I hate my gran.
She voted for Brexit, she doesn’t believe in gay marriage, and she refuses to die and let me inherit her impressive portfolio of properties.
However, she does have a compelling way of expressing her conservatism. She employs concise, Spartan sentences that leave you reeling for a comeback. She can also cut men dead with a gaze, dismiss a brilliant argument with a wave of the hand, and zero in with devastating rapidity on your personal failings. To be honest, her style of interaction is refreshing when you’re an academic who spends so much time in convoluted conversations and endless meetings.
Needless to say, she is not very impressed with my research on transgender sexuality, or transgender women in general. Our conversation on the subject took the following direction…
“Of course, Elle, you know the whole transgender thing is nonsense.”
“Why?”
“Because a real woman would never…what did you call it?”
“Transition.”
“Yes. A real woman would never transition.”
As is the mission of our generation, I immediately went into educating old biggots mode. I pointed out to my grandmother the problematic nature of referring to cis-women as real women. Not surprisingly, she wasn’t down with the term ‘cis-women’ or ‘trans-women’ and persisted in referring to them as real-women and fake-women. I became exasperated, she enjoyed seeing me exasperated, and the conversation moved on to other topics such as her recent visit to the doctor. Unfortunately, he’d given her a clean bill of health.
The reason I mentioned our generation, though, is because later I realized that I did something we often do: get exasperated over language. One year after, I decided that I should have moved beyond terminology and pressed my grandmother on what she meant. I came to understand that in her own, nasty way, she’d hypothesized a fascinating situation…
What would happen if a biological woman somehow became trapped in a male’s body?
The reason I returned to my grandmother’s words was because I received news of a case study of exactly that: a biological woman trapped in a male’s body. Of course, the case of Spike Mathews didn’t involve real entrapment, but it was a paper on delusional disorder that linked to my grandmother’s hypothesis. Unexpectedly, it has now come to form the basis of how I think about late-onset transsexualism and autogynephilia.
You’ve just read an extract from… “Autogynephilia – The Novagirl Anthology.” You have 3 methods to buy it…
1) Amazon 2) Direct download – The Elle Mesen Collection (scroll down) 3) Direct Download – this book (scroll to bottom)
The Elle Mesen Collection
(Be aware that three of the books are erotic docu-novels and ‘The Sissy Farm’ is a 120 page color magazine in PDF featuring adult content from banned website – ellemesen.net)
2 Comments
This book is very inciteful. These diverse theories and conclusions have aided in building my understanding of self and of other trans individuals. I am currently a communication disorders major striving to someday help other gender variant individuals communicate and be perceived how they wish to be; because they can’t all be foreigner refugees with intellectual disabilities. Thank you guys for providing an entertaining and meaning full text.
After finishing this book last night and having all day to think about, would someone of a born sex transition in the event they woke up in the wrong body; I remembered something I read way back before I transitioned. Don’t know if anyone else have ever read the John/Joan case, but here is an example of a Canadian man forced to be a woman from birth after a failed circumcision. Spoiler alert it didn’t end well. Here is just one article on the case from “The Embryo Project Encyclopedia.” https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/david-reimer-and-john-money-gender-reassignment-controversy-johnjoan-case
It’s not an answer to the question of would a “real” woman transition, but it may shed some light on the subject.