The DSM-V

I found this today and thought I'd plug it. The American Psychiatric Association (APA) has created a website on the development of the DSM-V, including proposed changes and rationale. You can even compare with the DSM-IV. (Yes, they provide citations. It's the APA for crying out loud.) I know there was quite a bit of concern in the LGBT community about how sexuality and gender identity disorders would be diagnosed. I've only given it a cursory glance, but the changes for Sexual Aversion Disorder, Gender Identity Disorder, and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder look promising to me.

American Psychiatric Association.

Thoughts From 1 A.M.

I was getting ready for bed at about one o'clock on Saturday morning. I was standing in the bathroom looking in the mirror and mentally altering my appearance. I had just had a haircut at five o'clock on Friday, and this was my first chance to take a really good look at it.

I didn't like it. I missed having longer hair; particularly at the back of my neck. It made me feel vulnerable. It also made me look...butch. First, I imagined myself without the facial hair. Then I added breasts. B cups first, then C cups. The kind where the nipples point out away from the centre of the chest a bit. I was oddly pleased and amused with the results of my thought experiment. Maybe it's because I was born and raised in British Columbia, but I'm just a B- and C-type of person.

Why Did I Even Write This?

So here's the answer from last week's TMI Tuesday that I didn't write. I'd like to be a woman. Before you even think it, it's not for some sexual kick. Although there are several sexual perks I can think of. (More nerve endings and more intense orgasms, the capability of having multiple and G-spot orgasms, female ejaculation, etc.)

It's about experiencing existence from the perspective of the opposite sex. I'll never know what the intimate connection between a mother and a child is like. I'll never have the experience of giving birth or menstruating. (From what I've been told they're not at all pleasant, but I'm honestly curious. You have to take the good with the bad.) I'll never know what it's like growing up as a girl or dating a man, or even another woman, from a feminine perspective. I'll never have the innate intuition and empathy that most women seem to have. I'm not really ashamed to say that I'm jealous of women.

There's even more than that. The female body seems to me much more aesthetically pleasing than the male one. Perhaps I have a biased opinion because I was born as a male. I find the male form so rugged and unsophisticated. I think Auguste Rodin's works provide a perfect example of the beauty I'm trying to convey. Works like The Kiss, The Poet and the Muse, Eternal Spring, and so on.


[DOMAI has a nice article on the female form here.]

For a while, when I still clung to the notion of reincarnation I had hoped that my next life would be that of a woman, so I could experience life from a new perspective naturally. Another thought I had was that if I ever had children, I would want a daughter. I didn't really know why at the time, but I think now I do. If I couldn't have the opportunity to be the fairer sex, perhaps my child could. I realize now that I was projecting my thoughts and feelings.

I don't have these feelings strongly enough to justify to myself any type of reassignment surgery. I imagine if there were no side effects and it were reversible, I'd give it a try. I might even stay that way if I liked it. But I was born a male, and I have to play the cards I was dealt in life. I wouldn't call myself trans-gender. I think trans-curious is a better phrase. Like Ron Rifkin's character Saul in Brothers & Sisters, the great irony of my life is that I love women. Perhaps so much that I don't think I'd mind being one.