Transsexualism-Nature,Choice And Lack Of Choice

                                Even among homosexuals the topic of transsexualism is rather controversial. There are still some of the opinion that such people are only emulating what they feel society expects from them-that homosexual men and women are emotionally more like the opposite sex and must appear in kind. The result of this,once known as "camping it up" has resulting in cross-dressing  Call it masquerading or drag, its a self conscious parody of heterosexual stereotypes. This is essentially a form of caberet theater that has both evolved and de-evolved down the generations-its social rules depending largely on the mental maturity level of those involved in the activity. Such people might actually demean those who don't need to cross dress to feel good about themselves. As hateful as this sound, such a person is making a conscientious choice. And not the majority of cross-dressers are not homosexual. 

                             Of course there are those who do not have a choice. These are men and women who have feelings all their lives that they feel more like the opposite sex physically and emotionally. This is known as transsexualism.  Again a transsexual person may still be attracted to members of the opposite sex,but end up having a medical operation to become the opposite sex to themselves. Recently many celebrity transsexuals such as Chas ('ne Chastity) Bono have bought this more squarely into the public eye. In many chases,a transsexual person will start out as a cross dresser-only to find themselves in therapy in order to get a sex change when they realize who they are. I personally have seen this happen to a number of people I know. Especially if their family and friends are intolerant, this can be a very painful process for such people even today. Sadly in some cases in history,the matter of a sexual change wasn't one of choice. But rather thrust upon an individual.

                            One recent example of this that I just recently learned about was  shot  putter Heidi Krieger-shown above. A 1980's era athlete in communist East Germany, from the age of 16 Heidi became unknowingly involved in the states athletic "doping program" and was given massive amounts of anabolic steroids-without her knowing what said "mystery pills" were outside of being told they would improve her performance as an athlete. Two years later, she had begun developing male characteristics. These became so prominent that in 1997, almost a decade after the collapse of the Berlin wall, did Heidi have a sex change operation and is currently known as Andreas-also shown above. Even though he claims he always did have some transsexual feelings beforehand, Andreas  now maintains that he was at a critical point in life as an adolescent where his female genes were still in a state of flux due to puberty. And the steroids given to him changed his physical sexuality from female to male.

                             The name once used to refer to homosexuals sociologically was the gay community. Over time and with much changes in political correctness that term has been expanded into the LGBTQ community-the "T" of course standing for transsexual. That probably has a lot to do with the realization among the majority of people that not every person who cross dressers or has a complete sex change is necessarily a homosexual. At the same time those homosexuals who only feel psychologically fit if they are wearing a dress and are not truly transsexual might want to take some time to reflect on the plight of someone such as Heidi/Andres Krieger, who willingly had a sex change but due to the environment she came up inevitably had to do so only because of being an unknowing  Guinea Pig for someone else. The question of ones physical sexuality is strongly linked with ones self absurdness. Its important a person knows who they are before being too sure if they really do feel like a member of the opposite sex trapped in the wrong body, or if they merely dislike themselves because of the sex they were born with.