When a trans person can announce their intent to change their body and get no more of a reaction than that of a person who intends to get a tattoo or a piercing, maybe then Dan Brown will have some ground to stand on with his "theory". Right now, to make an understatement, being visibly trans has a lot more social consequences than being tattooed, so he's just talking out of his ass.

Bil,
You didn't go where I thought you were going with this. To "Tattooed Leviticus Boy", one of the thugs who support the College Point, Queens attacker of Jack Price. His arm tattoo is a quote from Leviticus prohibiting gay sex. Some have said that in prison, one's tattoo indicates a killing you have committed for a particular reason, and that we should assume he killed someone who was gay. Certainly, getting a tattoo to proclaim one's history of particular hatred and violence would fit the above traditional definition. It's not just Maybelline. It's an externalization of one's orientation or conviction and a memorial to a particular significant act. In this case, it is the equivalent of a headstone.

Um, Bil, speaking as someone who was around and very much a part of the modern music scene in the 80's, Jane Child was not considered shocking, in fact she was considered relatively tame in comparison to the punk rockers who were wearing safety pins inserted through their flesh (there were no professional piercing shops like there are today, it was usually done by friends or by the person themselves), and singing about social and political issues that created far more controversy and interest than an MTV pop singer like Jane Child.

No one I knew really thought Jane Child's appearance was a big deal, especially not when compared to bands like the Sex Pistols, the Dead Kennedys, or even Patti Smith. In fact, I know many saw her as just a pop singer trying to capitalize on the popular fashion of the youth (read: music fans) of the time. The punk scene was where the real social and political action, attention and controversy was in the music scene of those days, not on MTV.

My initial reaction: transitioning didn't make me feel in control of my body, it underscored how little control I had.

I could change a lot about my appearance, my presentation, how people saw me, etc. But when it came to my body, I couldn't change a thing. I eventually (after lots of begging, pleading, and convincing) was able to get doctors to help my body go down a different path. Even then I wasn't in control. Puberty is rarely thought of as a time of order and control. It's no less chaotic the second time around. Things never changed as fast as I wanted, some things I wanted to change never did, some changes were things I didn't want, some things changed but not the way I wanted. My surgery was the same deal, great, but still much of the results were beyond my control.

I'm not complaining. I don't need to be in control. Personally, I feel good health is about working with your body toward something you're happy with rather than controlling it until it's perfect.

While its not what being transgender is about what the heck is wrong with owning our own bodies and having power over our own bodies?

I know at least a couple of Cis people whose body-modification definately related to reclaiming power over their bodies after various experiences of feellign powerless. Not just experiences of abuse at the hands of others but also of physical illness like cancer and fibromyalgia.

It's peoples own bodies. If their sane then whatever they want to do to their own bodies done with fully informed consent is Ethical and interfering with or objecting to others choosing it for themselves is Unethical.

Some people just can't handle the idea of people having free will over their own selves. It makes me wonder what massive issues they must have to be unable to handle the idea of people having free will and making choices different to their own.

Certainly there is a parallel in at least one form: the right of determination over our bodies. This also creates a similarity to the abortion debate, or (unfortunately) the extreme that's often flogged to discredit GID, Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID). GRS is not simply about altering our bodies, though, it's about identity and resolving that discrepancy in a way that is rational, balanced and in the best interest of the transsexual.

There is a culture in the kink community that looks at tattooing, stretching of various body parts, flesh hook suspension, corset training and, yes, gender alterations as a kind of body altering rite of passage. Google "modern primitives" or Fakir Musafar. It's interesting, but it's still a limited way of seeing things (in this case as kink), and overlooks the focal point of identity).

OTOH, the modern primitives concept probably shines some insight on how at least some earlier civilizations saw gender variance.

I think Brown is venturing into waters he knows not at all, entirely for sensationalism. Tattooing not about beauty?! In every society across time?! Even if there was a modicum of truth in that statement for one particular society or another, the generalization to all societies throughout time destroys it. As for categorizing body modification as an addiction then lumping transsexuality with it: ludicrous. (IMHO.)