A different approach to Transgender

 It seems to me that transgender rights are administered unequally across classes.  ‘Gender reassignment surgery’ is very expensive. What about all those who feel dysphoric about their gender but don’t have the thousands of dollars needed for surgery?  I would hazard a guess that those who can buy the surgery are a minute percentage of their lower-income siblings.

I hear the stories of children who knew at a very young age that ‘something was wrong’ inside them.  They did not share their gender’s interests.  Boys who wanted more colorful or frilly clothes, and who preferred playing with dolls than ball and bat.  Girls who preferred to climb trees, wrestle, and learn to use tools under the hood of a car were traditionally called ‘tomboys’, but with budding breasts were forced into a different social class.

These children suffer depression as they grow towards maturity.  Why is that?  No doubt they experience bullying, name calling, and ostracizing from both sides of the gender line.  As a teenager experiencing new hormones, depression can occur, it is part of the experience for many, but for sexually dysphoric youth it is deeper and more terminal. 

Parents seek help, when they see their child suffering this treatment.  They may assume that the medical professionals have an answer, so they haul these young people off to a doctor’s office.  There they may find antidepressants, or hormone blockers.  For more desperate patents, treatments of estrogen or testosterone are condoned.

One day it occurred to me that maybe our culture is heading down the wrong path.  After all, theologians who have studied such things tell us that we choose where we will be born, in order to work out our path to spiritual awakening.  We choose our family, our siblings, our gender.  That being the case, how is it possible that we made a ‘mistake’ in the gender we chose?  Sorry, folks, but I don’t see that as a possibility.  We were born with certain personality traits, yes.  To assume that means we don’t have the body to match the personality does not make sense.  Is medical intervention the answer?  Only because we are thinking too small, too ‘within the box’, can we not see our way clear to a more equitable solution.

It is society’s reaction to the choices of these dysphoric people.  I see in my mind’s eye a feminine person, with dress, ruffles and flare, in full makeup, and a beard. 

What about the female to male transition?  I see far less of that on reality TV shows.  It is much easier for a woman to pass as a man, externally.  Does she want to perform like a man sexually?  Lesbians have been using strap-ons already, so why would surgery be necessary?  And when else does a penis come into play?  In a locker room?  That, again, is a societally-conditioned response.  Does that require surgery to change?

I envision a society, a culture, where people can express themselves naturally, without fear of being criticized, ridiculed, ostracized.  I don’t think it necessary for an athlete to compete outside their biological gender to feel fulfilled.  Boys feel more comfortable running with a group of girls?  Let them!  Just not when competing in the Olympics.  Girls want to run with the boys? Work harder in the gym.  Again, not in the Olympics.

If such a culture existed, a person could learn to live with the hormones they were biologically programmed to have, without feeling dysphoric. 

You get the idea.  Not necessary to belabor it.  I do wonder where I have missed the mark, since I am not part of this gender-dysphoric community.  Were I to write my biography without specifying my gender, it might well be ambiguous.  I have not lived a traditional role.  That, however, does not qualify me to speak for this community.  There may be things I am missing.  Surely that is so.

I never hear this subject debated.  I hear that people are fighting for their LGBTQ rights.  I would like to hear the terms of that movement extended.  If society accepted people who are ‘different’, if the roles dictated by society were to be reevaluated and modified, would people feel the need to be so vocal, so ‘in-your-face’ about their differences and different needs?  Would they still feel the need to organize marches?

My voice is not loud enough to engender a conversation over this different perspective.  I wish it were, because the unhappiness of such a large number of people disturbs my spiritual tranquility.  I would rather see a solution that comes from the minds and hearts of people, from growth in spiritual awareness, than from the medical profession mangling the beautiful human body.