Transsexual
In modern usage, it refers to "a person who desires to or who has modified their body to transition from one gender or sex to another through the use of medical technologies such as hormones or surgeries".
Gender is defined as a "set of social, cultural, and linguistic norms that can be attributed to someone's identity, expression, or role as masculine, feminine, androgynous, or nonbinary".
Sex is defined as being "assigned at birth by medical professionals based on the appearance of genitalia, and related assumptions about chromosomal makeup, gender identity, expressions, and roles [that] emerge over the life span, sometimes changing over time".
[13]: 277–278 Norman Haire reported that in 1921 Dora Richter of Germany began a surgical transition, under the care of Magnus Hirschfeld, which ended in 1930 with a successful genital reassignment surgery (GRS).
[31][better source needed] For example, Christine Jorgensen, the first person widely known in the United States for having had gender affirming surgery (in this case, male-to-female), rejected transsexual and instead identified herself in newsprint as trans-gender, on this basis.
[46] Many sources criticize this choice of wording as confusing, "heterosexist",[47] "archaic",[48][failed verification] and demeaning because it labels people by sex assigned at birth instead of their gender identity.
[51] Sociomedical scientist Rebecca Jordan-Young challenges researchers like Simon LeVay, J. Michael Bailey, and Martin Lalumiere, who she says "have completely failed to appreciate the implications of alternative ways of framing sexual orientation".
[52][page needed] The terms androphilia and gynephilia to describe a person's sexual orientation without reference to their gender identity were proposed and popularized by psychologist Ron Langevin in the 1980s.
Evolutionary biologist and trans woman Julia Serano criticizes the societal preoccupation with SRS as phallocentric, objectifying of transsexuals, and an invasion of privacy.
[59] The Hippocratic Corpus (interpreting the writing of Herodotus) describes the "disease of the Scythians" (regarding the Enaree), which it attributes to impotency due to riding on a horse without stirrups.
One of the earliest recorded gender nonconforming people in America was Thomas(ine) Hall, a seventeenth century colonial servant.
[65][66] In this context, Harry Benjamin suggested that moderate intensity male to female transsexual people may benefit from estrogen medication as a "substitute for or preliminary to operation".
[citation needed] "Transsexuality" was included for the first time in the DSM-III in 1980 and again in the DSM-III-R in 1987, where it was located under Disorders Usually First Evident in Infancy, Childhood or Adolescence.
[failed verification] Historically, transsexualism has also been included in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).
[70] This change was made to reflect the consensus view by members of the APA that the desire for gender affirming surgery is not, in and of itself, a disorder and that transsexual people should not be stigmatized unnecessarily.
[57]: 131 Individuals make different choices regarding gender affirming therapy, which may include hormones, minor to extensive surgery, social changes, and psychological interventions.
Transsexual individuals frequently opt for masculinizing or feminizing hormone replacement therapy (HRT) to modify secondary sex characteristics.
Sex reassignment therapy (SRT) is an umbrella term for all medical treatments related to gender affirming of both transgender and intersex people.
[11] This assessment is usually accompanied by counseling on issues of adjustment to the desired gender role, effects and risks of medical treatments, and sometimes also by psychological therapy.
This is especially so in the case of trans men, many of whom are dissatisfied with the current state of phalloplasty, which is typically very expensive, not covered by health insurance, and commonly does not achieve desired results.
[74][75][76] Transsexual people can be heterosexual, gay, lesbian, or bisexual; many choose the language of how they refer to their sexual orientation based on their gender identity, not their birth assigned sex.
[43] Psychological techniques that attempt to alter gender identity to one considered appropriate for the person's assigned sex, aka conversion therapy, are ineffective.
The widely recognized Standards of Care note that sometimes the only reasonable and effective course of treatment for transsexual people is to go through gender affirming therapy.
[79] Many transgender and transsexual activists, and many caregivers, note that these problems are not usually related to the gender identity issues themselves, but the social and cultural responses to gender-variant individuals.
Brown and Rounsley noted that "some transsexual people acquiesce to legal and medical expectations in order to gain rights granted through the medical/psychological hierarchy."
Because of this, some transsexual people feel coerced into affirming outdated concepts of gender to overcome simple legal and medical hurdles.
[80] People who undergo gender affirming surgery can develop regret for the procedure later in life, largely predicted by a lack of support from family or peers, with data from the 1990s suggesting a rate of 3.8%.
The film Boys Don't Cry chronicles the case of Brandon Teena, a transsexual man who was raped and murdered after his status was discovered.
[107] Both "transsexualism" and "gender identity disorders not resulting from physical impairments" are specifically excluded from coverage under the Americans with Disabilities Act Section 12211.
Other stresses that transsexual people face in the workplace are being fearful of coworkers negatively responding to their transition, and losing job experience under a previous name—even deciding which rest room to use can prove challenging.
