Transexuals

I watched an interesting program on T.V. this morning. It was a documentary by and about a middle aged man who travelled to Cuba to film the Santeria religion practiced there (it's practiced in other countries also). The film maker was decidedly effeminate but had lived his life as a man with no interest in homosexuality but he'd always yearned to be a woman.

During his filming, he was told by a holy man that he possessed a female spirit and that was what was causing him so much personal turmoil. In all honesty, I think a child could have looked at this man and seen the inner woman trying to come out. The documentary continued with the man feeling he'd experienced a revelation and it was now time for him to become a woman.

I think we can accept that every human being possesses both masculine and feminine traits and that socialization teaches us to ignore or bury traits that aren't deemed suitable for our sex. It fascinates me to imagine someone whose body is completely opposite of the inner person.

I've always thought it so sad that a person would mutilate their own body to change the appearance of their birth sex. Is it social mores or religious conditioning that won't allow us to accept an effeminate man or a masculine woman? Maybe it's having to stifle their natural personality that makes them crave a sex change.

Social conditioning begins at birth and continues all of our lives. It's very difficult to look outside the box and accept something or someone a little different. We smirk, we laugh behind our hands, and some even use the difference as an excuse for violence. There's something wrong here.

Social conditioning brings order into our lives but it shouldn't prohibit us from including benign variations of human behaviour. After all, not one of us is exactly the same as another. We don't all look the same or have the same likes and dislikes.

As for me, I'm going to keep working on my own code of ethics, my own personal realization of what I consider right or wrong. There just might be room for improvement.