Transsexualism (or TS) was first used in the
1950s to describe a person whose "core" gender identity
is fundamentally and irrevocably the opposite of their
visible biological sex.
Transsexualism is a biological variation of physical
formation and medical practitioners familiar with the
condition readily diagnose it. The man or woman affected
by transsexualism requires conclusive sex affirmation
treatment, to relieve their profound discomfort with the
sex assigned them at birth.
For men and women who experience transsexualism the
remedy is rehabilitative sex affirmation treatment (being
those hormonal and surgical procedures also described as
sex reassignment treatment) to bring their body into
harmony with their innate or brain-sex for its own sake
and the harmony of mind and body that it brings.
These men and women correct their legal-identity
(legal-sex) however, the term is not intended to mean
they 'change sex'.
'Gender Dysphoria'
In 1960, Dr. Harry Benjamin coined the term 'gender
dysphoria', to describe the main symptom of the
transsexual condition. This term means, a profound
discomfort with the sex a person is assigned at
birth.
In the 1960's 'transgender' was a term first
coined by Charles "Virginia" Prince, a bisexual
transvestite married to a woman. He used to the term to
describe himself and members of his social group in less
pejorative terms in a country where transvestism and
same-sex relations were both serious crimes.
As a label, it has no medical or scientific basis. It
has not been determined at law. It has been used in some
limited instances, primarily in the NSW Act, as a form of
political correctness.... many people use "gender" when
they mean "sex" because they think sex is a dirty
word.
"Unlike the majority of transsexuals that "feel
they were born that way" many of those identifying
themselves as transgendered or gender-bending or
gender-blending persons are attracted to the concept of a
constructed gender and see themselves and their lives as
evidence of it. Eschewing any strict male-female
dichotomy, transgendered persons instead reach for a wide
range of mixtures of male and female restructured
anatomies and manifest masculine and feminine
life-styles."
Diamond,
2000
Many transgender people, who do not fit the medical
diagnosis of transsexualism, use a variety of medical and
social measures in order to more fully realise their
gender expression and relieve their discomfort between
their gender and assigned legal-sex.
The term 'transgender' covers a very broad range of
identities. These identities range from genderqueer,
transmen, transwomen, mtf, ftm, third-sex, and many other
terms.
By 1981 the term 'transgender' was being applied
indiscriminately to the whole "gender community" of
cross-dressing and transgender people, including
transsexuals, and intersexed people as an 'umbrella
term'. This practice culminated in its inaccurate use in
the New South Wales Anti-Discrimination Act and eventual
ill-informed adoption by several other State and
Territory jurisdictions.
The use of the term, has generated the perception the
experience is simply about 'changing one's gender'. This
is one example how the term 'transgender' fails men and
women affected by ts who experience the same gender since
birth throughout their lives.
