NEED HELP, Gender warrior friends!

[lunatickle]

Hey folks, if you know what "Harry Benjamin Standards of Care (HBSOC)" means, I need your help. I'm writing a paper that's due wednesday morning (yikes!) about the SOC and and it's discontents. PLEASE PLEASE answer a few questions or give a sentence or two about anything SOC related, I can really use the quotes. It's an academic paper for social

Comments

[harperjean]

1) I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, I feel that gender expression is a human right; that the same process won't work for everyone; and that there is a real danger of doctors imposing their own gender prejudices. On the other hand, I think the aim of screening for emotional or mental problems or life crises that may impair someone's judgement about a major life decision is legitimate. But then, we don't do psychological screenings for boob jobs or facelifts -- and they're not even necessary. Or getting married, for that matter, or dropping out of college. And the SOC create this weird framework where to be transsexual to have to be crazy (gender dysphoria), but not *too* crazy.

At least, the recent revisions that make the time frames suggestions rather than bright-line rules are big improvements.

2) Yes and no. When I decided to transition, I determined that I did not want to go through months of consultation/therapy with a mental health professional before HRT. I quite simply felt it was not necessary: I knew what I was doing, I was not crazy, I had a support system, I had worked through my hesitations, I was not depressed, I sure as hell didn't need to pay his hourly, not-covered-by-insurance rate -- I just needed to transition. So I went to psychiatrist and made quite clear that I was seeking a reccommendation. After three sessions, I got a note for the endocrinologist. I never went back. I don't plan to have surgery.

3) I identify as transsexual, which I feel is a useful term for distinguishing the experience of permanent social gender transition (usu. w/ body modification of some kind/s) from genderqueerity or cross-dressing. But then, others would say that that's a false dichotomy -- and still others would say that you're not transsexual unless you desire bottom surgery. Go figure.

4) The more I think about it, the less sure I am. I like the concept of masculinity and femininity, and even maleness and femaleness, as independent spectral variables that can come in various combinations. That's useful, and so is K. Bornstein's description of gender as "any way of categorizing people." Gender is a category. It seems to mean what we want it to mean.