Transexuals

Transsexual people experience a gender identity that is inconsistent with, or not culturally associated with, their assigned sex and desire to permanently transition to the gender with which they identify, usually seeking medical assistance (including hormone replacement therapy and other sex reassignment therapies) to help them align their body with their identified sex or gender.True transsexuals feel that they belong to the other sex, they want to be and function as members of the opposite sex, not only to appear as such. For them, their sex organs, the primary (testes) as well as the secondary (penis and others) are disgusting deformities that must be changed by the surgeon's knife.Category:LGBT culture Transsexual people experience a gender identity that is inconsistent with, or not culturally associated with, their assigned sex and desire to permanently transition to the gender with which they identify, usually seeking medical assistance (including hormone replacement therapy and other sex reassignment therapies) to help them align their body with their identified sex or gender. Transsexual is a subset of transgender, but some transsexual people reject the label of transgender. A medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria can be made if a person expresses a desire to live and be accepted as a member of their identified sex, and if a person experiences impaired functioning or distress as a result of their gender identity. Norman Haire reported that in 1921, Dora R of Germany began a surgical transition, under the care of Magnus Hirschfeld, which ended in 1930 with a successful genital reassignment surgery. In 1930, Hirschfeld supervised the second genital reassignment surgery to be reported in detail in a peer-reviewed journal, that of Lili Elbe of Denmark. In 1923, Hirschfeld introduced the (German) term 'Transsexualismus', after which David Oliver Cauldwell introduced 'transsexualism' and 'transsexual' to English in 1949 and 1950. Cauldwell appears to be the first to use the term to refer to those who desired a change of physiological sex. In 1969, Harry Benjamin claimed to have been the first to use the term 'transsexual' in a public lecture, which he gave in December 1953. Benjamin went on to popularize the term in his 1966 book, The Transsexual Phenomenon, in which he described transsexual people on a scale (later called the 'Benjamin scale') of three levels of intensity: 'Transsexual (nonsurgical)', 'Transsexual (moderate intensity)', and 'Transsexual (high intensity)'. In his book, Benjamin described 'true' transsexualism as the following: Benjamin suggested that moderate intensity male to female transsexual people may benefit from estrogen medication as a 'substitute for or preliminary to operation.' Some people have had sex reassignment surgery (SRS) but do not meet the above definition of transsexual (e.g. Gregory Hemingway). Other people do not desire SRS although they meet the other elements of Benjamin's definition of a 'true transsexual'. Transsexuality was included for the first time in the DSM-III in 1980 and again in the DSM-III-R in 1987, where it was located under Disorders Usually First Evident in Infancy, Childhood or Adolescence. Beyond Benjamin's work, which focused on male-to-female transsexual people, there are cases of the female to male transsexual, for whom genital surgery may not be practical. Benjamin gave certifying letters to his MTF transsexual patients that stated 'Their anatomical sex, that is to say, the body, is male. Their psychological sex, that is to say, the mind, is female.' After 1967 Benjamin abandoned his early terminology and adopted that of 'gender identity.' Around the same time as Benjamin's book, in 1965, the term transgender was coined by John Oliven. By the 1990s, transsexual had come to be considered a subset of the umbrella term transgender. The term transgender is now more common, and many transgender people prefer the designation transgender and reject transsexual. The term transsexual, however, continues to be used, and some people who pursue medical assistance (for example, sex reassignment surgery) to change their sexual characteristics to match their gender identity prefer the designation transsexual and reject transgender. One perspective offered by transsexual people who reject a transgender label for that of transsexed is that, for people who have gone through sexual reassignment surgery, their anatomical sex has been altered, whilst their gender remains constant. Historically, one reason some people preferred transsexual to transgender is that the medical community in the 1950s through the 1980s encouraged a distinction between the terms that would only allow the former access to medical treatment. Other self-identified transsexual people state that those who do not seek sex reassignment surgery (SRS) are fundamentally different from those who do, and that the two have different concerns, but this view is controversial, and others argue that merely having some medical procedures does not have such far-reaching consequences as to put those who have them and those who have not (e.g. because they cannot afford them) into such distinctive categories. Another reason for objecting to the term transsexual is the concern that it implies something to do with sexuality, when it is actually about gender identity. For example, Christine Jorgensen, the first person widely known to have sex reassignment surgery (in this case, male-to-female), rejected transsexual and instead identified herself in newsprint as trans-gender, on this basis. The word transsexual is most often used as an adjective rather than a noun – a 'transsexual person' rather than simply 'a transsexual'. Like other trans people, transsexual people prefer to be referred to by the gender pronouns and terms associated with their gender identity. For example, a trans man is a person who was assigned the female sex at birth on the basis of his genitals, but despite that assignment, identifies as a man and is transitioning or has transitioned to a male gender role; in the case of a transsexual man, he furthermore has or will have a masculine body. Transsexual people are sometimes referred to with directional terms, such as 'female-to-male' for a transsexual man, abbreviated to 'F2M', 'FTM', and 'F to M', or 'male-to-female' for a transsexual woman, abbreviated 'M2F', 'MTF' and 'M to F'.