'Third gender' will be acknowledged in the new Thai constitution

[Jingthing]

Who does it hurt? Equal rights for all ... please. Why not just copy the South African constitution? It seems to cover almost all without committing to the odd third sex designation. I would add gender identity language and forget third sex.

If you say gender identity it is clear you understand some people identify differently than their birth biology.

Sent from my Lenovo S820_ROW using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

Edited January 14, 2015 by Jingthing

[Alwyn]

Pointless exercise, there are only two genders male and female. A man who dresses as a chicken doesn't magically become a chicken does he, he's still just a man dressed as a chicken.

It's more about what is in the brain of transgender persons than how they dress really. Some people strongly feel they were born into the wrong sex and can never be fulfilled as human beings until they do all they can to fix what they see as a mistake. Merely dressing in drag is not the same thing. That activity is sometimes enjoyed by both gay and straight men who have no gender identity issues at all.

It is my understanding that Thailand is the leading country in the world in gender reassignment surgical procedures (BOTH ways) with Iran being the number two spot.

Yup, well I met a fella once who believed in his own brain that he was Genghis Khan (turns out he had just done way too much acid). Just because the brain believes something, I'm not sure that makes it so......

You can grow up and chop off your wedding tackle if you like, it doesn't move you to a third gender, it simply makes a step closer to the other gender.

+ 1. Agreed. Chopping the tackle off doesn't give the person ovaries nor the ability to give birth which is a primary female function. That and multi-tasking I keep getting told...

This part is from" Caitrin": "First off, for commenters on a Thai website, and Thailand being responsible for a number of modern sex reassignment surgical techniques, you guys appear to know nothing about how SRS works. You don't "chop" things off. Guess what: vaginas, penises, ovaries, testes? They're made from the same stuff! They respond via receptors to hormones both in utero and during puberty, but it's still the same stuff. SRS "reconfigures" that stuff, to put it overly simplistically. You have Google, the wonder of the modern age, use it, before you insert your digital foot directly into your digital mouth.

Edit: Also, eeeeeewwwww at the idea of "giving birth" as a primary female function. We're talking about humans here, not animals, and female humans, as individuals, have no need to give birth. Some even have their reproductive organs removed, they're that opposed to baby making."

@ Caitrin: "eeeeeeeewwwww" to giving birth? The most beautiful in the World and you say "eeeewwww"? Wierdo or what! But that apart..... Regarding the fact that we are talking about humans here. As I understand it humans basically come in two varieties, male and female, am I right so far? When we were designed, one (note that I said ONE) of the primary functions of women was to give birth so that the human race did not perish and the male was there to do his part, am I right? 100 years ago individuals actually did need to give birth, or you would not be here today, would you? Tribes people in the Amazon (for example) NEED to give birth as they don't live in your Utopia and have no facilities to give birth outside of the female vessel so the females have the most important role in their society and without that primary function these tribes would not exist, would they?

Edited January 14, 2015 by Alwyn

[BKKBobby]

I read a lot of the posts. My thought is: there is penis, vagina, man-made "penis" and "vagina". Ok... but these facts has nothing to do with the fact that third gender exists. A transsexual is someone who actually feels like the opposite sex. Doesnt matter if the person has had surgery or hormone treatment. They want to be and identify themselves as the opposite sex since childhood. Thirdgender is in the head not between the legs. If a transsexual keeps the penis as not to risk losing the ability to climax doesnt make the person less transgender compared to a transsexual who surgically gets a "vagina".

[rickirs]

Reference to a "third gender" is ridiculous and still leaves open bi-sexual and duo-sexual discrimination. The correct term (in english) should be "sexual orientation" such as "there shall be equality regardless of sexual orientation." How sexual orientation is is exhibited or thought is irrelevant.

But frankly the whole constitution exercise is a farce. Its underlying aim is to prevent a complete and irreversible elected government from changing how the electorate is governed and maintain the elitist control over every aspect of Thai lives, regardless of sexual orientation.

[Caitrin]

Alwyn, we have 7 billion people on this planet. As a species, yes, it is expected that some, or many, female humans will give birth. That's not what I was "ewwing." My response was directed at the idea that individual female humans all have as a primary purpose giving birth. But that completely negates that each individual is not necessary to the species, and that as sentient beings, we get to decide what our primary purposes are. Unless, of course, you think female humans aren't people.

Also, I can't tell if you mean designed as in a creator God sense of designed or as in evolution, but in either case, I would say that our current status as sentient beings makes that irrelevant. No one in my specific family tree needed to give birth for the species to survive, and I would not, theoretically speaking, have begrudged a maternal ancestor her right not to do so, had she been allowed that option and wanted to exercise it.

I find nothing "eww" about the process of birth itself, just the the concept of the "female vessel." Female humans, we typically call them women, are not tools. They're people. And some people don't particularly like the idea of growing other people inside them and would very much like to avoid that. Some women, female humans by the most socially conservative definition, lack uteruses or ovaries or both at birth, are they suddenly worth less, or worthless for that matter, because they are not viable vessels? And extend that to trans women, are they suddenly, for lack of uterus and ovaries (which one day may be possible, experiments are already ongoing), are they worth less as women?

Bobby, I appreciate the sentiment you're trying to express, but you've done so a bit clumsily. Genital stuff is just genital stuff, the reconfiguration of it really doesn't change the function of the stuff in terms of "it feels good." It's the same stuff. And we can now grow vaginas and penises in labs and implant them on individuals who either lost theirs in accidents or those with developmental abnormalities. It's just tissue. There's no difference. The cells give zero craps. There's no difference between "was already there" and "we moved stuff around" and "we're adding this later." Only people who can't get over prejudices have an issue with the summation that our junk ain't that special, and it ain't that different.

And transsexual is now generally considered an older term. Many young transgender people don't like it and prefer to use transgender. Some people trying to make a distinction between pre-op and post-op for transgender vs transsexual, but that's not correct either. Also transgender covers non-binary identities potentially, transsexual was developed as a term before those non-binary identities were really considered or explored. It's also too often used as a noun, which it shouldn't be (likewise, transgender is always an adjective, never a noun, you have transgender people, not "transgenders," although even the media screws this up repeatedly). Also, transsexual is too easy to confuse with a sexual orientation, and for the record, this is directed at rick, gender identity is not the same as sexual orientation, and the inclusion of a third sex or third gender recognises a non-binary gender identity, someone with a binary transgender or non-binary transgender identity can be straight, gay, bisexual, etc. Notice there are binary and non-binary folks, binary folks (cisgender or transgender) would not consider themselves to be of a third anything. They're male or they're female, one or the other, and only that one, that's what makes them binary.

Edited January 14, 2015 by Caitrin

[Neeranam]

Sweet baby Jesus there's a lot of ignorance about being trans in this thread. Well, that, and blatant transphobia. I'll work my way backwards.

Gender dysphoria is not a mental disorder according to the experts. That's precisely why the DSM designation was changed. The designation change is so that dysphoria, which comes from external sources can be successfully dealt with. It's not that there is anything inherently disordered about the transgender person's gender identity, but rather it's the fact that being transgender in a cisgender (that's most of you folks, if not all of you folks in this discussion) world causes stress. Why? Because as this thread proves, most cisgender people, and certainly cisgender institutions which is, you know, most institutions in every nation on the planet, tend to react badly to transgender people. You're proving it right now! The change was made because GID (D being for disorder) unfairly and incorrectly pathologised the natural reaction of trans people to a cis world: y'all stress trans people out, and you should really be better about that. It's not them, cis people; it's you.

Who on earth are you to say who is ignorant?

If someone suffers from Gender Dysphoria, do they go to a general doctor or a Psychiatrist?

Who wrote the DSM and what does it stand for? The American Psychiatric Association and it stands for - Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

Now are you calling all theses experts ignorant?

Did they somehow put something that is not a mental disorder into a book about mental disorders? How careless of them.

[Jingthing]

Reference to a "third gender" is ridiculous and still leaves open bi-sexual and duo-sexual discrimination. The correct term (in english) should be "sexual orientation" such as "there shall be equality regardless of sexual orientation." How sexual orientation is is exhibited or thought is irrelevant.

But frankly the whole constitution exercise is a farce. Its underlying aim is to prevent a complete and irreversible elected government from changing how the electorate is governed and maintain the elitist control over every aspect of Thai lives, regardless of sexual orientation.

No. Sexual orientation and GENDER identity are ENTIRELY different things. I agree the term third sex is absurd, but just goes to show us again how absurd THAILAND can be!

Do I need to spell this out?

I am about 99 percent gay.

Why 99 percent and not 100?

Never say never.

Gender-wise I have never for one second in my entire life ever felt I was a female (or not a male, or a "third gender" if you prefer).

Got it now?

It's pretty clear to me that as long as the Thailand focus is on "third sex" Thailand isn't really going to get very far on REAL INCLUSIVE equality legislation for the entire LGBT spectrum. That's a shame but they're at where they're at.

Edited January 14, 2015 by Jingthing

[Caitrin]

I'm glad you asked, because I'm a journalist and academic with my primary focus on LGBT and women's issues. It's literally my job to know about this stuff in detail. Plenty of my work applies to me directly, since, you know, I'm a queer woman.

"Suffers" is a word which is very loaded, and there is a specific political reason for the continued inclusion of gender dysphoria in the DSM: insurance coverage. There has been a debate for years about completely removing gender identity from the DSM just as homosexuality was removed (you might remember that, right?), but the problem is many insurers that provide coverage for medical intervention (hormone replacement therapy, sex reassignment surgery, blood tests, etc etc) only provided that insurance because the DSM gave medical doctors, including but not limited to psychiatrists, something to point to saying, "this is necessary medical treatment, it is not extraneous nor cosmetic." I've always been of the opinion gender identity should be removed, but there are an awful lot of trans people in dire financial situations, and there was a lot of justified fear that the insurance companies would put their own profit margins ahead of the medical needs of their transgender customers. So, ultimately, in it has stayed, with the modification to de-pathologise it.

In many cases, you CAN go to a general practitioner first. There are even "informed consent" clinics in some areas. In some cases, to change a gender marker, you don't even need to go to a medical doctor. A social worker can confirm your gender identity is valid. And when you are required to see a psychiatrist for paperwork reasons, it's often less about "oh my, you poor dear, you're suffering so much" and more to determine that you are well adjusted and ready to proceed with transition, or surgery, or whatever. Dysphoria is not the issue if a trans person is stressed out, depressed, etc. It's usually because people are harming them, they're suffering from discrimination, etc, etc. Those are external factors. And sure, they need to be worked through, but plenty of cisgender people go through the same things, and not all transgender people do. I know plenty of people who have walked into a psychiatrist's office, had their evaluation, were rated as well adjusted, had the paperwork signed off, and never went back to counseling again because it wasn't necessary.

I'm not calling these experts ignorant. I'm calling you ignorant of what the experts are actually saying and doing in practice.

[Neeranam]

I'm glad you asked, because I'm a journalist and academic with my primary focus on LGBT and women's issues. It's literally my job to know about this stuff in detail. Plenty of my work applies to me directly, since, you know, I'm a queer woman.

"Suffers" is a word which is very loaded, and there is a specific political reason for the continued inclusion of gender dysphoria in the DSM: insurance coverage. There has been a debate for years about completely removing gender identity from the DSM just as homosexuality was removed (you might remember that, right?), but the problem is many insurers that provide coverage for medical intervention (hormone replacement therapy, sex reassignment surgery, blood tests, etc etc) only provided that insurance because the DSM gave medical doctors, including but not limited to psychiatrists, something to point to saying, "this is necessary medical treatment, it is not extraneous nor cosmetic." I've always been of the opinion gender identity should be removed, but there are an awful lot of trans people in dire financial situations, and there was a lot of justified fear that the insurance companies would put their own profit margins ahead of the medical needs of their transgender customers. So, ultimately, in it has stayed, with the modification to de-pathologise it.

In many cases, you CAN go to a general practitioner first. There are even "informed consent" clinics in some areas. In some cases, to change a gender marker, you don't even need to go to a medical doctor. A social worker can confirm your gender identity is valid. And when you are required to see a psychiatrist for paperwork reasons, it's often less about "oh my, you poor dear, you're suffering so much" and more to determine that you are well adjusted and ready to proceed with transition, or surgery, or whatever. Dysphoria is not the issue if a trans person is stressed out, depressed, etc. It's usually because people are harming them, they're suffering from discrimination, etc, etc. Those are external factors. And sure, they need to be worked through, but plenty of cisgender people go through the same things, and not all transgender people do. I know plenty of people who have walked into a psychiatrist's office, had their evaluation, were rated as well adjusted, had the paperwork signed off, and never went back to counseling again because it wasn't necessary.

I'm not calling these experts ignorant. I'm calling you ignorant of what the experts are actually saying and doing in practice.

I may be ignorant in Ladyboy issues but I'm met a lot and they all seem pretty screwed up to me. And why do they all think that foreign men in Thailand are interested in them?

But I am honest - I think that's terrible if what you say is true about what the American Psychiatric Association are doing to rip off the insurance companies.

So it is a mental condition and not a disorder and is treatable by a variety of methods, including Psychologists and Psychiatrists.?

[45slap]

Well it's up to the Thais.

I'm sure it won't be anything nearly as good as the South Africa constitution and it remains to be seen if there will be any such language at all in the final document. This has come up before and led to nothing.

So those opposed to equality language for gender and sexuality minorities in Thailand, I doubt you have much to worry about.

Not opposed to it, doesn't effect me one way or the other. Do Believe god/nature creates genders, not man though.

Youre not really "grasping" the ladyboy concept, are you? Man doesnt 'make' ladyboys... nature does.

I thought money did!

[Jingthing]

It's so sad that so many people think of people with gender identity variances only in terms of prostitution.

Edited January 14, 2015 by Jingthing

[granuaile]

Sweet baby Jesus there's a lot of ignorance about being trans in this thread. Well, that, and blatant transphobia. I'll work my way backwards.

Gender dysphoria is not a mental disorder according to the experts. That's precisely why the DSM designation was changed. The designation change is so that dysphoria, which comes from external sources can be successfully dealt with. It's not that there is anything inherently disordered about the transgender person's gender identity, but rather it's the fact that being transgender in a cisgender (that's most of you folks, if not all of you folks in this discussion) world causes stress. Why? Because as this thread proves, most cisgender people, and certainly cisgender institutions which is, you know, most institutions in every nation on the planet, tend to react badly to transgender people. You're proving it right now! The change was made because GID (D being for disorder) unfairly and incorrectly pathologised the natural reaction of trans people to a cis world: y'all stress trans people out, and you should really be better about that. It's not them, cis people; it's you.

Who on earth are you to say who is ignorant?

If someone suffers from Gender Dysphoria, do they go to a general doctor or a Psychiatrist?

Who wrote the DSM and what does it stand for? The American Psychiatric Association and it stands for - Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

Now are you calling all theses experts ignorant?

Did they somehow put something that is not a mental disorder into a book about mental disorders? How careless of them.

Obviously a lot more knowledgeable than many posters in this thread. She is correct in noting that the very reason for removing the word disorder from the diagnosis was to remove the misconception that it is a mental illness. Rather than ignoring biology and the professional community of social workers, psychologists and psychiatrists she is presenting facts rather than bigotry and theocratic nonsense. Glad to see her posting....

[losworld]

Thailand might be wise to look at the ground breaking constitution of SOUTH AFRICA:

Under the heading "Equality", the section states:

9. (1) Everyone is equal before the law and has the right to equal protection and benefit of the law.

(2) Equality includes the full and equal enjoyment of all rights and freedoms. To promote the achievement of equality, legislative and other measures designed to protect or advance persons, or categories of persons, disadvantaged by unfair discrimination may be taken.

(3) The state may not unfairly discriminate directly or indirectly against anyone on one or more grounds, including race, gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, language and birth.

(4) No person may unfairly discriminate directly or indirectly against anyone on one or more grounds in terms of subsection (3). National legislation must be enacted to prevent or prohibit unfair discrimination.

(5) Discrimination on one or more of the grounds listed in subsection (3) is unfair unless it is established that the discrimination is fair.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_Nine_of_the_Constitution_of_South_Africa

From guidelines in constitutions, I would assume later court cases can be argued to clarify more details of law, such as the right of transgender people to change the gender on their ID card, the right of same sex marriages, etc., etc.

Somewhat bizarrely, the awareness of civil rights issues of transgender persons is much higher here than interest in gay and lesbian issues. The former is about gender identity and the latter is about sexual orientation identity.

From a human rights POV in Thailand and globally, of course BOTH are important.

From the article in the OP, it is sounding like the Thai obsession with the culturally specific idea of "third gender" (instead of just transgender persons) is all they are willing to deal with now ... and to leave out gay and lesbian equality language.

I wouldn't be quoting South Africa. Words mean little if bot backed by actions.

http://blogs.channel4.com/miller-on-foreign-affairs/mandela-afrikaners-fear-boer-bloodbath/557

http://www.genocidewatch.org/images/White_Genocide_TVA.pdf

[Prbkk]

Pointless exercise, there are only two genders male and female. A man who dresses as a chicken doesn't magically become a chicken does he, he's still just a man dressed as a chicken.

It's more about what is in the brain of transgender persons than how they dress really. Some people strongly feel they were born into the wrong sex and can never be fulfilled as human beings until they do all they can to fix what they see as a mistake. Merely dressing in drag is not the same thing. That activity is sometimes enjoyed by both gay and straight men who have no gender identity issues at all.

It is my understanding that Thailand is the leading country in the world in gender reassignment surgical procedures (BOTH ways) with Iran being the number two spot.

And both countries 'lead' the way for the same reason: hostility to homosexuality ( in the case of Iran overt and specific, in Thailand a bit more subtle perhaps). While I don't deny the existence of third gender, it has to be questioned why Thaiand has 10 times more people in this category than similar societies. I suspect the answer is to do with an inability to accept their own homosexuality ( for any number of reasons but likely to include social pressure/hostility) leading to heterosexuality by surgery. This is a sad situation rather than one to be celebrated. Edited January 14, 2015 by Prbkk

[Jingthing]

It is true that in Iran there is strong evidence that a significant percentage of gender change surgery is done to regular gay men who are choosing between becoming women (which they don't want) and being gay which is punishable by death in Iran. Iran is OK with the changed gender people but not with gays.

I get the point about the parallel to Thailand in that traditional Thai culture can process the idea of wrong gender better than just gay orientation.

BUT, I'm not buying any kind of equivalencies.

Gender change operations are NOT forced in Thailand!

The question about why so many "ladyboys" in Thailand ... that's complicated and something I can't answer.

[Jingthing]

I wouldn't be quoting South Africa. Words mean little if bot backed by actions.

http://blogs.channel4.com/miller-on-foreign-affairs/mandela-afrikaners-fear-boer-bloodbath/557

http://www.genocidewatch.org/images/White_Genocide_TVA.pdf

A constitution is just a start. Not a panacea.

Edited January 14, 2015 by Jingthing

[ChatterRat]

Just read this an article on the BBC "Genoveva Anonma: 'I had to strip naked to prove I was a woman'" it contained the following

Gender testing in sport

Gender testing is a highly controversial area of scientific debate. There is no perfect method to categorically determine whether someone is a man, a woman or, as is perfectly possible, something in between.

Over the years, sport has tried chromosome testing, individual gene testing and hair testing but all of these techniques carry flaws.

http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/athletics/29446276

Seems that to scientists there is a thin line between men & women, or maybe even no line, a continuum maybe.

[gezginrocker]

Yet another topic that shows the extremely high level of ignorance of majority of TVF members. It is really hard to believe that you people are coming from western countries.

I come from Turkey, and in my country the option transgendered people have is being a prostitute. They can't work at a normal job, their families hate them, some of them are even killed my their own families and most of them commit suicide.

They have a beautiful thing going on here, they accept the third gender. You can see transgendered people in every part of life. As a teacher, as a waitress, as a government officer, as a doctor etc. They are way ahead of the western world in this case.

And I hope this acknowledgement at Thai constitution helps to improve their status, like getting a female ID and officially getting married.

100 years later, people will read those and laugh at things like gender discrimination and religion, because hopefully both of them won't exist anymore.

Edited January 14, 2015 by gezginrocker

[losworld]

I wouldn't be quoting South Africa. Words mean little if bot backed by actions.

http://blogs.channel4.com/miller-on-foreign-affairs/mandela-afrikaners-fear-boer-bloodbath/557

http://www.genocidewatch.org/images/White_Genocide_TVA.pdf

A constitution is just a start. Not a panacea.

No a better start is not killing people and treating all equal and removing prejudice not quietly turning a blind eye. Talk is cheap. It means little or nothing when the backing is not there. Sadly South Africa is a prime eample of the "iron law of oligarchy" where a minority becomes the majority and becomes guilty of doing the same thing that was done to them. Unfortunately they seem to be taking it a step further.

Edited January 14, 2015 by losworld

[granuaile]

I wouldn't be quoting South Africa. Words mean little if bot backed by actions.

http://blogs.channel4.com/miller-on-foreign-affairs/mandela-afrikaners-fear-boer-bloodbath/557

http://www.genocidewatch.org/images/White_Genocide_TVA.pdf

A constitution is just a start. Not a panacea.

No a better start is not killing people and treating all equal and removing prejudice not quietly turning a blind eye. Talk is cheap. It means little or nothing when the backing is not there. Sadly South Africa is a prime eample of the "iron law of oligarchy" where a minority becomes the majority and becomes guilty of doing the same thing that was done to them. Unfortunately they seem to be taking it a step further.

Whenever I see sites about "white genocide" in South Africa most lead to neo-Nazi sites selling tee-shirts with Hitler, Himmler, and Goebbels ... I have a cousin from Derry in Johannesburg and they seem quite content there and happy....

[redandyellow]

what about the fourth type - metro-sexual?

[Jingthing]

I referred to the South African document because it's language on sexual orientation equality was groundbreaking. Not as invitation to twist this thread into being about all the problems in SA.

[losworld]

I wouldn't be quoting South Africa. Words mean little if bot backed by actions.

http://blogs.channel4.com/miller-on-foreign-affairs/mandela-afrikaners-fear-boer-bloodbath/557

http://www.genocidewatch.org/images/White_Genocide_TVA.pdf

A constitution is just a start. Not a panacea.

No a better start is not killing people and treating all equal and removing prejudice not quietly turning a blind eye. Talk is cheap. It means little or nothing when the backing is not there. Sadly South Africa is a prime eample of the "iron law of oligarchy" where a minority becomes the majority and becomes guilty of doing the same thing that was done to them. Unfortunately they seem to be taking it a step further.

Whenever I see sites about "white genocide" in South Africa most lead to neo-Nazi sites selling tee-shirts with Hitler, Himmler, and Goebbels ... I have a cousin from Derry in Johannesburg and they seem quite content there and happy....

That's a rather ridiculous statement. Deal with the issue. Rural farmers are being threatened. Is your cousin a farmer in Johannesburg? Duh.

[Jingthing]

South Africa race issues:

[granuaile]

Whenever I see sites about "white genocide" in South Africa most lead to neo-Nazi sites selling tee-shirts with Hitler, Himmler, and Goebbels ... I have a cousin from Derry in Johannesburg and they seem quite content there and happy....

That's a rather ridiculous statement. Deal with the issue. Rural farmers are being threatened. Is your cousin a farmer in Johannesburg? Duh.

Just a fact... I've followed many sites about white rural genocide in South Africa and most - in my experience - lead to neo-Nazi sites... Does it exist? My cousin is white... And alive... However as Jingthing noted, race issues in South Africa are off the topic...

[Caitrin]

I may be ignorant in Ladyboy issues but I'm met a lot and they all seem pretty screwed up to me. And why do they all think that foreign men in Thailand are interested in them?

But I am honest - I think that's terrible if what you say is true about what the American Psychiatric Association are doing to rip off the insurance companies.

So it is a mental condition and not a disorder and is treatable by a variety of methods, including Psychologists and Psychiatrists.?

The term "ladyboy" actually encompasses quite a number of different Thai gender identities. That's just the preferred English word for them. It's an umbrella term, but one limited to Thais. It would be deeply inappropriate to refer to non-Thai transgender individuals using that term. As for "why do they all think foreign men in Thailand are interested in them," uh, because there is a customer base for prostitution, and in large part, it's foreign men who are interested in them? Same as cisgender women in Thailand who work in similar locations or establishments. Not all transgender individuals in Thailand work in entertainment and/or sex work. Those with the financial means probably stay far away from such areas and go on with their lives. The sad truth of being transgender in a cisgender world is that often times such work is the only way one can afford medical intervention, especially for trans individuals from very income depressed backgrounds. Which leads to your next comment:

No, see the insurance companies are trying to rip off their customers. They want to maximise premium payments and minimise payouts. They're a business. The problem is, healthcare isn't a commodity. Or at least, it shouldn't be. The APA and other such groups of medical professionals are making it clear: this is a medical issue, these are the necessary, non-elective treatments, you should pay for them, because that's what people have insurance for in the first place. With the incestuous nature of the insurance industry (hardly better than a trust, honestly), it can be like pulling teeth to get them to pay for anything (recall how they like to drop people for pre-existing conditions, etc, etc, which is now illegal in many countries, most recently the US, under the ACA). This isn't about the medical profession ripping off the insurance industry, this is the industry being greedy to the point of actively harming the very people giving them money.

And I suppose you could term dysphoria as a mental condition, but you're using verbal sleight of hand to distract from why and how dysphoria develops into a potential mal-adjustment: shitty treatment by cis people. Dysphoria is a reaction to individuals being constrained in their full range of expression, in this case, specifically gender expression. That restraint isn't healthy, but it isn't restraint placed on trans people by trans people themselves (although transphobia can be internalised, it's only after external situations are presented). Let's consider two situations:

30 years ago, there is a transgender teen. She doesn't have access to resources. The internet exists, but it's not well developed. Searching for a description of her feelings, the way she relates to her body, etc, doesn't come up with much. If she goes to a library, she might find works by Janice Raymond or other transgender exclusionary radical feminists, or even older works by psychiatrists describing transgender women as deluded homosexual men or similarly deluded "male lesbian" men. These won't exactly be supportive (understatement of the century, and we now know these ideas are total trash). Her parents won't understand her, and they will demand she "man up." At school she is regularly beaten up for her femininity. She may not even be attracted to boys, she may not even be attracted to anyone, but she'll still be labeled as gay. Meanwhile her body is getting further and further away from the way her internal perception of it, the physiological mapping, says it should be. When she reaches adulthood, she might be pretty screwed up. If she finally transitions now, she's probably got a lot of shit to work through, not because she is transgender, but because her entire life was full of traumatic experiences with zero support.

Now, a different scenario. Present day, a transgender teen was a transgender child. She found support from her parents who took her to see a child psychiatrist who affirmed she had gender dysphoria, but was still a bright, well-adjusted, happy child--as long as her gender identity was respected. So her parents do so, they allow her to choose gendered activities if she wants (or if she doesn't, maybe she's just as interested in playing with GI Joes as she is with My Little Ponies, or maybe she likes them both, she still insists she's a girl, because girls are not defined by activities), they allow her to choose her clothes, whatever they may be (within reason, of course), they enroll her at school as a girl and strenuously defend her right to self-expression against other parents or administration figures. As she reaches puberty, it becomes obvious that her gender identity is not going to change, so with careful decision making in consultation with a pediatrician, an endocrinologist, and a psychiatrist, she goes on puberty blockers at 12, so she remains somewhat behind her peers to allow her brain to mature without suffering the effects of a "male" puberty. At 16, she goes on hormone replacement therapy, and after one or two years, she has sex reassignment surgery. In general, for her entire life, her dysphoria was mitigated by a cast of supporting characters: her parents, her doctors, her peers, her teachers, her friends. By 18 she is happy, well-adjusted, her body matches her internal physiological mapping, and although she may have to have a difficult explanation down the road about her inability to conceive children, the vast majority of people she interacts with daily have no idea she was assigned male at birth.

Do you see the difference? The difference is cisgender people doing shitty things, not a trans person's gender identity.

[rijit]

I was gonna mass quote, but tbh i really can tbe bothered and just goes to show what a narrow minded bunch of self centered absolute total <deleted> post on here and here am i thinking of coming bac to thailand,, I really cant see it, and i wonde r why i left? it s absolutely full of ignorant redneck westerners, ITS ABOUT DISCRIMINATION and big up to Thailand for doing a good thing, as opposed to that retarded bunch of rednecks up the road in Russia, perhaps those that dont understand the need for such a thing, should go and perhaps be a minority in somewhere like Russia and maybe they'll see the need,, <deleted> absolute <deleted>..

[JeremyBowskill]

Not exactly, no. You're talking about the penile inversion technique, and it's far more complicated than you're making it out to be. For one thing, the spongy muscle material that develops for purposes of erection is, to be blunt, absolutely unnecessary for arousal and orgasm. In general, the shaft has one biological purpose. And regardless of whether a trans woman is straight, bisexual, or lesbian, you can bet that in the vast majority of cases, she's very much not into that. The nerve endings are clustered in the head (to be honest, mostly in the glans) which is placed where it originally developed from anyway; as the clitoris. Sexual function (arousal and orgasm) are maintained in the vast majority of cases.

By its very name, penile inversion, it can't possibly be "chopped off" because if you chopped it off, you would lose everything, not just the irrelevant spongy muscle material. If you knew this, why be a transphobic jerk about it, spouting misinformation about the technique?

And some people are a third gender. Or agender. Anyhow, wouldn't it be great if we just magically didn't have to put up with discrimination because of equal rights for all humans. How's that working out for us? Sounds like the kind of claptrap people who don't live as a minority (globally speaking) usually say. "I don't even see race," "I don't have an issue with gay people, but they shouldn't stick their orientations in other people's faces" etc.

Get off yer soapbox, whoever said life was going to be fair? Interesting that you don't think I live as a minority in Thailand, I have lived as a minority all my adult life! I don't wish people to make special dispensations for me, just to treat me the same as everyone else (not that it generally happens). I don't know if you are a transwhatever, so these operations are of some relevance to you, but as I quite like my sausage (although wouldn't mind a couple extra inches, just like every other man) so the hows and wherefore's are both of no consequence or interest to me. Yes it would be " great if we just magically didn't have to put up with discrimination because of equal rights for all humans" but its unlikely to pan out that way, so just deal with it without the need to add to natures gender numbers.

[mikemac]

Get off yer soapbox, whoever said life was going to be fair? Interesting that you don't think I live as a minority in Thailand, I have lived as a minority all my adult life! I don't wish people to make special dispensations for me, just to treat me the same as everyone else (not that it generally happens). I don't know if you are a transwhatever, so these operations are of some relevance to you, but as I quite like my sausage (although wouldn't mind a couple extra inches, just like every other man) so the hows and wherefore's are both of no consequence or interest to me. Yes it would be " great if we just magically didn't have to put up with discrimination because of equal rights for all humans" but its unlikely to pan out that way, so just deal with it without the need to add to natures gender numbers.

A little bit too much information there JB, and thank God there were no photos to prove your claim !

[DM07]

Not exactly, no. You're talking about the penile inversion technique, and it's far more complicated than you're making it out to be. For one thing, the spongy muscle material that develops for purposes of erection is, to be blunt, absolutely unnecessary for arousal and orgasm. In general, the shaft has one biological purpose. And regardless of whether a trans woman is straight, bisexual, or lesbian, you can bet that in the vast majority of cases, she's very much not into that. The nerve endings are clustered in the head (to be honest, mostly in the glans) which is placed where it originally developed from anyway; as the clitoris. Sexual function (arousal and orgasm) are maintained in the vast majority of cases.

By its very name, penile inversion, it can't possibly be "chopped off" because if you chopped it off, you would lose everything, not just the irrelevant spongy muscle material. If you knew this, why be a transphobic jerk about it, spouting misinformation about the technique?

And some people are a third gender. Or agender. Anyhow, wouldn't it be great if we just magically didn't have to put up with discrimination because of equal rights for all humans. How's that working out for us? Sounds like the kind of claptrap people who don't live as a minority (globally speaking) usually say. "I don't even see race," "I don't have an issue with gay people, but they shouldn't stick their orientations in other people's faces" etc.

Get off yer soapbox, whoever said life was going to be fair? Interesting that you don't think I live as a minority in Thailand, I have lived as a minority all my adult life! I don't wish people to make special dispensations for me, just to treat me the same as everyone else (not that it generally happens). I don't know if you are a transwhatever, so these operations are of some relevance to you, but as I quite like my sausage (although wouldn't mind a couple extra inches, just like every other man) so the hows and wherefore's are both of no consequence or interest to me. Yes it would be " great if we just magically didn't have to put up with discrimination because of equal rights for all humans" but its unlikely to pan out that way, so just deal with it without the need to add to natures gender numbers.

Hihihihi...he said "sausage"!

Discussion's over!