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I just watched a documentary on intersex. Interesting as it was i came away with one feeling. WHy is there a difference between intersex and transex? I get the whole biological angle on inter, but i am more than willing to bet most trans feel the same.Is there a need for division? why the diffferecne between inter and trans?


i'm convinced it's a plot by our left inclined brothers (or sisters) - or (brother-sisters) - to introduce more acronyms into our society for no reason

From a brief Wikki read it looks like Intersex people are actually physically non-standard instead of just "feeling" like the opposite sex as in transexual. Literally "Born this way".

Ugh...

Frazzled sad. Frazzled thought this was about TRexes.

I always considered transex or gay people to be at the minimum gene related if not more so environment related, so this was a good documentary.From most transex people i have heard the difference is in the head. neither giving an indication of biology or not. why is there the differenciation?


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 Frazzled wrote:
Frazzled sad. Frazzled thought this was about TRexes.

The only T-rexes i have heard about are the large necked women located in San Antonio. maybe ask them for a tip.

Intersexed is rather umbrella term that covers any number of conditions that might cause a person to be born without a clearly male or female genitalia.

Transexual is specific to those who feel they're in the wrong physical body, it's at odds with their personal gender identity. They may have been born clearly physically one way, but for whatever reason can't feel comfortable in that.

Intersexed individuals are almost always assigned male or female by various methods. Sometimes they can feel like that assignment went wrong and are also Transexual in that case. However, two categories aren't really strictly related or reliant on each other.

 Chongara wrote:
Intersexed individuals are almost always assigned one way or another by various methods and sometimes they can feel like that assignment went wrong and are also Transexual in that case. However, two categories aren't really strictly related or reliant on each other.

It seems like the best practice might be to defer (physical) assignment until the child gets old enough to start indicating how they feel.

Intersex people are generally born with genitalia that don't fit under one sex, they're sort of midway between male and female (most often, there are other types but this is the one that's most relevant).

Trans* people are born with a specific sex, but they feel like they're the other. It's not a case of 'I like girly things but I have a penis' in some cases it's almost like phantom limb syndrome, where they feel like their body is wrong.

Generally intersex people have a gender chosen for them at birth based on the state of their genitals (though quite often they end up being assigned incorrectly), whereas trans* people are normally raised as the gender that corresponds to their sex but transition later in life.

I hear what your saying chongora, but if they don't feel at home in their current gender , i'm more thsn willing to bet there is some kind of hormone thingy going on, what is the difference to inter apart from physicality?


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 Ouze wrote:

 Chongara wrote:
Intersexed individuals are almost always assigned one way or another by various methods and sometimes they can feel like that assignment went wrong and are also Transexual in that case. However, two categories aren't really strictly related or reliant on each other.

It seems like the best practice might be to defer (physical) assignment until the child gets old enough to start indicating how they feel.

It is potentially too late then ouze.

 Ouze wrote:

 Chongara wrote:
Intersexed individuals are almost always assigned one way or another by various methods and sometimes they can feel like that assignment went wrong and are also Transexual in that case. However, two categories aren't really strictly related or reliant on each other.

It seems like the best practice might be to defer (physical) assignment until the child gets old enough to start indicating how they feel.

My understanding is that goes "Right" more often than it goes "Wrong", and sex is one of the primary identifiers people have in their lives even as children.

The choice is basically to leave them without a practically workable sex-identity during much of the formative years, or risk getting wrong and have that come up later. Both these options present some risk of harm but my understanding is on balance, giving them something that the rest of the world can deal with early on has a greater chance of causing less harm.

EDIT:

 Bullockist wrote:
I hear what your saying chongora, but if they don't feel at home in their current gender , i'm more thsn willing to bet there is some kind of hormone thingy going on, what is the difference to inter apart from physicality?

My understanding is that there is no good understanding of what's going on at a deeper level with people who are Transexual, it just hasn't been looked at with enough depth.

Intersexuality just covers physical differences, though some of the conditions that cause those physical differences are chromosomal. That's really all "intersex" means, that someone is born and they can't be clearly be said to have a male or female body.

Intersex is pretty simple: do you have non-standard genitalia/chromosomes. Intersex, from a definition standpoint, really doesn't deal much with gender identification or anything like that. It's simply a clinical definition of a physical biological occurrence.

Trans is more "feelings" related in its definition in that it depends on a person identifying with a different gender than what they were assigned at birth. That doesn't mean that there cannot be biological and physical reasons for why a person feels that way (hormones, brain connections, etc) and I don't want it to look like I'm trying to make trans sound like a purely psychological issue. But trans deals with gender identity and not with non-standard boy/girl bits.

Now there are cases where both overlap, and that might well make things more complicated. But they are two distinct separate issues.

An oversimplified attempt at categorizing:

A person with standard boy bits who identifies as girl: trans.
A person born with both bits: intersex.
A person born with both bite who was "made" a guy at birth and identifies as guy: still intersex
A person born with both, assigned "guy" at birth and given boy parts who then identifies as girl later: I would say intersex and trans, but now you are getting pretty complicated.

But in short to summarize: trans is about identity and intersex is a biological issue where both parts are present and is independent of identity.

my thought was couldn't they just be considered trans? Since it's essentially the same thing. Person born in body, body doesn't match head (essentially) , things happen. You are never going to notice a intersex whose sex matches it's gender, therefore aren't all inters by nature (with a broad brush) trans?

 Bullockist wrote:
my thought was couldn't they just be considered trans? Since it's essentially the same thing. Person born in body, body doesn't match head (essentially) , things happen. You are never going to notice a intersex whose sex matches it's gender, therefore aren't all inters by nature (with a broad brush) trans?

No. I think d-usa's post covers the basics in a pretty clear way.

 Bullockist wrote:
my thought was couldn't they just be considered trans? Since it's essentially the same thing. Person born in body, body doesn't match head (essentially) , things happen. You are never going to notice a intersex whose sex matches it's gender, therefore aren't all inters by nature (with a broad brush) trans?

Intersex has nothing to do with identity, so there is no reason to call them trans.

Intersex is simply the physical presence of more than one set of sex characteristics. Both an ovary and a testicle as an example. That's it.

 Ouze wrote:

 Chongara wrote:
Intersexed individuals are almost always assigned one way or another by various methods and sometimes they can feel like that assignment went wrong and are also Transexual in that case. However, two categories aren't really strictly related or reliant on each other.

It seems like the best practice might be to defer (physical) assignment until the child gets old enough to start indicating how they feel.

Another topic that might be somewhat related is the use of gender stereotypes in children from the moment that they are born. From simple stuff like "everything pink" for girls and "everything blue" for boys (no honey, you can't use that toothbrush, that's a boy toothbrush) to having certain toys for girls and certain toys for boys. I remember playing with a toy kitchen 25 years ago and I had fun even though I was a boy, but now it seems most toy kitchens are pink and for girls and boys get a blue workbench to do manly things. Toddler girls get tiny clothes that they can't even comfortably play in and are taught not to get dirty while boys get baggy clothes and are told to roughhouse and play in the dirt because "boys will be boys".

It seems like anymore we try to put kids into these tiny rigid gender boxes from the moment that they are born. I'm not saying that we should tell all our kids "you can be a girl or a boy, whatever you want", but we should let them know that "boy or girl, everybody can play with this doll or these cars and go running through the mud".

It's something that I try to be very mindful off with our little one. Not focusing on appearance and complimenting her for being "so pretty" or "so cute" but complementing her for stuff she actually does. Having clothes of all colors available for her, including pink. Try to have versions of her toys that are gender neutral in color (if the next kid is a boy he can play with the same toys) and both "girl toys" and "boy toys" so that she can try to feed her doll one minute and then push the fire truck around and play with the helicopter the next.

 Chongara wrote:
My understanding is that goes "Right" more often than it goes "Wrong", and sex is one of the primary identifiers people have in their lives even as children.

The choice is basically to leave them without a practically workable sex-identity during much of the formative years, or risk getting wrong and have that come up later. Both these options present some risk of harm but my understanding is on balance, giving them something that the rest of the world can deal with early on has a greater chance of causing less harm.

As I understand it there's also the issue of parents/doctors who aren't comfortable with anything outside of their nice neat little gender boxes deciding to "fix" the problem in the way that makes life as easy as possible for them, regardless of what is best for the child. And really, what other reason would there be? It's not like many people are going to be paying attention to what's in a child's pants, just leave all of that alone until they're older and can make their own choices. You can still raise them as a boy/girl until that point, it's just easier to change that choice if you're wrong.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Chongara wrote:
My understanding is that goes "Right" more often than it goes "Wrong", and sex is one of the primary identifiers people have in their lives even as children.

The choice is basically to leave them without a practically workable sex-identity during much of the formative years, or risk getting wrong and have that come up later. Both these options present some risk of harm but my understanding is on balance, giving them something that the rest of the world can deal with early on has a greater chance of causing less harm.

As I understand it there's also the issue of parents/doctors who aren't comfortable with anything outside of their nice neat little gender boxes deciding to "fix" the problem in the way that makes life as easy as possible for them, regardless of what is best for the child. And really, what other reason would there be? It's not like many people are going to be paying attention to what's in a child's pants, just leave all of that alone until they're older and can make their own choices. You can still raise them as a boy/girl until that point, it's just easier to change that choice if you're wrong.

I'm hardly an expert, so I'm not sure I wanna take (or try and refute), any particularly strong stances. Still it feels like you're painting the adults here in a more sinister light and with a more dismissive tone than the stories I've read seem to warrant.

Still we're dealing with something pretty fundamental to how we deal with ourselves and every person we interact with our entire lives. I think it's hard to boil down any decision about something that ingrained in our basic understanding of the world to simple discomfort. Even short-sighted decisions or decisions that maybe don't take a fully nuanced view of all available information can still be made from place of genuine concern.

Another important consideration is that it's fairly frequent that the gentialia of intersex individuals at birth are often not terrible function for the basic task of peeing (or might work but would be very prone to infections)

so as well as providing a gender identity (right or wrong) surgery also lets them use the toilet normally (pretty vital for a kid if they are not going to get a lot of grief),

plus babies heal much better/faster than older people so waiting to see if the develop one or the other gender identity risks making the eventual surgery harder and less sucessful

I can impossibly take anyone even borderline seriously who suggests not defining gender at birth. It's a purely emotional point of view, that is based on a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny minority and suddenly becomes a superserial issue for some people. This isn't even close to how anything works.

I'm with Fraz. I thought this was about TRex. You should fix the title. Sad face.

 Sigvatr wrote:
I can impossibly take anyone even borderline seriously who suggests not defining gender at birth. It's a purely emotional point of view, that is based on a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny minority and suddenly becomes a superserial issue for some people. This isn't even close to how anything works.

For Intersex people? Or everyone else? Because I can understand it perfectly fine with regards to intersex people, as the incidence of 'getting it wrong' is higher than the normal rate of transsexualism.

If you mean just generally referring to people by gender neutral terms up to the age of four, then yeah, I can understand where they're coming from, but that's taking it a bit far.

To break it down even more simply:

Intersex - Physiological
Transsexual - Psychological*

That's simplest terms, there is of course a host of hormonal things and issues with brain structure that make it a bit more complex then that but I find the two identifies to be appropriate as they cover two different spectrums of disorder.