Transidentity

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Hi friends, I hope you're fine? I went to see David Lachapelle's exhibition this weekend and I saw a picture with a transgender man.

Transidentity is the fact of having a gender identity and / or a gender expression different from the sex given at birth.
The name "transsexualism" and the adjective "transsexual" tend to be abandoned, on the one hand because gender is independent of sexuality, on the other hand because they are considered pathologizing, having been initially used by psychiatrists in the 1950s.

"Transsexualism" was included in 1980 in the list of mental disorders established by the American Society of Psychology; As this document has been revised, the term has been replaced by "gender identity disorder" and then "gender dysphoria". The idea that the trans person is suffering is central to the definitions of these medical terms. But many people categorically reject the idea that transidentity is any disease or cause of suffering.

Trans people are particularly discriminated against. Many countries penalize and psychiatrize transidentities, and / or pose institutional barriers to the recognition of people's gender identity or access to care. In contrast, the procedure for a change of civil status in Argentina is entirely based on the self-determination of the person, without any obligation of medical diagnosis and / or surgery.

Gender identity is independent of sexual orientation, since trans people can be heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, asexual, .... It is also necessary to distinguish between transsexuality and intersexuality, which refers to the situations of persons born with sexual characteristics (genital, hormonal, gonadic or chromosomal) who do not correspond to the binary definitions of male or female bodies, even if certain claims of trans people and intersex are common.

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From "transsexual" to "transgender"

At the same time as Benjamin's book, in 1965, the term transgender was coined by John Oliven psychiatrist Columbia University in his 1965 reference work, Sexual Hygiene and Pathology, writing that the term previously used, "Transsexualism" was misleading; in fact, "transgenderism" is more evocative, because sexuality is not predominant in transvestism. The term "transgender" was then popularized, with different definitions, of various transgender, transsexual and transgender people.

In the mid-1970s, the terms "trans-gender" and "trans people" were trunk-words, and "transgeneral" was used to describe people who wanted to live transvestites, without undergoing sex reassignment surgery.

From the 1990s, transsexual was gradually considered a subset of the generic term transgender. The notion of "anatomical sex" does not necessarily correspond to the notion of chromosome sex. Sex identity has so far been defined by the presence of XX or XY chromosomes, but the existence of males and XX or female karyotype and XY karyotype has been known since the 2000s.

The term transgender is now better known and many people prefer transgender to transsexual. It is a generic term including people whose gender identity differs from their assigned gender: trans men, trans women, but also people whose gender identity is neither exclusively male nor exclusively female, for example genderqueer, bigeners, pangenres, genderfluid, or agenres.

Other definitions of transgenderism also include people belonging to a third gender, or the conceptualization of transgender people as a third gender. More rarely, the definition of "transgender" is expanding to include transvestites regardless of their gender identity.

The term transsexual, however, continues to be used and some people who benefit from medical assistance to harmonize their sexual characteristics with their gender identity prefer transsexual and reject transgender; indeed, these people who reject the transgender label for "transsexual" want to emphasize that although they performed a sex reassignment surgery, so that their anatomical sex was changed, their gender identity has always remained constant.

Historically, one of the reasons that some people prefer "transsexual" to "transgender" is that the medical community, in the 1950s and 1980s, encouraged this distinction between terms, to allow access, or not, to medical treatment . Others, identifying as transsexuals, suggest that those who do not seek surgery are fundamentally different from those who want it, and that these two categories therefore have different concerns, but this view is controversial; indeed, some argue that performing medical procedures is not enough to discern what is being experienced by others, for various reasons, including not being able to pay for them or for fear. that the term transsexual is amalgamated with sexuality, when it comes, in fact, to gender identity.

In 1984, the concept of "transgender community" developed, in which transgeneralism was used as a generic term. In 1992, the International Conference on Transgender Rights and Employment Policy defined transgenderism as a broad umbrella term, including "transsexual, transgendered, transvestite" people and anyone in transition.

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Brain structures

The most studied factors are biological, including the important role that could play the sexualization of the brain.

Studies began with Zhou, in 1995, who found that the brain structures of trans women were similar to those of cisgender women (describes a type of gender identity where the perceived gender of a person that matches his gender of birth) and different from cisgender men; the brain structures of trans men being similar to those of cisgender men, even under the control of hormonal catches. In 2000, a study showed that trans women had the same number of neurons as cisgender women.

Studies from 2004, 2006 and 2008 confirmed that gender identity is influenced by brain structure. Differences in cerebral structures were also found between gay and straight-sex cisgender men, and between lesbian and heterosexual cisgender women.

Studies have also found that the reception and androphilic and gynéhile responses of trans women are similar to those of cisgender women and different from cisgender men, or between the two.

Genetic factors

Regarding genetic factors, one study reported that trans women had a longer androgen-receptor gene than cisgender men, making testosterone binding less effective, and thus potentially preventing complete masculinization. of the brain. Prenatal androgen exposure, or sensitivity, or lack thereof, is often cited to explain the differences in brain structures observed.

A twin study found that 33% of homozygous twin pairs were both trans, compared to only 2.6% for heterozygous twins who were raised in the same family at the same time but who are not genetically identical.

Psychological factors

In 2005, the MMPI test performed by trans people followed by French official teams and wishing for hormonal and surgical management, made it possible to significantly distinguish between introversion and hypersensitivity to external conditions in trans women, and trends in impulsivity and extraversion in trans men; These results are in line with the empathy difficulties that professionals find during their psychological care.

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