RANSVESTIA

woman for most men. Actually, of course, it doesn't determine it at all --for a woman. But it does determine she is a female-female being the sexual-anatomic word and woman being the psycho-social gender word. But those set on surgery don't know the difference between sex and gender (and don't really want to learn). They see woman and female as two words for the same thing and since, being FPs, they want to live their lives accordingly, they feel that they could not do so without that orifice and without getting rid of their symbols of maleness. The chauvinism comes in because they equate womanhood with a genital orifice.

But for many such people this is sort of ridiculous. If they plan on going to one of the more legitimate gender clinics they will be required to live as a woman for two years. Of course there are a lot of doctors around the country who will perform the surgery after only a one hour interview with a psychiatrist. Since both professionals know that you can't evaluate anybody for much of anything in that short time, it seems highly probable that there is fee splitting going on and that the psychiatrist gets some of the money charged by the surgeon. for the conversion. Sort of ganging up on the hapless patient-"Hi George, I got another live one in the office. I'll send him/her over to you for the usual once over lightly and then we'll do it next week. You'll get yours later. O.K.? Fine! Well keep 'em shrinking, George. Talk to you again when I get another prospect. Bye now." Why shouldn't it be that way? The patient is clamoring for the surgery, the surgeon can perform it (if he is in the business at all he has had a lot of practice in recent years), the perfunctory psychiatric interview is easily arranged so that the surgeon can say that the patient was "checked out" and voila! a new "woman."

But if they go to a place like Johns Hopkins or Stanford and a few others and do in fact live as women for two years, and work and support themselves in that role then they have already proved to themselves that they can do it, can be women in the world. What then can the surgery do for them but enable them to utilize the first reason -sex with a male. The surgery won't add a whit to what they have already being doing-working, living, passing and being accepted as a woman for two years. Who is going to know they have had the surgery unless she tells on herself? So in effect reason four was rendered inoperative by experience, thought it may still be much alive in the head, and this is where the trouble is. Most people have it so embedded in their concepts that man-male and that woman

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