After a man has had a sex change operation he legally becomes a woman and is able to marry as a woman etc. The birth certificate and passport are changed to recognise the new sex or perhaps the sex the person should have been born in the first place.

Mentioning chromosomes is correct but is surely nit picking and rather unkind to state once a man always a man on the strength of chomosomial existence. The presence of a Y chromosome does not define your sex, the introduction of the first sex tests in the Olympics defined a man as having a Y chromosome. It was quickly apparent that there are a number of fully fertile women in the population who possess a Y chromosome. They are rare - but they do exist. This is evidence that Rainboe's assertion that your sex is simply defined by having either XX (woman) or XY is wrong. Perhaps people need to consider the sex of individulas with XXY or even XYY or simply a single X - all of whom exist in our population.

I see no reason why a transgendered person cannot be a flight attendant providing they are capable of doing their job.

Many years ago I flew with a transexual flight attendant who was previously a man, I was unaware she had been a he until another flight attendant mentioned it.

Today's sex changes are much better and it is usually difficult to spot a transexual, we must be tolerant to mistakes that nature makes . I am glad we live in a time when surgeons can rectify these mistakes (neuro-surgeons cannot)

I fail to see why someone connected this issue with same-sex couples adopting children and endorcing their views with reference to a religion? Religion is a private matter and should be kept that way.

As long as someone works to the required standards of the airline, gender & sexual orientation should not be an issue.

The issue that I have on this is the medieval attitude to people who just have "different" personal lives.

Right or wrong, Rainboe's comments have at the very least made this thread into a truly interesting read, and at the most an educated and thought-provoking debate.

I work in a call-centre in Northern England, and there's a chap there who has just decided he wants to be a chappesse. He's sparked quite a bit of curiousity amongst us all, but not many welcoming reactions (or none that I've heard of anyway).

It'll be interesting to see how it pans out for him, and whether a call-centre will be as supportive as you cabin-crew seem to be.

You're so right, but...
 

I was supposed to be fired when I had my transition at the age of 35 in Brighton by AF. BUT, the doctor said that as long as I was able to do my job properly, there was no reason to fire me. But believe me, it's a real nightmare to me sometimes to fly with some very racists crews that do not see the difference between being a transgendered person, a transvestite, a gay or a lesbian woman...:confused: I do not have any problems with the passengers, but other crew are sometimes very mean...

Quote
Mac, I'm very disturbed by this: you are giving surgery to otherwise healthy bodies to make them something they are not? Please explain. I know some people don't have normally formed parts, but I know that most of this surgery is on normal bodies to make them something they are not, but what their perverted desire wants them to be? Is that a correct interpretation? We are not talking about simple things like breast augmentation- we are talking about changing nature?

Reply
I agree completely, But at the end of the day - That is THEIR choice if they want to go down that road??

It makes no direct difference in their quality of work, But obviously they will have to expect differing attitudes from differing people.

If they cannot take criticsm or rejection then they may have to go back to their own lifeplan board!!

There's no real answer to the problem??

If people cannot accept transexual or gay people and have to insult them by joking about them I seriously wonder if those people are really happy with their own sexuality or even gender. If one is happy with their own sexuality why do they have to make fun of others who have not chosen to be in a pridicament they are in? :D

Few are actually READING what Rainboe is writing. He doesn't need my support but..

The science is the science and what anyone might think about it changes nothing. Your opinions are just that..opinions and often ill founded ones at that.

We've all got to try to learn about and people and understand their problems, whatever they are, if we want to be decent human beings - unfortunately not that common a trait in this business..

So...support people who are facing problems and maybe try to understand a little of what they are going through. That's all that can be asked..

"Britannia had a FO a few years ago that decided that HE was SHE.
"She" went in to have a chat to the Chief Pilot, and said "In future
I'd like to be known as Christine." The Chief Flugger is supposed
to have replied "In future I think you'll be known as unemployed."
He was last heard of at Orion.(?)."

Actually she wanted to be known as Kristina (second name began with S). There was a spread in the Daily mail I seem to remember. Anyhow, she got fired with a handsome payout from Britannia and went to work for a small airline in Wales, which immediately put her on a sub-contract to Britannia, which caused great amusement in the crew-room.

phil

What the hell has gender (or transgender) got to do with anybody's fitness to fly or manage or fly in an aircraft.

Just read this thread and am obviously missing the point!

Since when did sex or gender matter?

I think it is pretty cool. As long as the transgendered person is courteous and clean and professional as a flight attendant it should be ok.

Hopefully he or she will be able to talk to passengers at some stage and describe his or her reasons for becoming a flight attendant and travelling th eworld - this will help promote awareness of diversity.

It matters not what the chromosome status of a transexual is, it will not be changed from XY (male) to XX (female) but the matter does not stop there. It is what sex the person feels is their's and which sex they feel comfortable in.

On the subject of chromosomes please be aware some people are XXY which is very unusual but they are not bi-sexed in any way, it is not these people who usually wish to transgender and one really should ask what sex these people are if some of the earlier postings on this thread are relevant. These XXY people of course know which sex they are and perfectly happy with their sex and are usually totally unaware they are niether XX or XY. Some pilots and flight attendants (+ anyone else) could well be XXY and will not know that. I do not know of anyone who has had reason to have a chromosome test.

It appears some people prefer to think that transgendered men/women are not really the new sex doctors have surgically made them. Legally they are of the new chosen sex and should be treated that way but yes a transgendered male to female will still have XY chomosome status but why should that bother anyone when some other people have XXY chromosomes?

Transgendered people should be supported and accepted in the occupations they had before, if they could do the job then they probably do it a lot better now because they are more in tune with themselves than they were before.

Let's forget the chromsome issues and focus instead on the person. Back in the 1970s I can remember flying with a steward who used to come to room parties dressed as a girl. He was a good steward and a nice person. I can remember him one evening explaining very lucidly the emotional difficulties of feeling female but trapped in a male body.

Several years later I climbed onto an aircraft leaving Heathrow and this attractive girl came up to me and said; "Hello, xxxx, do you remember me?" Of course, I didn't and then she told me who she had been.

I am glad to say that the company in its wisdom had decided to re-employ her after the operation. She was now a good stewardess, a good crew member and still a very nice person.

I have often thought of the enlightened manager who agreed to all this. I, also, hope that wherever she/he is she is happy and contented with her life.

Can I urge some who have written to PPRUNE to think a little more compassionately about the individual involved.

This is a guy my dd grew up with...for a while Peter Drouyn...now Westerly Windina

Surfer dude finds peace as a woman - Local News - Gold Coast, QLD, Australia

.....:eek::ok:

A man will be a man.
 

Yes, I agree with you, for most of my colleagues, I am the "steward who became an air-hostess". Surgery did it all, it's true, but inside of me I've always been a girl. Sex-change is not an illness, it's just a revange on a life you never wanted. I've had my transition 10 year ago now in Brighton and I was the first flight attendant in France to do so. I opened many opportunities to other persons -not only flight attendants- who felts the same about sex-change.:ok:I got married one year ago with a pilot ; I'll never change my mind about what I've done ! My husband is divorced, absolutly "straight" and never saw me before my transition. Of course he knows about my transition : and so what ? That does not make him a gay or a pervert ! He knows, I know, and it's our private life. Now I'm a flight attendant among others, and since I've my husband'name, life is quite easier. And you know what ? the most important thing in life is to do what YOU WANT,and no what other people would like you to do. Think about it...:D

People have done this successfully on both sides of the door;

Sarah's Story

All I can say to those who are dubious about this subject (and judging by this thread they appear to be in the minority) is that if you had known someone with GID you would probably not be so questioning.

Rainbowe, you do know that there are more possible chromosomal combinations than just XX and XY, don't you? Or perhaps you don't.

Akerosid,
I have flown with someone who's had a sex change in BA. This individual is one of the best crew members I have flown with professionally and one of the nicest person I have had the pleasure to work with. This is what matters most to me and many of us in BA.

Andrea,
All the best to you and your husband.:)

Since the procedure became a right, more than 1,000 people have had the surgery, hormone treatment and pyschotherapy required for a sex change operation. Something in the order of 80% of the operations have been male to female. The cost to the NHS over the last decade is something in the order of £10 million for the 1,000 or so transitions performed. In an appeal court verdict in 1999 , health authorities were required to assess the need for treatment for transexuals as though they were suffering from a disease rather than in need of cosmetic surgery. The health authority in the appeal claimed that it was entitled to take into account its own “scarce resources” and to refuse funding for the operations if it meant funding for serious illnesses, such as heart disease, cancer, kidney cases and Aids would suffer.
I don't suffer from gender identity dysphoria and I would want an extraordinary good reason before I had my testicles removed and my penis cut off even under a full anaesthetic. So while I, from an admittedly medically biased position, think that there are far greater priorities for a financially pressed NHS; I am very prepared to believe that there is much more than a cosmetic fetish at stake here for those who agonise over their particular problem.
As for flight crew, what possible difference could a little biological tweak make so long as the individual was competent and happy?

Gender Recognition Board
 

How is it nobody has reference the actual UK law ?

Gender recognition - Ministry of Justice

Better to get the job first, then change. Note no surgery is necessary to swap.

As long as it is recognised as basically a lifestyle choice, I have no problem with it.

This subject brings up some interesting situations. Though not involved with your industry (see my profile) we actually have 2 transgender employees where I work. To make it more complicated they were father(S) and son(L), which does raise some interesting questions.

Both have the same job titles as myself and both are still carrying out the same duties as before, which in the case of S means out of hours standby (our standby is from normal finishing time at 17:00 until 08:30 or all day Sat & Sun)

What was interesting was the practicalities when S began the process, the problem in the large office she was based in at the time was from female staff who, initially, were uncomfortable with "a bloke wearing a dress" using the female toilets.
I would add that our employer put no difficulties in their way.
The male staff were I would guess bemused.

Some years down the line they are both accepted for who they are and the jobs they do.

TG crew ? Yes, Please !
 

Hi – I’m new here. Be gentle.

I have been lurking and reading PPRuNe for a while, off and on.
I’m not a pilot, or CC, or any of the other many airline industry roles that keep me, and the plane I happen to sitting in, flying.

I’m just a regular SLF parcel – regular as in ordinary and regular as in frequent. So I read PPRuNe now and then, just keeping in touch, like. And it can be interesting to see what is going on in the heads of people on the other side of my airline ticket.

I thought I had to register and throw in my two’pennorth on this one.
There are other threads on here right now, relating to the BA dispute, Spanish ATCO, and other matters with lots of healthy debate - and sometimes a little mud-slinging maybe.

I have read those with interest, but not felt sufficiently stirred to add comment on those – in each thread, my own views have already been put by some posters (on both sides of any particular thread) and anyway as mostly the arguments are going round in circles now (‘scuse pun !) I haven’t felt the need to post. And, as SLF, I don’t have any particular technical or company insight on which to argue the minutiae.

But on this one ?
I have flown many miles, on many airlines (including Thai Air, by the way), and it has never occurred to me to wonder or be bothered about the sexuality, or previous gender, of the CC that I have met – or pilots that I haven’t. OK, sometimes I might have (rightly or wrongly !) unconsciously made an assumption about a male CC who appeared a bit camp – and I guess I might do the same about a CC in a skirt who seemed a bit – how shall we say – "masculine ?" And I guess there have been many more occasions when somebody has seemed so completely natural in their own skin or uniform – be that male or female – that nothing at all has registered, consciously or unconsciously.

But – do you know what ? If there are any transgender, either before or after, CC (or Pilots, or whatever) up there flying, then not only would I be comfortable in my ignorance of their sexuality or previous gender on their airplane – if did know about it I would be happy to be on their airplane !

[OK – I know we can be pedantic about what actually constitutes sex, sexuality and gender, but you know what I mean, so please let’s not argue on that one].

It seems to me, that given the amount of hassle and cr*p that these people would have had to go through all their lives – and I guess will still get from some "colleagues" after any change – well… then those people must be real tough cookies. And thus likely to be able to cope with more or less anything and look after me no matter what happens up there. And, furthermore, they are up there in the air because they love their job, and wanted to continue in the job, just so much that they were prepared to go through all that hassle and any bitchiness and sniping just in order to carry on flying and look after people like me.

That’s good enough for me – I’ll take that anyday.
Happy to fly with you Ma’am, [or Sir].

So, thinking about it now – as this thread had forced me to do – if my next flight attendant wears a skirt, is 6’4", 200lbs, with a seven o’clock shadow, and a dark brown voice to go with a namebadge saying "Lola" – I will recline my seat, sip my drink and be happy.

I know that I’m being looked after by someone who really wants to be there, doing that job, and has probably fought like hell to get there and stay there.
　
Phil


　

"Mac's statement in the 2nd para posting 15 beginning 'Essentially.....' REALLY needs some examining."

What I said was; "Essentially, the physical (somatic) and chromosomal gender is at odds with the mental gender." Since this is the fairly undeniable essence of the problem, I am somewhat at a loss to know how this can be examined further, REALLY or otherwise.

"I questioned the ethics of surgeons carrying out transgender operations given it is mostly a psychological condition."

It isn't "given" at all. As I stated, the evidence is that this is no more a psychological condition than homosexuality and it is certainly no more amenable to psychotherapy. Would you suggest that homosexuals should receive treatment in an attempt to convert them to heterosexuality? This has certainly been exhaustively attempted with a conspicuous lack of success (though not without inflicting much suffering).

The ethics of carrying out gender reassignment procedures can indeed be debated, but arguably are no more complex than breast enlargement or the use of analgesics for pain (the ethics of which were intensely debated by some when anaesthetics were introduced).

These sort of discussions are really only useful if the protagonists are willing to entertain viewpoints other than those with which they entered the debate rather than attempt to impose theirs on others. Your viewpoint is neither exceptional or novel and the small arguments that you make I have heard and considered many times, only to reject them on evidentiary grounds. You might care to consider testimony from those intimately concerned with the management of these unfortunate people and, as any reasonable person might do, modify your views in the direction of tolerance at least.


Mac

To give Mac some back up with this, I'm a psych nurse, both civvy and military and I also sat on a board of a Primary Care Trust that (amongst other things) looked at requests for gender re-assignment. It is NOT considered a mental illness or psychological problem.

The only normal input from a psychologist at any stage during this process is early on by a specialist psychologist or psychiatrist to check that the person is not suffering from a mental illness that would make them lack capacity to make this decision. The vast majority have great insight into their problems and have capacity.

It's also unlawful to reveal that someone is transgendered without their consent unless it is medically necessary to do so.

I'll never be sorry.
 

Yes, I was born a man. No, I'm no more a man. Come and check all the articles about me on Google. Never judge what you do not know.

Its actually not all that new in airline terms. There was a very famous steward in BOAC in the early 1970's who dressed as a woman whilst off duty downroute.

He decided he wished to become female and even in those less enlightened times he was given every assistance and support by BOAC (may have even become BA by then).

She then transferred to the Terminals and became one of the staff looking after children and taking them to their boarding gates. She was much liked by all and I think never suffered from any prejudice from colleagues or customers.

These days it should be no barrier to employment.

Forgive the banality of my next comment, but having worked with BA's transgendered (post operation), breast augmented individual, I can say one thing - She is stunningly beautiful ( regardless of whether she harbours a Y chromosome or not)

I say that as a bona fide heterosexual father, Rainboe. Get up to speed old boy! Regard rather than judge! It's so much more pleasing to exist on that level....

I too know of an aussie pilot who decided being male wasn't his thing. She ended up being victimised by a number of other pilots - ultimately resulting in her 'demotion' (for a short while) until the 'powers that be' backed off and realised the trouble they were in.

In reality - and I think it's the same almost anywhere in the UK/USA/AUS...

Making this personal choice should NOT impede your success when applying for the job.

Unfortunately, the personal connection you make with any recruiter (who, granted, is human too) - is more often than not, distorted by the applicants race, physical appearance, sexual orientation, and GENDER.

While I admit, recruiters are human too (so i'm told anyway) - they are likely to assess you not just by what the airline dictates, but their own personal experiences and education. (It's not right - but there it is!).

By the law, you should not be treated differently - that said, it's not hard for the recruiter to lie, and say that you didn't get the job because of your 'attitude' or the 'way you answered a question'...

That's the reality - unfortunately - and until things improve (and you can force the improvement if you've got the cash and the time to challenge) - thats the way it is.

For what it's worth, a bunch of girls I work with decided they should challenge on the grounds of ageism - and they won! It's a shame they had to - but even they admit justice is not free.

vctenderness and Right Engine

I think we know the same person (see my post last year). I am so glad to know she is doing well.

I'm just flabbergasted to read Rainboe's posts on here. Please remember - most of us on the flightdeck are not that bigoted.
How someone like that gets a job in a multi-crew environment is just beyond me...

Couldn't agree more.

As commanders we lead a team of individuals who've proven they are qualified for the job. It is our duty to safeguard the integrity of the team and look out for every single crew member. Regardless of sex, race, colour, sexual preferences or religious views.

Rainboe is entitled to his opinion. And so are people who have problems with people who change their gender. You are free to argue your point of view on a forum. But once on duty you must put your personal views aside.

People who are unable to do that should never be put in a commanding position. For the ability to unify, motivate, encourage are traits that are vital to have in order to perform as a leader.