A WARNING FOR THOSE CONSIDERING Male to Female SRS

main contributed by Jamaican Transgender advocate Laura G with additional readings added
What if you “succeed” in completing a TS transition, but did it for the wrong reasons?

Yep, you get the idea! This is one place you do NOT want to go!

In the large majority of cases, transsexual (TS) transitions work out well over the long-term, as we’ve seen in the many stories documented in Lynn’s Transsexual Women’s Successes page. However, in some cases a complete TS transition may totally fail to meet very unrealistic expectations, and way too late the transitioner may realize that undergoing sex reassignment surgery (SRS) was a BIG mistake.

In Lynn’s TS Informational pages, we discussed some of the social risks that face TG and TS transitioners. In the SRS information page, we discussed some of the medical risks of the surgery itself. Here in this page, we focus on the risks involved in undergoing SRS in cases where the overall rationale for transition and/or for undergoing SRS is questionable.

Some examples of “wrong reasons” and wrong situations for undergoing SRS are (i) efforts to become a center of attention and live a “sexy life”, (ii) thinking it will “automatically turn oneself into a woman” in others’ eyes, (iii) deciding to become a woman on a whim (for example, in the midst of a mid-life crisis), (iv) doing it for autosexual “thrills”, (v) doing it while suffering from preexisting serious mental conditions unrelated to GID (depression, bi-polar conditions,…), etc.

Regrets and adjustment difficulties seem to occur especially frequently in the cases of older intense crossdressers and sexual fetishists whose drive to transition is based primarily on male sexual feelings and habits. These individuals will gradually lose their male libidinous responses to their new female body as time passes after the removal of their testicles during SRS. This loss of libidinous rewards, combined with accumulating practical, social and emotional difficulties in postoperative life, can lead to serious long-term adjustment difficulties for those who’ve “made a mistake”. (This effect is quite different from the experiencing of a heightened female libido and improvements in lovemaking capability that occur in many other postoperative TS cases).

The bottom line here is that EXTREME CAUTION is advised if you are unsure of your motives for SRS.

Examples of cases of “regrets”:

Following are stories of people who have experienced regrets and have openly talked about their particular regrets. We can learn a lot from such cases, which help clarify the nature and validity of this serious warning:

Renée Richards

Dani Bunten Berry

Sandra MacDougall

Samantha Kane

Summary

more reading:

HERE

"Keep it to Yuself mentality" on homosexuality part 3 .... stay in our bedrooms?

In part one we looked at a local female entertainer's take on homosexuality and her position on it via a stigma ladened song she released some time ago.  I also examined the general belief of Jamaicans on the keeping of homosexual tendencies private or to ones self as the only way people will begin to overlook the lifestyle to a certain extent and the music involved.

GO HERE for part 1 see also video on Ernie Smith's interview (MP who lashed out at gays in Parliament recently) where he expressed the same sentiments about gays keeping "filth" to ourselves. MP's Erratic Behaviour in Parliament using or abusing his parliamentary privileges to lambaste even the police. Just other examples of shoving us in the closet forcibly.

Also see popular Jamaican homophobic words and their use

People like Shirley Richards of the Lawyers' Christian Fellowship and others in the anti-gay lobby get easy opportunities in the print media to spew their homophobic rhetoric without fail or question by the respective editors even when it is clear that garbage is written for example see Jamaicans homophobic? That's a lie! letter to the Gleaner she wrote recently. These folks would prefer us disappearing or retreating in our selves and yet they are members of church congregations and christian organisations if they had magic they would make us straight and win in the end.

In part two I continued on the same trajectory while looking at ethical issues from the religious right and now comes part three which is a two subject post. One is a letter that appears in today's Gleaner entitled "Keep it In The Bedroom"  and the second is a talk show clip which hinted to an alleged predatory move by an alleged gay man towards a younger man that upset a friend of the man who expressed his upset of gays trying to change or convert other men towards homosexuality on the face of it. This is not the only letter of this kind from the newspapers wither but first here is the letter:

Keep It In The Bedroom!

THE EDITOR, Sir:

The dark, sordid, murky, foreboding, filthy and demonic world of homosexuality is not a lifestyle to be embraced and celebrated, even though no less a person than the president of the United States has given his approval.

What a person does in his private domain is his private affair and his privacy ought to be respected, but this celebration ought not to be forced upon an unwilling public.

All persons should be loved, but not all lifestyles should be embraced.

I am referring, in particular, to that wedding picture on the front page of your newspaper dated Monday, June 4. We are very upset at the prominence that it was given in your newspaper. We the citizens of Duncans are very angry. We do not support marriage between Eve and Eva, or between Adam and Steve.

It is also to be noted that in The Sunday Gleaner dated June 10, there is also reference to lesbian marriage ('I want to marry my gay partner'). Is this what your newspaper is promoting?
St Paul refers to this lifestyle as one embraced by people of a reprobate mind. Is this a healthy and decent way of living?

Love the homosexual, but NEVER embrace his or her lifestyle.

P. LOGAN

ENDS

My main question is how can you love the person without seeing them for who they really are and allowing free expression? ........ but you must be free to be you! oh really?!!!

See what you make of this readers.

Meanwhile here is the audio from BEST FM100 on Winston Babatunde's show where a caller  mentioned his supposed disgust as outlined above:

Clearly the male caller is frustrated but while I can concur that if one makes an advance or romantic gesture to another and the person does not reciprocates a threat is NOT the way to then enforce your feelings on another, this is precisely what sometimes makes the LGBT struggle problematic overall and inadvertently reinforces homo-negativity leading to homophobia in essence in the responses from the public. But to enforce homo-negative sentiments to castigate the entire LGBT community is also a NO NO in my book, not all same gender loving persons are interested in forced flirting or are in the business of "forcing" ourselves on persons, there maybe more to this than meets the eye or ear in this case.

One question lingers in my mind in this case despite the limited information provided by the caller, did the intended subject of this lust by the man who issued the threat lead the man on to believe there was some interest otherwise?

There are so many other variables at work sometimes with relationships and hookups especially with hyper-masculine types as was hinted to that the threatening caller is. It seems host Babatunde tried to not let the caller to his show jump to inciting violence on the airwaves but I think he was not on point with handling the call and it sounded a bit disjointed on the hosts part, judging by the monitoring as well by the Broadcasting Commission and rightly so.

Have a listen and see what you make of it.

also in today's Star News there is a letter to the Tell Me Pastor column on a similar story as outlined in the audio above, the letter is excerpted below:

Keep your gayness to yourself 

 

Dear Pastor,

I have great concern for what is happening in Jamaica. One of my great concerns is about gays who try to incorporate innocent lives into their group. And when they try to do this, they do it in a subtle manner, so if a person is not sensible enough to recognise or do some homework in order to find out who is who or who they are getting involved with, they are caught in the web.

This is Jamaica and I am a Jamaican and I would prefer if gays keep their gayness to themselves or declare themselves whenever they are seeking friendship from a female. A female like myself who is not aware of who is who because I grew up in a sheltered lifestyle can get caught in these type of scenarios where gays/lesbians try to manoeuvre their way into our lives.

being threatened

I feel overwhelmed right now. It is because of this reason why I am jobless. It is because of this reason why my life is now at stake. I am being threatened. It is because of this reason why I cannot go about my business freely. My past co-workers claim that one of my children's father is gay and they eternally taunted me with this and victimised me. If he is such, I honestly didn't know and I went to him as a woman to a man. I don't believe in same-sex relationships. I honestly don't support this type of lifestyle.

I am impressing upon these gays that it is better if they declare themselves before trying to manoeuvre their way into innocent people's life. For this, I am now paying the penalty just because I didn't know. I am impressing upon young ladies, especially, to be in the know. Whoever wants to live this type of lifestyle can live their lives this way or whoever wants to entertain this type of lifestyle can go ahead, but please remember don't push themselves into innocent people like that. I am so upset and angry right now and it is reflected in my letter.

Anonymous

Pastor's response

Dear ..,

You have said quiet a lot. Evidently you have had personal experiences with gays that have affected you. I do not mean to imply that you have engaged in anything that is immoral or sexual, but whatever has happened, has caused you much pain.

You said your life has been threatened. Remember that all threats should be reported to the police. I wish you well and I hope that the warning that you have given would be taken seriously by young men and women.

Pastor

ENDS

See what you make of it all folks
Peace and tolerance

H

more audio from me:

Closet gays push up HIV

I guess since Diana King's coming out earlier this week (see below) this article seems timely and with the discourse on homosexuality and the family's supposed destruction by the religious right with all the quotations of foreign statistics here we can zoom in locally. We already knew that closetedness causes issues just from overseas studies and previous surveys especially the last before this release in 2007. One wonders how the religious right is going to respond now? maybe they will further cement their belief that buggery should not be decriminalized without properly examining the facts. 

Meanwhile the class issue comes up here, but homelessness was not associated with closetedness as we have seen recently with the overlapping population from the downlow communities who have been outed and found themselves homeless or displaced and clashing with older displaced populations who are more effeminate, I fear the agencies seem behind in the realities out there, consequences of the two murders of the two homeless MSMs in the Trafalgar area is glaring proof unfortunately of the issues coming out of the overlapping populations.

Here is the article though:

New research suggests fear of stigma keeps infected 'down-low' males underground

BY NADINE WILSON

NEW data showing a 32 per cent HIV prevalency rate among men who sleep with men (MSM) in Jamaica have reignited fears that the sexual practices of this largely underground community could erode gains made over the years in curbing the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

According to Jamaica's National HIV Strategic Plan for 2012-2017, there are an estimated 33,000 MSMs in the country, but health officials say interventions targeted at this group have mostly failed because these men fear discrimination if their sexual activities are revealed.

A survey of the MSM community in 2007 showed that as many as 56 per cent had at least one female partner in the course of that year and almost 64 per cent identified themselves as bi-sexual. Only 57 per cent had ever done an HIV test, although almost 30 per cent of them had sex with multiple male partners within the four weeks prior to the survey. Only 67 per cent reported using a condom during their last sexual encounter with their main male partner, while 62 per cent reported doing so with their female partner.

What is particularly worrying to health officials is the fact that the MSM community is, for the most part, a 'bridge' population which is contributing to the increasing rate of HIV seen in women.

AIDS remains a leading cause of death among Jamaicans 15-49 years, with approximately 74 per cent of all AIDS cases in the island being within that age group. There were over 300 reported AIDS deaths in 2010 and as many as 2,100 Jamaicans estimated to become newly infected each year. This, despite the country making significant inroads in reducing the number of cases over the last few years with the introduction of a public access anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment programme in 2004. AIDS cases are highest among men.

Project co-ordinator at the Caribbean Vulnerable Communities Coalition, Ivan Cruickshank told the Jamaica Observer the country is courting disaster.

"When we look at the rates of HIV among the MSM population, if we are not able to reach them effectively with HIV prevention, we really have a serious epidemic on our hands...," he said.

Acting director of the Ministry of Health's National HIV/STI programme, Dr Nicola Skyers, has said that while the ministry has been interfacing with MSMs in the lower socio-economic strata of the society, getting access to MSMs in the middle and upper classes has been extremely difficult.

"We do recognise that ignoring these subsets will cause an explosion within the general population because we know that there is a bridge. Men just don't have sex with men, they have sex with women as well, so we do recognise the risk of ignoring these particular populations," she told the Observer.

Cruickshank explained that MSMs with affluence rarely utilised the public health-care system which would enable policy-makers to fully grasp data on the community. Most, he said, usually seek treatment at private facilities or overseas.

"There is so much to lose that a lot of persons refuse to access health care because some of the questions that might be asked [and] some of the issues that they might need to take to the health care provider are issues that would identify their sexual practices," he said. He also noted that some of these men are also in heterosexual unions and do not want to risk their relationships with their female partners.

One male sex worker who has been offering his services to males since 2005 told the Observer that most of his clients were influential and wealthy men who had wives and children. He admitted that he did not use a condom with these men during his earlier years in the profession, and THATother male sex workers he knows still do not use them.

"When you are with these persons who are of good character in society, you don't perceive a risk because of the position that they are in. Because this person is a manager,or so forth, you don't perceive that they would be running around, and that sort of thing. [Because] they are protective of their families, you are willing to take your chances with that person, versus someone who is not 'up there' (affluent), who, in my head, is of greater risk because they might be sleeping around with any or everybody," he said.

He said some male sex workers "are flamboyant and dress effeminately" and so they sometimes chose not to access public health care because they fear being discriminated against, although their more affluent clients were able to easily access treatment through their private doctors. Most of their clients, he confirmed, are unknown to persons monitoring HIV/AIDS intervention programmes or policy-makers.

According to the National HIV Strategic Plan, the sexual practices of 40 per cent of reported male AIDS cases in Jamaica are classified as 'unknown', "and may reflect under-reporting by MSMs who are unwilling to reveal their sexual practices, as well as incomplete reporting."

This unavailability of data is a significant weakness in the surveillance system.

"The high rates of HIV infection and bisexuality among MSMs are likely to be important factors currently driving the HIV epidemic in Jamaica," the report noted.

The new National HIV Strategic Plan, which succeeds the current plan that ends in 2012, pointed to "an urgent need to identify remedial actions" so as not to jeopordise future funding, especially from global agencies that target at-risk populations.

"Specific approaches will be developed to reach subgroups of MSM: male sex workers, adolescent MSM, PLHIV (persons living with HIV), transgender, and bisexuals in upper social classes, as well as other MSM with money, power and influence who are usually the decision makers in the sexual relationship," the plan noted.