>Albert-Lunde@nor
>Re: trans issues on the ML
      
* I suppose it is a matter of perspective. I was told that Hitomi-San was 
* RIDICULED off the ML because of intollerance, as I was ALSO told that 
* Hitomi-San was a transsexual. I have never been able to contact Hitomi-San, 
* but I cannot blame her for not writing back. I am sure she thinks that I am 
* simply another person who would try to crush her soul. That is what *I* 
* might think in her place.
      
>I've a bit of personal interest in sexuality and gender issues,
      
So do I.  It was what originally attracted me to the Ranma Nibunnoichi series 
to begin with...  It was THE VERY FIRST TIME I ever saw a transsexual 
character who was LOVED.
 
      
>being a bi man with an unconventional sense of gender identity,
      
Hontou ka?  Really?  Perhaps I will write you privately to discuss this 
further, if you do not mind.
 
      
>so I perk up my ears at the subject, but these haven't been lively 
>topics lately. The last related discussion I recall was something 
>about Ukyou and Konatsu. (Konatsu seeming to be transgendered,
>and Konatsu's intro story providing a form of evidence that
>Ukyou might be bisexual.)
      
Oh, my...  Natsu-Chan...  She is another character I am quite fond of.  There 
is no doubt in my mind that she is a transsexual, but it would be too 
complicated to try to explain my reasoning.  Simply put, she always wears a 
flower in her hair.  Boys don't do that.  Well, not unless they WANT to be 
picked on...
 
      
>The manga "Futaba-kun Change" (now being translated by Studio
>Ironcat) plays with gender issues more explicitly than Ranma 1/2.
>I've heard that the author was inspired by Ranma 1/2, but decided
>to explore issues Takahashi stayed away from.
      
That's what fan-fics and ML's are for.  ^_^  Concerning Ranma Nibunnoichi, 
there are MANY things I would like to see explored in some way, but there ARE 
some topics that most fan-fic writers seem to steer away from, such as 
pregnancy.  Of course, since Ran-Chan is male-gendered, the chances of him 
becoming pregnant are pretty low.  Why do I say "he?"
 
      
Technically, Ran-Chan is a female-to-male transsexual.  That is to say, a 
male soul (which we will refer to as gender identity) in a female body.  This 
is the difference between sex and gender that few people really understand.  
They are NOT the same thing, and I am so sorry to say that both attributes do 
not always come out evenly.  One can have a male soul in a female form, and 
there can be a female soul in a male form, and this has been proven 
scientifically.
 
      
Did you know that when a transsexual dies, the first thing they do is cut off 
their heads?  They also drill holes in their skulls so that they can examine 
the brain tissue.  In almost every case, male-to-female transsexuals have 
been found to have the brain chemistry of normal females.  I am not sure if 
the same is true for the female-to-males.
 
      
When I mentioned this to my "infamous" fan-fic writer who told me about 
Hitomi-San, they said that it wasn't "politically correct" to think that the 
reason WHY men and women think and feel differently is because of mutant 
brain cells.  But all the political correctness in the world does not change 
physical morphology.
 
      
Did you know that 84% of male-to-female transsexuals do not live past the age 
of 30 unless they have the corrective surgery?  I am not counting what I call 
the "midlife-crisis transsexuals."  I refer mainly to those poor, tortured 
souls who figure it all out early on and try to live with their curse.  In my 
past, I knew many of them...  Including those who preferred NOT to live in a 
world that hated them.
 
      
Transsexuals are even discriminated against by gay men and especially by 
lesbians.  I saw it for mysaelf as I lived in San Francisco when I first came 
to this country.  Of course, this was BEFORE AIDS began slaughtering gay men 
by the thousands there.
 
      
There are three main things that cause transsexuals extreme pain.  One is 
being cheated out of a childhood.  Can you imagine what it would have been 
like to NEVER have gotten the toys you wanted?  No dolls.  No toy kitchens.  
Just stupid war toys to learn the ideals of hatred early in life.  Another is 
losing the ability to reproduce.  I have known MANY male-to-female 
transsexual women who would have LOVED to have been able to become pregnant.  
And it goes without saying that when one is so cursed, it is VERY hard to 
find someone to marry.  Even the post-ops have extreme difficulty in finding 
a mate who could love them, unless they are very, very pretty.
 
      
No SANE person would EVER want to be a transsexual!  It is something that 
totally destroys one's life.  You usually lose all your friends, all your 
family and everyone who has ever cared about you at the very least.  You are 
excluded from humanity and are no longer a human being, but rather an object. 
 I would prefer an honourable death myself instead of facing such a loss.
 
      



 Kawaii Kasumi
      
 http://www.angelfire.com/anime2/kasumiskitchen
      

Sent by AsianAvenue.com Internet Mail

http://www.AsianAvenue.com  "Click into Asian America"