@Vector: My self-diminishing parts doesn't like insisting like this, but I would very much like your input on my thoughts like in this post and my previous one.
Mostly I'd have to say that at a glance, you seem right on.
Except for one thing: in the United States, at least, all psychological ailments are required to be coupled with dysphoria/impairment (IIRC, things aren't defined that way in other countries). Since being transgendered tends to cause one a great deal of psychological distress, not all of it simply due to social mores, it's still in the DSM-IV.
Okay, for example: How do you know so much about Greek history?
a. I'm a math student. Math and logic began in ancient Greece with the philosopher Thales, in 620BC. I am required to know a lot about this, including dates, circumstances, inventions.
b. I'm a rhetoric student. Rhetoric, as a field of study, really began in 380BC with Aristotle. I am required to know a lot about this.
c. I used to study a lot of French literature from around the 1940s--even did an independent study on the subject as a senior in high school. They had a renewal of interest in Greek Mythology around then, particularly instigated by people like Jean Anouilh, Jean-Paul Sartre, Camus, and Giraudoux. As such, it helps to have a certain amount of information about the history, and why the Trojan War might be compared to World War One.
d. I have a very good memory. Close to a week ago, I watched a TV program that mentioned Thespis. I still remember that the dude stepped out onto stage to deliver the first lines of the first play in Ancient Greece, 534BC, November 23rd. I've never read the Odyssey, but I know that Homer refers to Dawn as having "rosy-red fingers" over and over and over again due to a short conversation I had with a friend five years ago.
e. I read a lot of Greek myths as a child (a lot about monsters, too!). Though I don't remember them perfectly, as that was about 10-15 years ago, I also remember the encyclopedia entry I read on them quite clearly. That set the stage for learning all of this other stuff.
f. We did have to study this stuff in American high school and middle school, as well.
g. One time when I was lovesick, I wikipedia'd "love" and ended up trawling my way through the San Francisco gay bandanna code, love/sexual practices in Ancient Greece, and a whole bunch of other stuff. I think that at some point I ended up trapped in "color symbolism" for about an hour.
Gotta say, though, I still really don't know as much about it as I'd like to. Maybe I need to pick up Herodotus to polish up.
The techniques we have to transition between the sexes currently, is like the techniques for cancer treatment. You're certainly better off afterward, but there's that nagging feeling that you aren't -quiet- "cured", aren't quiet finished...
*shrug*
I'd say rather that it's just like anything else that involves successive approximations. There's a problem, we try to solve it, we get better at solving it as time goes on but that will not fully and completely erase the history of what has existed in times previous.
Doesn't mean the problem isn't fixed
enough.