Taken from "how sex changed: A History of Transsexuality in the United States"

[draegonhawke]

In the Netherlands, where doctors keep such records, they calculated in 1993 that 1 in 11,900 persons born male and 1 in 30,400 persons born female had taken hormones to change sex.

First person to guess the primary reason this struck me as significant/unexpected gets a prize. I'm not sure what the prize will be - sketch, ficlet, something in the

Comments

[angel_06]

That so many more men want to be women than the reverse?

[draegonhawke]

In part,yes, but what about that specifically?

[tangyabominy]

I was going to say that it's that men don't feel like they have to inhabit male bodies as much as women feel like they have to inhabit female bodies: that women are socialised to care about their femininity more than men are to care about their masculinity. But that doesn't surprise me at all: society is constantly telling us that female is a marked category and that you have to do certain Special things to participate in it.

It's a lot easier to be a transman, not pass very well, and not feel like a freak than it is to be a transwoman and not pass very well.

I can see that someone might find it surprising because maleness in this society, too, is built on a very strong identification with the physical self as masculine, but there are slightly-built, femmy gay men and it's almost part of the spectrum of gay identity. Not really so much women with facial hair: that's not so much the butch identity, I don't think. So it doesn't really surprise me at all.

[draegonhawke]

That is a really cool comment, with a bunch of stuff I hadn't considered. I do wonder how expanded statistics of who among transpeople choose to transition, semi-transition, not transition, etc. pan out. I wonder if there's any data collected on that, among people who identify as trans or genderqueer? (Probably very little, sigh. Ah, well. One day, if we work for it.)

Thanks for giving me a bunch of stuff to think about!

[ryuu_no_hime]

I'd say something about this disproving Freud and penis envy, but I'm pretty sure that's a bit too flippant. Besides, we've already debunked a lot of what Freud said anyway.

[draegonhawke]

Hah. Oh, Freud. I think that's... a tangential topic to what first jumped out at me, though; in the same genus, at least.

...that was a terribly mixed metaphor.

(Also, your icon-kitten is adorable.)

[ryuu_no_hime]

I'm just always reminded of a transgender webcomic I read years and years ago. (Found here, after a quick google search)

(Isn't it? I found a whole bunch of kitten icons on one of the icon journals I frequent and they have been seeing heavy usage lately. Kittens make the best icons. :D)