Defining Terms

I know a lot of us don't want to be labled or fit into 'a box' and a lot of us feel that we are some where between definations or more than one.
I'm posting this thread as I feel it is useful for people who visit here and are unsure about what being a transexual actually is

all imformation is from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
feel free to post on and discuss this thread!
S

 

Transsexualism is a condition in which a transsexual person self-identifies as a member of the gender opposite to the one assigned to them at birth. Transsexual people are stereotypically described as "women trapped in male bodies" or vice versa, although some members of the transsexual community, as well as some people outside the community, reject this model.
Transsexualism often manifests itself as an agonizing dysphoria toward one's biological birth sex, as well as difficulty or inability living in its social role. If untreated, it can lead to mental and emotional problems, and sometimes, suicide. Dutch researcher Peggy Cohen-Kettenis estimates that 40% of untreated transsexual people are either institutionalized or die prematurely. However, with proper treatment, transsexual people often become fully functional members of society. The suicide statistics of treated transsexual people (Cohen-Kettenis et al, 1988) do not remarkably differ from non-transsexual populations.
Most transsexual men and women desire to establish a permanent social role as a member of the gender with which they identify. Many transsexual people also desire various types of medical alterations to their bodies. These physical alterations are collectively referred to as sex reassignment therapy and often include hormones and sex reassignment surgery. The entire process of switching from one physical and social gender presentation to the other is often referred to as transition, and usually takes several years.
To obtain sex reassignment therapy, transsexual people are usually required to receive psychological therapy and a diagnosis of gender identity disorder. They must also live as members of their target sex for a period of time, known as the Real-life test, prior to surgery, and meet other requirements specified by protocols known as Standards of Care. These requirements are intended to prevent those individuals who are not genuinely transsexual from transitioning and later regretting doing so; however, they are often criticized as being either ineffective or too strict - while their intention is to prevent "pseudo-transsexual" people from transitioning, they have been claimed to discourage genuine transsexual people from seeking treatment. By most estimates, less than 1% of people who transition ever regret doing so.
Currently, the causes of transsexualism are unknown, and estimates of prevalence vary substantially. One prominent theory suggests that transsexualism is a neurobiological condition which manifests itself as gender dysphoria and in a brain structure known as the Bed nucleus of Stria Terminalis (BSTc).

Defining transsexualism
The definition of "transsexual" is debated. Many within the trans community feel that a person is transsexual if they personally identify as such. However, some, especially health care providers and some transsexual people, believe there is a certain set of procedures that must always be completed for a person to be called "transsexual". The general public often defines "a transsexual" as someone who has had or plans to have "sex change" surgery, although this term is considered inaccurate by many people who believe that sex cannot really be changed. Additionally, many transsexual people consider "sex change" rude and prefer "sex reassignment" or "gender reassignment" instead. The term currently in widest use for modification of primary sex characteristics is sex reassignment surgery (SRS), a term which reflects the belief that transsexual people do not consider themselves to be changing their sex, but to be correcting their bodies. However, some feel that the term "sex change" is appropriate and that it stresses that transsexual people are not castrated members of their original sex. In the UK, gender reassignment surgery (GRS) is a prevalent term, but many prefer gender affirmation surgery to be more correct.
It is accepted in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders that expression of desire to be of the opposite sex, or assertion that one is of the sex opposite to the one with which they were identified at birth, constitutes being transsexual. The ICD-10 also states that transsexualism is defined by "the desire to live and be accepted as a member of the opposite sex, usually accompanied by the wish to make his or her body as congruent as possible with the preferred sex through surgery and hormone treatment." In contrast, some transgender people often do not identify as being of or desiring to be the opposite sex, but as being of or wanting to be another gender.
Transsexualism has been described as a trait, disease, behavior, desire, mental illness, perversion, paraphilia, political identity, and sin, among other things. Some of these labels are considered offensive by many transsexual people, who usually define their condition as a trait, desire, political identity, or as a medical condition which does not constitute a "disease". In many parts of the world, transsexualism has been viewed as a taboo subject, and many people had little knowledge of the subject prior to the late 20th century.

 

Transgender is an overarching term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies that diverge from the normative gender role (woman or man) commonly, but not always, assigned at birth, as well as the role traditionally held by society.
Transgender is the state of one's "gender identity" (self-identification as male, female, both or neither) not matching one's "assigned gender" (identification by others as male or female based on physical/genetic sex).
Definitions are set forth below, but the precise definition for transgender remains in flux.
"Of, relating to, or designating a person whose identity does not conform unambiguously to conventional notions of male or female gender, but combines or moves between these" (Oxford English Dictionary, Draft Entry 2004)
"People who were assigned a gender, usually at birth and based on their genitals, but who feel that this is a false or incomplete description of themselves."
"Non-identification with, or non-presentation as, the gender one was assigned at birth."
A transgender individual may have characteristics that are associated with a particular gender, identify elsewhere on the gender continuum, or exist outside of it as "other " or "third gender."

 

The terms third gender and third sex describe individuals who are considered to be neither women nor men, as well as the social category present in those societies who recognise three or more genders.
The state of being neither male nor female may be understood in relation to the individual's sex, gender role, gender identity or sexual orientation. To different cultures or individuals, a third sex or gender may represent an intermediate state between men and women, a state of being both (such as "the spirit of a man in the body of a woman"), the state of being neither (neuter), the ability to cross or swap genders, or another category altogether independent of male and female. This last definition is favored by those who argue for a strict interpretation of the "third gender" concept.
The term has been used to describe Hijras of India and Pakistan,Fa'afafine of Polynesia, and Sworn virgins of the Balkans, among others, and is also used by many of such groups and individuals to describe themselves. In the Western world, lesbian, gay, transgender and intersex people have been described as belonging to a third sex or gender, although many object to this characterisation.
The term "third" is usually understood to mean "other"; some anthropologists and sociologists have described fourth, fifth, and many genders.

 

An intersexual or intersex person (or organism of any unisexual species) is one who is born with genitalia and/or secondary sex characteristics determined as neither exclusively male nor female, or which combine features of the male and female sexes. The terms hermaphrodite and pseudohermaphrodite, introduced in the 19th century, are now considered antiquated, misleading and stigmatizing, and patient advocates call for these terms to be abandoned. The phrase "ambiguous genitalia" refers specifically to genital appearance, but not all intersex conditions result in atypical genital appearance.
There is currently a move by some activists to eliminate the term "intersex" in medical usage, replacing it with "Disorders of Sex Development" (DSD) in order to avoid conflating anatomy with identity.However, this has been met with criticism from other activists who question a disease/disability model and advocate no legal definition of sexes, no gender assignments, no legal sex on birth certificates, and no official sexual orientation categories.

Overview

According to the highest estimates (Fausto-Sterling et. al., 2000) perhaps 1 percent of live births exhibit some degree of sexual ambiguity , and that between 0.1% and 0.2% of live births are ambiguous enough to become the subject of specialist medical attention, including surgery to disguise their sexual ambiguity. Other sources (Leonard Sax, 2002) create a narrower definition of "true intersexual conditions" and estimate the incidence as far lower, at approximately 0.018%.
In typical fetal development, the presence of the SRY gene causes the fetal gonads to become testes; the absence of it allows the gonads to continue to develop into ovaries. Thereafter, the development of the internal reproductive organs and the external genitalia is determined by hormones produced by certain fetal gonads (ovaries or testes) and the cells' response to them. The initial appearance of the fetal genitalia (a few weeks after conception) is basically feminine: a pair of "urogenital folds" with a small protuberance in the middle, and the urethra behind the protuberance. If the fetus has testes, and if the testes produce testosterone, and if the cells of the genitals respond to the testosterone, the outer urogenital folds swell and fuse in the midline to produce the scrotum; the protuberance grows larger and straighter to form the penis; the inner urogenital swellings grow, wrap around the penis, and fuse in the midline to form the penile urethra.
Because there is variation in all of these processes, a child can be born with a sexual anatomy that is typically female, or feminine in appearance with a larger than average clitoris (clitoral hypertrophy); or typically male, masculine in appearance with a smaller than average penis that is open along the underside. The appearance may be quite ambiguous, describable as female genitals with a very large clitoris and partially fused labia, or as male genitals with a very small penis, completely open along the midline ("hypospadic"), and empty scrotum.
There are dozens of named medical conditions that may lead to intersex anatomy. Fertility is variable. The distinctions "male pseudohermaphrodite", "female pseudohermaphrodite" and especially "true hermaphrodite" are vestiges of 19th century thinking that placed "true sex" in the histology (microscopic appearance) of the gonads.
The common habit in the 21st century of elevating the role of the sex chromosomes above all other factors when determining gender may be analogous to the older habit of finding "true" sex in the gonads. Though high school biology teaches that men have XY and women XX chromosomes, in fact there are quite a few other possible combinations such as Turner syndrome XO, Triple X syndrome XXX, Klinefelter syndrome XXY, XYY syndrome XYY, Mosaicism XO/XY, de la Chapelle syndrome XX male, Swyer syndrome XY female, and there are many other individuals who do not follow the typical patterns (such as individuals with four or even more sex chromosomes).
Thus, people nowadays may be more likely to look towards the sex chromosomes than, for example, the histology of the gonads. However, according to researcher Eric Vilain at the University of California, Los Angeles, "the biology of gender is far more complicated than XX or XY chromosomes". Many different criteria have been proposed, and there is little consensus.

 

Cross-dressing is the act of wearing clothing commonly associated with another gender within a particular society.

Usage

Nearly every society throughout history has had a set of norms, views, guidelines, or laws regarding the wearing of clothing and what is appropriate for each sex. Cross-dressing is a behavior which runs counter to those norms and therefore can be seen as a type of transgender behavior. It does not, however, necessarily indicate transgender identity; a person who cross-dresses does not always identify as having a gender different from that assigned at birth.
The term cross-dressing denotes an action or a behavior without attributing or proposing causes for that behavior. Some people automatically connect cross-dressing behavior to transgender identity or sexual, fetishist, and homosexual behavior, but the term cross-dressing itself does not imply any motives. However, referring to a person as a cross-dresser suggests that their cross-dressing behavior is habitual and may be taken to mean that the person identifies as transgendered. The term cross-dresser should therefore be used with care to avoid causing misunderstanding or offense.

Varieties of cross-dressing

There are many different kinds of cross-dressing, and many different reasons why an individual might engage in cross-dressing behavior. The following examples are by no means an exhaustive list.
Some people cross-dress as a matter of comfort or style. They have a preference towards clothing which is only marketed to or associated with the opposite sex. In this case, a person's cross-dressing may or may not be visible to other people.
Some people cross-dress in order to shock others or challenge social norms.
Both men and women may cross-dress in order to disguise their true identity. Historically, some women have cross-dressed in order to take up male-dominated or male-exclusive professions, such as military service. Conversely, some men have cross-dressed in order to escape from mandatory military service.
Single-sex theatrical troupes often have some performers cross-dress in order to play roles written for members of the opposite sex. Cross-dressing, particularly the depiction of males wearing dresses, is often used for comic effect onstage and onscreen.

Drag is a special form of performance art based on cross-dressing. A drag queen is a male-bodied person who performs as an exaggeratedly feminine character, in an elaborate costume usually consisting of a gaudy dress and high-heeled shoes, heavy makeup, and a large wig. A drag queen may imitate famous female film or pop-music stars. (See also RuPaul)

A drag king is the counterpart of the drag queen Ñ a female-bodied person who adopts an exaggerated masculine persona in performance or who imitates a male film or pop-music star. Some female-bodied people undergoing gender reassignment therapy also self-identify as drag kings, although this use of "drag king" is considered inaccurate by some.
Transgendered people who are undergoing or have undergone gender reassignment therapy are usually not regarded as cross-dressing. Namely, a post-op transsexual is certainly not considered cross-dressing, unless they were to wear clothes of the gender opposite of what they have transitioned to. Also, without doubt even most pre-op transsexuals would not be regarded as cross-dressing. For these reasons, drawing a specific line saying that a transgendered person is cross-dressing is highly difficult.
A transvestic fetishist is a person (typically a heterosexual male) who cross-dresses as part of a sexual fetish.
The term underdressing is used by male cross-dressers to describe wearing female undergarments under their male clothes.
Some people who cross-dress may endeavor to project a complete impression of belonging to another gender, down to mannerisms, speech patterns, and emulation of sexual characteristics. This is referred to as "trying to pass". Others may choose to take a mixed approach, adopting some feminine traits and some masculine traits in their appearance. For instance, a man might wear both a dress and a beard. This is sometimes known as genderfuck. Finally, for some the motivation for cross-dressing is to undermine the idea that any article of clothing is "only for men" or "only for women." These people may broadly mix clothing from both genders, in a practice called freestyle.

 

Pansexuality (sometimes referred to as omnisexuality) is a sexual orientation characterized by a potential aesthetic attraction, romantic love and/or sexual desire for anybody, including people who do not fit into the gender binary of male/female implied by bisexual attraction. Pansexuality is sometimes described as the capacity to love a person romantically irrespective of gender. Some pansexuals also assert that gender and sex are meaningless to them.

Pansexuals may be attracted to various different forms of romance, and may be aroused by various different acts of sex on a carnal level. It has been stated that pansexuality refers not to a metaphysical order of attraction to other human beings, but rather a more carnal attraction to sexual acts irrespective of gender. Some suggest that pansexuality is more accurately described by its adepts: human- or person-oriented. Despite a pansexual's fluid sexuality, some may have a preference. A pansexual may be attracted to all genders and sexes, but have a preference, (for example) for transsexual men, other pansexuals, masculine lesbians, intersexed people, etc.

Pansexual Sex

Many people who identify as pansexual may associate with people of all sexual orientations, but are not necessarily interested in sex with people of all sexes or genders. They may be comfortable with public displays of affection (PDAs) or semi-public sexual activity which is not confined to their own sexual orientation.
Pansexuals usually consider any sexual act acceptable as long as it is consensual. For some pansexuals, biological sex is a secondary factor, something that will be discovered if and when sexual interaction takes place.

 

Sex reassignment surgery (SRS) is a term for the surgical procedures by which a person's physical appearance and function of their existing sexual characteristics are changed to that of the other sex. It is part of a treatment for gender identity disorder in transsexual and transgender people. It may also be performed on intersex people, often in infancy. Other terms for SRS include gender reassignment surgery, sex reconstruction surgery, genital reconstruction surgery, gender confirmation surgery, and more recently sex affirmation surgery. The commonly used terms sex change or sex change operation are considered factually inaccurate. The terms feminizing genitoplasty and masculinizing genitoplasty are used medically.

The best known of these surgeries are those that reshape the genitals, which are also known as genital reassignment surgery or genital reconstruction surgery (GRS).
The meaning of sex reassignment surgery usually differs for transwomen (male to female) rather than transmen (female to male). For transwomen, sex reassignment involves the reconstruction of the genitals (though other procedures may occur; indeed, some transwomen decide against genital reconstruction surgery), whereas for transmen this may refer to a range of surgeries, including the removal of female breasts and the shaping of a male contoured chest as well as the reconstruction of the genitals. Chest (or "top") surgery is often the only surgical procedure they undergo, largely because the current GRS techniques for transmen do not create genitalia with optimal aesthetic and functional quality. For many transwomen, facial feminization surgery and breast augmentation are also important parts of the sex reassignment process.
People who pursue sex reassignment surgery are usually referred to as transsexual; "trans" - between; "sexual" - pertaining to the sexual characteristics (not sexual actions) of a person. More recently, people pursuing SRS often identify as transgender instead of transsexual.

As a result of SRS, the person will have the external anatomical appearance and function typical of the new sex. They are unable to reproduce due to the lack of sex glands (testes or ovaries), except through prior sperm banking or embryonic freezing, which still require a genetic woman with a uterus as the birth mother.
Additionally, it is usually necessary for transsexual people to continue taking hormone replacement therapy in order to maintain their secondary sex characteristics and prevent conditions such as osteoporosis.
Transsexual people who do not undergo SRS/GRS are often called non-op, while "gender refusenik" is a slang term used among transgender people. Possible reasons for forgoing SRS include financial, legal, and medical concerns, among others.

 

but its pretty darn cool none the less!!
S

 

I Love it....it covers everything !!!!

 

haha, lets not save it for a rainy day!!
S

 

pansexual...so that's what it is.

 

Its one I learnt the other day, someone in the gay forum, asked if anyone knew how the term differed from bisexual so I explored it, I now think my partner is pansexual
S

 

How cute and stuff. I'd like to get a poster of that and hang it in my house.

 

why don't you save it to your computer, and then print it off, do me a favour though, pin it above your boyfriends bed! (joke)
S

 

haha, my boyfriend is leaving the house actually in a few days, and I'm looking for a new girlfriend/boyfriend... hint, hint

 

does he know this yet?
S

 

does he know what, that he's leaving? lol, yes he decided to leave.

don't ignore my hints...

 

I'm a gay guy, apart from that i'd be all yours, remind him to take his umbrella with him in case of rain!
s

 

You know I came to this thread to find exactly this, I was gonna start a thread, I think I still may. I have questions. I'm very attracted to everyone I guess. I'm very attracted to transexuals/transgendered people.