I'm working on a study about transexual people (University Psychology) and if it's ok I would like to ask some questions.

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ADee

Member
Oct 25, 2017
838
Sweden
First of all thank you everyone who takes the time to read this and even more thank you to those who respond.
Like I said in the title, our professor asked us what we would like to focus on as our first project and I decided to pick how transexual people feel how they are regarded across the globe, is there any place in the world they feel like they belong no matter who they are and if so why do they think so?
I should also tell you all that I decided to focus on this just because I am ignorant about this topic and I have never known anyone who felt they were misgendered when growing up. I've known people who have done a sex change after I lost contact with them but that's all.
So please tell me if I ask something offensive, I hope you do understand is all in good faith.
To make it easy for everyone I'll just ask 13 questions and you can just write down the answers, if you feel like you instead want to write down everything as an essay then please do so. Please skip questions you don't want to answer.
I am gonna focus on people who are transexual, but would love if transgendered people could answer some questions too, it would help me to get a better perspective.

1. What sex were you born as?
2. At what age did you have the first thoughts that you were not the sex the society had categorized you as?
3. Did you ever think your thoughts were wrong? And if so how did you deal with them?
4. At what age did you accept you for whom you were?
5. How long did it take until you told your friends/family?
6. How did they react?
7. How did the society react?
8. Are you thinking about a sex change/When did you change your sex (at what age)?
9. If you have changed your sex, then were people around you supportive or dismissive?
10. What sex are you attracted to? Can you feel sexually attracted to people who are transgendered?
11. Where are you from? (If naming a country is too specific then please name a continent instead.)
12. Do you think the country you live in is moving in the right direction to understand and accept you for whom you are?
13. What do you think would be the most important step for a gouvernment to take to help the population to understand the problems that so many people are facing?

1.1 Could I use the answers you have given in the report? (y/n)
1.2 Do you want your username to be mentioned?

Is there anything you would like to add?


Thank you to everyone who have answered the questions, like I said I am very ignorant about the subject so please let me know if any of those questions were inappropriate. The course will start in September but I wanted to ask these questions before it so I have a foot to stand on when I start the research.
The research will be in Swedish, but I can try to translate it to English if there is any interest in reading it.

And if these type of questions are not allowed, then please lock this thread mods.
 

CrazyAndy

Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
3,221
Conducting a survey via a message board just seems strange to me. There are websites to create surveys.
 
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ADee

ADee

Member
Oct 25, 2017
838
Sweden
Conducting a survey via a message board just seems strange to me. There are websites to create surveys.
Maybe but I wanted to post it like this to invite a discussion and hopefully make it more personal.

Yeah this smells fishy.

You're doing a study with no control group or verification process?
Like I said the course haven't started yet so right now I have nothing except my own research. I'm just really looking forward to this and I couldn't wait to start as soon as possible with a discussion about it.
 

SilentRob

Member
Oct 26, 2017
2,320
Like I said the course haven't started yet so right now I have nothing except my own research. I'm just really looking forward to this and I couldn't wait to start as soon as possible with a discussion about it.
Honestly, then you're not working on a study, you're just asking tone-deaf questions that lack any kind of knowledge base.

Part of working and asking in good faith is knowing the sensitivity of a subject and this thread shows you severely lacking in that department. Apart from that, the questions are quite unfocused and just run the gambit of "obvious things one would ask a transgender person", which seems obvious because, well, you didn't even start your course yet and have no idea what you are actually going to be working on.

My advice would be: Take a step back, research and if the time ever comes where you are really, actually supposed to be working on a study, then people will surely be happy to help you in a more controled and...well.scientific and helpful environment.
 
Feb 9, 2019
23
Okay so this doesn't start until September right so I'm gonna be a wee bit harsh sorry.

Your first step should be researching to make sure you know what terms are appropriate to use and the correct phrasing, this is a sensitive topic for a lot of people, and if you don't put the effort in making sure that you use the best terminology you can. Without getting into specifics your terminology is muddled and shows that you aren't too confident in what words are appropriate.

You use a number of terms that are outdated "transgender/transsexual" which is quite outdated, and "transgendered" which is also frowned upon, (the correct term being "a trans person" or simply transgender)

You seem to be casting the widest net possible and using as many terms as possible in order to not offend, but in the process you demonstrate that your background knowledge isn't quite enough yet.

I understand there may be a language barrier but it's still important that you make sure you are doing this in a way that makes your subjects comfortable.

Also if this is for uni check that you don't need ethics approval from your department to do this, especially on a public message board. If this is for a full study this isn't the place to look you've already biased your whole thing.

Even then for conversation I'd focus on platforms like Reddit where alt accounts are allowed and encouraged and there's a bigger sense of anonymity. Or get an anonymous Google survey going and add a section where people can choose to put in contact details if they would like follow up questions.

Like I don't want to be too mean because you seem to be genuinely interested and just taking the first steps into learning about this admittedly confusing at first topic a bit too quickly but you aren't gonna get many responses at the moment.
 

Flousn

Member
Jan 16, 2018
567
Yeah, take a step back and do some research. Not only about the topic itself but also about study designs and how to ask questions.
Your questions right now are unfocused and seem to be mostly stuff you personally find interesting.
I don't want to come off as insensitive. I am working on my PhD in the field of immigration & refugee integration so I know how hard it can be to ask questions without offending people in a rather sensitive environment. But that is much easier when your questions are obviously informed by objective research beforehand and at least use the correct wordings.
Also, you won't loose any time by first doing some research, as the answers you will get here with your questions simply won't make for a good evaluation so you will probably have to do it all over again nevertheless or spend a lot of time retroactively working on your study design.
Again, I hope you don't take offense. This would be also what I would tell my own students.
(I'm on mobile right now so it's not the deepest response, sry for that)
 
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ADee

ADee

Member
Oct 25, 2017
838
Sweden
You all are correct, I got a bit too excited about this. I will take a step back and do some serious study before jumping right to square six
 

DeusOcha

Member
Oct 25, 2017
755
SoCal, US
Might want to update your vernacular. As far as I'm aware transgendered folk dont take too kindly to 'transexual', pretty sure it's not a sexual orientation either as the term implies.
 

Patsy

Member
Jun 7, 2019
28
Germany
If you want to do a study like this, maybe you should rethink this if you call trans people "transgendered" and "transsexual" which is considered a slur by many. Being trans isn't a sexual orientation like being heterosexual/homosexual/bisexual/pansexual so "transsexual" really isn't the word you want to use.

You said you're doing it in Swedish, so it's a bit understandable that you might not know the difference due to English not being your native language. Here in Germany there's a fuckton of people who use "transsexuell" instead of "transgender" because we have no proper translation for "transgender" in German and it's horrible, but I blame the nonexistent education irt LGBT issues on this. So I understand you just might not know the difference between them, but that's what research is for. While you can find lots of articles that state people are "transsexual" once they transitioned, nowadays most still prefer to use "transgender" and really don't like the term "transsexual" & just use pre-op/post-op if they're someone who wants to transition with surgery (not everyone wants to do so).

I don't know how big the trans community is here on ERA, but it's fairly big on both Twitter & Reddit (r/asktransgender & r/transeducate might be good places for you to look at?), so you might want to try your luck there and get help from actual trans people. To be honest, it feels weird to me that you want to do a study on a topic you're ignorant about as you said so yourself, but you do you.
 

War Peaceman

Member
Oct 28, 2017
746
You shouldn't do surveys without receiving ethical approval. This is especially important with topics like this which detail highly personal and potentially traumatic events/circumstances.

There is no way in hell a message board is the place to conduct this. Maybe to distribute the survey, but only through another platform (BOS, Surveymonkey, etc - your University will have a subscription to a platform).
 

Mist

Love & Respect
Administrator
Oct 25, 2017
2,332
You need to seek permission from staff before creating academic survey threads. Please contact Pau if you have any further questions.
 
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