain -- which drives behavior and presumably the sense of identity -- just does not match the sex organ.  A women does not stop being a women after a hysterectomy.  A man who loses his penis to a land mine,  does not stop being a man.  Sex organs are related to gender identity,  but they are not necessarily dispositive.  I believe science will ultimately prove transgenderism is biologically based in the brain.  
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This is all well and good. But sex organs are certainly biologically based and sexual orientation likely is as well. And for the vast majority of people, gender and sex organs ARE aligned (likely biologically) and orientation is to the opposite gender & sex organs (likely biologically). Most people with vaginas who identify as female are attracted to people with penises who identify as male. It is not "homophobia" or "transphobia" for a person with a vagina who identifies as female to prefer to have sex with a person with penis. (Nor, for that matter, is it homophobia or transphobia for a person with a vagina who identifies as female to prefer to have sex with a person without a penis.) Arguing this, it seems to me, is akin to arguing that a transgender man is just suffering from misogyny. It's akin to arguing that it's all just a social construct. Which, if that were true, would mean there ISN'T any biological basis to gender. And that the only reason a transgender person feels that way is because they aren't "properly" socialized. You cannot reasonably argue that transgender is biologically based and also argue that a penis can be a female sex organ if only we viewed it as such.

A man who loses his penis to a land mine does not stop being a man. But a woman who views PIV as an important part of sexual enjoyment, and/or who is looking for a person to marry and have children with might reasonably decide he was not a good partner for her. That's not any kind of -phobia. That's a fact of life.[/quote]

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