life adjustment. A damaged kidney not functioning as it should has to be removed; a person suffering from highly neurotic phobia, or complex with prevents him from functioning in a satisfactory way socially needs treatment; a disfiguring facial scar, a dislocated hip, a hair lip, or a club foot, all of which would prevent an effective adjustment to life, would require surgical correction. Therefore, if someone is to have his sex altered and his gender consequently altered too it should be a logical assumption that neither the sex or the gender is functioning properly, providing satisfaction and permitting effective life adjustment. It is my contention that ONLY THOSE IN WHOM BOTH OF THESE AREAS (SEX AND GENDER) ARE NOT CONTRIBUTING TO A HAPPY AND EFFICIENT LIFE SHOULD BE TERMED TRANSEXUALS. I emphasize "both" because it is not logical to change sex if gender adjustment is adequate nor to try to change gender by surgery if the sexual apparatus is functioning.

Now what are the implications of this? First that a "true" TS should be a person whose maleness is non-functional, that is one who has been unable to become erotically aroused as a male (regardless of the sex of the partner). Second, that the individuals gender, his masculinity, should also be of a low order. This would be evidenced by his being uncomfortable and ineffective in social situations, unable to relate to women as a man even on a non-sexual level, to lack the ambition, drive and capacity to adequately prepare himself for a good job and/or the inability to get and hold a good job, and who therefore switches from one low paying job to another. In short the true TS could be described as a person who is inadequate, inefficient, uncomfortable, unhappy and ineffective both as a male and as a man (both sexually and genderally, that is).

If this is accepted as a reasonable definition of the term, we next begin to look around for people who would fit it. Having defined the word and listed the symptoms that indicate the condition the doctor should now be the one to decide whether John Smith does or does not fit the category (and not take John's own diagnosis) and whether he is therefore a logical prospect for the sex alteration and the gender change that will result. When the doctor begins to apply these criteria to those who come to him seeking surgery it would be my estimate that he would shortly eliminate at least 80% of them from consideration. That is to say I would estimate that not more than 20% of those seeking surgery could really be considered to be proper Transexuals by any reasonable def- inition of the word. Well then, for heaven's sake, what's with the other 80%?

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