A transsexual person is someone who experiences a gender identity that is inconsistent with their Sex assignment, and desires to permanently transition to the sex or gender with which they identify, usually seeking medical assistance (including gender affirming therapies, such as hormone replacement therapy and gender affirming surgery) to help them align their body with their identified sex or gender.
The term transsexual is a subset of transgender, but some transsexual people reject the label of transgender.
Understanding of transsexual people has rapidly evolved in the 21st century; many 20th century medical beliefs and practices around transsexual people are now considered outdated. Transsexual people were once classified as mentally ill and subject to extensive gatekeeping by the medical establishment, and remain so in many parts of the world.
In understanding the subject, it is noted that there is a difference between gender and sex. Gender is defined as a "set of social, cultural, and linguistic norms that can be attributed to someone's identity, expression, or role as masculine, feminine, androgynous, or nonbinary". Sex is defined as being "assigned at birth by medical professionals based on the appearance of genitalia, and related assumptions about chromosomal makeup, gender identity, expressions, and roles that emerge over the life span, sometimes changing over time".
Cauldwell appears to be the first to use the term to refer to those who desired a change of physiological sex.
Historically, one reason some people preferred transsexual to transgender is that the medical community in the 1950s through the 1980s encouraged a distinction between the terms that would only allow the former access to medical treatment. Other self-identified transsexual people state that those who do not seek gender affirming surgery are fundamentally different from those who do, and that the two have different concerns, but this view is controversial. Others argue that medical procedures do not have such far-reaching consequences as to put those who have had them and those who have not (e.g. because they cannot afford them) into such distinctive categories. Some have objected to the term transsexual on the basis that it describes a condition related to gender identity rather than sexuality. For example, Christine Jorgensen, the first person widely known in the United States for having had gender affirming surgery (in this case, male-to-female), rejected transsexual and instead identified herself in newsprint as trans-gender, on this basis.
A common argument in opposition to the term transsexual is that it over-medicalizes the trans experience, focuses too much on diagnosis, or both. The term transgender emerged in part in an attempt to break the "medical monopoly" on transitioning that transsexual implied.
GLAAD's media reference guide offers the following distinction on the use of transsexual:
An older term that originated in the medical and psychological communities. As the gay and lesbian community rejected homosexual and replaced it with gay and lesbian, the transgender community rejected transsexual and replaced it with transgender. Some people within the trans community may still call themselves transsexual. Do not use transsexual to describe a person unless it is a word they use to describe themself. If the subject of your news article uses the word transsexual to describe themself, use it as an adjective: transsexual woman or transsexual man.
Individuals who have undergone and completed gender affirming surgery are sometimes referred to as transsexed individuals; however, the term transsexed is not to be confused with the term transsexual, which can also refer to individuals who have not undergone SRS, and whose anatomical sex (still) does not match their psychological sense of personal gender identity.
A rarer, alternate spelling for transsexual has been transexual, with a single S. This variation is British in origin. This spelling was used by The Transexual Menace, an activist group, for example. This spelling has been used by some activists in an attempt to remove "pathologizing implications" from their use of the word. Another rare variation, a synonym for transsexual, is .
The terms gender dysphoria and gender identity disorder were not used until the 1970s, when Laub and Fisk published several works on transsexualism using these terms. "Transsexualism" was replaced in the DSM-IV by "gender identity disorder in adolescents and adults".
Male-to-female transsexualism has sometimes been called "Harry Benjamin's syndrome" after the endocrinologist who pioneered the study of dysphoria. As the present-day medical study of gender variance is much broader than Benjamin's early description, there is greater understanding of its aspects, and use of the term Harry Benjamin's syndrome has been criticized for delegitimizing gender-variant people with different experiences.
The terms androphilia and gynephilia to describe a person's sexual orientation without reference to their gender identity were proposed and popularized by psychologist Ron Langevin in the 1980s. The similar specifiers attracted to men, attracted to women, attracted to both or attracted to neither were used in the DSM-IV.
Many transsexual people choose the language of how they refer to their sexual orientation based on their gender identity, not their birth sex assignment.
A non-operative ("non-op") transsexual person is someone who has not had SRS, and does not intend to have it in the future. There can be various reasons for this, from personal to financial. Having SRS is not a requirement of being transsexual. Evolutionary biologist and trans woman Julia Serano criticizes the societal preoccupation with SRS as Phallocentrism, objectifying of transsexuals, and an invasion of privacy.
Beyond Benjamin's work, which focused on male-to-female (MTF) transsexual people, there are cases of the female to male transsexual, for whom genital surgery may not be practical. Benjamin gave certifying letters to his MTF transsexual patients that stated "Their anatomical sex, that is to say, the body, is male. Their psychological sex, that is to say, the mind, is female." Starting in 1968 Benjamin abandoned his early terminology and adopted that of "gender identity".
Gender Incongruence of Adolescence and Adulthood is characterised by a marked and persistent incongruence between an individual's experienced gender and the assigned sex, which often leads to a desire to 'transition', in order to live and be accepted as a person of the experienced gender, through hormonal treatment, surgery or other health care services to make the individual's body align, as much as desired and to the extent possible, with the experienced gender. The diagnosis cannot be assigned prior the onset of puberty. [ applies before puberty] Gender variant behaviour and preferences alone are not a basis for assigning the diagnosis.Historically, transsexualism has also been included in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). With the DSM-5, transsexualism was removed as a diagnosis, and a diagnosis of gender dysphoria was created in its place.
The current diagnosis for transsexual people who present themselves for medical treatment is gender dysphoria (leaving out those who have sexual identity disorders without gender concerns). According to the Standards of care formulated by WPATH, formerly the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association, this diagnostic label is often necessary to obtain gender affirming therapy with health insurance coverage, and the designation of gender identity disorders as mental disorders is not a license for stigmatization or for the deprivation of gender patients' civil rights.
To obtain gender affirming therapy, transsexual people are generally required to undergo a psychological evaluation and receive a diagnosis of gender identity disorder in accordance with the Standards of Care (SOC) as published by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. This assessment is usually accompanied by counseling on issues of adjustment to the desired gender role, effects and risks of medical treatments, and sometimes also by psychological therapy. The SOC are intended as guidelines, not inflexible rules, and are intended to ensure that clients are properly informed and in sound psychological health, and to discourage people from transitioning based on unrealistic expectations.
Like other trans people, transsexual people may refer to themselves as trans men or trans women. Transsexual people desire to establish a permanent gender role as a member of the gender with which they identify, and many transsexual people pursue medical interventions as part of the process of expressing their gender. The entire process of switching from one physical sex and social gender presentation to another is often referred to as transitioning, and usually takes several years. Transsexual people who transition usually change their social gender roles, and legal sex designation.
Not all transsexual people undergo a physical transition. Some have obstacles or concerns preventing them from doing so, such as the expense of surgery, the risk of medical complications, or medical conditions which make the use of hormones or surgery dangerous. Others may not identify strongly with another binary gender role. Still others may find balance at a midpoint during the process, regardless of whether or not they are binary-identified. Many transsexual people, including binary-identified transsexual people, do not undergo genital surgery, because they are comfortable with their own genitals, or because they are concerned about nerve damage and the potential loss of sexual pleasure, including orgasm. This is especially so in the case of trans men, many of whom are dissatisfied with the current state of phalloplasty, which is typically very expensive, not covered by health insurance, and commonly does not achieve desired results. For example, not only does phalloplasty not result in a completely natural erection, it may not allow for an erection at all, and its results commonly lack penile sexual sensitivity; in other cases, however, phalloplasty results are satisfying for trans men. By contrast, metoidioplasty, which is more popular, is significantly less expensive and has far better sexual results.
Transsexual people can be heterosexual, gay, lesbian, or bisexual; many choose the language of how they refer to their sexual orientation based on their gender identity, not their birth sex assignment.
The need for treatment of transsexual people is emphasized by the high rate of mental health problems, including depression, anxiety, and various addictions, as well as a higher suicide rate among untreated transsexual people than in the general population. These problems are alleviated by a change of gender role and/or physical characteristics.
Many transgender and transsexual activists, and many caregivers, note that these problems are not usually related to the gender identity issues themselves, but the social and cultural responses to gender-variant individuals. Some transsexual people reject the counseling that is recommended by the Standards of Care because they do not consider their gender identity to be a cause of psychological problems.
Brown and Rounsley noted that "some transsexual people acquiesce to legal and medical expectations in order to gain rights granted through the medical/psychological hierarchy." Legal needs, such as a change of sex on legal documents, and medical needs, such as gender affirming surgery, are usually difficult to obtain without a doctor or therapist's approval. Because of this, some transsexual people feel coerced into affirming outdated concepts of gender to overcome simple legal and medical hurdles.
A 2010 meta-study, based on 28 previous long-term studies of transsexual men and women, found that the overall psychological functioning of transsexual people after transition was similar to that of the general population and significantly better than that of untreated transsexual people.
The Amsterdam Gender Dysphoria Clinic over four decades has treated roughly 95% of Dutch transsexual clients, and it suggests (1997) a prevalence of 1:10,000 among assigned males and 1:30,000 among assigned females.
Olyslager and Lynn Conway presented a paper at the WPATH 20th International Symposium (2007) arguing that the data from their own and other studies actually imply much higher prevalence, with minimum lower bounds of 1:4,500 male-to-female transsexual people and 1:8,000 female-to-male transsexual people for a number of countries worldwide. They estimate the number of post-op women in the US to be 32,000 and obtain a figure of 1:2500 male-to-female transsexual people. They further compare the annual instances of gender affirming surgery (SRS) and male birth in the U.S. to obtain a figure of 1:1000 MTF transsexual people and suggest a prevalence of 1:500 extrapolated from the rising rates of SRS in the US and a "common sense" estimate of the number of undiagnosed transsexual people. Olyslager and Conway also argue that the US population of assigned males having already undergone reassignment surgery by the top three US SRS surgeons alone is enough to account for the entire transsexual population implied by the 1:10,000 prevalence number, yet this excludes all other US SRS surgeons, surgeons in countries such as Thailand, Canada, and others, and the high proportion of transsexual people who have not yet sought treatment, suggesting that a prevalence of 1:10,000 is too low.
A 2008 study of the number of New Zealand passport holders who changed the sex on their passport estimated that 1:3,639 birth-assigned males and 1:22,714 birth-assigned females were transsexual.
A 2008 presentation at the LGBT Health Summit in Bristol, UK, showed that the prevalence of transsexual people in the UK was increasing (14% per year) and that the mean age of transition was rising.
Though no direct studies on the prevalence of gender identity disorder (GID) have been done, a variety of clinical papers published in the past 20 years provide estimates ranging from 1:7,400 to 1:42,000 in assigned males and 1:30,040 to 1:104,000 in assigned females.
In 2015, the National Center for Transgender Equality conducted a National Transgender Discrimination Survey. Of the 27,715 transgender and genderqueer people who took the survey, 35% identified as "non-binary", 33% identified as transgender women, 29% identified as transgender men, and 3% said that "crossdresser" best described their gender identity.
A 2016 systematic review and meta-analysis of "how various definitions of transgender affect prevalence estimates" in 27 studies found a prevalence (mP) estimates per 100,000 population of 9.2 (95% CI = 4.9–13.6), equal to 1:11,000 for surgical or hormonal gender affirmation therapy and 6.8 (95% CI = 4.6–9.1), equal to 1:15,000 for transgender-related medical condition diagnoses. Of studies assessing self-reported transgender identity, prevalence was 355 (95% CI = 144–566), equal to 1 in 282. However, a single outlier study would have influenced the result to 871 (95% CI = 519–1,224), equal to 1 in 115; this study was removed. "Significant heterogeneity was observed in most analyses."
Those with an autism spectrum disorder or schizophrenia are transsexuals more often than the general population.
|
|