Where are all the middle aged women who should be transitioning

I also think it's interesting how much is tied into clothes. Much like teen tribes always have.

Non binary seems, in some cases, to hint at a kid of superiority in the way the grunge did: we're above such things as fashion/ the crowd.

And yet, there appears to be a non binary uniform that isn't actually non binary. Non binary biological girls tend to be short hair/trousers/ no makeup. Much like grunge me at 14. Non binary biological males tend to have longer hair, wear nail varnish and eyeliner. Very much like the lads I knew in my teens. And this is why, even though I try to get it, I feel like I do when my own teenager explains what life was like in the 90s.

Yes, this movement is definitely a reflection of how increasingly narcissistic society is becoming.

I think also about how medicalised having a social dilemma has become. Some people do make money off the back of all this, unfortunately. The hard sell tells people that have a problem that there is a (money making) solution to. But before, wearing what you wanted, following a career you were good at, having hobbies you enjoyed did not need to be gendered - yes, there were still stereotypes but it was ok to break them. And it was ok not to follow the herd. In fact to some degree rebellion and originality were celebrated not medicalised.

Yes - and I remember the 80’s, when everyone could be as feminine or masculine as they liked, and the boys wore makeup and styled their hair to within an inch of its life, just as much as the girls. Good times.

@Kennykenkencat
Totally agree that society has gone backwards in this regard since the 70s/80s.

Or it could be because life was fking hard and you just didn’t have time to think about what gender you wanted to be, what box you wanted to put yourself in.

Yes, this movement is definitely a reflection of how increasingly narcissistic society is becoming.

I am slightly older than a middle aged woman who has been told I just haven’t realised that I am trans because I do a “man’s” job, I drive a “man’s” vehicle and I dress in “men’s” clothing.

I can assure you that I am all woman and have the Caesarian scars to prove it.

I think the difference is that when I left school we were told we could do anything we liked. This became a reality a few years. later.

Then with the advent of trying to get as many people into university and the mantra that without a degree you will just end up in a minimum wage job, opportunities to do anything was gone.

I wonder if this has something to do with the differences

We seem to have gone backwards.
Even when I left school in the 70s you could dress what ever way you wanted and not be told that there was something wrong with you that needed medical intervention.

Now if you don’t dress a certain way, you don’t conform with a narrow version of what your sex is then you are trans.

Something has gone very very wrong.

Or it could be because life was f**king hard and you just didn’t have time to think about what gender you wanted to be, what box you wanted to put yourself in.

You were just you and what you had between your legs didn’t dictate your life.

And I fully expect that last post will shortly be deleted

Something that Stella said - adolescent girls driving the huge rise in wanting to transition

and also the growing rise in those wanting to detransion. 24000 on detrans Reddit now, I think.

You can't change sex anyway. Transition is superficial/cosmetic.

It surprises me not one little bit that a few of our regular TRA posters know “loads” of middle aged women transitioning . It doesn’t actually surprise me to know that they exist.

What would surprise me is if someone could present data of new referrals to adult gender clinics showing a huge rise in much older women, in line with the same rise in teenage girls. Because if someone could demonstrate that it would back up the argument that these older women now have the confidence in society to transition that wasn’t there when they were teenagers.

Funnily enough, the adult gender clinics seem to be getting loads of referrals for women in their 20s, not 40+.

@Isthatthebestyoucando Great link for Stella O'Malley - shame she was limited to just the 15mins - she has so much knowledge and balance to share. Hope she's contributing to the UK consideration

Agree with your points redjellybean. Skaters, goths, grunge, metal, ravers, indie kids, those kids with the furry stuff (crasher?) etc - boys and girls within each tribe were very similarly dressed to each other. Loads of boys with long hair and /or eye makeup and loads of "androgynous" girls.

What I find so creepy about the current situation is that although teens into gender ideology may well be rebelling against their logically minded parents, they're really not rebelling against the "system". Gender ideology is a consumer dream (the more identities, the more products to sell) and having lots of people becoming life long patients is awesome for big pharma. Not to mention the clever trick in turning the very women with the means to protest (the cultural capital of youth plus no caring responsibilities for kids or elders) into agents of the patriarchy, intent on undoing the rights they take for granted.

We have an actual biological transformation into menopause. Women are amazing!

nolongersurprised: Why are so many girls wanting to take exogenous androgens and have their breasts/uteruses/ovaries removed?

This exactly.

Imagine if men could get pregnant, we'd never hear the end of it. The experience of pregnancy took me by surprise, it was an absolute priviledge and a bit of a trip. I honestly felt sorry for men because they could definitely never experience it, I said this often in my late pregnancy and I meant it.

If I were a trans man, I'd bloody well keep my reproductive organs.

This is digressing from the topic.

I was also thinking maybe middle aged butch lesbians have settled into friendship groups and supportive communities of other butch lesbians and are more surrounded by their tribe / comfortable with themselves than lone middle-aged transitioning men.

Agree with poster above: Boy George et al - nobody batted an eyelid. Nobody talked about “gender fluidity” but the word “androgynous” was used at times.

A man in make up didn’t claim to be a woman.

Because the internet didn’t exist in the 1980s. People didn’t talk about gender but sexuality. People “came out” as gay. The word “trans” didn’t exist. Nobody “came out as trans”.

I repeat: the internet didn’t exist. Kids grew up doing a multiple of activities but not staring at screens watching hours of fellow teens’ musings about their “identity”.

I wonder if the fact that when we were teens there was more gender neutrality or gender ambiguity amongst popular culture figures.
I recently watched some old top of the pops with my teenager, and we commented about figures like Alison moyet in her huge shapeless clothes, and Annie lennox with her very short hair and boy George.... There was few female popstsrs dressed in just underwear, infact even the very feminine ones were dressed in real clothes.
We didht equate being female with the image girls and boys do now... As a pp said.. Big hair, no pybic hair, plumped lips, tiny clothing.
It all seemed much more generically accepting back then.
Less defined and labelled.
So your tribe was easier to identify with, and how you looked was not linked to your gender.
I would definitely have been encouraged to transition as a child and teen, only used the male shortening of my name, only wore my brothers cast offs, rode a boys bike, had shirt hair, liked climbing trees.. Thought I was George from the famous five... No one told me it was because I was really a boy in a girls body... Because I wasn't. I just like that "tribe"

I think we have to factor in the normalisation of cosmetic surgery over the past couple of decades.
Girls grow up now in an age of surgical procedures being as accessible as a new haircut.

Don't like something? Not a problem. Cut it off, plump it up, shove some silicon in it.
Girls getting boob jobs for their 18th birthday. Girls getting breasts removed.
Two sides of the same coin. It's girls being taught to hate themselves. Hate their bodies.
And it's women being exploited by a despicable surgical industry that has no moral decency and trades on misery.

Loads of women say.

Have said for years.

That it's obvious why binders are appealing to girls the years breasts start to be noticeable.

That girls have for years tried to disguise developing bodies one way or another. For various reasons ALL related to male gaze.

That it's shit coming to terms with all the things that change in how you are thought of, judged, viewed by whole society.

Dodge male gaze, get rid of breasts, no leering, navigating narrow line between looking 'nice' fitting in etc and .. asking for it.

I mean so much and it's bollocks.

Who wouldn't want to be able to go about in shorts and zero judgement, have more freedom without constant subtle reminders you're at risk, not have your appearance commented on constantly. Pretty, too thin/bit chubby... Skirt too short, you'd look lovely with hair styled/longer/bit of makeup. Why do you always cover up/that's too revealing...

Just play games, do hobbies, wear comfy clothes, not assessed as sex object, ... Etc.

Loads and loads of women know exactly why happening.

Of course we're non entities. Obviously wouldn't know anything about being a girl ..

Humph. Whole thing male centred, male gaze, misognynist shitshow.

CheeseMmmm
Not sure if you're commenting on my post. If so, I'd just say I don't know these people very well in real life. But I have noticed a physical, if subtle change in some of the women I took to be lesbians, so maybe they are taking medication, I don't know. I think if you paused, you would read them as women (as their build is not quite male) but at a glance, if you didn't know them you might see male. I'm not pulling this out of thin air.
Somehow I doubt this goes in hand with them changing their friends or social demographic. I'm straight but have quite a few lesbian friends and I get the impression that locally it's a community that know each other pretty well and is quite trans inclusive.

I think one of the reasons teenage ftm transitioners worry me, is that I might have been one of them if I was growing up now.
I was the archetypal tomboy, was one of the boys growing up, I often struggled to fit in and really wanted a tribe
. Even now I can count on one hand how many times I have worn a dress and sometimes still wear mens clothes. But I'm happily female, would never consider myself male and certainly don't want to be.

@IcakethereforeIam Excellent point. It's almost as though ROGD is a highly valid phenomenon.

Just read again and notice I think two posters know women middle aged + who they have said-

No hormones or anything
One, maybe both can't remember. Masculine haircut. Masculine clothes. Change name. (To like. Joe, Sam etc or John Dave. Having said that, I've met loads women/girls who had nicknames Dave bill etc).

They pass pretty well? As male? With no medical interventions hormones etc?

Just being called Geoffrey, male gendered clothes and a haircut? IE apart from name (could be taken as nickname), have hair clothes not going to be totally definitely not any woman would have?

People think they men? Really?

What about breasts, height, hips, voice, hands etc?

A woman in blokey clothes with short hair doesn't read as a man. Really.

If they did, butch lesbians wouldn't get shit from men would they. Also would struggle to get into lesbian bars, or find a gay woman to go out with them. Because they'd say of piss off you're a bloke.

Are you sure it's not being taken as male, but simply men have zero interest in what women menopause zone or over look like. And everyone not fussed?

Have they been invited /dragged along to older men stuff for the lads?

Beers and footy on TV?
Pub and bitching about wives/ bad jokes/ have you seen the new barmaid etc?
Watsapp group of blokes only?
How reacted with just men at coffee machine and blokey banter?
Pub toilet etiquette? Going in cubicle is seen as a bit suss with lot of men. Unless sit in there for at least 25 mins so they think having shit (v much avoided men prefer home turf for that generally).
Etc etc.

Passing as man? Unlikely. More likely. No one really cares tbh.