FTM transition - can I just rant/discuss?!

Transhobbit thanks for coming on here to give a 1st person perspective. And interesting to hear from a late transitioning transman. My impression (correct me if I'm wrong) is that late transitioning is less common among transmen than it is among transwomen. Glad we both agree about the fact that the sudden rise in the number of teens identifying as transmen is alarming.

You mention autoandrophilia - I hadn't heard that mentioned before. I can believe it - because I'm quite involved in fanfiction - which to some extent has overlaps with LARP-ing, and there's a hell of a lot or women read and write erotic male-male fanfiction. Now some of those are straightforwardly straight women who are the equivalent of the bloke who likes to watch "lipstick lesbians get it on" (Bowdlerised version of the title in one of Irvine Welsh's books) - but I'm sure there are also women who're getting off on imagining themselves as men having gay sex. However, do you think it would involve as much deliberate boundary crossing as autogynophilia does? (I understand as a dysphoric transman, you may not have an answer to this, and it may be every bit as alien to you as it is to me.)

It must be terrible to be the mother of a trans child, I'm so sorry to hear what you are going through.
The mother of the person I spoke about has had a ten year long slide to the start of her child's medical transition. Initially her position was 'well its her body her choice' (first breast reduction) which I tried to get on board with. A few years later we talked about our anger and feelings of rejection when the trans daughter decided she preferred the male gender. It seems a unique and affirming experience for the trans person's father. I don't know how it's going for the mother now but I suppose 'its a woman's right to choose' is still the position. I'm afraid to see any of them as I don't think I can refer to someone who I've known is a female since she was one day old as a man, though I've tried. I especially don't like being bossed around. And I think it's illegal not to use preferred pronouns there. ( I do use the new name)
I don't know how or if I want to do my bit to keep my family together as it means lying. Or I could just stay away and hope the wind will change and s/he will detransition which thankfully many tifs do.
I can't shake the feeling that s/he is just bored and this takes the least real effort. Perhaps exporting all the sadness onto everyone else relieves his/her own pressure and brings the attention s/he craves. I don't accept this as dysphoria but I do understand not accepting gender roles. I guess easiest would be to go along with the whole pretense, forget about my anti-lie inhibitions, speak someone else's truth for a change, get with the alternative facts, learn how to act. I know this is all about me so perhaps I should go over to the ethics board as it's a moral question.
Anyway it's all got me ready to rant at the drop of a hat. I go around and round and round the ftm transition implications endlessly.

I worry that we are indeed oversimplifying, MotherofTransboy -- all those of us saying that we would have been pushed down the trans road when we were gender-nonconforming kids and teens.

I have child with autism. I get a lot of people telling me that 'boys are all a bit like that' and 'everyone is on the spectrum' and 'I don't know why these things all need a name these days'. But no, their children are not 'a bit autistic', and mine is not 'a quirky normal child', and I suspect that there may be a similar gulf between a non-conforming teenage girl and one who feels she is actually a boy.

re- 'surgery is the treatment for dysphoria'
maybe interesting to compare with the practise of surgically removing the clitoris of a woman who was considered overly sexual, (or 'mad')which was practised, I believe, in victorian times
link
in other words, FGM.

Mental health underfunding is a huge part of this.

And it doesn't help this, or the overall funding difficulties of the NHS, that instead money has to be spent on providing hormones, top surgery etc. Meaning the wait for any NHS treatment is longer, so off people go to procure hormones privately, or start crowdfunders for their surgery. Vicious circle.

@Geronimoleapinglizards if only it were that simple...

I don't think it's minor at all, because YouTube is the route that took them there

My heart goes out to anyone whose child wants to transition. It must be agonising. I think if I was in that position I would sit and encourage my child to watch You Tube videos of women who've detransitioned and who are experiencing fallout from their actions. There are some very eloquent people speaking about it on there. It's a minor thing but it might help

actually finding a gay man to be your partner must be pretty unlikely

It does, but it happens. The relationship I know could be described a straight man and woman, but they describe themselves as a gay couple. I'm not sure if I inwardly agree with that, but outwardly I go along with it

Perhaps someone else can confirm, but it is my understanding that testosterone is only licensed for use as HRT for males in the UK, and it is being used off-label on girls just as much as the puberty blockers Lupron. So again, we have no understanding of the long-term effects on females.

As far as I'm aware trans men are prescribed testosterone when they are over 18 free on the NHS. Not sure whether 'bottom' surgery is free on the NHS but top surgery is.

It's just not enough though, it would need to be much more intensive. We only have had monthly appoitments for about a year, and now it's every two months. I'm a single mother and I can't afford private counselling unfortunately.

This is the situation my family member is in. He is taking testosterone and having surgery in the Summer (top surgery) I haven't asked what happens after that.

Him and his friends seem to be relying on their peers and the internet for counselling / advice, as there is very little provision for counselling that's free and impartial (that's very important).

Mental health underfunding is a huge part of this. They are both students hoping to go into mental health when qualified so I'm hoping there will be jobs for them both at the end of it.

The thread has moved on since I went looking for the Buck Angel article, sorry if this information was a bit blunt, esp for Motheroftransboy.

Perhaps someone else can confirm, but it is my understanding that testosterone is only licensed for use as HRT for males in the UK, and it is being used off-label on girls just as much as the puberty blockers Lupron. So again, we have no understanding of the long-term effects on females.

@AngryAttackKittens
This is the blog post by Buck Angel that you were looking for:
buckangel.tumblr.com/post/4048572475/my-his-tirectomy

Her vagina and cervix had atrophied, in fact the cervix had fused closed not allowing the exit of any material from her uterus.

I also saved this tweet from Brie Jonty which links to a relevant study stating that vaginal atrophy can occur from just 3 months on testosterone.
twitter.com/BJontry/status/930587548568522752

I think that what is happening to some young women/girls is so so so sad. What sort of a society have we acquiesced to, for this to happen? All that "post-feminist" ladette stuff in the 90s? All the pink (however ironically)?

It's just so horrible now, and worse than when I was a teenager in the1970s.

I have a young relative whom I think is close to this sort of stuff, and I'm worried; and a sister who would have had pressure to transition were she 14 nowadays. As t was in the 70s, she could just be a tomboy, do everything boys did, wear boys' clothes, have short hair, and be fine.

In the second wave, there were minimal fee or free women's therapy centres set up in the US and the UK.

It would be fantastic if the gender critical movement could (i) find a way for therapists to donate their time to young people who could not otherwise access services (ii) set up a 'go fund me' equivalent (I believe that GFM takes a significant portion of the donations) to fund young people to attend therapy with therapists who were willing to explore other avenues than merely transition (although I understand that it is difficult to do anything other than affirm desires to transition these days).

I mean, having a penis is a stable, observable phenomenon. Wearing a dress is a day to day choice. So surely it makes sense to refer to the stable phenomenon rather than the choice of clothes? (Again aware I'm preaching to the choir!)

Do girls no longer call themselves "tomboys"? That was certainly, for many years, a socially acceptable or understood way to escape the limitations and trappings of femininity.

I was a tomboy, and that gave me time to work through all sorts of very negative and troubling feelings about my female body and the roles imposed on me by society.

I don't feel you're mansplaining - don't worry!

I do think you have a point about the social roles, but (and I know I'm preaching to the choir here) those roles are pretty much entirely fictional anyway - what is it about them that makes people give them such significance?

LeCroissant I'm curious about what it is about being transgender that causes so many people to just accept that the words man and woman are meaningless and that you can transform into an entirely different body structure with no ill effects. It's barmy, for want of a better term.

I think it's because of how people classify others into "female" and "male", both on an internal, personal level and at a societal level.

Compare it to your example of people who desperately feel a limb doesn't belong to them, or believe they are dead. It's obviously not true, because of how we classify people as "needs a limb amputated" or "dead". People with four healthy limbs who are breathing and talking are clearly not in either of those categories.

However, with female/male it's different. Not at birth, when biological sex is the determinant, but later. People and society see gender roles as extremely important. So faced with a conflict in classifying someone as female/male, the thought process might be something like "Nice dress - check, makeup - check, feminine mannerisms - check, feminine interests - check, fancies men - check (though heteronormative), penis - check.... hmmm on balance more female". Essentially, gender roles are seen as so much a part of a woman or man that people are quite ready to believe the body might be wrong if these conflict.

[Apologies... I feel like I'm mansplaining... even though I'm a woman...]

It's bizarre that the accepted treatment for dysphoria is transition when physical treatments for other 'feelings' would be unacceptable or only done after careful consideration. For example, it's possible to make someone who's really unhappy with their height taller by doing a leg-lengthening procedure, but it's very hard to get it done because of the pain and danger of infection involved. Even though it's a relatively simple procedure and is effective it is accepted generally that a person needs to come to terms with their height rather than go through potentially dangerous physical treatments.

There are plenty of situations where people are convinced about something that patently isn't true - with cotard sydrome for example a person believes they're already dead or don't exist. They are utterly convinced of this but no one says 'yes, let's bury you then,' the response is to try to get them to understand the truth, which is that they're alive (obviously).

I'm curious about what it is about being transgender that causes so many people to just accept that the words man and woman are meaningless and that you can transform into an entirely different body structure with no ill effects. It's barmy, for want of a better term.

Thanks @LangCleg, I'll have a look at this

@LeCroissant You are completely right about this, and this is something I did mention to my son. His response is that the treatment for gender dysphoria is transition. I have told him I think it is barbaric, and akin to some of the "treatments" that were used to treat mental illnesses in the past. To an extent he does agree with me and wishes he wasn't dysphoric and that there were other ways to treat dysphoria. He also is adamant that gender dysphoria is a mental illness, contrary to the current orthodoxy.

He's a very intelligent boy and thinks about stuff a lot so we are able to discuss these things. He does take in some of what I say and I am hopeful that he might decide against transitioning before it's too late.

Motheroftransboy
This is what worries me about a) the destruction fo the NHS and b) when transitioning is no longer a mental health issue.

Children are entitled to free medical care and you would assume that includes counselling for dysphoria.