PSYCHOLOGY OF TRANSSEXUAL (WHY THEY WANT TO CHANGE THEIR GENDER?)

PSYCHOLOGY OF TRANSSEXUAL (WHY THEY WANT TO CHANGE THEIR GENDER?)

Transsexual is  a person whose biological birth sex conflicts with his or her psychological gender. It is the desire to live and be accepted as a member of the opposite sex, usually accompanied by a sense of discomfort with, or inappropriateness of, one's anatomic sex, and a wish to have surgery and hormonal treatment to make one's body as congruent as possible with one's preferred sex. While, transsexualism in Arabic is called Mukhannathun which means the people who are born with male sexual organs and behave like male but inside there is a strong urge to become a girl. Such people hate the gender they are born and strive to become girl through hormonal therapy and later gender change through surgery or vice versa. In Islam, if a Mukhannath is normal in his sexual behaviour, by physical appearance and by physical activities, but his inner perception is strong to change his gender, then it is a physiological disorder which should be treated through psychological treatment not by sex reassignment surgery.

 Some people who have switched their gender role enter into traditional social institutions such as marriage and parenting. They sometimes adopt or provide foster care for children, as complete sex reassignment therapy inevitably results in infertility. Some transsexual people have children from before transition. Some of these children continue living with their transitioning/transitioned parent, or retain close contact with them. These, however, will influent the children into thinking that transsexualism is a common thing since both their parents are transsexual. As a result, these children would follow their parents footstep and become transsexual as well. Besides that, these children became aware of the transsexual status at such a young age. An  example of their perceptions of their parents follow, Seven year old boy with male-to-female transsexual parent (father) : 

"Linda wants to be a woman. Linda wants to start a fresh life. She likes living as a woman. I think that is happy for her. At first (when I was 4½) I didn’t quite understand. As I got older, I realized she must be happy living as a woman, so I’ll just accept that."

Does Linda have a penis? 

"She is going to have it taken off." 

What is your worry? 

"The thing I worry about is if he gets injections that the wrong amount would be given and something would go wrong… Is there a chance he could die in the operation?" 

 Male-to-female transsexuals can be broken up into two groups of sexuality which is "homosexual transsexuals", who transition because they are attracted to men, and "non-homosexual transsexuals", who transition because they are autogynephilic . There are significant differences between the two groups, including sexuality, age of transition, ethnicity, IQ,and  fetishism.

Child sexual assault or forced feminization cause adult gender issues . Based on an informal survey of transsexual  histories of individuals who disclosed having experienced childhood abuse or trauma, vast majority of persons who had started a healing process from childhood abuse felt that the trauma had some influence in gender issues, but also believe their gender differences existed consistently throughout their lives, often before the abuse occurred. There are some situations, however, where a person's gender differences (particularly as perceived by others) may have rendered that individual more vulnerable to victimization. Childhood peers are not only ones who can act terribly. Sometimes parents may be unduly harsh on an effeminate boy or masculine girl. This is not the transgender person's fault. Many adults try to push a child into socially acceptable behaviour, some go overboard and become abusive.

 For many decades, surgical sex reassignments of intersex infants, mostly boys with tiny or missing penises were turned into "girls". Many of these kids reassigned as infants required later re-reassignments as boys when their innate gender identities became clear during childhood. In most cases, the boys liveswere shattered by the surgeries that had been forced upon them as infants (they lost what genital tissues they had, as well as the ability to have orgasm). A mother recalls: "As soon as he had the surgery, the doctor said I should now start treating him as a girl, doing girl things and putting him in girl's clothes. But that was a disaster. I put this beautiful little dress on him, … and he [immediately tried] to rip it off… I think he knew it was a dress and that it was for girls and he wasn't a girl." 

After puberty, many young transsexual girls are effeminate and attracted to boys  just like any other girl would be. TS  girls who are feminine and attractive may find boyfriends and make love with them while, just as any other girl would do. But these are not boy-to-boy homosexual relationships. These young transsexuals are thought of as girls by their boyfriends, and their boyfriends are heterosexual, not homosexual. For psychiatrists to say that the "homosexual" sexual experiences of the girls' causes their transsexualism is an incredible reversal of cause and effect. Instead it is their innate feelings of being female that cause them to seek the love of boys, and then in some cases to have sex with boys (always as "the girl") in order to find affirmation of their femaleness. “We feel that parental tolerance of cross-gender behavior at the time of its emergence is instrumental in allowing the behavior to develop...What is unique in the situation with children who develop a gender identity disorder is the co-occurrence of a multitude of factors at a sensitive period in the child's development -- that is, most typically in the first few years of life, the period of gender identity formation and consolation. there must be a sufficient numbers of factors to induce a state of inner insecurity in the child, such that he or she requires a defensive solution to deal with anxiety. This must occur in a context in which the child perceives that the opposite-sex role provides a sense of safety or security.” (Zucker 1995, p.259) 

Transsexual women often appear to be completely normal males before announcing they are going to "change sex". The suddenness of these transitions, and the rapid and dramatic physical changes that follow, fuels speculation among family, friends and co-workers that these "decisions" are very irrational ones. People often interpret unexpected transitions as "mental breakdowns", or as sudden "choices" to do something totally weird and probably for "sexual reasons". What most people cannot comprehend is the extreme gender distress  these transsexuals have endured during their entire lives. Forced by extreme family and societal pressures to keep their distress a secret from everyone else and never show any signs of cross-gender feelings, they simply suffer horribly in silence, never revealing what is wrong inside. When the gender angst becomes totally overwhelming, and transsexual people seek counseling and discover options for gender-transition, the floodgates open in their minds: Transition then becomes an intensely sought-after goal, and to others may appear to have arisen out of the blue, as if it were a sudden "choice". However, gender transition is not a choice. Instead it is destiny for those who are intensely transsexual. 

Sexual differentiation of the mammalian brain starts during fetal development and continues after birth. It is hypothesised that in humans, in common with all other mammals studied, hormones  significantly influence this dimorphic development although, at present, the exact mechanism is incompletely understood. It is also postulated that these hormonal effects occur at several critical periods of development of the sexual differentiation of the brain during which gender identity is established, initially during the fetal period, then around the time of birth; and also post-natally. Factors which may contribute to an altered hormone environment in the brain at the critical moments in its early development might include genetic influences or medication, environmental influences, stress or trauma to the mother during pregnancy. 

 In a modern society, people are more open-minded about various issues including transsexuality. Nowadays, transsexual are gaining more acceptance world wide and this encourage a lot of people to openly change their gender without a shame. Thus, the number of transsexual are increasing rapidly especially in developed countries such as US, China, etc. Sex change became a hot topic in China in 1995 when a famous dancer and chief of Beijing Modern Dance Group, Jin Xing, underwent an operation to become a woman. More than a decade has passed since then. Jin is now mother to three adopted children, engaged to her Italian boyfriend, and enjoying her life as a complete woman. Jin says she feels grateful that society never rejected her because she had changed her sex. She hopes people focus on her dancing rather than her sex-change experience. A person with the nickname "brave heart" left the following message on the Web site which tracked Li Pengli's sex-change operation:"Jin Xing had been very successful before sex change. Still she bravely had the operation for what her heartneeded. We common people should also pay attention to what we really want in our hearts."

Cross-dressers may begin wearing their opposite sex's clothing as children, using the clothes of a sibling, parent, or friend. Some parents have said they allowed their children to cross-dress and, in many cases, the child stopped when they became older. However, when a person has reached puberty, and becomes persistent or recurrent  cross-dressing in the role of the other sex, either in fantasy or in reality, initially experience partial cross-dressing; when it is partial, it often progresses to total. Cross-dressing, although intermittent in the beginning, often becomes more frequent, and may become habitual. As the years pass, he or she would want to dress and live permanently as the other sex, and desire surgical or hormonal sex reassignment, which lead to transsexualism It is found that media played a significant and often pivotal role in the development of a wide range of trans identities. Many different kinds of media, gender representations in media, media content and genres, and personal contact made through media helped them come out to themselves as trans. Three ways of engaging with media were reported and four basic types of identity events were attributed to media contact. Study participants additionally appeared to suggest that they possessed an innate sense of being transsexual or transgender and that media stimulated varying degrees of consciousness of their trans attributes. As in D’Acci’s (1994) study, media seems to have played a significant part in transmen’s efforts to "reconceive themselves" as gendered individuals. Study participants took a range of "positions of identification" as they "responded to, took pleasure in, and negotiated" subject positions and meanings. The understandings that they drew from media texts were based on their "previously constituted subjectivities" as transpeople of various types in various stages of identity development. The correlation of group membership to textual interpretation found by Liebes and Katz (1991) and Morley (1980) was also evident in the transgender and transsexual orientation of the messages that respondents received as a result of contact with media. As in Liebes and Katz’s and D’Acci’s research, respondents used media content referentially, assessing their values and desires by comparing and contrasting themselves and their lives with media characters and situations.  

Hukum, hadith, surah and islamic scholar statement about transsexual . An effeminate man is one who displays characteristics regarded of a woman (wearing female clothes, talking or walking like women). This kind of man is cursed by the Prophet Muhammad (Blessings and peace of Allah be upon him). Al-Bukhari narrated from Ibn Abbas ( ) as saying ,"The Prophet Muhammad (Blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) cursed the effeminate men (who imitate women) and the manly women (who imitate men)". In another narration of the same Hadith he said: "Allah has cursed men who imitate women and women who imitate men ". Abu Hurairah also narrated that the Prophet Muhammad (Blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) said : "Allah has cursed the woman who wears the cloth of men and the man who wears the cloth of women". [Abu Dawood]. Almighty Allah created humans in two genders, male and female. This is has been stated in many verses, "O mankind! Be careful of your duty to your Lord Who created you from a single soul and from it created its mate and from them twain hath spread abroad a multitude of men and women."  "O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female."  "And that He createth the two spouses, the male and the female."  Also refer to Surat Al-Layl: 3, and Ash-Shura: 49. Allah the Almighty also says in Surat Al `Imran, verse 36, that "the male is not as the female." And in Surat Al-Layl He says: "Lo! your effort is dispersed (toward diverse ends)." Allah, the Almighty, also said that He created every human being with Fitra (nature) that suits him or her. Since Fitra is an inbuilt system designed to suit every creation, the Fitra of a male is different from the Fitra of a female. Allah, Exalted be He, also made it clear to us that when the Shaitan (Satan) challenged to deviate humans he said he would cause them to change the creation of Allah, the  Almighty. Allah says: "And surely I will command them and they will change Allah's creation."  Allah, Glorified be He, says: "And covet not the thing in which Allah hath made some of you excel others. Unto men a fortune from that which they have earned, and unto women a fortune from that which they have earned. (Envy not one another) but ask Allah of His bounty. Lo! Allah is ever Knower of all things."  In shedding more light on the prohibition of sex change (save the medical necessities mentioned above), Sheikh M. S. Al-Munajjid, a prominent Saudi Islamic lecturer and author states, "It is not permissible for a person to have gender operation; from male to female or vice versa. Every Muslim has to be content with what Allah has decreed for him/her, for He has placed him in a suitable position. He/she does not know what is good for him/her; (being a male) perhaps if he was created female, that would not be good for him, or (being a female) if she was created male, that would be bad for her. By the same token, there are some people for whom nothing but poverty is good, and if Allah made such a person rich it would be harmful for him; and there are others for whom nothing but richness is appropriate, and if they became poor that would be harmful to them. Some women wished they had been created men so they could fight in the way of Allah. This was just wishful thinking, but Allah revealed the prohibition of that wishful thinking in the ayah (Qur'anic verse), "And wish not for the things in which Allah has made some of you to excel others.

 For men there is reward for what they have earned, (and likewise) for women there is reward for what they have earned."   Sheikh `Abd Al-Karim Al-Khudayr states, changing one's sex is a kind of tampering with the creation of Allah and following the way of the Shaitan (Satan) who vowed that he would misguide the sons of Adam in this way and in others, as clarified in the verse: "And surely I will command them and they will change Allah's creation."  

The conclusion based on the above statements, we can clearly see that each factor plays an important role in the process of becoming a transsexual. These include hormones, trauma, sexuality, society and etc. However, we as a muslim have an obligation and responsibility to stay true to our nature or fitrah that Allah had given to us. Thus, it is haram to change our gender since it means that we change Allah’s creation and defy Him. And for those who defy Him, hell punishment awaits them in the afterworld.