Talk:Trans woman/Archive 2

Ms. Driver keeps changing:
"The sexual orientation of transwomen is very varied. The number of lesbian transwomen roughly equals that of transwomen who prefer male partners. Many also consider themselves bisexual or asexual. into:
The sexual orientation of transwomen is roughly the same of non-transwomen.

Alledgedly I am wrong - however, these rough numbers have been confirmed by all groups I ever asked or heard about. In fact, in many groups there is a slight overhang of lesbian transwomen. So unless Ms. Driver is able to provide some believable statistics (believable, please), I have to assume that she is wrong once again. I would like further comments, so she can't accuse me of whatever she thinks of at the moment. -- AlexR 00:02, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

First of all, I changed it once. Second, you now have statistics listed at the bottom of the page to read for yourself. Maybe you should stop assuming I am wrong and acknowledge that I know more about women and transsexuality than you do. JulieADriver

As long as your edits retain the same "qualitiy" as the edits you did before, it is not very likely I will consider you even knowledgeable, not to mention an "expert".
Take a look at the pages you cited:

• [1] says, that according to the surveys cited, about 70% are heterosexual, about 11% are lesbians, and about 19% are bi- or nonsexual. That alone would not be the same as with ciswomen, and those statistics are the ones I consider less reliable, see below.
• [2] The second study has the incredibly large group of 15 participans, 9 ftMs, 6 mtFs. A bit small for general claims, but: "The sexual orientations articulated by respondents were quite varied, with a high proportion (twelve out of fifteen) presently identifying as bi-, pan- or homosexual." Not exactly a number you would expect from a study of 15 cisgendered people, really.

To be blunt, the second study is total nonsense. There's a 41% margin of error in the MtF group. There's no way you can take any meaningful conclusion from that study, except that it was a complete failure. --Eequor 01:49, 22 May 2004 (UTC)

So even the sources you provided state explicitly that you are flatout wrong.
And the sources on the first page are most likely inherently flawed - it has been only rather recently been acceptable for trans*-people to be not completely straight afterwards, for transmen even later than for transwomen. Therefore, research that older than a few years probably did simply not get the truth as answers, but what people thought the reseachers, who all-too-often are also the "doorkeepers" to letters of recommendation etc., wanted to hear. Even today this is still done, therefore one has to assume that every reseach that is done together with treatment or letters or similar is flawed. No matter, even if they are flawed, they still show the rate of non-heterosexual transwomen is significantly higher than that of non-heterosexual ciswomen.

So, Ms. Expert, maybe you should do some further reading; but you will have a hard time finding many references from the past 10 years that state that these numbers for cis- and transwomen (or men) are even roughly similar. -- AlexR 01:49, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

Sexuality among the transsexual and transgender populations is not exactly something that has been heavily researched. Those two pages were all that I could find. If you still insist on proving me wrong, do some research on your part. JulieADriver

Since the pages you cited yourself already proved you wrong, why should I bother? My information comes from simply asking around in various groups and from counceling myself or from other councelers. Also, every quickpoll among trans*-groups shows roughly these results; an approximately similar number of lesbian and straight transwomen, and a somewhat varying number of bi-, pan- and asexual transwomen. That's something you could do yourself, instead of keeping inserting information you have proved yourself to be false. -- AlexR 21:44, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

I am growing tired of this stupid conflict. I have never personally attacked you, yet you continue to attack me. I am demanding you cease personally attacking me. If you do not comply, I will request mediation --JulieADriver 21:37, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

I have to say, the first linked page very clearly shows a strong correspondence between the sexual orientations of transgendered women and the orientations of the general population. --Eequor 01:30, 22 May 2004 (UTC)

One thing you have to keep in mind is the inaccuracy of extrapolating information from samples as small as those in the studies referenced. In a sample size of 170, the margin of error is around 8%. A single person can make a large difference in such a study: the true percentage of lesbians in the transwoman population may be anywhere from 3% to 19%. --Eequor 01:40, 22 May 2004 (UTC)

If the rate were indeed that low, why would so many groups of transwomen (the full-time transitioning kind, not cross-dressers etc) report the rate of lesbian transwomen to be about equal to the rate of transwomen attracted to men? -- AlexR 03:48, 22 May 2004 (UTC)

Because people tend to notice novelty more than they do normality. If someone thinks it should be unusual to find a large lesbian population, they will tend to only remember when they encounter lesbians and forget all the occasions when they encountered heterosexuals. It's a common error. --Eequor 04:00, 22 May 2004 (UTC)

But there is absolutely nothing novel about this - it has been a consistent picture for the past couple of years. And I am not talking about meetings single persons, I am talking about support groups reporting about their own members; plus some councelers or doctors who keep statistics. I don't think that could possibly count as novelty. 10 years ago, it was a novelty, but that was a decade ago. I also completely fail to understand what you hope to gain by twisting those statistics to show something they just don't show by any reading, or generally by insisting that transwomen (or transsexual women) do not differ in their sexual orientation from ciswomen. There might be a number of reasons for that, but probably none of these would invalidate the gender identity of any transwoman. (In fact, I don't think any would, but given the extremely complex matter, I guess nobody could be absolutely and positively certain of that.)
I can't help it, but this debate is surely feeling somewhat surreal by now. No offense intended, just in case somebody wishes to read one into that sentence, or any sentence I wrote. -- AlexR 04:50, 22 May 2004 (UTC)

The statistics show that it is uncommon to find lesbians in any population. This creates a perception (correct) that being a lesbian transwoman is an unusual condition (a novelty). This perception, however, leads to a general over-noticing of lesbians, and due to this overrepresentation a belief is generated (incorrectly) that lesbians are in fact common. As this belief propogates, it is reinforced by the discovery that other individuals hold the same belief. This is the sort of phenomenon that leads people to believe in UFOs, ghosts, and other such things, regardless of any actual scientific analysis.

Without any solid evidence to show that the ratio of homosexuals to heterosexuals in the transsexual population is near 1:1, with statistics showing that it very much is not, and with no proposed reason why transsexuals should differ, the only logical conclusion is that the distribution of sexual orientations of transsexuals closely matches that of the population as a whole. See Occam's Razor.

I'm not hoping to gain anything, I'm just very skeptical of the idea that a difference exists, in the absence of proof. --Eequor 05:32, 22 May 2004 (UTC)

I've got to say, before I begin, that I've been trying to stay out of this spat, and that if anything, I've been in agreement with Julie. That said, I'm with AlexR on this one. This suggestion that the numbers are about equal with transwomen is, I must say, new to me. From both personal experience and extensive reading, just about everything I have ever encountered on the subject has suggested that the ratio is about 1:1. The same would be reflected in those I have known personally over the years. Ambivalenthysteria 11:49, 22 May 2004 (UTC)

That goes for my personal experiences as well. If we can't find hard numbers to back this up, we certainly do need to note that it is a common observation. Morwen 11:56, May 22, 2004 (UTC)

(I am moving this to the left again, for reasons of legibility. Also, it is mainly an answer to Eequor, not the last two statements.) I am sorry, but these "equal" claims remain absurd. This is not reasoning, and certainly it is not Occam's Razor to ignore evidence because Occam's Razor is not exactly in favour of It shouldn't be, therefore it can't be. To compare people's self-reported sexual orientation to the believe in UFOs and ghosts it unusual, to say the least, and something I would under any other circumstance consider a particularly nasty case of discrimination.

Even the statistics cited show that whatever it is, it is not the same as in the ciswomen population. Therefore, that claim cannot be made, and what is in the article now is NPOV and frankly, nothing but a political agenda, one that hurts lesbian transwomen by marginalising them. Are you sure that is what you want?

Let me state once more why I say that the number of lesbian and straight transwomen is about 1:1:

• I have been part of the transsexual/transgender community for 9 years. (And coming from the "strictly transsexual" side, too.) Even back then the number of transwomen living in lesbian relationships was at least as big as transwomen in straight relationships, although, at that time and by pretty much the same "It shouldn't be, therefore it can't be" reasoning, many claimed to be just "waiting for Mr. Right".
• I have been active in counceling, organising self-help groups and political advocacy for 7 years. I have met many people from many groups, and in the beginning, when non-straigt transpeople began to come out in large numbers, we all were surprised by the high number of non-straight transsexual and transgender people. (Again, I am talking only about people changing their gender role completely, and the majority of these transwomen can be considered transsexual and consider themselves transsexual). In the beginning, we all were very much surprised when we started counting. That is counting, as in 1,2,3,..., not assuming as in "Wow, that were a lot of us/them, must be about half". All those reports give a ratio that is approximately 1:1.
• I have also compared notes with other people active in counceling, several of whom also count. Guess what - they give about 1:1 as ratio.
• Both of the above I have also done explicitly with people from other countries, both Europe and the US. Same picture. (Compare the last two statements above.) The rate for gay transmen varries somewhat in southern Europe, but not for transwomen. And the most recent reports from those countries show the number of gay transmen catching up, too.
• I know a doctor who is involved in writing letters of recommendation for surgery and name change and who has been keeping quite extensive statistics for about 20 years; I have been working with him on guidelines for such letter. For the reasons cited above already, these statistics are inevitably biased towards straight transpeople. (The bias coming from transpeople claiming to be straight because they are afraid of not getting their letters if they do not claim to be straight.) Still - for the last few years, the number of lesbian transwomen to straight transwomen is, according to their self-report in his practice is approximately 40:60, and he himself guesses that it is probably more 1:1, but he is aware of that fear and unless there are reasons to doubt other claims of a particular person he lets it pass. Over those 20 years, and remember the bias, the rate is 1:2.

As for the reason why the number of non-straight transpeople is so high, that is an excellent question, and if one disregards the decidedly strange theories of Blanchard, the only theory I have heard several times (but with no scientific backup I am aware of) is that people just have such a dislike of a particular type of anatomy (that of their birth sex) that they cannot possibly connect it to love and/or sexual attraction. While that makes sense, it is not proven, and most likely, even if it is true, not the only reason; sexual orientation is an extremely complex matter even in cisgendered people, and probably a lot more so in trans*-people. But then, there is absolutely no reason proven yet as to why transgender people, or gay and lesbian people, do exist, yet that does not keep them from existing, either.

However, if some people still keep insisting of keeping the "about the same as in the general population" part in, which is obviously false and a claim made for whatever reasons which are definitely NPOV, I can only propose taking out that sentence completely and not say anything about the matter, since there seems to be no scientific evidence. And instead of keeping completely unsubstantiated and false claimes that are made for nothing but political reasons (I am assuming political reasons here, because the only other possible reason is active discrimination), or having an edit war, there should be no statements about the matter at all.

P.S. While I wrote the above, Ambivalenthysteria and Morwen backed up what I said. Given their statement, I want to propose once more finding an NPOV version of the bit on sexual orientation. However, if none can be found, I still think it should go out completely until somebody finds "scientific evidence", preferably not the kind biased by either fear on the side of transwomen or bias on the side of the person collecting it. -- AlexR 13:00, 22 May 2004 (UTC)