I use the term gender identity with the emphasis on identity, not culture. I do understand that gender per se is a social construct, and is not inborn. What I am referring to is the core identity that tells me that I am a woman. That feminized part of my brain that tells me what peer group I belong to. If we lived in a world in which all persons wore the same clothes, used a neutral term for personal pronouns and in every way treated men and women identically, I would still identify myself as a woman. That is what I am talking about. I'm sorry about my inaccurate terminology. I was "socialized" by my parents to be a boy, but despite that programming, I knew I was a girl. And yes, I do believe that it was determined in the womb.

Do you agree with BLZB that I am a gay man?

How can you agree with what BLZB write and then say you condemn what Zucker is doing, while Blanchard and Bailey support what Zucker is doing. I don't know if Lawerence does or not. I don't think you can have it both ways. Their theories deny brain sex and go with nurture exclusively, rather than nature. They say that children at birth are blank slates and that everything we are is determined by our experiences. You have already said you believe in brain sex. These are mutually exclusive ideas.

Their theories fall flat when it comes to me. I did not come from a disordered family, I did not have an overbearing mother and a weak father. I was not abused. My parents had a good loving marriage for 55 years until my father's death. I was the first born, and I know they wanted a boy. I have one brother who is completely normal and happily married. I have no sisters. How was it that I knew I was a girl? When I was with other children why did I prefer to play with the other girls rather than with the boys? How did I recognize my peer group? Brain sex.

I have been doing some studying and here are the definitions of gender identity and gender role. You are confusing gender role with gender identity.

Gender identity refers to how one thinks of one's own gender: whether one thinks of oneself as a man (masculine) or as a woman (feminine.) It is biological and innate. It is determined in the womb.

Gender Role:
Society prescribes arbitrary rules or gender roles (how one is supposed to and not supposed to dress, act, think, feel, relate to others, think of oneself, etc.) based on one's sex (whether one has a vagina or a penis.)

So gender role and gender identity are two separate things. Gender role is what is determined by society and how we are raised by our parents.

Why do you hate us so much that you work so hard at de-legitimizing us? Why do you NOT want us to have access to Gender Reassignment Surgery? You yourself have had breast implants. You showed the scars on YouTube, yet you do everything you can to give the surgeons excuses not to give us the surgery we need.

What is your stake in this de-legitimization process. My reason for advocating for our cause is because I know the suffering we go through, having to live a lie in the wrong gender. I know how many times I wanted to kill myself. I know how many times I wished I had never been born, how many times I cried myself to sleep, and prayed to God that He would change my body so I wouldn't have to live like that any more. My hope is that children like I was, could have their gender identity recognized as their true gender, so that they can have early intervention and support by parents, by endocrinologists, and eventually surgeons. I don't want them to have to go through the same pain that I did.

Remember David Reimer?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer
I'm sure you know his story, a normal boy, one of a set of identical twins. As a baby, his penis was destroyed during circumcision. The infamous John Money convinced his parents to have him surgically changed to a girl and raised as a girl without telling him what had happened. It didn't work did it? He never felt like a girl no matter what his parents did. He never accepted the gender role forced upon him, and eventually converted himself to a man. Gender identity is innate, no matter where in the brain it resides, and It can't be changed by reparative therapy or by any other means. Gender identity can be repressed temporarily on the surface, by intimidation and punishment, like my father did with me, (I was the first born. and my parents really did want a son. I tried to be the son my parents wanted, but I still knew I was a girl, and inside I was miserable.) Gender identity, as it turns out, is not just a social construct. It involves a deeply personal sense of self that has roots far deeper than our ability to manipulate.
http://www.altpenis.com/penis_news/intersex.shtml

Most people aren't aware of their gender identity, because it matches with their body. They just don't think about it. It is only when it doesn't match that it becomes so painfully obvious. Those whose bodies are intersexed know the problems of gender identity/body mismatch, but with them it is much more complex. They are given genital surgery while still infants because of the protocol developed by the previously mentioned infamous John Money, and assigned to a particular gender by the surgeon. Sometimes the surgeon gets it right, and sometimes the surgeon gets it wrong. Sometimes the intersexed person's mind is just as ambiguous about their gender identity as their bodies. They fall somewhere in between male and female in their gender identity. Their brains are as intersexed as their bodies. Many times they resent the surgery that was forced upon them without their consent. Those who were assigned to the wrong sex and complain about it, are looked upon as mentally ill. I suppose the doctors are afraid of admitting to a mistake because of the fear of malpractice lawsuits.

Many studies on the brain have focused on, and found, sexual differentiation in many different areas of the brain. You are very inaccurate in saying it is only one small area of the brain. You seem to want so desperately to ignore the fact that the brains of those who identify as female were the ones who had the feminized areas of the brain. You totally ignore the published conclusions of the studies. I believe that there can be no amount of evidence that will open your eyes. As the saying goes, there is none so blind as those who WILL NOT see.

Can you tell me where in the brain, gender identity resides? No! Are you an expert on brain development? No! Do you know what constitutes a female brain or a male brain? NO! How then can you deny the conclusions of those scientists who do study the brain? You are only using empty words to try to harm us and de-legitimize us.

You really can't deny that our condition is neurological because you said it yourself. You are correct. HBS is a neurological intersex condition. It is also physical and intersex because of the mismatch between brain and body. Not all intersex conditions are visible at birth. Take CAIS as an example.

You say that we think ourselves superior to LGBT people. You seem to think that different equates to superior. You are wrong. Different just means different. There is no judgment of superiority or inferiority. We are very different from the LGBT group. Our goals are very different from yours. Being under the control of the LGBT movement does not serve our purposes, and confuses our needs and concerns with your political movement. Our needs are different. You in the LGBT movement are so much more numerous than us, that you don't need us in your movement, and you don't need to fear us. We are not a threat to you. Those in the LGBT movement want to change society. Those in the LGBT movement are usually in it for life. That is not for us. We just want to get our hormones, get our surgery, and blend into society as our true gender and live our lives in peace.

You on the other hand try to recruit us into your ranks, you try to get us to call ourselves transgendered, and out us whenever you get the chance, and keep us outed by spreading the word about our past. And when, as a result of our being outed by you, we are discriminated against or beaten up, you offer us security only if we join your activist groups. I personally know of this happening. Does the LGBT community have any sympathy for us? No. Do they support us in our need for surgery? No. We are ridiculed for it. They say "Your genitals are perfectly healthy, why would you want to mutilate yourselves?" No, the LBGT people don't understand us and don't seem to want to try. It's no wonder that animosity builds up between you and us.

I thought the word transsexual was a perfectly good term to use for our condition, until people like you stole it from us. What are people who call themselves "transsexuals" yet love their penises, but more excuses for surgery to be denied to us. You put a link in your blog to an article about "a transsexual who does not want sexual reassignment surgery."
http://ts-si.org/looking-glass/1409-what-about-non-op-transsexuals-a-no-...
You should re-read it, because you sadly misrepresented it. Read this part again:
"However, saying someone is a non-op transsexual who chooses to be non-op presents us with an oxymoron. That is, a figure of speech that combines two contradictory terms (e.g. “almost pregnant” or "deafening silence"). So, the non-op oxymoron proclaims people who want to become the other sex yet don't want to become the other sex. Worse, it does not define people by what they are, but tags them with a description of what they are not. What makes the “non-op transsexual” oxymoron so arresting, and so different from a mere contradiction, is the intentional use of rhetoric to force an unnecessary distinction. In this case, a distinction pointed at transsexuals who really are pre-op, even if perpetually."
The article goes on to say this:
"A person may live full time as, and simulate the presentation of, another gender. If the person has the time, place, health, and money to have SRS but chooses not to do so, they may be transgendered, but they are not transsexual." (That fits you, by the way.)
And this:
"If an individual wants to have SRS, but lack one of the prerequisites (time, place, health, and/or money), and this lack prevents obtaining SRS, the individual is a pre-op transsexual."

"Facts are stubborn things and words matter when trying to talk about the facts. We humans sometimes find ourselves gripped by a vocabulary not of our making. Occasionally, this vocabulary leads to destructive ends.

We must have a special concern about the behavior of non-transsexuals who pose as transsexuals and publicize themselves as non-op. A common assertion has it that SRS is merely an option selected by individuals at one extreme end of a gender spectrum.

Pseudoscience & Public Policy

Asserting that SRS is an option for a person born transsexual, even when all other factors are favorable, promotes pseudoscientific approaches to public policy. Denying the underlying medical reality of transsexuals has the consequent effect of characterizing SRS as elective surgery that is minimally cosmetic and not reconstructive.

This unscientific denial stymies initiatives to obtain research attention for transsexuals, improve medical practices, secure legal protection, and provide a variety of needed social services.

Let transsexuals be transsexuals.

Transgenders can be themselves and garner respect for their good will if they cease trying to co-opt the space needed by transsexuals to fix their birth condition."

So you see, you have totally misrepresented the article in your blog. Self protection is not an attack. Asking for our own space is not an attack. Using our name against us IS an attack, and that is what you have done. We are fighting for our lives, and you make a mockery of us, and seem to delight in it. I don't think you realize how serious this is.

We do resent those who attack us and try to prevent us from getting GRS and have the proper changes made to our birth certificates so we can live our lives peacefully and without prejudice. We do resent the HBS/TS bashers who have no idea what we go through in our lives, and seem to make a hobby of putting us down. What is the up side for you? Why do you feel such a driving need to go after us? Only sociopaths enjoy hurting people and prolonging their misery for the fun of it.

Laura R.