Hey Miriam, I wanted to say thanks (and by extension, thanks Jill for passing it to you). I really have been having a hard time being out in my chosen degree program (massage therapy) due to the fact many of the students AREN'T open minded, and I'd face constant harassment (something I definately didn't need during my first year in school, with the overwhelming amount of school work AND my father seperating from my mother and myself.)

By filling out that form, I felt like I could help let people know why it's so hard for people like myself to be out (and to not have access to the correct bathrooms, even though the campus laws state I can).

I'm a long time post-SRS woman. I find many of the presumptions and language used in the questions do not include me.

Many of the issues of discrimination are major ones for people in transition but I do not consider myself a gender variant nor is most of the discrimination I face in any way different than that of what other women face.

It is only when I have to deal with finding a doctor who deals with hormones or for some specific tests and need when I find myself either lost of treated in a demeaning manner.

Or when I was raped and had to submit to a rape test and the police treatment.

Perhaps it is distance from and perhaps I shouldn't bother but this like so many other surveys seems to be looking for answers that support predetermined conclusions.

It also demands adherence to the ideology of transgender that many post-SRS women find anathema.

this survey seems to really only be intended for people people who identify as transsexual and have transitioned in some way. All the questions ask you to compare:

"Because I am transgender/gender non-conforming, life in general is:
Much improved
Somewhat improved
The same
Somewhat worse
Much worse
In some ways better, in some ways worse"

improved from what? transitioning? "coming-out"? compared to those who are gender-conforming? what about those who identify as "gender non-conforming"?

"a gender variant." That's a dehumanizing way to say it. I mean, as opposed to "a gender variant person."

I also like that the second and third posts are in almost complete opposition to each other.

Oh, and speaking as someone who transitioned 20 years ago: I found the survey was problematic and failed to account for several possible experiences. I don't think

That is, I agree way more with Emily than with SuzyQ's boilerplate.

Unfinished thought:

"I don't think that it was designed to account very well for trans people who don't fit into classically transsexual definitions.

I still think "a gender variant" was a rude thing to say.

I took the survey, and a lot of the questions seemed valid to me in general but were worded very strangely. I wasn't sure whether to answer the question I assumed they had meant, or the question that was actually on the page, which most of the time didn't make any sense, such as the one quoted by emily above.

"Age you began to live part(/full) time as a transgender/gender non-conforming person" makes no sense to me; I can make an educated guess that what they mean by this question is to do with the part of transition that involves "living full time" or presenting exclusively as your identified gender. But "live part time as a transgender/gender non-conforming person" doesn't mean that to me. Someone who is undergoing the "real life test" is actually probably not living as a transgender person, as publicly revealing transgender status would seem to invalidate the stated intent of the test period. I, on the other hand, don't "pass" most of the time, rarely have the guts to request appropriate pronouns from anyone less familiar than friends, and have no serious plans or intent to transition ; but I consider myself to be living full time as a gender non-conforming person because that is my identity, I am a trans and queer activist, and most of the people I interact with on an ongoing basis are aware of these facts.

Yet I did not think this is actually what the survey intended to ask by this question, and by answering "yes" I would be skewing their data and answering inauthentically from their point of view.

Also, they ask for the birth sex listed your original birth certificate, with either male or female as options. But they also have intersex as an identity option. Unfortunately I am not well-acquainted with the current medical practice of identifying intersexual infants, and I do not know whether an intersex person would always have one or the other on the birth certificate, or whether intersex activism has had any impact in that area.

@Lisa Harney

I think they were using "gender variant" as an adjective. I took the survey and that phrase was paired with "gender non-conforming" which is an adjective, and both phrases would be completed with "person." Other terms on the list could have been either adjectives or nouns (transsexual), some were clearly adjectives (androgynous), and some were clearly nouns (cross-dresser). I do agree that "a gender variant" is ungainly and rude in this context, but I think they were actually saying something different.