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Feminism: Sex & gender discussions

If being trans is just like being gay....

92 replies

ThatsHowWeRowl · 12/07/2020 12:10

Then how come there is such a distinct pattern between the sex of the transitioner and the stage of life at which they 'come out'?

I have noticed this recently but it hasn't really properly registered until now.

Almost all of the very young 'trans kids' seem to be male children who 'want to be girls'. There seems to be a lot of focus on sparkly dresses and long hair.

There then seem to be a lot of females wanting to transition during puberty with a 'rapid onset gender dysphoria' being present in females who had previously been happy in their bodies.

Then we have the 'late transitioners' group who seem to be made up exclusively of males transitioning well into adulthood, often approaching middle age. There don't appear to be any female late transitioners at all, I'm sure a few exist but this group is certainly dominated by males.

Gay and lesbian people who come out also come out at varying stages of life, but there isn't this pattern of gay males and females coming out at different life stages.

It seems to me that socialisation is a huge factor here?

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NearlyGranny · 12/07/2020 12:22

Perhaps the older women transitioning FtoM just get on with it quietly and privately, though? The ones I know - only a few, I admit - are lovely people who would hate any fuss or fanfare, they just want to be delightful men (they were all delightful women) and get on with life unnoticed.

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SnuggyBuggy · 12/07/2020 12:28

It's obviously not as simple as being born in the wrong body when there are such obvious patterns in who transitions when. If it was genuinely inate you'd surely at least see similarities between the sexes.

I can't help think it's very convenient when MtF people wait until they have gotten what they wanted out of being a man before transition.

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ThatsHowWeRowl · 12/07/2020 12:28

It's obviously not as simple as being born in the wrong body when there are such obvious patterns in who transitions when. If it was genuinely inate you'd surely at least see similarities between the sexes.

Yes, exactly.

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MiladyRenata · 12/07/2020 15:39

As a relatively late transitioning MTF, I can offer my perspective on this.

My gender dysphoria didn't suddenly materialise in my 40s. It's been there from an early age. One of my earliest memories is being upset at my sister but not me being allowed to wear a dress to a family celebration.

I wanted to transition in early adulthood but, to be honest, I didn't have the guts. Transition is a lot more scary when you are in your early 20s and you don't have the secure job and financial resources older people often have. Also, the protections we now have from discrimination were absent at the time.

I would guess my experience is pretty typical.

So it isn't really surprising to see a large cohort of MTFs emerging when conditions are more favourable. It will be interesting to see if the profile changes as it becomes easier for younger people to transition.

I can't really speak for FTM transitioners, and it would be very interesting ti hear their perspective on this.

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midgebabe · 12/07/2020 15:54

If it was the same as being gay, the same proportion of people would be trans no matter what time or culture

If it was the same as being gay there would be no need for treatment

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OldCrone · 12/07/2020 16:31

My gender dysphoria didn't suddenly materialise in my 40s. It's been there from an early age. One of my earliest memories is being upset at my sister but not me being allowed to wear a dress to a family celebration.

Was your gender dysphoria based purely around trivial issues like clothes? If it was more acceptable for men and boys to wear dresses would you have still had gender dysphoria?

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ThatsHowWeRowl · 12/07/2020 16:40

My gender dysphoria didn't suddenly materialise in my 40s. It's been there from an early age. One of my earliest memories is being upset at my sister but not me being allowed to wear a dress to a family celebration.

What has wearing dresses got to do with gender dysphoria? Dresses can be for girls or boys. Do you think it may have been different if you had just been allowed to wear a dress like your sister?

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MiladyRenata · 12/07/2020 17:55

That's a really good question. I have always found things like gendered dress codes far from trivial and they certainly made my dysphoria worse. For example my school required boys to have short hair and I felt this was an infringement on my self expression; an unfair 'punishment' for being male, so to speak.

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OldCrone · 12/07/2020 18:25

The imposition of strictly gendered roles and presentation according to sex is one of the things that feminists fight against.

I had a similar experience to you at school MiladyRenata, since girls weren't allowed to wear trousers, and I was forced to wear a skirt. I felt this was an unfair punishment for being female.

I never thought there was something wrong with me because of this, though. I thought (and still do), that it is society which is wrong to force these gendered roles on everyone.

The point about clothes being 'trivial' is that this could all be changed if we decided as a society that the clothes it was acceptable for people to wear did not depend on our sex. Over the last 100 years or so we have gone from a society in which it was unacceptable for women to wear trousers to one in which trousers on women are as acceptable as they are on men. Why shouldn't we accept skirts and dresses on men in the same way?

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EdgeOfACoin · 13/07/2020 08:26

Almost all of the very young 'trans kids' seem to be male children who 'want to be girls'. There seems to be a lot of focus on sparkly dresses and long hair.

I have been thinking about this a lot, lately. I have heard numerous stories of young boys (under age 8) deciding that they are girls, with their parents' backing.

I have heard markedly less about girls under the age of 8 coming out as boys.

What sort of behaviour from girls would prompt their parents to say 'oh we knew she was a boy'? On this board we sonetimes talk about the risk of little girls who like playing with trains etc being 'transed' into boys, but I cannot personally think of any news story I have read where this has actually happened. Conversely, I have read several stories of little boys 'coming out' as girls because they like wearing dresses.

Is it because saying 'oh my daughter only ever wears jeans, hates dolls and wears her hair short, therefore she must be a boy' sounds vaguely ridiculous, whereas saying 'my son only ever wears dresses, hates cars and wants long hair, therefore he must be a girl' sounds more credible?

I remember watching a video once of a young mtf transitioner explain how they knew they were female. They provided a list of interests to show that they were a girl - dresses, shopping etc. They also liked the oh-so-feminine hobby of football - or soccer, as they put it. The child was American. Football is traditionally viewed as a girls' sport over there.

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borntobequiet · 13/07/2020 08:35

As someone said on another thread, being trans is not at all like being gay because you can be sexually attracted to either sex (or both) but you can’t become someone of the opposite sex.

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wagtailred · 13/07/2020 08:51

Hormones and surgeries in particular are more available now. And information that it exists as a concept must make a difference. I grew up in a remote village in a different time. I dont think trans existed as a concept -there weren't cbbc programmes suggesting it. There were tom boys who were fully expected to grow out of it and gay people whose physical sex acts were still illegal when i was born. So i can perfectly understand people of my age, only now feeling able to do something now its had mainstream information.
I am not happy with gender and its straight jacket so i cant really talk about hair lenghth, skirts and colours and hobbies without getting distressed by it.

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BaronessSlighterThanThou · 13/07/2020 09:32

The imposition of strictly gendered roles and presentation according to sex is one of the things that feminists fight against.

This. (Should be shouted from the rooftops.)

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Datun · 13/07/2020 09:37

What sort of behaviour from girls would prompt their parents to say 'oh we knew she was a boy'? On this board we sonetimes talk about the risk of little girls who like playing with trains etc being 'transed' into boys, but I cannot personally think of any news story I have read where this has actually happened. Conversely, I have read several stories of little boys 'coming out' as girls because they like wearing dresses.

Is it because saying 'oh my daughter only ever wears jeans, hates dolls and wears her hair short, therefore she must be a boy' sounds vaguely ridiculous, whereas saying 'my son only ever wears dresses, hates cars and wants long hair, therefore he must be a girl' sounds more credible?

Indeed.

And this is the underlying sexism.

Being a tomboy, climbing trees, riding bikes, is seen as fairly normal.

Whereas a boy adopting the gender stereotypes of a girl is seen as embarrassing, punching down, a bit weak.

Because women are lesser than. And emulating them means there something wrong with you.

When Susie Green, the head of mermaids, did her TEDTalk, she assumed that everyone listening felt the same as her. It struck a very strange note, particularly in feminists. Her attitude was my son wanted to play with dolls, so of course I did what any parent would do and take him to the doctor. She appeared to genuinely believe that toy choice could be 'wrong'.

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Loveinatimeofcovid · 13/07/2020 09:41

Well I mean it’s hardly surprising that a lot of people are transitioning across different age groups at the moment given is very much de rigour.

It’s also not surprising that young children who transition are most MTF given that young boys are still subjected to toxic masculinity in a way that young girls are not. I think many of those children are just victims of parents and communities that are very limiting to males.

Re puberty - this is a pretty obvious stage for the onset of dysmorphic conditions given the perfect storm of physical, intellectual/emotional and, social changes experienced during this time. One could make an analogy with EDs which often arise during puberty. I think that period in our life’s is more difficult than many care to acknowledge.

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Ineedacupofteadesperately · 13/07/2020 10:07

Agree with the comments above.

The other thing I think really stands out as different to gay rights is that gay men, lesbians and bisexual people all wanted to be 'out and proud' i.e. they didn't want to have to hide their sexuality. They wanted to be able to live their lives honestly.

But with trans ideology (of course not all transpeople agree with this) it's TWAW. I.e. they're not 'trans' and proud - they want us all to literally accept them as exactly the same as biological women (and I guess TMAM although, unsurprisingly to all feminists, we don't hear about this nearly as much).

There are of course a number of TW who will happily state I am biologically male but wish to present in a feminine way - i.e. they are 'trans' and proud. But we are in an environment where these trans people are called transphobic bigots too.

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RedToothBrush · 13/07/2020 10:51

It's not the same as being gay.

When you are gay you just fancy the same sex. It affects precisely no one else.

When you are trans it comes with an expectation that everyone else has to pander to it or they are somehow being nasty. This includes reinforcing homophobic and sexist tropes and beliefs that are harmful to all, but do particularly restrict the life opportunities of women. It hides the disadvantages that biology places on women and the abuses that result from that. The idea that identity is singular and individual is complete nonsense, when you are asking some to erase all reference to your past and to retrospectively expect them to rewrite their own history as parents or sibling's. Identity is individual but it also is formed in relational ways too (close family units being the primary example) and on a societal level. Telling Heterosexual women that their sexuality is no longer important and they must convert to identify as homosexual (even though they still have heterosexual sex) is abuse. Telling children that daddy is now mummy is removing the cornerstones of emotional stability and their sense of self. Telling your siblings that they are now the younger sister not the only one or telling your brother that they haven't got a younger brother anymore affects how they understand the world, see the world and relate to other people.

Every time I see 'but it's just like being gay' I get so pissed off because it comes from people who have no idea what they are talking about.

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Justhadathought · 13/07/2020 15:24

Her attitude was my son wanted to play with dolls, so of course I did what any parent would do and take him to the doctor. She appeared to genuinely believe that toy choice could be 'wrong'

Was it not the case that the child's father did not like him being 'girl;y'; playing with girl toys and so on?

I was thinking about this earlier on today, and could well imagine a father belittling his child and asking he whether he "was a really a girl?" Or suggesting that "only girls" played with certain types of toy - planting the seed that maybe this was the case - only for it to be watered and further nurtured by the recent advent of transgender ideology (that is an automatic given for many young people brought up with social media and so on).

I'd say that the vast majority of those young boys, if left to develop naturally, would turn out to be gay.

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Justhadathought · 13/07/2020 15:28

My gender dysphoria didn't suddenly materialise in my 40s. It's been there from an early age. One of my earliest memories is being upset at my sister but not me being allowed to wear a dress to a family celebration

Have you read Grayson Perry's account of his transvestitism? He not only wanted to wear female clothes ( from about the age of 4/5), but he wanted to be 'treated' like a girl too - which is why he came up with 'Claire' ( the 'identity' he used a lot in the earlier days of this celebrity.

For him there was also, always, a very definite sexual element to the dressing up too. A thrill. It's a really interesting read The portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl

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PermanentTemporary · 13/07/2020 15:37

A female relative who was at primary school around the millennium (trying to be reasonably vague) insisted they were a boy for years 5 and 6. Changed their name at school and home and refused to answer any other, presented as a boy in all ways she could manage. It stopped when she changed schools for year 7. She'd been bullied really badly. As an adult she's been diagnosed as autistic. The impact of bullying, parental and peer opinion and cultural environment on children, particularly the neurodivergent, is still underestimated i think.

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SapphosRock · 13/07/2020 19:02

What are you basing your reasoning on OP? Can you link to any studies?

In my experience gay people generally know they are gay any time from 11 or 12 onwards (ie puberty) and coming out is personal to each individual. Some people may not feel same sex attraction until 30s, 40s or later.

Trans people often know from a younger age but suppress it for longer as it's less socially acceptable to be trans than to be gay.

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ThatsHowWeRowl · 13/07/2020 19:17

What are you basing your reasoning on OP? Can you link to any studies?

No, I don't have any studies on this, I am basing this on stories I have seen about transgender people coming out vs stories I have seen about gay people coming out. And by 'stories' I mean in the media, on social media, in real life etc. It's not a scientific proven thing, it's an observation I have made: that there definitely seems to be a pattern of sex and stage of life of coming out that I have (admittedly very casually) observed in transgender people that I haven't (again admittedly very casually) seen in gay people. Why are all the trans kids (ie pre pubescent) that we hear about almost always boys who want to be girls? Why are all the late transitioners that we hear about men who want to be women? And why are a lot of the ROGD cases we hear about girls who want to be boys?

It's not scientific no, but it definitely seems to be an observable pattern.

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ThatsHowWeRowl · 13/07/2020 19:18

I mean teenage ROGD caes by the way.

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Bluebooby · 13/07/2020 19:27

Do any other groups of people systematically try to bring others down as part of bringing themselves up? Real question, probably badly worded but I hope it is understood.

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scotsheather · 13/07/2020 19:42

Maybe there will be a concerted effort to normalise males wearing skirts and dresses in the same vain as we forced our school to let us wear trousers. Better still they will be consigned to history both both sexes as the impractical and "pretty" garments they always have been like the gymslips and crinolines.

Back to the original question, self answering.

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