Thanks for the reply Ibby. I'd like to start by saying I'm not hostile toward you, Pam, or any other trans* people. I also wish to state that I don't know many, though I have had a few casual interactions with a few, probably under a dozen. Lastly, I'm not familiar at all with androgen insensitivity syndrome beyond what you've described here.

So that's a good point to start with.
From what I can glean from your description here "secondary female sexual characteristics" would mean enlarged breasts, minimal facial hair, relatively wider hips, perhaps some other less dramatically different physical characteristics. When you say "would not develop" some or all or more of the traits above and then ask me if that person's vagina would represent a "physical deformity", my answer is no. There are many people who have a vagina that do not have enlarged breasts, or the other secondary sexual characteristics (adults, of course, not children). Of those people, I would not consider the presence of a vagina in the absence of the other secondary characteristics a physical deformity.

Your last sentence "It is a part of the body that should not normally have developed the way it did." is subjective and presumes a baseline of "normal" that appears to weigh the absence of secondary sexual characteristics more heavily than the presence of "primary" (my term) sexual characteristics, in this case a vagina. I'm not quarreling with *your* interpretation of such a situation, I'm just saying you seem to be emphasizing the secondary and minimizing the primary. That seems backwards.

This point depends entirely on what your definition of "should* is. "My body developed the way it should have." "My body did not develop the way it should have." What is the frame of reference for what "should be" is? I don't have an answer.

Your thought experiment to reverse it is interesting, and when it's reversed, to my mind, it puts the "should be" reference point in the body, and the brain/mind/identity as the aspect of the person that "did not develop as it should have". It is a small step from there to make the conclusion that the judge did in the story discussed earlier to view such a situation as a "mental illness" or "mental deformity" if you'll permit me to meld your term with the judge's.

The term "physical deformity" isn't subject to a person's brain/mind/identity. If you look at two pictures of a child's mouth and one of them shows a cleft palette it is clear which is the physical deformity. If you looked at a thousand or a million such pictures, there would be no question as to which were physically deformed and which were normal. (Yes, there might be some cases that were.... somewhere in between, oooh... is that just a really high cupid's bow or is it actually cleft. sure. But that is not the suggestion Pam, nor you are making "My penis is vanishingly small and that deformity defines my trans*-ness.) Now imagine looking at two pictures of two different penises. How can you tell which is a "physical deformity"? How can you determine from those two pictures which one belongs to the trans* person? I don't think you can, I'm sure I can't.

Such a statement is an improper use of the term "physical deformity". That's my point.

No V.. You misunderstand. I said MY penis, as well as other attributes not common to my gender, are a deformity. Somewhere in my link collection I have a chart that shows how I was supposed to have developed but for a poorly-timed shot of testosterone during my development. My (not your) penis is supposed to be my vagina, my testes are supposed to be my ovaries etc.

I was speaking only for transsexual women. YOU were born male and you got the standard-issue male brain to go with the package. I did not. That's the difference. What is a deformity to ME is perfectly normal to YOU.

Love

Pam

Do the stereotypes associated with men and women (i.e. women are from Venus, men are from Mars) hold with trans* men and trans* women; or, does the mind-body incongruity period irreparably obscure them?

The 'man is from Mars, women are from Venus' thing has pretty much been discredited for straight people, let alone transgender.

In academia, perhaps. In the real world, women may still make less money for doing the same jobs as men and encounter the glass ceiling as a result of that perception. That's in first world countries, in the second world they can be much worse off. These circumstances can affect their development differently. Do those who are transgendered, after their formative years, ever realize the same outlook?

Ah, I see. I'd misunderstood your post :P

Perhaps I could do better with an analogy. When people beyond their formative years study a foreign language, at first they translate everything (their own thoughts and what others are saying) in their heads. Eventually, they can become accustomed enough to "think" in the foreign language and not have to translate in their heads anymore. Some people have a greater; or, lesser aptitude than others to learn another language which can be measured with a battery of tests.

Can people learn to think entirely like their mental gender for their culture after being raised/indoctrinated in their physical gender; or, is that not possible unlike learning to think in another language? If they can, can their aptitude be measured?

I would think maybe that is why they want the physical change...because they already 'think' in that gender's language. Their struggle is in fighting the indocrination.

Last night I dreamt in Chinese.
Eating Yankee shredded wheat

That's true in part; however, part of them has already been indoctrinated, during their formative years, into thinking like their physical gender and that's the part I'm referring to.

Maybe I'm being a bit slow, but what sort of things are you referring to them thinking in terms of "male" or "female" mindsets? I understand what you're saying in an abstract sort of way... men and women are raised/treated differently, I'm just not really understanding how you'd know you were thinking in a completely "female" capacity after being raised as a male?

So.. basically... how would you know that your outlook/mental whatever was entirely transformed into the "female" mindset or not? (or vice versa...)

Sort of like if you saw a completely different set of colors than everyone, but you were raised in the same kindgergarten. Purple would be purple to you, even if your eyes saw orange instead. The color would be different but you wouldn't be able to tell, having never seen through someone else's eyeballs.

Others would be able to tell. To continue my analogy, some people can learn another language and its culture well enough to pass as a native while others cannot. Are transgendered peoples' ability to ever pass through society without that being noticed obscured?

Ok Thanks for the clarification on your question.

Fine, when he gets out he can do, and be, whatever he wants, I couldn't give a shit less. My objection is the taxpayers getting stuck with the bill.