What a sad state of affairs the US must be in. Medicaid pays for viagara for sex offenders...but not for sex change operations? Isn't that a good one for the ACLU?

'No matter how "accepting" we get as a society, I remain convinced that there are SOME things we were never meant to do.'
I agree. Free-fall parachuting, that's another one that gets my goat. Who the hell do these freaks think they are?

I've been toying around with the idea of writing an article, detailing the Sex change procedure. It really is pretty interesting. Of course, I'm not sure if I would want to write it with a straight face, so it just my be difficult to read with one. ;~D

Trannies are the worst kind of freaks, they're just gay's who are in denial. Mental cases! I wouldn't let one near my kids... god, how fucked up are these people?

This is not an issue that I ever thought much about until a friend of mine who I had known for years as a man told me of his other life, dominated by a desire to eventually live as a woman.

This is still not a thing that I understand, but I don't feel that I need to. More important was getting to know through her other people who had gone through the change or were about to, and hearing their stories. Of one thing I did become convinced: no-one could go through the painful procedure (para's article would be enlightening), face the kind of bigotry shown by our anonymous 'Mark' (how fucked up is he?), or, frankly the less than kind attitude that you yourself have shown, unless they believed they really, really have to. We can argue until the cows come home about whether or not that belief is 'real', but it's frankly irrelevant.

I guess Gid, you've never met anyone like that, which is why you can speak so hurtfully of 'freaks of nature', which I frankly find unkind and unchristian. I do realise though that most 'trannies' would be far less annoyed by your attitude than I am, because they are use to a lot worse. It's just the 'bleeding heart liberal' coming out in me (and perhaps my religious belief in universal compassion as an ideal, however hard it is to practise).

If your point was simply to say you don't approve and you don't want to foot the bill for it, more power to you. You have every right. You even have the right to be shocked and disgusted. However, if you claim to be a christian then you should never forget that there are real people behind your jibes. The distance between you and anonymous coward Mark is not as wide as it should be.

Transexualism is a mental health issue. Some people can't live with the reality of germs being on them and around them. We define that as a mental health problem. Some can't live with the reality of closed in spaces. Some people are bi-polar, some people are schizophrenic...

Other's can't live with the reality of their sex. Why grant that some special status? What's the difference between someone who compulsively hates the idea of germs and someone who hates the idea of having a penis? If you can show me fundamental physiological differences, maybe I'll be more attune to their cause, but most have no physical problem at all.

It's their right to do what they want. I just feel sorry for people who are deemed "mentally ill" who have a LOT less problems with reality than transexuals.

What's the difference between someone who compulsively hates the idea of germs and someone who hates the idea of having a penis? If

about 6" +/- the size of a microbe?

Transexualism is a mental health issue.

most have no physical problem at all.

This may be true, but how do you know? I certainly know very little about this subject and I'm not convinced that you do either. I personally find the whole discussion around the 'causes' of it quite fruitless. Many 'liberals' will choose to believe that it is a biological condition, because that allows them to see it as a self-determination and 'rights' issue, while many conservatives will see it as a chosen deviancy because that allows them to comfortably maintain their faith in traditional values and lifestyles. In other words, ignoring the anyway inconclusive scientific evidence, each side simply chooses the beliefs that fit with their wider agenda.

I prefer to cut through the whole Gordian Knot of 'whys and wherefores' entirely and see it as a moral issue of kindness and respect. The older I get, the more in tune I find I am with many conservative values. The reason, however, I can never go the whole hog is that conservatism seems to me to require an unnecessary cruel streak that I could never be truly comfortable with. I stress the word unnecessary because of course intellectually it is difficult to argue with 'necessary cruelty', if there is such a thing.

I realise of course, from reading works by conservative philosophers that many believe that the prejudice and disrespect that 'deviants' are subjected to is a 'necessary cruelty' that preserves crucial cultural values. Roger Scruton is particularly good on this. Such thinkers are often sensitive enough to acknowledge the extreme unpleasantness for those on the receiving end, but console themselves with the thought that the sufferings of a minority ultimately lead to the greater good.

Of course we all draw a line somewhere. I dislike homophobia and prejudice against transsexuals, but shed no tears for the plight of pedophiles. I draw the line where I do, because I make deliberate 'harm to others' my criterion of judgement. (I may be wrong in that and arguably am 'drawing the line' in an arbitrary place). Conservatives may also claim that homosexuality and transsexualism 'harm' society in some general sense, but I am a liberal (in the original sense of the word) and am equally uncomfortable with the social prescriptiveness of conservatives and communists (who to me are just two flavours of 'communitarianism').

Wow. Thank you for the stimulus for my little essay. Lots of issues to pick apart here.

I don't know that it harms society, but I can say that many people in mental states no more disturbed than transexuals are considered mentally ill, whereas we pick people who believe they are really a woman in a man's body to be telling the truth.

How do you know the guy at the end of the street isn't really an alien? Maybe I'm Napoleon? If people who wash their hands too much are sick, what do you call people who want to cut off their penis...

If people who wash their hands too much are sick, what do you call people who want to cut off their penis...

Happy. At least sometimes the surgery seems to work. First of all there was real distress, then hormones. After that I believe a candidate has to live for a certain amount of time in the new gender before 'corrective surgery' is allowed. The bottom line is that at the end of a long process, a medical decision is finally taken that this is the way to go. I am sure that there are those who expected this to solve psychological problems that nevertheless remain stubbornly in place even after surgery. But I know of others who've had no regrets. Freud once delimited the scope of psycho-analysis to "turning utter misery into ordinary unhappiness". I know for a fact that, for some, gender realignment has achieved the same thing.

In a way it's a shame that I'm here speaking for others on an issue that I'm not really informed enough to pontificate on. Liberals have a habit of doing that.