Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Attitudes and Trans Inclusion in Indian Academia



(A slightly more subtle version of this article has been published  as "'Attitudes & Trans Inclusion in Indian Academia' by A. Mani" in Gaysi Family on 5th Jan'2015).

In this article, I draw upon my limited personal experiences to try and classify the diaspora in Indian higher education on nature of attitudes towards gender diversity in general and trans women in particular. This in turn can be used to estimate vectors of discrimination and exclusion of trans women at least. I do have some empirical data at my disposal and yes, many of the subjects are known to me - that hopefully means better data reliability.

Relative my experiences, some professors and researchers have been excellent, some have been reasonable, many have been barely able to cope with the complexity and very few have indulged in blatant trans misogyny, bigotry and deliberate micro-aggressions. Most women are very comfortable with transsexual women and transsexual semantics - which is pretty much consistent with feminist perspectives and studies on behaviour.

Most accounts of transsexual women in the media and literature have been of women from the west, while Indian accounts have been limited and not every trans woman has a clear understanding of feminist dynamics. Many tend to focus on themselves and so broader pictures fall off from their accounts. Further the use of umbrella terms including ones for indigenous genders/cultural identities contributes to alienation and erasure of transsexuals and binary-identified transsexuals. All this extend to academic and FOSS environments naturally.

The brainwashing caused by the patriarchy/intersectionality/discriminatory order structure even on relatively younger men is often severe. They have many issues in interacting rationally with people not confirming to their hetero-normative, cissexist, colonial/religious ideals and stereotypes. Skewed ideas of entitlement, misogyny and trans misogyny are part of such brainwashing. While there are plenty of exceptions to these generalities, even supposedly educated men perpetuate evil on the basis of such thinking and vitiate professional environments with such. Unfortunately we still have gaping holes at the policy level - that can help in rectifying the situation.


Some of my observations are 

  • People making greater use of vernacular/local languages in all interaction tend to be at a poor stage of development as opposed to those interacting more often in the English language.
  • Gender identity is less stressed (as opposed to gender expression) in narratives of queer women (in the state) who interact more often in the vernacular languages. This may also be contributing to the problem.
  • For a large set of contexts, belief in misogynistic premises predispose one towards trans misogyny and conversely. 
  • An interesting belief of some academics including senior ones is that their backward colleagues can never be educated on these matters and that bigotry is god.
  • Women learn far better than men on matters of gender and sexuality.

It is very important to teach people about gender diversity, sexuality and tolerance- the lack of it invariably leads to skewed ideas of entitlement to abuse and suppress people of all gender identities and expressions. Prevalent cis-sexist and hetero-normative attitudes shared by many in the academia should be countered with policy and education at all levels. Otherwise scope for rational discourse may continue to remain elusive forever because brainwashed people do not like to reason rationally.

Teaching Strategies:


My coming out strategy in 2012-2013 was roughly group-wise and mostly through the Internet. Educating people was not too hard, though difficult at a personal level. Things did not seem to work out too well with primers and other links to online resources on gender, trans-sexuality, feminism and women. So eventually I had to start this blog to get my points across. Some people apparently identifying as men do stick to their bigotry, usually I point them to basics - such people would not even pass a basic course on human sexuality and gender because of their brainwashing and consequent insecurities. 


There are other trans women in higher academia in West Bengal. Their struggles and tribulations have forced them to maintain low profiles across far too many spaces -- the relevant attitude painted in the despondent "We do not have enough resources to destroy collective idiocy".


The Family Value Conundrums:


Ideas of family values are deeply entrenched at different levels of bigotry in the Indian society. It makes lot of sense for the lesbian movement to make inroads by way of equality at related social constructs and operations.

I have often had to deal with events, projects and other academic work frequently since mid nineties of the last century. Most related workplaces have been male-dominated.


Pre-transition, I had a butch presentation and my body chemistry was also determined by estriols - was seen by some as being very queer/queer woman. Still I would be part of conversations like the following with senior people in position (I remember more than fifteen of these. Remarks in square braces are mine) :


Conversation-1

 Are you married?

Me: No

I have a daughter.

[I know most girls are naughty. Thank you for your interest in lesbian rights.]

She is doing her undergraduate studies


Me: Good
[Some women like younger women.]

Shall I proceed?

Me:
I ... I need to think

[Actually my life plans were for a shorter term and I had no intention of falling for any tools of oppression.]


During transition, there were other similar conversations. But these were more informed ones as I had already been open about my orientation.

 

Conversation-2


After more than an year of HRT, there was this conversation.

Me:
Hello!

I don't know you.


[- serious version]


Me: OK, I must have seen you at ...

_____________________________________________________________




I can write a whole monograph (time permitting) on the concept lattices of trans semantics instead of such a cryptic posts ... will wait for another day.

One comment on this article was rather interesting from the point of feminist theories as well. I will leave the last word (translated) to her :"Mani, when I see write-ups like these, then I see many zombie daemons and daemons. I get chills through my spine!" 


________________________________________________________________________

All Rights Reserved, Copyright A. Mani' 2014

__________________________________________________________________________ 

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Sunday, June 22, 2014

Do You Have Gender Dysphoria or Incongruence? (2nd Edition)

(This article was published first as "Do You Have Gender Dysphoria or Incongruence?"  by A. Mani
in Gaysi Family on 17th June'2014).



Transsexual people are becoming increasingly visible in public life and more and more people are 'coming out'. Some of them realize their trans-sexuality early in life, while many take their time. This scenario is not completely due to society's concept of gender but has to do also with limited understanding of dysphoria and its ramifications among the populace. Gender dysphoria, in simple terms, refers to the perception of mismatch between a person's sense of self and internal and external parts of the body (in relation to gender identity and expression).  In this article, I try to formulate a simple guide for discovering gender incongruence or dysphoria with exclusive focus on trans women – because it is difficult to write unified guides across even a couple of trans categories.

First of all a few words about the terminology. The concept of "gender incongruence" is sometimes advanced to replace "gender dysphoria" for removing the stigma associated with the latter term ("Dysphoria" is the preferred term in DSM-5). It has also been proposed that the former term should be considered outside of DSM in the first place. The older term, 'Gender identity disorder' pathologizes gender variance itself (and is still part of ICD-10 CM), while 'gender dysphoria' pathologizes the discontent. Importantly the term "dysphoria" is preferred by WPATH. So I will stick to this terminology in the article. Feel free to replace the term with "incongruence" if you like it.

Before I proceed, it is necessary to clarify basics of sex and gender as these concepts are not understood in a uniform way. Scientifically, sex of a person is best seen as a tuple of parameters corresponding to hormonal sex, brain sex, clinical sex, chromosomal sex, physical sex and more. Population data relating to this cannot be properly classified.  Gender is a vague social concept characterized by arbitrary norms and prescriptions. Modern people recognize that genders exist on a spectrum and do not abide by religious ideas of binary gender with its rigid prescriptions of hetero-normativity. Gender identity of a person is the person's own sense of gender without regard to expression of the same in society. Recent research does prove that a part of the gender identity of a person is in the brain and that it develops in the fetal development state itself – this is almost the same thing as "brain sex" as the latter includes structural and functional differences between brains.

A plural concept is a concept with multiple facets or dimensions. Well known trans feminist and biologist Julia Serano uses the term 'gender' in a plural sense in her latest book -Excluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive”. She recognizes that biology, culture and environment all interact in an unfathomably complex manner to generate gender diversity and argues that people tend to end up limited ideas of gender, sexuality and sexism because of limited life experiences and social situation. The complexity of interactions therefore forces us to view the components separately. In "what it means to be a women”, she says “I used to think it was a contradiction that some dykes abhorred me for my masculinity while others hated me for my femininity, until I realized that being a woman means that everyone has a stake in seeing what they want to see in me”.

Since gender is such a plural term and transsexuals evolve in so many different ways, it is only natural that self-discovery of gender dysphoria can take on so many forms. You can infer that you have gender dysphoria by simply reflecting on your gender identity and comparing it with other people's experience of dysphoria or with prototypical models of dysphoria. It is possible that your experiences may not tally with those of others and still you may be having dysphoria.  

It is fairly well known that for a given gender identity on the gender continuum a wide range of gender expression may be associable. Thus for example, a person identifying as a woman may have so-called butch features. Some of these women may identify as gender queer women and some may identify as cis women or simply as women. Even people with gender dysphoria have diverse gender expression and some part of this expression can be related to dysphoria – but the centrality of gender identity stands tall in self-discovery of dysphoria.

Gender dysphoria can be detected even in six year children and younger, but due to the under-developed nature of society and social conditioning many people wait till the problems have become unbearable and have already caused enough damage. Early intervention is important and it would be best if people with gender dysphoria take their own decisions as a therapist's understanding is liable to be affected by the subjective nature of responses.

In what follows, I have used the limited accounts of dysphoria by prominent trans women, discussions with various trans women on multiple forums, formal literature and my own experience as a lesbian trans woman to arrive at possible characterization of dysphoria as is actually experienced. 

Amy Dentata is a writer, game designer, and performer who touches on topics including trauma recovery, mental illness, sexuality, futurism, and trans issues. She started performing music at open mics in her home-town of Cleveland, Ohio, before moving to the Bay to pursue a career as a game artist. She explains the fact that a part of gender identity is an intrinsic part of the person. The interaction of gender identity in the brain with the body towards formation of dysphoria is explained through a brilliant analogy. She does not identify on the binary and her perception of her time-line highlights other aspects of her dysphoria.


Since 2008, Zinnia Jones has been a writer and video-blogger. She's written extensively on the subjects of secularism, feminism, and being a trans woman. She describes aspects of her dysphoric experience in considerable detail in her blog post and notes that many trans women (including herself) fail to recognize symptoms of dysporia as being connected to gender for considerable periods of time. Further she mentions “The real extent of my dysphoria only became clear after I began to transition (motivated largely by the desire to induce physical feminization and prevent further masculinization, rather than the need to treat a clear dysphoria), and these feelings dissipated for the first time ever. Once I had this basis for comparison, I could see that I was indeed experiencing gender dysphoria all along – it was just so indirect that I had failed to recognize it as specifically gender-related”. Some of her proposed symptoms are mixed up with her own general attitude to life and so I had to abstract the essentials from those. 


Rebecca Williams identifies on the binary and describes herself as a “femme, mildly androphobic queer trans feminist”. Her description of dysphoria can be garnered from across many articles in her blog. She says that she cannot possibly describe the wonderful feeling of her hormonal system getting wired up correctly (after HRT) and that even tiny corrections to physical form by HRT are always for the better and that it helped a lot with her social acceptance. The relation between dysporia and normality is expressed thus “I think the thing about specific parts of dysphoria is that once they're treated, it's gone forever. There's no particular feeling other than feeling normal … … I think really, this is what it's all about.  Just wanting to feel normal.”

Below I list a number of severe dysphoria related characteristics (not necessarily without overlap) that a trans woman may have. Various combinations of weak versions of these are sufficient for a diagnosis of dysphoria. 

Body Related:


  • S1. Extreme discomfort with most male secondary characteristics.
  • S2. Extreme discomfort with most male secondary characteristics to the point of misandry as in "men are degenerate people".
  • S3. Strong Aversion to use Pre-HRT genitalia in any sexual activity.
  • S4. The distinct feeling of testosterone poisoning.
  • S5. Experiences of apparently phantom sensations of female genital stimulation and orgasms as part of regular sexual interaction and fantasies.
  • S6. Depression due to inability to eliminate male secondary characteristics.
  • S7. Depression due to inability to eliminate testes/genitals.
  • S8. Inability to perform sexually due to genital dysphoria by way of suppression of libido.
  • S9. Strong suicidal tendencies.


 

Depression Inclusive:



  • A. Depression due to inability to fit in desired female role.
  • B. Depression due to missing feminization of existing features.
  • C. Depression in general due to latent dysphoria (about which subject is not explicitly aware of).



 

Social Interaction Related:



  • I1. A strong feeling of interacting in a dehumanized society due to forced male presentation that increases by recursion with the living.
  • I2. Strong tendency to escape from gendered social interaction.
  • I3. No male role models
  • I4. Some female role models
  • I5. No interest in acquiring perceived male characteristics.
  • I6. Strong desire to acquire perceived female characteristics like smooth, beautiful, evenly-toned, hairless skin.
  • I7. Strong desire to behave as per desired as opposed to assigned gender role.
  • I8. Adopted features selected from male role models do not have any gender related import.
  • I9. Adopted features selected from female role models have strong gender related import.



Other:



  • O1. Awareness of glaring differences in spousal expectations (relative their libido) and desired personal presentation.
  • O2. Workaholism originating from desire to escape from oppressive social life and effects of testosterone.
  • O3. Substance abuse originating from desire to escape from the oppressive social life and effects of testosterone.
  • O4. Gender expression in drag-like modes resulting in depression and feelings of inadequacy.
  • O5. Severe numbing of emotions due to perceived long-term latent dysphoria.
  • O6. Awareness of severe differences in body chemistry in relation to people of assigned gender.
  • O7. Androphobia.
  • O8. Awareness of being different from others. 
  • O9. A notable escalation in the severity of all of these symptoms during puberty.

It is well known in statistical terms (as well) that the class of transsexual people suffer additional psychiatric problems at the same rate as normal people. So we have additional reasons to exclude any other psychiatric conditions (including mild ones) from the considerations.

In the above S1 or S2 and S4 and any of the S* conditions is a sufficient indication of gender dysphoria. Many weak versions of the above may suffice. Zinnia Jones for example, experienced only a vague and weak version of S1 in her pre-transition period and came to realize the full extent of what she was missing out only after some HRT. Some trans women have reported S1 and O7.  Others have confirmed combinations like S1, a little S2, mild S3, S6, S7, S9 (mainly in the past), A, B, C (prior to 2000), I1, I2, I3, I4, I5, I6, O1, possibly O2, O7. 

A weak form S1 and I1 or I2 in people who are past twenty five is often suggestive of dysphoria that requires more attention – mainly because it is not such a nice thing to wait till the condition worsens.

I3 to I9 are useful for understanding one's own internal evolution of gender expression and realize dysphoria in presence of suitable indications from the S* or I* conditions.

If any person has O5, then they need to be more careful in their analysis because everything probably would be lacking in intensity in their perspective. Depression is pretty common in society and may be organic without reason. So it is necessary to trace the exact reasons for it. If can be due to dysphoria and often (if not always) accompanies it in mild to chronic form.

Some heterosexual/bisexual trans women who apparently take the "gay/drag route" (relative to a conservative society) to realize themselves. O4 is typically experienced by such women. Other O* conditions are not related to sexual orientation. Obviously trans women with S2 are likely to be lesbians. It is known that a majority (as much as 2/3rd in the largest survey) of trans women are lesbians or bisexual. Though trans-sexuality in general is independent of orientation in the sense that a transsexual may have any kind of orientation, connections between dysphoria conditions and orientation are natural – and natural even when we transcend stereotypical expressions of orientation (because people take time to learn). 

All of S2, S4, S6, S9, B, I1, I2, I3, I5, I7, I8, I9, O2, O6, O8, and O9 apply to my experience of dysphoria. A dense account of this can be found in my blog post. Since my high school days,  I have always identified as a lesbian and being a lesbian is not just about my orientation, but is part of my identity. It did affect socialization, but I am not mixing that up with dysphoria related reasons. I never had any real role models, though I have always admired a lot of women (mostly older) and usually abstracted positive traits from them and adapted them in my own way. I* conditions are not about dysphoria per se, but I do feel that they are important for investigating latent dysphoria in people in their social context.

Most of the symptoms associated with dysphoria resolve substantially upon initiating HRT. But that is no way of checking whether one has dysphoria or not.

Hope all this helps you in your gender explorations!

Remark1: One commentator pointed out that I am complicating the situation for dysphoric children below six years. Obviously that class requires a more involved guide. 

Remark2: My article at Gaysi does not include the links and have made a few minor changes.


________________________________________________________________________

All Rights Reserved, Copyright A. Mani' 2014

__________________________________________________________________________ 


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Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Artificially Induced Gender Dysphoria in Alan Turing?


There has been some speculation on the cause of Alan Turing's death mainly because of his past connections with the espionage industry and his strong attitude towards life in general. Those who believe that the cyanide poisoning was accidental are probably not clear about the effects of the "therapy" delivered by the church influenced British law.  This aspect that has also not received sufficient attention by writers on Alan Turing (AT) primarily because they simply do not understand it.


In SEP  we find this "This work was interrupted by Alan Turing's arrest in February 1952 for his sexual affair with a young Manchester man, and he was obliged, to escape imprisonment, to undergo the injection of oestrogen intended to negate his sexual drive. He was disqualified from continuing secret cryptological work. His general libertarian attitude was enhanced rather than suppressed by the criminal trial, and his intellectual individuality also remained as lively as ever."

The last part is probably not accurate and Andrew Hodges  (his biographer) seems to be over generous there or simply has failed to read hidden problems.

Stilbestrol, in 1952, was a synthetic estrogen whose potential serious side effects were unknown, dosage information poorly understood and severe overdosing (to more than 100x required dose) was the norm. We can safely assume that almost all of AT's estrogen receptors were consistently saturated for a period of one year during the "therapy".

A nice rule of thumb in hormone replacement therapy for sex-change is that "fitter you are better will be the response". In case of AT, the response was apparently strong as he had real, permanent breasts (not fat) capable of lactation in a year of synthetic estrogen based HRT. The 'chemical castration' part may have been strong enough to stop production of testosterone completely/near completely (apart from  causing permanent atrophy of testes) after cessation of the therapy. Further the tissues of genitals would have become feminized, their operational semantics changed and probably would have had a neo-vagina hanging outside the body just at the cessation of therapy. We can only speculate about other issues from the limited data available including splinters of male supremacist views of some of his ardent fans.

Alan Turing identified as a bisexual/gay man and this is implicit in his letters. On the gender spectrum he identified almost as a cis man. So all of the feminization and the deficiency of testosterone would have caused severe gender dysphoria with spells of depression (accompanied possibly by suicidal tendencies). (The link on gender dysphoria is to an all inclusive perspective as that is more appropriate here). Turing had no language to express his problems in clear terms and his efforts at articulation was certainly messed up with by his Jungian therapist. But he had a strong mind with a positive approach to life and therefore tried to suppress the dysphoria by trying not to think about it and carry on with life. Normal people are not likely to share very personal problems unless they have no options and know that others can possibly be helpful.  


So we have proved that (
do supply the easy missing steps in the proof),


Theorem:  "Alan Turing committed suicide because he could not cope with the artificial gender dysphoria induced on him by the British law. The coping problem was aggravated by Jungian misguidance". 

 

Insufficient description of problems due to reservations induced by the patriarchy/intersectionality  possess the potential to aid oppression of other LGBTIQ communities and individuals.   

 _______________________________________________________________________


All Rights Reserved, Copyright A. Mani' 2014
________________________________________________________________________


Rate my blog at Susan's Place Trans Resources

Sunday, June 8, 2014

Do You Have Gender Dysphoria or Incongruence?


(A more detailed version will appear soon. Treat this as the first edition.)




Transsexual people are becoming increasingly visible in public life and more and more people are 'coming out'. Some of them realize their trans-sexuality early in life, while many take their time. This scenario is not wholly due to the social constructive aspect of the concept of gender and has to do with limited understanding of dysphoria and its ramifications among the populace. In this article, I try to formulate a simple guide for discovering gender incongruence or dysphoria with exclusive focus on trans women – because it is difficult to write unified guides across even a couple of binary trans categories.



First of all a few words about the terminology. The concept of "gender incongruence" is sometimes advanced to replace "gender dysphoria" for removing the stigma associated with the latter term ("Dysphoria" is the preferred term in DSM-5). It has also been proposed that the former term should be considered outside of DSM in the first place. The older term, 'Gender identity disorder' pathologizes gender variance itself (and is still part of ICD-10 CM), while 'gender dysphoria' pathologizes the discontent. Importantly the term "dysphoria" is preferred by WPATH. So I will stick to this terminology in the article. Feel free to replace the term with "incongruence" if you like it.



Before I proceed, it is necessary to clarify basics of sex and gender as these concepts are not understood in a uniform way.

Scientifically, sex of a person is best seen as a tuple of parameters corresponding to hormonal sex, brain sex, clinical sex, chromosomal sex, physical sex and more. Population data relating to this cannot be properly classified. Gender is a vague social unscientific concept characterized by arbitrary norms and prescriptions. Modern people recognize that genders exist on a continuum and do not abide by religious ideas of binary gender with its rigid prescriptions of hetero-normativity. Gender identity of a person is the person's own sense of gender without regard to expression of the same in society. Recent research does prove that a part of the gender identity of a person is in the brain and that it develops in the foetal development state itself – this is almost the same thing as development of a part of "brain sex" as the latter includes structural and functional differences between brains. Some people use the term 'gender' in a plural way (see Julia Serano's latest book for example) - confusions if any should hopefully be clear from the context. Some basics may be found at this link.





Since gender is such a plural term and transsexuals evolve in so many different ways, it is only natural that self-discovery of gender dysphoria can take on so many forms. You can infer that you have gender dysphoria by simply reflecting on your gender identity and comparing it with other people's experience of dysphoria or with prototypical models of dysphoria. It is possible that your experiences may not tally with those of others and still you may be having dysphoria.



It is fairly well known that for a given gender identity on the gender-continuum a wide range of gender expression may be associable. Thus for example, a person identifying as a woman may have so-called butch features. Some of these women may identify as gender queer women and some may identify as cis women or simply as women. Even people with gender dysphoria have diverse gender expression and some part of this expression can be related to dysphoria – but the centrality of gender identity stands tall in self-discovery of dysphoria.



Gender dysphoria can be detected even in six year old children, but due to the under-developed nature of society and social conditioning many people wait till the problems have become unbearable and have already caused enough damage. Early intervention is important and it would be best if people with gender dysphoria take their own decisions as a therapist's understanding is liable to be affected by the subjective nature of responses.



I have used the limited accounts of dysphoria by prominent trans women, discussions with various trans women on multiple forums, formal literature and my own experience as a lesbian trans woman to arrive at possible characterization of dysphoria as is actually experienced. Amy Dentata explains the fact that a part of gender identity is an intrinsic part of the person. The interaction of gender identity in the brain with the body towards formation of dysphoria is explained through a brilliant analogy. She does not identify on the binary and her perception of her time-line highlights other aspects of her dysphoria. Importantly she agrees mostly with ZinniaJones's detailed description of her own dysphoric experience . In contrast to Amy, Rebecca Williams identifies on the binary. Her description of dysphoria can be garnered from across many articles in her blog.


Below I list a number of severe dysphoria related characteristics (not necessarily without overlap) that a trans woman may have. Various combinations (or weaker versions) of these are sufficient for a diagnosis of dysphoria.


Body Related:


  • S1. Extreme discomfort with most male secondary characteristics.
  • S2. Extreme discomfort with most male secondary characteristics to the point of misandry as in "men are degenerate people".
  • S3. Strong Aversion to use Pre-HRT genitalia in any sexual activity.
  • S4. The distinct feeling of testosterone poisoning.
  • S5. Experiences of apparently phantom sensations of female genital stimulation and orgasms as part of regular sexual interaction and fantasies.
  • S6. Depression due to inability to eliminate male secondary characteristics.
  • S7. Depression due to inability to eliminate testes/genitals.
  • S8. Inability to perform sexually due to genital dysphoria by way of suppression of libido.
  • S9. Strong suicidal tendencies.



Depression Inclusive:



  • A. Depression due to inability to fit in desired female role.
  • B. Depression due to missing feminization of existing features.
  • C. Depression in general due to latent dysphoria (about which subject is not explicitly aware of).


Social Interaction Related:



  • I1. A strong feeling of interacting in a dehumanized society due to forced male presentation that increases by recursion with the living.
  • I2. Strong tendency to escape from gendered social interaction.
  • I3. No male role models
  • I4. Some female role models
  • I5. No interest in acquiring perceived male characteristics.
  • I6. Strong desire to acquire perceived female characteristics like smooth, beautiful, evenly-toned, hairless skin.
  • I7. Strong desire to behave as per desired as opposed to assigned gender role.
  • I8. Adopted features selected from male role models do not have any gender related import.
  • I9. Adopted features selected from female role models have strong gender related import.



Other:



  • O1. Awareness of glaring differences in spousal expectations (relative their libido) and desired personal presentation.
  • O2. Workaholism originating from desire to escape from oppressive social life and effects of testosterone.
  • O3. Substance abuse originating from desire to escape from the oppressive social life and effects of testosterone.
  • O4. Gender expression in drag-like modes resulting in depression and feelings of inadequacy.
  • O5. Severe numbing of emotions due to perceived long-term latent dysphoria.
  • O6. Awareness of severe differences in body chemistry in relation to people of assigned gender.
  • O7. Androphobia.


It is well known in statistical terms (as well) that the class of transsexual people suffer additional psychiatric problems at the same rate as normal people. So we have additional reasons to exclude any other psychiatric conditions (including mild ones) from the considerations.



In the above S1 or S2 and S4 and any of the S* conditions is a sufficient indication of gender dysphoria. Many weak forms of the above may be sufficient conditions. Zinnia Jones for example, experienced only a vague and weak version of S1 in her pre-transition period and came to realize the full extent of what she was missing out only after some HRT. Some trans women have reported S1 and O7.



A weak form S1 and I1 or I2 in people who are past twenty five is often suggestive of dysphoria that requires more attention – mainly because it is not such a nice thing to wait till the condition worsens.



I3 to I9 are useful for understanding one's own internal evolution of gender expression and realize dysphoria in presence of suitable indications from the S* or I* conditions.



If any person has O5, then they need to be more careful in their analysis because everything probably would be lacking in intensity in their perspective. Depression is pretty common in society and may be organic without reason. So it is necessary to trace the exact reasons for it. If can be due to dysphoria and often (if not always) accompanies it in mild to chronic form.



Some heterosexual/bisexual trans women who apparently take the "gay/drag route" (relative a conservative society) to realize themselves. O4 is typically experienced by such women. Other O* conditions are not related to sexual orientation. Naturally trans women with S2 are likely to be lesbians. It is known that a majority (as much as 2/3rd in the largest survey) of trans women are lesbians or bisexual. Though trans-sexuality in general is independent of orientation in the sense that a transsexual may have any kind of orientation, connections between dysphoria conditions and orientation are natural – and natural even when we transcend stereotypical expressions of orientation (because people take time to learn).



All of S2, S4, S6, S9, B, I1, I2, I3, I5, I7, I8, I9, O2 and O6 apply to my experience of dysphoria. A dense account of this can be found in my earlier blog post. Since my high school days, I have always identified as a lesbian and being a lesbian is not just about my orientation, but is part of my identity. It did affect socialization, but I am not mixing that up with dysphoria related reasons. I never had any real role models, though I have always admired a lot of women (mostly older) and usually abstracted positive traits from them and adapted them in my own way. I* conditions are not about dysphoria per se, but I do feel that they are important for investigating latent dysphoria in people in their social context.



Hope this helps you in your gender explorations!

________________________________________________________________________


All Rights Reserved, Copyright A. Mani' 2014

__________________________________________________________________________ 


Rate my blog at Susan's Place Trans Resources

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

On Functional Aspects of the SC Judgement


This is about the SC judgement (delivered on the 15th of April'2014) on Writ Petition (Civil) No.400 of 2012 filed by NALSA against the Union of India and Others. On the whole the judgement is a step in the right direction. I take a look at the best possible way to implement it in what follows. For background material see the references below.

It is very important that the rules/ methods and procedures of the implementation be simple and straightforward. This is because the bureaucracy (in particular) has never had suitable training on gender issues or sex education. To hit the nail on the head, an essential universal instruction that should be adopted by all state governments is the following (as per page 20-21 of the judgement):

If any Indian citizen wants to change their  gender assigned at birth, then they are permitted to do  so by filing a gender affidavit* indicating their preferred gender (from any of the three legally recognized ones). No additional medical certificates or endorsement/clearance by third parties (including relatives) need be furnished for the procedure.


(* A written statement of facts confirmed by the oath of the party making it, before a notary or officer having authority to administer oaths.)


It is for people to live as they like in their gender of choice. If they are not allowed to, then it amounts to a crime committed on them by sections of society - that is about it. Trans woman may choose to identify as "women" or as "third gender", trans men may opt for identifying as "men" or "third gender" and most indigenous genders and other gender diverse people as "third gender".  Most transsexuals follow a binary perspective when it comes to specifying their own gender identity, but all of them do not some may have issues with "passing". All transsexuals do not transition in the same way and to the same degree of completion - whatever that means. Those are some reasons for the options.  Ideally we should permit people to use any label they desire, but the scope of the judgement is limited. 

It is important that the existing laws on marriage be changed to accommodate relationships between people of any genders. A majority of trans women are lesbians or are bisexual, most trans men tend to be gay or bisexual (see [b], for example). Often these people may be in conventional marriages before transition and these are bound to get into legal complications after transition. All this is further complicated by the general taboo against same-sex relationships in India. Then again people of other genders do marry with other genders in other ways. My personal view is that the state should not concern itself with the subject of marriage in the first place. But if it chooses to, then it should stop its grotesque discriminatory practices.

The SC ruling has directives on protecting the rights of trans people and people of indigenous gender in particular. Proper implementation requires that we have suitable infrastructure, personnel and universal sex and gender education. Of course, that is apart from basic benefits like free medical care, preferential access to education and sustainable living tracts. It is implicit in the ruling that State Governments are obligated to provide all of the benefits. I am not too sure about the extent to which they will dare to violate the implicit guidelines.



 

References



      [bComprehensive Study on Orientation of Transsexuals 

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Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Making an Approximate Self Portrait with GIMP

This may serve as a pointer for people with non-photogenic faces or who want to protect their privacy on the Internet and also as an invitation to explore the free (as in freedom) software GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Tool).


I do not have a photogenic face, but have plenty of flexibility and beauty. My image on mirrors do not match my photos because of too many soft features. I don't care about the difficult methods of artificial make-up on such faces for matching the original. So it is generally a problem for me to post selfies. This problem is pretty common among different groups of people. One thing that can be done by such people is to reduce number of 3D features being pounded into a 2D photo.

In recent passport size photos done by professionals, I end up looking like a college girl from the North East part of the country (cute, but ... ). Then there is the need to document. I attempted quite a few selfies with my C813 Kodak camera after reading up on related tips for non-photogenic people. But I probably need to work harder on it.

The art portrait(s) below is based on a selfie taken at close range at 45 deg (approx) with flash with eyes closed. For obvious reasons including glare from shining black wavy hair and blurred shadows, the picture was not usable. So I decided to try improving it with GIMP (I am not good at digital art using a mouse and have limited skills).

I used GIMP on the picture to

  1. Improve Automatically
  2. Changed tone
  3. Reduced Dimensionality (that is number of features, not the paltry amount of perspective in the photo).
  4. Implement HSV corrections.
  5. Form a Portrait with Pastels
  6. More Effects

The underlying goal was to isolate exactly one aspect with outline from the artistic point of view. From the mathematical point of view it is an aggregation of approximations - this is how I see it. Step 5 was most important for the former.


The best thing about GIMP is that anybody can get access to advanced tools for processing images and photos for quality work!


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UPDATE: Pictures deleted.  I will put in an album soon! 




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Sunday, April 6, 2014

How To: Study Women in STEM


This guide is intended for feminists of diverse backgrounds and experience seeking to study women's issues in STEM in general, and Free Software Development, Computer Science/Engineering and IT in particular.
 

 
Most people in such fields are busy people, often hard pressed for time and time for living. Then there are women who may not be willing to talk or reveal their identity to the general public for various reasons. That means that you better be very prepared and professional in your approach.

If you are just a news person with interest in women's affairs and seek to cover some geek related sexist incident, then you should be aware of all of the resources below and more on good rules  of such reporting  (that may not be part of your news channel's policies).

The resources that you should be aware of include:



The wikia has references to other studies, includes information on various incidents and geek women, but is generally deficient on many theoretical aspects. Admittedly the focus is on women in the west. You will, for example (as of this writing), not find enough material or information on sexism and gender discrimination in Latin American and South East Asian countries - though it fairly well known that the situation is not good. All this means that the focus of your study should be appropriate enough.

If your study can be done through interaction in private and public mailing lists for women's issues, then do consider the option and follow all related privacy rules. If in doubt, do ask! Also note that it is not advisable to proceed through mass public channels like Reddit - mainly because these are spammed by organized bigots/vested interests and moderators do not have sufficient control.

The other problem that you need to be aware of is that many geek women may not be particularly competent in feminism or aware of feminist terminologies and the "apparent trivial nature of complex questions". If your study concerns contrasting narratives, then you better fix a good time and explain the complexity in advance. The same applies for studies with a focus on feminist epistemology.

Your work-flow may therefore be along the following lines:

  • Fix Topic
  • Do your Homework
  • Rectify Topic
  • Identify Potential Respondents.
  • Check if Topic and Methodology will appeal to potential respondents.
  • Fix Possible Questions - What kind of answers are you anticipating?
Rest should be easy.

Finally if you doubt everything and nothing less than real-time studies of your subject will convince you, then stay with us.

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