Suzi's open house

Chapter 5: Transsexualism - some history.

(The following is taken from 'Transsexualism' by Tina Livingstone.)

Transsexualism is not a modern phenomenon but an innate condition which has been documented in diverse cultures and civilisations throughout recorded social history, from Ancient Rome to America. In the United States, for example, the Sioux society allowed such individuals, called Winkte, to adopt the gender role in which they were most comfortable; thus physical females could become warriors, and take wives, whilst physical males could live as women. The Sioux associated no particular magical significance to such people, they simply acknowledged their existence and allowed them the opportunity to live their lives with the same measure of human respect and dignity afforded to everyone else.

Today's understanding and treatment of the transsexual condition was pioneered in the 1950s by Dr Harry Benjamin, a reputable psychiatrist and endocrinologist. The appropriateness of his strategy of aligning the physical body with the way the mind works substantiated by medical research, where autopsies have shown that transsexual people have the brain pattern of their declared gender rather than that associated with the sex assigned to them at birth.

Previous misconceptions in our society that this condition is an emotional/psychological problem led to the erroneous belief that a combination of self-discipline, counselling, and psychiatric care would lead to a cure. One of the sadder consequences of this mistaken attitude being that, as recently as 1981, it was estimated that 50% of the transsexual population died by the age of 30, usually by their own hand.

Transsexualism remains a rare condition, concerning personal identity not sexual orientation, which can occur in any family. A transsexual person is neither mentally deficient nor a victim of fantasy or delusion, but because of the preconceived ideas, and prejudice, which still colour our social conditioning, the majority of transsexual people spend many years struggling to behave in the manner associated with the sex assigned to them at birth. Often it takes the maturity of years and a great deal of courage for a transsexual person to accept who they really are and take appropriate action.

Since a transsexual person appears to be perfectly "normal", generally having both primary and secondary physiological characteristics of an ordinary male or female, it is easy to see why there has been so much misunderstanding. Unlike other birth defects or syndromes, such as Down's, cerebral palsy, or sensory impairment, we have as yet no means to effect early diagnosis and prevent the inevitable struggles facing transsexual children. As with all young they need the acceptance of family so they try to fit in, in order to survive, and adopt roles for which they are unsuited, until such time as the pressure of self denial becomes too heavy to carry.

Transsexual people want nothing more than to be themselves; as the public become educated, and understanding grows, hopefully society will afford them the human dignity of being just that.

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