oh snap!

Ken M is in the house!

I feel star struck

/plotz

There is a difference between biological sex and gender. I am not going to get into the ongoing science of why people are transsexual. You do know that restrooms in certain countries in Europe are not segregated, and there haven't been problems.

I don't want the thread becoming a flame war. I probably gave out too much information. I have a tendency to do that. I won't bring up the fact that I'm transgender again here.

What I will say is that this is a perfect example of what the OP was taking about, and what can happen to people who are different and the phobia that goes with it.

I must confess, I have no idea what you're talking about. Feel free to elaborate though.

You talked about yourself and described experiences that sounded pretty in line with the topic of the thread to me. You didn't do anything wrong. The bullshit they're spewing? That's their issue, it's not indicative of a problem with you.

I still don't get this. I've never either heard of or experienced any hatred of Finns in particular around the world. Why would people have something against Finns?
Thanks for proving my point that bigoted idiots are everywhere.

My dentist always gives me a go-to-hell "oh... it's you" look when I visit.

I don't know what the hell the problem is. I haven't had a cavity in almost 6 years.

If it's because you can't be arsed to deal will bigoted idiots all the time, I understand. Just know that this forum is probably one of the most tolerant you'll find outside of dedicated LGBT forums. Yes, there are people here who will hate just about anybody different from themselves, but there are far less of them here than in most other places.

Okay there it goes again. So.

Please DO ignore the idiots or the ignorants. This is the internet, in an epoch where we are barely leaving the middle ages when it comes to gender : as a field of knowledge it is just being introduced in schools, with the heavy resistance of the traditionalists who can't wrap their heads around the notion. It's a place and time where they exist, spectacularly so, and cannot be avoided, but they are vanishing fast. It is not your role to shut up and be confined to "invisibility", and on the other hand you can't make them shut up. Please try to percieve them as an annoying fading background noise. The last of the "but but but, doesn't the sun move around the earth ? it makes no sense, where is god's order in that !?". The last of the "but but but ? women can vote now ? it will be chaos !". The last of the "help, there are niggers on my bus !". We are past the time where they had the upper hand, and we are currently zooming past the time where they are relevant enough to get noticed.

There was a transsexual gog-er on these forums, a little ago. She left a bit because of a couple of idiots, and a lot because she didn't feel supported in general : the non-modding mods, faithful to the local policy, were not intervening, and neither did most of the forumgoers (people here tend to avoid flamewar material and let it burn down rather than fuel it in vain - not to mention that most of us have outgrown the taste for cyberwarring). She didn't feel that the people-as-a-whole were on her side, she felt we were the passive accomplice of these idiots, but it was wrong.

I don't know if it's about showing patience or lack of patience, but the general attitude towards these people is "yeah, whatever". We can't be arsed to restart, each time, the same lessons which miss the point of them "wanting" to maintain their traditionalist worldviews. We don't want it to change the forums into moderated boards. And we don't want these idiocies to succesfully silence/invisibilize anyone who breaches these outdated mental categories. I ask you, as a service, to pay little attention to remnants of an older, injust society, and to see them as folkloric anachronisms akin to ancient time travellers bewildered by women's trousers, men's long hair, female politicians, or women's non-covered hair...

Because that is how their posts are percieved by most people around here.

THAT'S the problem. You're a poor source of revenue. ;)

This thread is actually a very good idea. Not only are you allowing people to vent a little or even share what makes them different, there is also an inherent veil that is the internet, which makes the entire process a little less stressful.

I don't have anything as extensive to share, compared to most people, but I do have something I want to mention at the very least.

I'm a woman, who is studying physics, and an inherent part about being a scientist is the concept of question everything. With that in mind, I never took religious ideas seriously growing up. This caused a lot of tension in my household, and it got to a point where my parents refused to talk to me for quite a long time.

It eventually got better, as they decided to accept that part about me.

I'm quite impressed that you're open about it so freely. It certainly can be a attributed to your character and how comfortable you are being different. That's always inspirational.

I would like to mention that although a lot people are very accepting of transgendered people, including myself, it is a disorder. It's a multiple personality disorder, particularly Dissociative identity disorder. You might want to look into it for more information if you're interested.

Uh. Sort of, like, no. In fact.

(No disrespect but you are insane and need to be healed.)

Telika is right. The DSM-V no longer has transgender as a disorder. It was revised a few years ago. Thank God.

First of all thanks everybody for making me feel welcome. The longer I stay here the more impressed I am with the members.

I don't have multiple personalities, I am just me.

Actually in 2013 the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM-5, was upgraded and changed the classification of transsexuality from Gender Identity Disorder to Gender Dysphoria. It's not considered a disorder anymore. The main reason it's mentioned at all is for medical purposes. Dysphoria means a state of unhappiness or lack of well-being. Thus Gender Dysphoria is an unhappiness in the gender one is assigned.

Transitioning is expensive, and if it weren't in the DSM-5 manual it wouldn't be covered by insurance. Thank goodness it is mentioned so insurance covers a lot of it, therapy from a psychologist who specializes in gender issues (writes letter recommending hormone replacement therapy or HRT). the cost of hormones, doctor visits where the hormones are prescribed and monitored, surgery and recovery (expensive even if covered).

And yet there are people who insist being Trans is a choice. I would not wish this on my worst enemy. Either stay in the closet and live an unhappy life, but have peace with others. Or choose to change gender to find happiness, but risk losing everything, your spouse, family, friends, job, house, in some countries your life. I am lucky in that I didn't have to lose any of it. I only had to deal with discrimination. Thank goodness the world is changing rapidly, especially western civilization.

@CatintheHeat ***hugs*** yes thank the goodness things are changing. And I am glad that the DSM has been corrected in your favor.

I can only second what Telika said, Cat.

That said, I didn't really have any problems as a foreigner in Germany. Not in school, not anywhere else. Must have been one of the luckier cases (well, as lucky as a white person of from Eastern Europe can be, I guess. It's not like we're hunted by mobs around here, lol) and now you can't even tell I'm not a German (well, except for the name :P).

But of course, that's nothing compared to what other people around here have faced/still have to face. I can only respect your courage and tell you guys to rock on :)