FTM Female Body Parts=Not disposable
December 23, 2010
To the FTM woman who said : “Last time I checked, I couldn’t pick anything up with my breasts or walk down the street on my uterus. I’m perfectly fine without them. If you all want to hold on to those parts because you are female, then you should probably start having babies and breastfeeding because that’s what those parts are for.”
Your fantasy that women’s breasts ovaries etc. are purposeless beyond childbirth is a symptom of your self-hatred.
Women’s breasts are part of their lymphatic system, essential for cleansing the blood. And According to the Mayo Clinic, 20 to 60 percent of women will experience chronic pain after a mastectomy–a condition known as Post-Mastectomy Pain Syndrome (PMPS). Symptoms of this condition include pain in the chest wall, pain or itching in the shoulder or armpit, pain around the surgical scar and tingling down the arm.
Ovaries are part of the endocrine system which regulates hormones. Risk of cardiovascular disease following oophorectomy increases by 700%. Oophorectomy before the age of 45 is associated with a fivefold mortality from neurologic and mental disorders. Urinary incontinence frequently occurs as a byproduct of hysterectomy. If the vagina is retained, vaginal prolapse may occur from the removal of supporting structures, and normal lubrication is impaired. There is an increased risk of kidney cancer.
Your natural hormone balance is impaired. Males produce estrogen and progesterone as well as testosterone. Removal of estrogen and progesterone causes premature aging, as these are anti-aging hormones. This is also why FTMs experience male pattern baldness much more rapidly than men: not enough estrogen. Lack of estrogen causes levels of the neurotransmitters dopamine, acetylcholine, norepinephrine, GABA and serotonin to decrease. Estrogen stimulates the release of growth hormone and may help prevent Alzheimer’s although research is preliminary on that point. Progesterone is a precursor to other adrenal hormones and promotes lipolysis (fat breakdown). It normalizes levels of blood sugar, zinc, and copper.
And this is only what we know at this point in time. New hormones and hormone byproducts are being identified all the time. Over 50 recognized at this time, and many precurse, stimulate, or inhibit others in a complex feedback system.
Not to mention that hormone injections cause peaks and drops in hormone levels and feedback networks unlike anything naturally experienced.
So those useless organs that you think females have are actually beautiful, elegantly designed, complex and important.
December 23, 2010 at 7:44 am
This is brilliant and beautifully said! Thank you for your female-loving.
December 23, 2010 at 7:23 pm
Thank you Bev- and it’s wonderful to see you here!
December 23, 2010 at 12:45 pm
So true, Gallusmag!
I have already written something about this but the more people stating the truth, the better!
Hormones are not TOYS!
December 23, 2010 at 6:44 pm
Yes I left this as a comment somewhere weeks ago but thought it deserved reposting on my new blog since this self-hating attitude is so common among the young trans-trender girls. Let’s get the truth out there!
December 23, 2010 at 3:01 pm
We are in agreement on this one.
While I personally believe that being a female-to-male transsexual is one of the worst things that can be done to the female body, it does not behoove me to tell them what to do with their own bodies either.
December 23, 2010 at 6:50 pm
Anorexia is another terrible thing girls of this age do to their bodies. Of course their isn’t a whole medical industry built up to support the dysphoric body ideals of anorexics. Do you consider treating young people with anorexia “telling them what to do with their bodies” ?
December 23, 2010 at 11:43 pm
Well that is certainly the crux of this whole issue, isn’t it? If a woman is doing something that she wants to do to her body, where should the lines be drawn at self-determination? Is it really right for a patriarchal society to enforce treatment on a woman, no matter how unhealthy her choices may be? (Especially given that such a thing can be and has been abused in the past.) Why do so many tend to care about the effects, and not the cause? If stick figure women were not hyped by society as beautiful, anorexia would practically cease to exist… and yet even women continue to participate in perpetuating that stereotype.
December 31, 2010 at 4:24 am
Hexy,
You do realise of course that giving thin girls and womyn shit is misogynist too? Thin womyn and girls are not ‘stick figures’ – they are human beings too and honestly, that is just as cruel and misogynist as calling women and girls ‘fat cows’.
Anorexia has also had reported cases in the 19th century, so this thin modern ideal shit doesn’t fly with me.
December 23, 2010 at 7:41 pm
Excellent fact-based, well-stated argument gallusmag. It’s the male medical establishment that thinks women’s internal organs are expendable.
Years ago my partner at the time was told that it would be no big deal to have a hysterectomy (to get rid of fibroids), she could just take hormones – if she wasn’t getting pregnant there was no need for her ovaries either! I raised holy hell with the doctor (in as respectful a way as possible, but I was livid) and pressed and pressed to get him to admit that there was no research to speak of on the long-term consequences of hysterectomies. For centuries they’ve merely shrugged and said, who cares? It’s just women’s bodies!
And this is the establishment that would-be FtM’s have put their bodies in the care of. It’s beyond chilling.
December 23, 2010 at 8:16 pm
Thanks Noanadyne! The male medical and psychiatric machine really has no oversight except from the bean counters. For decades millions of women underwent completely unnecessary hysterectomies for the sole reason that they were profitable for surgeons. The only thing that stopped (or slowed) this practice was the actions of the insurance providers who were paying for them. The insurance industry started to demand a second physician opinion for hysterectomies before authorizing payment. This largely slowed the widespread unneeded hysterectomy cash cow. The only reason the trans trend is still such an unabated money maker for surgeons is that the only form of oversight-the insurance industry- is largely uninvolved. The AMA and APA have tried to float this profitable business as “medically necessary” but the insurance industry just ‘aint buying. Some insurance does cover hormones, but only because hormones are totally dirt cheap. If trans activists actually fought for oversight and standards of care, and demanded that drug companies develop balanced hormone replacement pharmaceuticals (that contained a proper mix of estrogen progesterone testosterone, sustained release, and taken dermally or by mouth thus reducing injection complications) the increased cost of such drugs would shut down any insurance coverage of such drugs. Surgical standards of care will never be adopted since procedures are largely not covered by insurers. So caveat emptor folks!
December 26, 2010 at 6:14 pm
You’re so right, gallusmag – the insurance industry is absolutely a major linchpin in the medical complex (that of course includes psychiatry and big pharma). It’s easy to see that, what gets regulated in the U.S. is what insurance companies want to be regulated because it will help them one way or another (with the bottom line always to shield them in the greatest possible way from having to pay out).
Insurance companies have no doubt looked at the situation with trans medical procedures very closely and are staying far away from that mess. There is every reason to believe that there will be huge lawsuits in the coming years from well-heeled trans people who are damaged forever from one procedure or another. And there will be class action suits as well.
When the king of trans surgery in the U.S. (Biber) retired, he said he was doing so because his malpractice premiums had gotten too high. He turned his practice over to one of his former patients, who has since been fighting with the hospital in their little town in so. Colo. If this were a cash cow with no downsides, the hospital would have been only too happy to continue making tons of money on that practice. Instead, the head of the hospital basically said good riddance, when the good doctor left for more lucrative practice elsewhere.
We haven’t conquered the underlying reasons for anorexia and we won’t be able to do it for the body hatred that FtM’s experience. But the surgeries and hormone-dosing is making a whole bunch of professionals very vulnerable to legal action and that may finally be the end of this horribly vicious form of women-hating.
December 26, 2010 at 6:51 pm
Couldn’t agree more with every word you said Noan. Totally agree with the future class-action suits. It seems like SRS/GRS procedures in general are falling out of favor not only with health care providers but with transsexuals themselves, at least in the “Western” world. Places like England and Canada that for a time covered SRS under medicare/public health are beginning to back away from the “medically necessary” paradigm.
http://www.vancouverobserver.com/blogs/genderfiles/2010/11/24/access-sex-reassignment-surgery-jeopardized
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2010/12/01/exclusive-nhs-trust-stops-referrals-for-transgender-treatment/
And Trinidad Colorado the “sex change capital of the world” has booted out Dr.Biber’s predecessor (and former client) Marci Bowers who has now joined forces with the pre-emminent FFS surgeon in the Bay area, localizing and consolidating the U.S. MTF gender surgery niche market. http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_16843484
(I’m sure you know this stuff I’m providing links for others to follow up if they want).
Some of Bower’s clients have [allegedly- my lawyer told me to put that, lol] had absolutely heartbreaking and horrific “complications” from the procedure which turns penile material into a fuck-hole that somewhat resembles a females genitals externally. Far beyond the typical chronic UTIs and odor/infections of a the never healing surgical wound.
http://www.bilerico.com/2010/06/sex_reassignment_surgery_when_things_go_wrong.php
Presumably Bowers, Garramone, et al are socking dineros away for a nice retirement run for the border when the shit hits the fan.
December 26, 2010 at 6:53 pm
“If this were a cash cow with no downsides, the hospital would have been only too happy to continue making tons of money ”
If I remember correctly she only brought in 5% of hospital revenue in a tiny tiny (23 bed?) hospital. They brought in a gynecologist to replace her.
December 26, 2010 at 5:56 am
I’m FtM and I respect everyones views and think that everyone should have their own opinion.
But if you think that standing up for womens rights via opression is the right way to go about it then its a bit hypocritic. Everyone should have the right to live their life in a manner that they deem correct for themselves, if it were damaging like anorexia then the institutions around the world would be filled with trans people and there wouldnt be treatment.
Hormones arnt dirt cheap, surgeries arn’t cheap. But in the end I will be able to live a life where I am happy and I will be alive.
But the other option is just another one of the females you love and defend, but she would be dead and in the ground.
The world should be about understanding and acceptance, but if thats not possible then we should just stop spreading propergander and hate.
December 26, 2010 at 7:19 am
Feminism isn’t oppressing you.
You think living life as a proud female is cause for suicide, and I’m sorry for you. You will always be female, just not a proud female. I hope other young women and girls don’t follow your tragic example, your trans propaganda, and your self-hate.
November 12, 2011 at 4:52 pm
Well, look what I stumbled across… You, dear poster, do not have the right to tell anyone they would ‘always be female’ or the like. You do not have the right to put yourself above them, as though you were superior to anyone due to the knowledge you may be in possession of.
Surely, it is a fact and absolutely true that a transition is not the healthiest and most natural process and that it seems some people merely want to make money out of other people’s problems.
However, it appears to me that everyone who does not harm other people and does not bear any intentions on doing so should be given the opportunity to live as what they feel the happiest as, no matter WHAT that is, even if it’s a life as a stool or a plastic bottle. And if someone expects to live an unhealthy, perhaps significantly shorter, yet satisfying and THEREFORE productive life, you CAN NOT forbid them to live it that way, otherwise you would not be worth being allowed to keep and follow your own convictions and plans, either by breaking one of the most essential human rights ever.
Go on and be feminist as much as you wish, we all appreciate the insight you provided above concerning the topic of female anatomy and how an intact organism works (though our lymphatic system only aids to clean our blood, our liver and kidneys do much more when it comes to that) but don’t bash on others.
November 14, 2011 at 9:21 pm
jonathanan, what a lovely explanation of the beginner’s understanding of human rights: everything you want to do is fine as long as you’re not “hurting” anyone. Perhaps when you grow up a bit you’ll realize how shallow and insipid that idea is. Until then, do consider from time to time that there are people who know far, far more about how the world works and that if you spend some time reading and thinking, rather than displaying your ignorance for all to see, you might be further along in your understanding some day.
Or stay shallow and ignorant, that’s an option too.
November 15, 2011 at 1:59 pm
Seeing that you’re apparently more experienced than I may be at my age, I suppose you’ll gladly explain to me why allowing individuals to choose their own fate and lifestyle would be a sign of shallowness and lack of profound thinking.
Manipulating people into believing they felt alright or forcing them to suppress their feelings would be another solution, surely it would be, and perhaps that’d be an option one could consider acceptable in terms of preserving their physical health AND ending an industry that’s been thriving on these person’s suffering. Ignoring or denying their existance would be a solution, too, or you could attempt to gradually change and direct society towards a point where gender would no longer matter – Or you could let these people have their hormones and surgeries and accept it as a fact that the human race has been on this planet for far too long and has already crossed the line on the other side of which there is no going back. We’ve become a suicidal species, a parasitic one, and considering that we’ve already reached the 7 billion mark… Why not let people kill themselves one or another way? Joking apart – Some medical services, just like public ones, are just superfluous.
Back to what I was initially intending to ask, though, before another association ruins what little of a concept I might have had before having started to write: How exactly is it shallow not to limit others by setting up rules about what was to be seen as right and what not, what was appropriate and what wasn’t if you don’t have such rules for yourself, either? Or do you have these? /Do/ you limit yourself and your intellectual capacities by trying to fit in one of these schemes? Explain to me what exactly is shallow about the concept of giving people the opportunity to evolve as a personality (even if you’re aware you’re going to intervene or interfere anyway at some point)?
(PS: Actually, I don’t care whether or not they harm anyone, my opinion’s not worth more than anyone else’s and if someone decides to kill me for it, it wouldn’t be a big loss. We should stop perceiving the ideological construct we call our “world” as indispensable. I don’t need to know so much more of the world to see it is ‘rotten’ and ‘wrong’ and all the other negatively connoted adjectives and see the necessity of seeking and finding a comforting philosophy and of exploring the reasons beyond that wrongness.)
November 15, 2011 at 4:17 pm
Your philosophy that: Life is cheap and who cares about anything- adds nothing to this conversation. If you feel that way then why bother commenting. That was rhetorical. Unless further comments from you have something to add to the conversation your nihilism will not be published.
November 15, 2011 at 4:19 pm
Also, Noan is right- your comments reveal that you have never thought about or researched any of the topics covered in this post and comment thread which you have “stumbled across”.
December 26, 2010 at 5:52 pm
Just to address a few of your points, Jarv:
It took decades for the medical establishment to finally get around to reacting to anorexia, for all the reasons that this post and comments are covering. It could be decades before it is forced to admit that dosing people indiscriminately with hormones and butchering their bodies wasn’t such a great idea afterall. In the meantime, there are a whole bunch of very naive young people signing up for this experiment.
But we don’t have to wait decades to know something is very wrong. We already hear stories from trans people who have found that they are no happier playing the opposite gender. They are still who they are and they are still living under the oppression of the patriarchy.
Women are dead and in the ground because people keep telling us and showing us that we have very little value as human beings. People who transition to being men, instead of being the unique women that they are, are giving that exact same message to women: you’re not good enough the way you are, so you must take drugs for the rest of your life and butcher your body.
And your choice is not just affecting you, it’s sending a hateful message to a whole lot of other women.
December 26, 2010 at 6:14 pm
Thank You Noan for saying it more eloquently than I ever could.
March 18, 2011 at 3:10 pm
Brilliant summary Noan.
(just going through your back catalogue GM)
This post and the thread are brilliant. I have put it in my Essential Reading list.
December 26, 2010 at 6:38 pm
I concur on the fact that thinking that transsexuality is somehow exempt from critical analysis is wrong. This is a condition whose prescribed “cure” is lifelong hormone injections and castrating surgeries. But apparently telling some confused naive young people they might not be trans, not even saying they aren’t, is a crime to the eyes of the trans police. Shame on that, it’s no wonder the suicide rate is so high
December 26, 2010 at 7:07 pm
Right? People discuss treatments of other disorders, discuss other social trends, discuss sexual orientation, ethnicity, age, culture, etc. But discussing transsexuality is a “hate crime”. No one here has ever (or will ever) stated anything hateful. We all agree that all humans should be free from discrimination and harassment and male violence. But injecting any critical analysis is “hateful”. Like a religion or cult I guess. Blue you made such an excellent point on your blog about the idea of suicide in relation to people not occupying their body ideal, particularly the contrast between actual disabled people and those with GID dysphoria. It really underlined how the psychological distress is what needs treatment and also made the point about the incredible able-ism of much of transgender politics.
*Blue I tried to wish you happy holidays on your blog but it wouldn’t accept my wordpress id for some reason. So happy belated holidays
December 26, 2010 at 7:37 pm
I agree, Gallusmag. There’s so much cult potential in trans “support” sites, in my opinion at the present moment they are nothing more than trans *cult* sites. Telling someone, for example, they might not be trans is a mortal crime, even if the teenager in question is the yaoi j-rocker loving type who wants to look like a bishie. The mods have set the perfect recipe for disaster. (I talked about this issue in my more recent posts).
Happy holidays to you too, Gallusmag!
I saw who the real Gallus Mag was, and was she badass!
December 26, 2010 at 7:40 pm
PS: I have now included anonymous comments, this should solve the Blogger comments issue a bit.
December 27, 2010 at 4:08 am
I’m interested in hearing your perspective on male-to-female transsexuals. Their transition removes them from the dominant, ruling sex (the one we are trained to think is perfect/ideal) into the oppressed minority. Still they share the common experience of dysphoria/discomfort with female-to-male transsexuals. Just something I hadn’t seen addressed here yet.
December 27, 2010 at 5:13 am
As the gender caste system effects females and males vastly differently (oppressing one and benefiting the other), so the reasons for attempting to abandon one’s sex manifest very differently. There are very few females that become sexually aroused from”crossdressing” for example, or from wearing male masks. There is a cursory answer to this question tacked onto the end of the newer “Transgender Tropes 101″ post at the top of the page.
December 27, 2010 at 6:02 am
Has more to do with it today than it used to, gallus. It’s because of the steadily blurring lines between cross-dressers and fetishists, as opposed to those who simply want to exist as closely to the opposite sex as they can. You may find this very informative, as Cathy has lived through the steady devolution of transsexualism.
http://gallae.com/cathy/essay22.html
March 30, 2013 at 1:57 am
Not just that, but making trans vs. cis just creates a semi-new binary. As it stands, unless it’s something you do with your genitals, you should be able to do whatever you want, and trans is against that, as they state that female is largely about secondary sex characteristics (boobs, fake hormones, etc.), and social behavior (which is made up).
Last time I checked, no one drives a car with their genitalia, and so logically both females and males should be able to drive, and should be equally considered good drivers, until and unless they prove otherwise. People often joke about how females are the ‘bad drivers’ but in the UK, men cause 75% of the traffic accidents.
The truth is the truth, and is measureable; we cannot measure a trans person’s feelings, but we can measure their chromosomes, their genitalia, and their sexism.
December 27, 2010 at 12:06 pm
Stop hating on other peoples choices, because close minds, and self rightousness will end lives due to negative energy long before trans people with see any negative effects from their hormones.
December 28, 2010 at 6:09 pm
Erin I hit the wrong button and lost most of your comment! I’m posting the part that was saved because it basically states the jist of your comment anyway.
December 31, 2010 at 3:06 am
I did not even know some of this stuff and one of my hobbies is learning about female biology. Thank you so much for this post gallusmag
P.S yay, now we can communicate in more than 130 characters
December 31, 2010 at 3:37 am
It’s good to see you Aileen!
Yes I wasn’t digging the 130 character thing,lol.
December 31, 2010 at 4:27 am
Yes, huzzuh for rad fem Internet meetings.
November 13, 2011 at 3:45 am
I too am reading through your oeuvre. Every woman should read this, every rad fem. We know we are complex and every part of us necessary, but I think few of us know the fullness of it. You are a wonderful teacher.
November 16, 2011 at 12:58 am
To respond to the above conversation about why can’t the trans just do what they want when no one is being hurt: Beside the young people being hurt by the trendy trans cult that feeds them lies and damages their bodies, any man who appropriates our identity and then fetishizes it and thereby adds to female oppression, is hurting all females. These men are doing tremendous damage to us as a community. Out of proportion to their numbers, they have gotten into power positions re-writing Lesbian history, representing us, and advising us. They are destroying our last female only space. And they give us mutilation and death threats.
These men are also using and appropriating intersex identity, again trying to use people they are oppressing.
Of course, the women claiming male identity are also harming us. They can’t ever be men, but they are both abandoning/betraying our community for whatever male privilege they can get, at also demanding they still be welcome in female only space.
Only someone who doesn’t care at all for Lesbians, women, girls, and intersex people could not see all the damage the pretenders claiming “trans” identity are doing. It’s a right wing politics, and it’s spreading because of that.
Jonathanan also continued the myth of the trans “suffering,” implying also that these men are suffering far worse than any girls of women, some of whom have been the victims of these men, I know we are supposed to believe that male suffering is the most serious, and certainly men appropriating our identity even more so. Part of fighting the trans cult and con is to challenge every myth about trans that their supporters try to spread.
May 1, 2012 at 2:00 pm
Thank you for articulating this for us. It has been annoying me to no end, but I hadn’t been able to organize my thoughts quite this well.
March 30, 2013 at 1:53 am
Not just that, but it’s the uterus and the female sex that has been used to enslave women. After all, if women weren’t generally capable of getting pregnant, would men enslave them? Would it have been possible, since 1) no women would have been trafficked for the purpose of producing a child 2) women wouldn’t get sick/ill from pregnancy, or die in childbirth, and 3) women wouldn’t menstruate, and so wouldn’t get sick then either.
(Yes, I know, not all women have bad periods/pregnancies, and some women are infertile, but wait for the second part).
Once women’s role as child-producers was codified into human societies, what happened next? Well, first, any women who didn’t want kids was stigmatized/stopped, second, women’s duties became increasingly limited to the house and home and children, third, those women who COULDN’T reproduce were considered worthless, the same as the old women.
Even if the male was/is the one with the reproductive problem, his wife was/is often blamed.
Comparatively, transwomen are men, and so aren’t ever expected to get pregnant. As for transmen, the same rules don’t apply to men about their fertility (they don’t get in trouble for being sterile like women do), so it’s a non-issue.
So yes, having a uterus/growing up with people pushing the ‘babies/housewife’ on you is important, and it stems from being female, and having a uterus. Most people don’t know if a female child will be infertile at say, age 5, but imagine if they did. Now, we’ve managed to get rid of the ‘housewife’ thing a bit, yet I remember in highschool (only a few years ago), and in uni., everyone expects me as a female to like babies, and I don’t. Why do they assume I’ll like babies? Because I have a uterus. They don’t treat my male peers the same.