I have got a SERIOUS problem...

[[Sound_Nin]]

I have a problem and I need to figure it out NOW.

Okay, so I guess I haven't told anyone this yet, but I am a female-to-male transsexual. I mean, I'm physically female yet it doesn't feel right. It doesn't... fit, I guess. I completely, 100% identify as being male, and I have always, as far back as I remember to about 3 or 4, felt this way.
Now, I've had a few girlfriends, and things didn't go that far so they never found out. And that was nice, and perfect, until now. Actually, until the summer of 2004, when, I somehow fell in love with a guy. But he was gay, so it was a homosexual male relationship. That worked out fine. Then I thought I was gay AND transsexual. BUT I still like girls. A lot. So now I'm thinking I consider myself bisexual male. But there still is that part of me that says "it was just a tomboy phase, and now you're realizing you're a bisexual FEMALE" so, excuse my language, I AM SO ******* **** **** ******* CONFUSED!!!!

Could someone please help me figure this mess out?
(To clarify, I've had more boyfriends and girlfriends in the past and recently)

[Japan]

[COLOR=DarkRed]Now, I will assume that you are in the adolesent stage in life. That stage is the stage where people such as yourself are confused, or somewhat unsure of their sexual orientation...usually.

Since you are in this stage in life, you may be homosexual, you may not. Anyways, I am very much a tomboy as a male is well, male. I hated to dress up and more often than not, had more guy friends than girls and hung out with just the guys. I'm not gay or anything. I am very much straight. Just give it time. I'm pretty sure what you are experiencing is just normal behavior[/COLOR].

[Fasteriskhead]

[QUOTE=Ryli][COLOR=DarkRed]Now, I will assume that you are in the adolesent [sic] stage in life. That stage is the stage where people such as yourself are confused, or somewhat unsure of their sexual orientation...usually.

...

Just give it time. I'm pretty sure what you are experiencing is just normal behavior[/COLOR].[/QUOTE]
Forgive me if I sound too harsh here. Ryli, if I read you fairly, are you seriously suggesting that GS here should just "grow out of it"? Then you have just made this entire situation trivial. You need not even offer any solution, because you take the issue to not even be a problem. Transsexuality and all the rest is taken as just part of the "confusion" that "everyone goes through" in the process of growing up, which eventually just solves itself as the person in question simply becomes "normal." (by what's "normal" I do not necessarily mean heterosexuality and traditional gender roles, but instead the wider sense of the resolution of ALL this confusion as the person takes up a single well-defined sexuality - in other words, they and everyone else comes to know what they are and what category they fall into, gay or straight, top or bottom)

Saying "just give it time" completely does away with the problem; we're not even obligated to take it seriously anymore, we're only expected to [i]wait[/i]. It amounts to pretty much the same as when John Cleese asks Mike Palin about his dead bird, and Palin replies, "He's not dead, he's resting!" I don't presume to speak for GoldScorpion on this, but what help is it to tell me that the problem I am having [i]now[/i], the confusion I am feeling [i]now[/i], will "probably" go away soon? That does nothing to tell me what the problem means, and what the problem says about me. And, moreover, what if it [i]doesn't[/i] go away? What if I can [i]never[/i] begin to unambiguously refer to myself as male or female, straight, gay, or bi, tomboy or queen (etc.)? Even if I am able to "grow out of it," which I fairly admit the possibility of, it seems a wiser course to confront the problem on its own terms rather than just wait for it to go away.

To GoldScorpion: somewhat hypocritically, I'm afraid I don't have much advice to give you either. Certainly I don't have any easy answers, at least. In any case, there's plenty of literature out there on the internet and elsewhere on transgender phenomena (although as always, some of it is better than others), and plenty of people who have gone through their own sexual "confusion" have been willing to share their stories. The only suggestion I have, then, which certainly isn't a useful one, is studying hard and thinking even harder. Find ways to describe how you live and think and feel in particular situations without resorting to obvious definitions (think poetically). Avoid, if at all possible, the temptation to jump to an easy conclusion (even if it offers the comfort of a simple, easily-defined term for you to use when people ask). Coming to grips with who you are should not at all be limited to deciding which label comes closest, thus instantly killing off all the confusion - fundamentally it is never as easy as that.

[AzureWolf]

[COLOR=green]There's a difference between being confused with your sexuality and having an identity crisis. Of course, you are unsure of both your gender identity and your sexuality, so I guess it doesn't matter in your case, haha.

Anyways, I highly recommend [url=http://www.isna.org/]ISNA[/url] if you are genuinely seeking help. They can probably help you out better than any hack here (including me).[/COLOR]

[Charles]

[QUOTE=GoldScorpion78]I have a problem and I need to figure it out NOW.

Okay, so I guess I haven't told anyone this yet, but I am a female-to-male transsexual. I mean, I'm physically female yet it doesn't feel right. It doesn't... fit, I guess. I completely, 100% identify as being male, and I have always, as far back as I remember to about 3 or 4, felt this way.
Now, I've had a few girlfriends, and things didn't go that far so they never found out. And that was nice, and perfect, until now. Actually, until the summer of 2004, when, I somehow fell in love with a guy. But he was gay, so it was a homosexual male relationship. That worked out fine. Then I thought I was gay AND transsexual. BUT I still like girls. A lot. So now I'm thinking I consider myself bisexual male. But there still is that part of me that says "it was just a tomboy phase, and now you're realizing you're a bisexual FEMALE" so, excuse my language, I AM SO ******* **** **** ******* CONFUSED!!!!

Could someone please help me figure this mess out?
(To clarify, I've had more boyfriends and girlfriends in the past and recently)[/QUOTE]

[CENTER][IMG]http://img103.imageshack.us/img103/8757/uhhh1yc4zb.gif[/IMG][/CENTER]

[Delta]

[COLOR=#656446]^ Y halo thar!

[b]GS78:[/b] Your preferences must not be defined by your outward appearance or what your previous choices may have been. This may sound hedonistic but there's nothing wrong with wanting a man now when you were craving for a female companion yesterday.

Don't try to define your state, chief. Just live it.

[SIZE=1]Short but sweet, yeah?[/SIZE][/COLOR]

[KatanaViolet]

I can't really say I know how to help you... this is a wayyy out there kinda problem.
I mean, I didn't even meet anyone openly gay until university!
What it seems to me is that you are having a gender identity/ sexual orientation issue here correct?
And I need to clarify that you still have all your female... parts, right?
I mean, I don't really blame you, being a woman can suck... periods, PMS, menopause, pregnancy, hormones, not to mention the way that (some) men treat us!
But to be completely honest, I don't really think this is a problem one should come to the boards with... as much advice as we could give, most of us are completely uneducated on the issue, and I'm even a psych student. We can't say that you are a transexual, or bisexual female, or if you have gender identity disorder. We don't know. My best advice I could give to you with confidence is that maybe you should see a councellor or something.... or even a psychologist. I'm sorry, but that's the best I can do... I'm stumped.

[[Sound_Nin]]

Alright, well thanks for the advice everyone.
To clarify:
I've talked to my counselor, she says I am most definitely transgendered but the problem is I'm not so sure of this myself. THAT'S my gender identity problem.

I have been with guys, I have been with girls. It felt right either way. The problem with that is I don't know whether I identify as a bisexual male or female. THAT'S my sexual orientation problem.

The reason I posted this HERE is because I wanted to see if anyone else here has this problem or knows someone who does, that way I can get in contact with them.

[AzureWolf]

[COLOR=green]First of all, gender identity and sexual orientation are NOT synonymous. Gender identity refers to that core feeling inside of you, what you consider yourself to be. There have been cases where guys feel that, deep down inside, that nature has done them wrong and that they should have been girls (and vice versa). I personally have never heard of someone who does not know what they feel inside of themselves.

Sexual orientation is who you are attracted to, and everyone knows the story with this boring "I'm gay, I'm bi, I'm not gay, I'm not bi" drama.

Anyway, [url]www.isna.org[/url] is the place that can help you best if not some psychiatrist or physician you can meet in person. The Intersex Society of North America is probably the best resource for people trying to learn about the problem of having only two sexes, as well as for people who can't pinpoint themselves in some way.[/COLOR]

[Sara]

[quote name='Fasteriskhead']Forgive me if I sound too harsh here. Ryli, if I read you fairly, are you seriously suggesting that GS here should just "grow out of it"? Then you have just made this entire situation trivial. You need not even offer any solution, because you take the issue to not even be a problem. Transsexuality and all the rest is taken as just part of the "confusion" that "everyone goes through" in the process of growing up, which eventually just solves itself as the person in question simply becomes "normal." [/quote][color=#b0000b][size=1]Japan [i]didn't[/i] say "You'll grow out being transgendered." She said "It's normal to be mixed up at your age. Sooner or later, it'll become clear to you who you really are."

And she's right.

There's nothing magical that will make you figure out who you are and who you are meant to be. It's something you learn--by living your life, and being yourself. You may [i]never[/i] feel comfortable with labels like male and female, gay, lesbian, or bisexual. They're just labels.

[i]You[/i] don't need to fit a label. You don't need to change who you are to fit in a box that other people understand--or a box that [i]you[/i] understand. Be yourself.

Eventually, someone will make up a label that describes you perfectly. Isn't that exciting?[/color][/size]

[Fasteriskhead]

[quote name='Sara][color=#b0000b][size=1]Japan [i]didn't[/i] say "You'll grow out being transgendered."[/color'][/size][/quote]
I never accused her of such, nor did ever I interpret her in that way. Reread my first post, right after the part where you cut me off in your quote; I do not at all mean "normal" in the sense that you seem to think I do (and which I would then be accosting Japan with), and I explicitly say that I am using the word in a somewhat odd way. What I protest here isn't the marginalization of TG/TS and other forms of "abnormality," although certainly I would be the first to say that outside of these boards most of the human world would at best find it totally unacceptable, and would at worst force a correction. For the moment, though, I actually protest the marginalization of [i]confusion[/i].

I don't think I'm saying anything that is really unusual here (although I admit I'm straying from the topic a little). I'm not saying that we should take confusion as something good, or even something to be unashamed of (there will never be a Confusion Pride parade) - however, we ought to at least take it [i]seriously[/i]. Taking the issue in only the sense of sexuality: is it at all strange for me to say, at any given moment, that I'm never quite sure why it is that I'm attracted to the beings that I am (i.e. what "quality" about them attracts me), or that I occasionally have a flash of interest in something that I "normally" wouldn't consider as in my range? Not at all, this has happened to many of us (enough so that I shouldn't need to provide examples). You say: "Eventually, someone will make up a label that describes you perfectly." This will be wonderful, unless 20 minutes later I find myself attracted to something outside of that label's bounds, in which case I would have to throw my hands up and start over.

This kind of thing isn't common, perhaps, but it's enough that it should prompt us to seriously begin to reconsider how we think about sexuality. Currently we see sexual attraction to another being as "arising" out of a fundamental state of preference, e.g. male heterosexuality or whatever. Even more recent developments, e.g. the very popular "everyone is a little bit bi," has in mind this kind of stable sexual ground: even though it may be a mixed bag, the important thing is that it is fixed in our natures and just waiting to be found out by us, possibly by way of an online test or something. I don't think it works this way; it just sounds [i]wrong[/i]. I'm not at all saying that the traditional demarcations of homosexuality etc. don't have any value (at the very least you can make a statistical judgment), but as Hegel was one of the first to note, by drawing a boundary you've already gone beyond it. Rather than my sexual orientation determining the manner of my sexual attraction, it's possible that the [i]reverse[/i] is closer to the truth.

I will of course be accused of saying that sexuality is then completely arbitrary and totally relative: "But if orientation doesn't create sexuality, then what does? If orientation, even a very complex form with lots of percentages and statistics, is mostly conventional, then why am I ever attracted to anything at all?" The answer that can be pulled out of the air is "nothing," and everyone will then conclude that I'm a nihilist or saying that everything's socially determined or some other nonsense. Probably this is impossible to avoid. But the question remains: why are we sexual at all? Could it perhaps be something as simple and trite as [i]the beauty of another being?[/i] Indeed, in our carefully marking off categories for attraction (male, female, blonde, brunette, asian, black, butch, femme, etc.) and figuring out where we fall into, might we have totally forgotten that [i]other beings[/i] are what is attractive? Or (to put it another way) that it is the experience of others which throws us into a state of sexuality? And if it's the beauty of others that leads us to sexuality, then how can we so easily nail down our sexual status?

I'm worried that I'm not being as clear on this as I'd like to be, but I'm not sure what else to say. In particular the word "sexuality" is falling dead as I write it. As a coincedence, I'm actually currently working an article touching on these kinds of questions, and hopefully I'll better understand what I'm talking about by the time I finish it. (and sorry, I never got into the gender identity question)

[quote name='Sara][color=#b0000b][size=1]There's nothing magical that will make you figure out who you are and who you are meant to be. It's something you learn--by living your life, and being yourself.[/color'][/size][/quote]
In this I think we are in agreement, although that's not to say that the point (that we learn about ourselves by living with ourselves) is completely clear. For surely we learn nothing about ourselves by just going through the motions day after day - we've all known people who do this and who don't have the first idea of who they are. So we must think about ourselves, study ourselves - "know thyself" as the Socratic command goes. But how do we go about learning about ourselves? Do we simply pay attention for awhile, and then after we've catalogued ourselves enough we can say that we "know who we are"? I somehow doubt this is how it usually works. Do we really achieve some kind of full, closed system of who we are? Or is life something more like [i]leprosy[/i], and so "knowing thyself" would be the constant checking and rechecking our extremities for anything changed? (I admit this is a horrible analogy, but hopefully it is at least vivid) Is "knowing who we are" something that we suddenly arrive at after we've gathered enough data, or is it something we must keep doing day after day?

I believe I've talked for long enough here, and while barely even touching on the main topic to boot. I will keep thinking on this; there's more to it than what I've been able to get out.

[[Sound_Nin]]

What I meant to say is that I KNOW that no matter what others may get from appearance I AM male, regardless of the missing and extra anatomy. But the bisexual thing has kind of confused me but I think, honestly that it would be best to just label myself "bisexual" instead of being one way or another. At least until I figure it out completely.

I think I have it figured out now. It's really a hard issue to deal with so it may take me some time before I'm completely self-assured about myself. Anyone who says they weren't confused at age 14 is either a liar or the world's most perfect person.

[Ellerby]

[quote name='GoldScorpion78']Anyone who says they weren't confused at age 14 is either a liar or the world's most perfect person.[/quote]
[color=#555555][FONT=Tahoma]Okay, now that's just not true. Just because you're confused doesn't mean all other 14 year olds are. I knew I was straight at the age of 14, and I have known that since I can remember.

Anyways, let me put this to you simply. If you can produce ova or bear young, than you are female. If you have organs that produce spermatozoa for fertilizing ova, than you are male. If you have sexual orientation to persons of either sex, you are bisexual and if you have undergone a sex change operation or identify completely with the opposite sex, you are a transexual.

From what I've gathered, you are a Bisexual Transexual. One who identifies entirely with the opposite sex and has sexual orientation with both sexes.

I hope that helped. ^_^[/FONT][/COLOR]

[kalon]

Hello GoldScorpion78. I won't belittle your problem by saying I completely understand what you are going through. I just want you to know that you don't need to lable yourself. Everyone has differences, and you do not always need a name attached to what you are. Except for anime and video game characters, I'm pretty much asexual. You are simply you, and that is all you have to be.-^_^-

[Fasteriskhead]

[quote name='White][color=#555555][FONT=Tahoma] Anyways, let me put this to you simply. If you can produce ova or bear young, than you are female. If you have organs that produce spermatozoa for fertilizing ova, than you are male.[/FONT'][/COLOR][/quote]
...Oh. Well, that was easy. Thanks to biology, the mystery has been solved! W-well, I guess except for those males who've undergone a vasectomy or (yeee) been castrated, or those females who've had something similar happen (or who've gone through that rarity of rarities, menopause), or anyone with applicable birth abnormalities. I guess they maybe don't count as either sex, since their junk don't work.

Wait, wait! M-maybe genetic definitions will work! See, XY is always male, and XX is always female, and it's just always kept that simple. E-except maybe for like those people with Klinefelter Syndrome, Turner Syndrome, or other abnormal chromosomal sets. T-they don't really get to be a sex either, maybe. But that can't be right, can it?

Man, this is giving me a headache! Wait, give me ten more minutes and I'll have surely figured out how to reduce the male-female distinction to biological determinism. It's gotta be something simple! Bust size, maybe? Neural configuration? I've just g-gotta be missing something!

(etc.)

[Retribution]

[QUOTE=Fasteriskhead]...Oh. Well, that was easy. Thanks to biology, the mystery has been solved! W-well, I guess except for those males who've undergone a vasectomy or (yeee) been castrated, or those females who've had something similar happen (or who've gone through that rarity of rarities, menopause), or anyone with applicable birth abnormalities. I guess they maybe don't count as either sex, since their junk don't work.

Wait, wait! M-maybe genetic definitions will work! See, XY is always male, and XX is always female, and it's just always kept that simple. E-except maybe for like those people with Klinefelter Syndrome, Turner Syndrome, or other abnormal chromosomal sets. T-they don't really get to be a sex either, maybe. But that can't be right, can it?

Man, this is giving me a headache! Wait, give me ten more minutes and I'll have surely figured out how to reduce the male-female distinction to biological determinism. It's gotta be something simple! Bust size, maybe? Neural configuration? I've just g-gotta be missing something!

(etc.)[/QUOTE]
[size=1]Thanks for pointing out the extreme exceptions to the rule. In all actuality, White's statement is pretty much true, except for those extremely rare cases of whatever Syndromes you'd like to name. I think biology's a good way of determining what sex you are, but there will always be the person who says, well, it's what's inside that counts or whatever.

I understand that point of view as well, but look up the definition of "male" and "female." I'm talking strictly text-book, and I prefer the XX, XY defintion, as you can change your genitalia, but not your chromosomes (yet).[/size]

[Fasteriskhead]

Okay, challenge accepted; for the moment I'll stick to just males, but I'll assume much the same results will hold for females. Dictionary.com offers the following definition of "male (n)": "1. A member of the sex that begets young by fertilizing ova. 2. A man or boy." (I should note that am omitting the botanical definition)

(I'll get to the first definition in a minute, but I'll note before that that Dictionary.com goes on to define a "man (n)" first as "an adult male human" and a "boy (n)" first as "a male child." So being male means that I am a man or, if I am young, a boy, which means I am a male. Does any of this circularity seem remotely suspicious?)

If we follow this biological textbook definition of what a male is (the class of human being that fertilizes ova), then we run into an immense problem when we consider that everywhere in the world we meet human beings whom we would, in any perfectly normal conversation, think of as anything other than "male," and yet who have never in their lives fertilized an ovum or, perhaps, may even lack the capacity to. I myself have never done this, and yet no one would ever call me non-male. But perhaps this example is too easily defeated, as even if I haven't ever fertilized an ovum, I (hopefully!) still could [i]one day[/i]. But consider someone who is (for one reason or another) simply sterile, who could [i]never[/i] fertilize any ovum anywhere, and yet still maintains every outward appearance of "masculinity." By Dictionary.com's definition we [i]could not[/i] call this person a male, even if every notion of common sense says that we should. Would it make the slightest sense for a person like this to, for example, go and use his office's men's room every day, but then be barred from it once someone finds out that he can't fertilize ova? Not at all. But if we were to say that he [i]should[/i] still be able to use the men's room, then what [i]criteria[/i] for it would we then be applying to him?

Allow me to digress a little (well, more than I have been already). As children, do any of us learn what men are by being told about gametes and fertilization? I doubt it. More likely, we will have someone willing to teach us point to a certain human being and tell us, "[i]that's[/i] a man," and then point to another human being and say, "that's [i]not[/i] a man, that's a woman." If we're clever enough, we'll soon pick up the patterns. It's likely only later that we might begin to augment what we know about males by saying that they're "the sex that begets young by fertilizing ova," but that in turn leads to the kinds of absurdities I just outlined above. Ditto for any number of other definitions with counterexamples. In the end we might just end up justifying our judgments of maleness by simply saying, "Either that person (pointing) is a male, or I'm completely crazy." This is not right or wrong - but it [i]is[/i] just bare assertion.

You note that I only point out "the extreme exceptions to the rule." This is fair enough, except that these exceptions [i]happen every day[/i] and, unless I have severely misread something, [i]cannot[/i] be accounted for while keeping the "rule" and common sense in any kind of harmony. There is a difference between a definition (as a statement of what something HAS TO BE) and a rule of thumb with a statistically high degree of applicability, and we make a grave error when we take the latter for the former; just the same when we assume that those marginal exceptions, those little glitches which keep popping up, can be thrown out because they don't jibe with the rest of the data. Rather than simply saying "well, this rule works [i]most[/i] of the time" and stopping there, shouldn't these "extreme exceptions" be exactly what deserves a hard look? I recall reading a study from a few years back (I'm too lazy to look it up) stating that [i]one in 100[/i] children are born with some deviation, however slight, from "normal" male and female anatomies. Have you met 100 people in your life? Then the odds are good that you've met someone born sexually abnormal. I don't even have any stats on sterility, but they've got to be even more common. And yet we still have the cojones to write stuff like "a male is a member of the sex that begets young by fertilizing ova" in our dictionaries? At what point do the exceptions finally get significant enough to warrant a looking-at?

[Retribution]

[QUOTE=Fasteriskhead]
If we follow this biological textbook definition of what a male is (the class of human being that fertilizes ova), then we run into an immense problem when we consider that everywhere in the world we meet human beings whom we would, in any perfectly normal conversation, think of as anything other than "male," and yet who have never in their lives fertilized an ovum or, perhaps, may even lack the capacity to. I myself have never done this, and yet no one would ever call me non-male. But perhaps this example is too easily defeated, as even if I haven't ever fertilized an ovum, I (hopefully!) still could [i]one day[/i]. But consider someone who is (for one reason or another) simply sterile, who could [i]never[/i] fertilize any ovum anywhere, and yet still maintains every outward appearance of "masculinity." By Dictionary.com's definition we [i]could not[/i] call this person a male, even if every notion of common sense says that we should. Would it make the slightest sense for a person like this to, for example, go and use his office's men's room every day, but then be barred from it once someone finds out that he can't fertilize ova? Not at all. But if we were to say that he [i]should[/i] still be able to use the men's room, then what [i]criteria[/i] for it would we then be applying to him?[/QUOTE]
[size=1]For such a roundabout, long-winded post, you missed my line when I said "I prefer the XX, XY definition."

[url]http://www.people.virginia.edu/~rjh9u/sexdet.html[/url]

Read up on what I meant. I really could care less as far as your genatalia is concerned -- that can physically change. Your chromosomes cannot (at least to my knowledge). Therefore, I prefer that definition. And for the record, my post wasn't meant as a "challenge," only a statement of my views.[/size]

[trucha]

[B][I][COLOR=Olive][SIZE=2]wow thats some deep stuff. well, what i have to say is this: you are not gay or bisexual, all you are is you because no one can help how they feel. not to long ago this lady got married to a dolphin (litterary im not lying) and we ont call her a fish because of it rigth.thats just hows shes happy. same for you , if thats how you are happy then go for it. dont feel confuse because people will love you for who you are inside not what your preference in sex. just make smart choices and dont hide your feeling because you'll drown your self in your own tears.


xoxox love you lots ;) :catgirl: :catgirl:

[Fasteriskhead]

[QUOTE=Retribution][size=1]For such a roundabout, long-winded post, you missed my line when I said "I prefer the XX, XY definition."

[url]http://www.people.virginia.edu/~rjh9u/sexdet.html[/url]

Read up on what I meant. I really could care less as far as your genatalia is concerned -- that can physically change. Your chromosomes cannot (at least to my knowledge). Therefore, I prefer that definition. And for the record, my post wasn't meant as a "challenge," only a statement of my views.[/size][/QUOTE]
By "challenge" I refer to your saying, "look up the definition of 'male' and 'female.'" I did this at a readily available public source, and then spoke about at probably too great a length. Now, you did add that you preferred the definition based on sex chromosomes, and while my previous post would probably have applied more precisely had I worked with that definition rather than the one at Dictionary.com (my mistake, I took your request too literally), I don't think it defeats my point (which is to point out the rolling-up of very diverse personal/biological states into simplistic definitions which cannot account for them).

You said before that you prefer the XX, XY position, which I had already made questionable by way of mentioning the presence of karyotypes with irregular numbers of chromosomes (Turner, Klinefelter, XYY etc.). The website you link quite swiftly sidesteps this difficulty by proposing that the [i]final number[/i] of chromosomes does not matter for the determination of sex, only the presence or absence of a Y. So this definition of sex is simply: "A human being is male if it has a Y chromosome, and female if it does not."

It is admittedly difficult for me to think of a good situation to parallel to the sterile male of my last post: it would require us to have a masculine person, a person who could not be mistaken for anything other than male, and yet lacking a Y chromosome. While I think this situation [i]could happen[/i], and in particular I'm thinking of XX-male Syndrome (which is VERY rare), I lack a way to illustrate it in a good manner. I may return to this in a few days if I come up with anything, but for the moment I need to make my argument in a different way.

The website you link to says: "It is clear that the presence of a Y chromosome is necessary for male sexual characteristics to develop." The table above happily proves this by listing Turner (XO) cases as female and Klinefelter (XXY) cases as male. After this it's just plug and chug: the males on the list are the ones with Ys, therefore the presence or lack of the Y chromosome designates sexual status. The argument (for right now excluding females, again), is: "A male is a human being with male sexual characteristics. XY and XXY cases have male sexual characteristics, and are therefore male. XX and XO cases do not have male sexual characteristics, and are therefore not male. The difference between these two sets is that the first has a Y chromosome. Therefore, having a Y chromosome causes the development of male sexual characteristics, and thus being a male is determined by the presence of a Y."

If I have stated this fairly, then it first begs the question: what in the world do we mean by "male sexual characteristics"? We should have all learned this one in sex ed class: the presence of testes and a penis, comparatively low voices, a large degree of muscle mass, comparatively less body fat, a large skeletal frame, and facial and body hair. Who would argue with this? And yet the [i]problem[/i] is: Klinefelter cases, though they vary widely in terms of how their genes are expressed, frequently have characteristics strongly differing from the "male norm."

Everything in the argument above depends on our being able to say that Klinefelter cases have male sexual characteristics. But I don't think this is true, at least not without considerable qualification. I'm going by memory here, so someone correct me if I'm in error: Klinefelter cases are [i]always[/i] sterile, they have underdeveloped testes, and they often have little to no facial or body hair. Their bodies often are unusually shaped for "males," with more of a classic feminine "hourglass" figure and heightened breast development (I will not touch on other symptoms, such as learning disorders, as while these are important they do not directly impact my argument). While admittedly falling closer to a "masculine" appearance than a "feminine" one, taking in all of this it strikes me as totally irresponsible to say without qualification that the sexual characteristics of Klinefelter cases are the same as those of XY males. If they are not the same (and I think they aren't) then the argument fails, at least in its form as stated above.

I hope this has addressed your own definition more carefully than my previous post, and I apologize for the confusion.


P.S. I forgot to address this: you say, "Your chromosomes cannot [change]." Actually, research is being done in precisely this area. Gene therapy in its current form (which is still in its infancy) plans to just target genetic diseases and that kind of thing for right now , but I see no reason why I couldn't one day be able to use an engineered retrovirus to switch a Y to an X or vice versa. I fully admit to being quite ignorant about all of this, especially the technics of it, but the possibility for a genetic "sex change" seems to be there.

[Retribution]

[size=1]Fasteriskhead, you can say what you're trying to say in fewer words. It's a horror to slog through your posts and pick thorugh your points. Simplify your words and sentences -- we're not writing term papers here.

Anyway.
[quote name='Fasteriskhead][...] If I have stated this fairly, then it first begs the question: what in the world do we mean by "male sexual characteristics"? We should have all learned this one in sex ed class: the presence of testes and a penis, comparatively low voices, a large degree of muscle mass, comparatively less body fat, a large skeletal frame, and facial and body hair. Who would argue with this? And yet the [i]problem[/i'] is: Klinefelter cases, though they vary widely in terms of how their genes are expressed, frequently have characteristics strongly differing from the "male norm."[/quote]
I think that you're observing the physical aspect of "male sexual characteristics" too much, and that by doing so, you're neglecting the importance of the mental aspect. I believe this would accurately apply to the Klinefelter cases, as they have the same sexual drive as the next guy, but their body is slightly more feminine. However, most importantly is that the Klinefelter cases [i]have a Y chromosome and therefore are male.[/i]

You even said that the Klinefelter cases are more masculine than feminine, and if they have a Y chromosome to top it off, what does that make them? Male, of course. I don't even see the grounds for debate. They have male sexual characteristics. They have a female frame, but that's not a sexual characteristic. Sure, they're sterile, but that's completely irrelevant to my point. They have a Y chromosome, they have male sexual characteristics, and therefore are male.

Your XX-Syndrome males -- give me some citation here. The site I provided had no record of such a thing existing.[/size]

[Dagger]

[QUOTE=Retribution][size=1]
Your XX-Syndrome males -- give me some citation here. The site I provided had no record of such a thing existing.[/size][/QUOTE]
It's been too long since I learned about this stuff, so I can't provide any useful input aside from offering the following links.

[url=http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=25059][u]XX male syndrome #1[/u][/url]
[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XX_male_syndrome][u]XX male syndrome #2[/u][/url]

~Dagger~

[Retribution]

[size=1]In the light of this new information (thanks Dagger), I still keep my stance on the matter. I'm not going to revoke my stance to accomodate extremely rare and obscure cases of chromosome mutation/deformation. Even in some of the rare cases of XX male syndrome, the male has an SRY gene that accounts for the masculinity.

Sorry -- I'm not gonna get all deep, religious, or philosophical on this one. I think biology has done and is doing a fair job at determining man and woman. Sure, you can cite your rare cases left and right -- I'm sure I can find a syndrome to refute your point -- but I still stand on my XX, XY opinion.[/size]

[Fasteriskhead]

[quote name='Retribution][size=1']Fasteriskhead, you can say what you're trying to say in fewer words. It's a horror to slog through your posts and pick thorugh your points. Simplify your words and sentences -- we're not writing term papers here.[/size][/quote]
I would, if I thought I could keep my arguments sufficiently nuanced (if I believed this was a simple question I could have dispensed with it in three or four sentences). I admit to the difficulty of my writing, and I apologize for being wordy - part of my reason for being here at all is to try to refine my writing for a public forum. Hopefully you can bear with me a little.

[quote name='Retribution][size=1] I think that you're observing the physical aspect of "male sexual characteristics" too much, and that by doing so, you're neglecting the importance of the mental aspect. I believe this would accurately apply to the Klinefelter cases, as they have the same sexual drive as the next guy, but their body is slightly more feminine.[/size'] [/quote]
I'm afraid I don't know anything about the psychological states of Klinefelter cases, so I can say nothing specific on this. On the other hand, when exactly did "mental aspects" come in? While [i]I[/i] think they're extremely important, I don't believe you're helping your own case at all by broaching this. While I can't speak to Klinefelter cases directly, obviously there are any number of XY males who [i]mentally[/i] identify as female, and XX females who identify as males. Unless you're going to say that karyotypes are trumped by mental status, I'm not sure why you bring it up.

[quote name='Retribution][size=1']You even said that the Klinefelter cases are more masculine than feminine, and if they have a Y chromosome to top it off, what does that make them? Male, of course.... They have male sexual characteristics. They have a female frame, but that's not a sexual characteristic.[/size][/quote]
I know of several biologists who would debate you on the frame question. Assuming we are taking XY males as the model, under normal conditions they develop in ways [i]characteristic of their sex[/i], and in ways which often differ sharply from cases with abnormal keryotypes. I admitted that Klinefelter cases are "closer" to the classic male appearance than the female one, but I also said that their exceptions are so extreme that I don't think they can sensibily be rolled into the rest of the males out there. Unless we can somehow pare down the list of "male sexual characteristics" to include every single case, no matter how extreme, that has ever had a Y chromosome (which seems to be what you're doing, at least insofar as you're saying that testes, virility, body hair, and frame don't matter), I don't think we're ever going to get a common agreement on what exactly a Y chromosome produces. And once all of that has been pared down, does it really even mean anything anymore?

[quote name='Retribution][size=1]However, most importantly is that the Klinefelter cases [i]have a Y chromosome and therefore are male.[/i'][/size][/quote]
Argument by assertion. And the website you linked earlier does not in any way make your assertion, which I think can be fairly states as: "Any human being that that has a Y chromosome is a male; Klinefelter cases have Y chromosomes, therefore they are male" (in other words, a male is defined by the presence or absence of a Y). What's said on that website, on the other hand (if I read fairly), amounts to the claim that males are defined by male sexual characteristics, and that the presence or absence of a Y contributes to those characteristics arising. This is a [i]different argument[/i], and it's the one I tried to debunk in my last post. On the other hand, if you [I]directly[/I] equate "male" and "human being with a y-chromosome" (as you seem to be doing here), then there's nothing I can say to it. I would simply note that this means, [i]by definition[/i], that we will arrive at situations where we may meet people who look completely different from what we would usually call "male," and yet [i]are[/i] male only because they have a Y. And, conversely, we may meet people who look completely male and yet can't be considered as such because they lack a Y, such as the XX-male syndrome cases (Dagger: thanks for the link, by the way!). If you're okay with this situation, then even though I can point out over and over again how artificial it seems, there's really nothing else I can argue against.

[quote name='Retribution][size=1']I'm not going to revoke my stance to accomodate extremely rare and obscure cases of chromosome mutation/deformation....I think biology has done and is doing a fair job at determining man and woman. Sure, you can cite your rare cases left and right... but I still stand on my XX, XY opinion.[/size][/quote]
Then talking about this any further is nonsense.

[[Sound_Nin]]

I already [I]had[/I] my chromosomes tested. XX, completely female. So if you're looking for some biological proof that seperates male from female, chromosome testing means very little. Having the genitals of one or another (or sometimes both) sex, to me, also means nothing. But let's take into consideration the [B]outward appearance[/B] for a moment. The person in question will undoubtedly dress to their preferred gender, and that, to me, is what qualifies someone to be that gender. If you consider yourself to be female, for example, all your life, and at birth some doctor says you're male, does that not sound just a bit strange? And if your parents made you wear boy clothes, that too is wrong. Now, for me, it is opposite of that.
My point is, humanity as a whole should learn to accept that someday a person will have a baby of one gender that grows up to be the opposite. It isn't a disease, or a mental illness, it's just [I]there[/I] and it will always be there. There's no medicine that will make me feel comfortable as a female. But there [I]is[/I] medicine that will make me more of a male, and that, my friends is testosterone. Which, I'd like to announce, my doctor and psychiatrist are trying to find a way to put me on.