RANSVESTIA

I am not referring to the verbally expressed motivations such as "I hate my penis," "I'm a woman trapped in a man's body," "I think like a woman," "I have to have hormones and surgery or I'll commit suicide," etc. We've all heard these ad nauseam. They are the catechism of those seeking surgery and their very identity from patient to patient ought to be a caution light to any professional working in this area. Each person is an individual and when a number of people say exactly the same thing for the same purpose, it is a fair assumption that the expressions have been gleaned from something written or said by another who was seeking the same solution to the same problems. The statements are made on the theory that if they worked before for someone else they might likely work again for the speaker.

These verbalizations are NOT the true motivations. I am referr- ing to the logical motivations that can be deduced from the psycho- social forces in our society and their effects on the people who must live under them. There are three sociological forces that bear on in- dividuals claiming to be "transexuals." They bear on everyone else, too, but most people learn to deal with and adjust to them without recourse to surgery. The individuals we are concerned with find this difficult. First, is the fact that we live in a horizontally polarized socie- ty, divided between two polar opposite psycho-social behaviour types the stereotypes of masculinity and femininity. These are generally congruent with the sexes, male and female. Secondly, our society is vertically polarized in the sense that manliness is seen as, in various ways, superior to and dominant over womanliness. Even though this is gradually changing as women's liberation succeeds in demonstrating to society that women are as capable as men in many aspects of life, it is still a male dominated, male organized, and largely male run socie- ty. Thirdly, there is the general unawareness of most of society and of many professionals as well, that the phenomenon of sex and the manifestations of gender, although basically related, are not syn- onymous concepts but rather have their own rules, functions and ex- pectations.

Since we all live and function under these concepts and mis- concepts, for most people consideration of their effects on individuals would be regarded simply as an academic exercise. But for those in- volved in sexual and genderal conflicts they are of paramount impor- tance, and understanding their impact on such individuals is essential to any real understanding of their motivations, their needs and their goals. Let us ask what possible uses a vagina has? 1) It is the way out