First off this prison has no clue what they are talking about it has now been proven that it is a real condition and it's really need quite sad that so many people won't open there eyes and see the proof that's easy to find.and I can tell you from first hand experience that the idea of it being something we choose is a lie when I was four year's old I would cry and pray every night that I would wake up and be a girl I never felt like I was a boy but because of people like this I felt like it was a bad for me to feel this way so I hid it for 30 years and lived in constant guilt and shame I did everything I could to fight my feelings and try to be normal this only led me to a life of drugs violence and depression I had attempted to kill myself numerous times and nearly succeeded on a fiew of those attempts. I knew that my friends my family and half the world where against it.but I could not change the way I felt. I felt like I was wearing a costume constantly and living a lie.there was a huge emptiness inside of me well after 30 years I was at the end of my roap literally when my best friend who is now my wife walked in and cut me down she had a long talk and convinced me to stop hiding and to be true to my self and I did. When I came out I lost all of my friends my family and my parents even told me I'm dead to them.but even with all of that I felt better then I ever have my entire life I was no longer living a lie and a costume I was free.no more depression I quit drugs and was happy after a fiew months I went to the doctor and was tested shure enough I was born xxy I had female levels of estrogen and below male levels of testosterone and an extra female cronosone.so I started hormone replacement therapy now a year later I have real boobs softer skin and no male features at all.I have met a lot of post op women that have no regrets at all in fact all agree that srs was the best thing they have ever done and so you know there is therapy and doctors that half to prove I am intact in need of this now days you couldn't just be a gay man and lie enough to trick two professional psychologists and fake your lab tests be approved that's a blunt lie and just so people are aware there is a huge difference from transsexuals and crossdressers we do not do this for pleasure of fun it's not a sex thing it's who we really are and it's not something I would ever choose to be intact I wouldn't even wish it on my worst enemy it is a horrible feeling to not be complete. And as for going back to being a guy I would rather die this is not something anyone would ever choose anyhow the writer of this is very shallow and it's very evil to deny people the right to be treated like human beings stop the hate and bigotry and just let us live our life's

I apologize on behalf of the person going under the pseudonym "Congrats on having the courage!" for the following statement(s): "Biological women don't want men in our bathrooms, prisons, organ offices, or any other female place." As a biological woman myself, I would like to say that I feel no discomfort with the idea of sharing facilities with another woman (biological or otherwise) and I hope the majority of women would agree with me. "Women, when they transition to men aren't men. They won't ever fit into the boys club, be invited to the board table, make the boys softball team. " This is a false and potentially hurtful and discouraging statement. Of course transexual men will fit in with other men, and just last week I read an article about a little transgender girl making it into girl scouts. Ironically, I do agree with this person on a statement that is found multiple times throughout their comment: "you are who you are." If this person truly believed that, I doubt they would be harassing transexual people by telling them they may have autism, or that their brains just don't work right for their bodies, and instead accept them for who they are and the choices they make for themselves.

Why can't people just allow others to be happy and comfortable in their own lives? I don't see why every issue must be contorted into a political war. In fact, this (among many other things in our society) shouldn't even be considered an issue. If a man or a woman truly feels uncomfortable in their own body, and if there are safe procedures and compassionate doctors willing and able to preform them, then why should there be an argument? Transexuals have the same rights as any other human being. If a woman born with Poland syndrome receives corrective breast enlargement, or a man born with dwarfism seeks cosmetic surgery to improve his height, we don't condemn them as being insane or tell them that they are slaves to society, we simply accept the fact that they were uncomfortable in the body they were born in, and therefore changed themselves to make themselves feel more secure in their own bodies. Intolerance only spreads hatred.

Metareviews conducted by actual scientists, on the other hand, find that 98.5% of trans women are satisfied with their surgery and that suicide rate of trans people who have transitioned is no longer massively higher than the general population.

Congrats on writing this article and having the courage to stand up against the current medical and psychological stance that gender reassignment, which is nothing more than mutilation, is the preferred and accepted me this of treating GD. People who think they need to remove functional body parts in order to be able to live need serious psychological help, but not hormones and surgery. I know we were transexual person will come here and whine that I don't know what it is like, or the author doesn't know what it is like, "to be them". Word to the wise: surgical procedures don't fix the problem. Body dimorphism isn't curable. You can remove your penis and your breast, or even your limbs, but you'll never feel like "yes, this is me". What you need is to reevaluate your life. Consider that you may be an the autism spectrum and your brain just doesn't function in accordance with your biological gender. Then you need to retrain yourself to understand that "I am what I am" not what society and culture have defined as appropriate for a certain gender. Men, when they undergo gender reassignment, they are not women. They are still men. Biological women don't want men in our bathrooms, prisons, organ offices, or any other female place. Your DNA determines your sex and no surgery can change that. Women, when they transition to men aren't men. They won't ever fit into the boys club, be invited to the board table, make the boys softball team. Face it people, "You are what you are." You were born with the sex organs that you were born with. Rather than transitioning why can't you help your fellow GD community by challenging the gender roles that are forced upon us by society? Be female, or male as you were born, but be "other". Dress and act however you feel comfortable, assert "you" and force normals to see other. But please don't go mutilate yourself with plastic surgery and hormones, that's the medical community's trick of making money, turning a profit from your mental condition.

Put forward for an award for incorrect rubbish!!!! Transsexuality ( I hate labels) is not about football or sewing or liking the colour pink. It is NOT about what is between your legs. IT IS about your mindset and how it conflicts with your anatomical body and how far you may need to go to resolve things This journalist is an idiot and show it buy saying 'sex change' There is NO such thing as a sex change. There is gender realignment surgeyry which in simple terms tries to bring your body as best as possible in line with what your mind says. Some people really need to learn the difference between sex, gender ans sexual preference and all that is in between There but for the grace of God go I

I haven't read all the comments - but like others after reading this as a transsexual, I felt the need to comment. It is not about whether you cook or play football and it is not about who you want to fuck. I was never really boyish, being the silent bookworm type. And I fancy guys, so I'm not trying to explain away my "lesbianism" or whatever. It is just about my body. It's very simple: when I look into the mirror, I feel that the person in there is someone else. I feel that I have something I shouldn't have (boobs) and when I think of sex I think of my penis (which I don't have) and trying to have sex with the parts that I _do_ have only leaves me angry and frustrated. This disconnectedness is tiring and distressing in more ways than I can describe. But sometimes when I'm feeling and looking very masculine I can for a moment really _see_ myself in the mirror, and that feeling is bliss. It feels like the world makes sense for a small moment, until everything is surreal and disconnected again. So please don't tell me that we can't fix ourselves, when we know what is wrong. There might be some who do transition for the wrong reasons and that is why we need doctors to diagnose us, but there are many of us who truly need our transitioning to be able to live with ourselves. Of course we still need to realize that most of the non-trans people will never understand what this is like, and will never respect us for who we are. This is not ok, but requiring that kind of justice from rape victims is just plain wrong - however please don't try to hurt us all because of one woman going overboard in her search for justice. Sometimes the world just kicks us in the gut one too many times, and some of us might do something stupid because of that. Acting frustrated sometimes does not make our existence not valid.

I love the contradictions in this whole debate. On one hand, it is become more and more politically incorrect to suggest that men and women are different on many, many non-physical (i.e. genitals) levels. On the other, the biggest protagonists for "woman-ness" and "male-ness" are the candidates for sex changes (pre and post) and their supporters. You constantly read testimony along the lines of "I always felt like a woman," and, after the sex change, comments to that effect prospectively. It is these people who grossly over-simplify sex stereotypes, describing, say, women in ways that would a low-quality 1800s novelist blush with embarrassment.

that is the typical bullshit a non transsexual being will say. yeah there are problems in the issue, as we don't have full lesbian and gay and whatever acceptance and directions are often shown without alternatives to some that just aren't sure what they are, but if u are a transsexual woman (my perspective) that went through the wrong puberty u would know what real torture and prison feels like. if u don't get diagonsed children on blockers as soon as needed and let them xpress themselves u can start dig a grave for them. as they sure as hell will do anything to stop this torture and if parents and physicians won't do it, then the child will try to end this suffering. i wan't to kill the prison i'm in, because of the wrong puberty and i wouldn't think about it, if i wouldn't have the male puberty results that are unchangeable. imagine being a trans child of julie, hello nightmare. simply said, if u deny a clear diagnosed transsexual child blockers and later hormones u are killing it. there is no grey zone here. there is no life in the wrong body, there is just death.

Would you like to come and comfort my 17 year old FTM son when he is suicidal, Julie? Transsexualism was not 'invented' it's pure torment for anyone going through it. My son knew at 5 years old that he was in the wrong body, and if I and the professionals in this very 'behind' country were more educated then puberty blockers given before puberty would literally save lives. My son suffers daily, with numerous things that go with being transgender. And he is one of the lucky ones that was put on blockers at 15 and testosterone at 16. But it's still destroying his poor worn out mind having to live in the wrong body, with body parts that are alien to him. You need to seriously stop with the 'textbook' clichéd talk and LISTEN. I don't care what transphobic people have to say I would do literally anything to get my son surgery right this minute to end his suffering. You are very stereotypical and immune to humanity.