By Melody Griffiths
The real-life test, or RLT, as far as I understand it, is intended for a pre-operative transsexual to learn what it is like to live as a woman in society so they can better gauge if they are more comfortable that way, and learn to adapt into that new role. The general idea being that it is not a good idea to get body parts removed until one knows whether or not one can "make it" in their new gender.
This has pro's and con's. The pro side is, that hopefully when one is post-op, one has assimilated into society and is a "finished product" -- and no longer has to socially deal with being read as a transsexual. This gives us time to develop our own style of dress and deportment, and become the person we would have ended up being if we had been born that way anyhow.
The con's: It is quite irritating living in the role of your chosen gender, and still having the gender classification of your previous one. I'm sure a lot of us know about the whole washroom thing, the jail thing, the hospital thing, and all sorts of other things which can simply be downright annoying for a person. Simple things, like cashing a cheque, become a pain if your ID has gender identification on it, or getting carded for a pack of cigarettes or beer or what-have-you. It can be embarrassing and annoying.
The obvious solution would be to change the gender designation on ID and in records pre-operatively, which can be done in California, but this also provides problems in medical situations where injury occurs in areas that aren't taken into account because of the gender on ones ID, and where treatment for an illness or problem is gender specific.
This kind of argument has been used to keep genders permanently in their birth-sex in Britain -- something to which I don't agree with, but is in it's own way understandable. It could be a deadly situation, given the right circumstances -- but most of us are willing to take that kind of risk.
During RLT, a lot of other things do get done for a transsexual, such as electrolysis where one has to "flip back and forth" occasionally, and this could theoretically pose a problem if one was post-op -- but a lot of post-ops are still doing electrolysis anyhow.
Now, it has come to my notice recently that there are quite a few transsexuals with all sorts of reasons for wanting to skip the RLT period. I've heard them all -- from that they're old and that they shouldn't have to waste any more time, to that they want to kobyash their job into having instant female rights and privileges under the assumption that because they've had SRS everyone will magically think they're female, to people who think that the surgery will instantly make them the most passable person in the world.
From my point of view, wasting another year or two in order to be sure this is what one wants to do before one does something completely irreversible to an area as sensitive as their genitals seems to be a good idea. I mean, making mistakes in this sort of area kind of sucks. It also lets you mull over things and "cool down" from that original drive of gotta-get-there yesterday. This can prevent the creation of something called an M2F2M, or vice-versa, which is definitely not a fun situation to be in, I suppose.
As for one's employment, I suppose it would give you a legal right to use the washroom, but this doesn't mean that the people in said washroom are going to be very comfortable with the idea. My partner is able to use the women's washroom at her work but there are simply people who refuse to be in there when she is because they do not accept her as being female. I don't really think that what genitals she had would affect this any -- acceptance takes time, and a lot of people won't accept it instantly no matter what you do or what documentation you provide. The only way to fix that is a couple years of exposure -- hence RLT.
And as for the last bit -- I don't see how SRS is going to make one be perceived by society as anything different then you were before SRS, aside from the ID issues. When it comes to walking down the street, or going shopping in the mall, it really makes no difference to anyone. SRS has its conveniences, I admit, for M2F's it sure makes it a whole lot easier to get away with tight jeans or bikini's, but when it comes to the day-to-day goings on of ones life it probably doesn't make a whole lot of difference. I mean, what are you going to do, hike up your skirt or pull down your pants to everyone that questions your gender? "Hey look, I have a cunt!" Yeah, right.
There are pro's to SRS, but the question is if one can live without them for a year or two. I think one can. I feel that changing the gender designation on the ID cards themselves pre-operatively is probably a good idea, and would solve a few embarrassing situations, but that in the computer database it comes from it should remain it's original gender until post-op, just for situations where ones genitals are something which should be taken into consideration.
Also, apparently there is a movement to increase the RLT to two years. I have to do 2 years of RLT anyhow, to meet the requirements of my government funded SRS program, so it doesn't really matter much to me. But, all I can say is, with a great deal of retrospect, after a year of RLT I'm not quite ready yet. A year goes by so fast when you're doing something like this, and ones brain needs time to catch up. And it's probably a good idea to have your thoughts completely in order when you go under the knife...