"Who was a gay man"

But we all know that there are different 'types' of transitioners.

'Types.' Yes. Observably, there are groupings. I don't know if I believe the observability is in itself significant. Some studies and theories would say yes, some no. Like everyone else, I have personal feelings and prejudices about what makes sense to me and what does not.

And children who would have otherwise grown up to be gay seem to be recognised as a large chunk of these?

Around the gay community at the time, in the 80s? I never saw more than 3-4 trans women together in the same place in a relatively large city. There were 100s more feminine men. I suspect the same is true today, though the numbers of trans women may be larger within the gay community? I don't know.

There are likely children who follow a path to transition and life beyond, who may have otherwise grown up to be gay or lesbian. The studies done during my childhood and adolescence would suggest most desisted and found a life in the gay or lesbian community. I may have been identified as such, as I was lost to followup. The tiny minority of detransitioners also say they would be better off not transitioning. I cannot say what percentage of adults today would or would not have desisted and grown up to be gay or lesbian. In addition to personal agency, there are far too many variables to consider.

'Gay' is very much subsumed into and acceptable within mainstream culture today. It makes it difficult to delineate pathways and motivations, if such a thing even matters in the 'grand scheme of life.' The gay ghettos of my youth mattered, because they were a refuge in a cruel world. Now people can just log onto the internet.

No. I'm not, really. By the time I thought about replacing the initial question to ask whether you had experience within gay and lesbian cultures, I'd already pressed 'send.' 🤷‍♀️

I and others have tried to identify a cause of why I felt like I did. It is possible the wider culture had a part, but I felt a very strong aversion to aging in a male body even before I had a word for it. It was more than visceral, it was repulsion. I don't believe gender stereotypes or roles had any part in that. I also don't wish to overlay the conditions of my life on anyone else who may have transitioned from the gay community.

Middle-class white 80s was a good time to transition, culturally, in my experience. So much about gender was in flux. But, my schooling was interrupted several times and I wasn't able to complete my secondary education. I was somewhat thankful that future trans youth had managed to find some success in that, and even uni...until they apparently hadn't.

Gender stereotypes have changed and not changed since the 80s. I haven't have a good window into the gay and lesbian communities to observe changes there since the early 90s. How I've reacted to stereotypes and expectations of stereotypes have also changed since the 80s and 90s. Some of that is because I'm no longer young. Some, because I've moved countries a few times. Others because the boundaries of what is perceived acceptable of men and women have shifted.

I think the OP/blog post gay man was working backwards into his community from gender critical belief first principals. I'm not sure if any of the 'soft' men he feels are falling off the periphery of his culture actually transition. I can't see the disappearance of the well established sub-communities where they were valued and celebrated within the gay culture. The boys and men who are attracted to men and go on to transition have not abandoned the gay community and they have not been failed by the community. They were there because it was a relatively safe space to continue life.

I'm not gay or lesbian. (But then, according to your own avowed beliefs, neither are you 😜)

It would be surprising if a dynamic based on gender stereotypes/roles that was pervasive in the 80s/90s didn't have a formative influence on how anyone who was alive in the 80s/90s feels about gender now. The testimony from the original blog post (by a gay man) seems to indicate that its influence is still being felt

Just because you are not as tall as your brother that doesn’t make you a woman. You were born XY male. That means you are an adult male. You seem to think that wanting something badly enough can magic it into existence. That’s not how reality works.

“I pass.”

Oh yes… what I’m confused about is, that poster said he transitioned in the 80s, but puberty blockers were not used until the 90s, and hormones were not prescribed to children until even later. But the ‘female puberty” was completely natural. Honest bruv.

In all fairness, I have no idea of just what would have happened in an uninterrupted puberty vs the one I experienced, but comparing myself to my younger (and much taller, larger and older looking) brother:

He has wide shoulders and narrow hips, I do not. My waist-to-hip ratio is .65 currently. His...is not (he follows the male-typical barrel torso shape so popular in our family). I have a pelvic tilt, he does not. My rib cage is differently shaped and much smaller, he has a v-shaped upper back. My arms, hands, legs and feet are differently shaped. He has a full greying beard and moustache, I never grew one. He is a hairy sasquatch of a man, and yet he is so so bald. I have never had much body hair and my hairline lost some baby hairs, but hasn't moved. My feet are 5 whole sizes smaller. He has a pyramid of an adam's apple while my face and neck never androgenised. He sounds like our dad, I sound like our mum...

There's no orthodoxy here. The universe will never identify me as a man.

I never said it was.

Vaginoplasty and labiaplasty are quite natural…🤔

I would have thought that JK Rowling would probably say that her friend was now a trans woman with a sexual preference for men, which would be fine by me. To be honest, I don’t think it is inconsistent to say that there are two sexes (which I and JK believe) AND to accept that the mental picture of a gay person is a male presenting person with another male presenting person, so it’s hard for many people to understand immediately that a gay trans woman is partnered with a man and that the language might just be difficult even if the concepts are not. I think it is actually easier when the language is homosexual trans woman, because the language makes it clear that same sex attraction is what is relevant, but it is a bit unwieldy.

I also don’t think that JK is really denying that her friend is underneath still a gay man when she says “was”, because the “was” relates to her first understanding of this person in the past. She expressly says that she is effectively being kind to this person, it’s not a misprepresentation of reality to anyone else or between them and neither of them believe that a sex change has happened, so she doesn’t really need to say to them effectively “but you’re a man, you do know that, right” all the time.

I don’t really care if JK refers to her friend as “she” out of kindness - she clearly believes that this person does not have a right to female only spaces. And it is possible to maintain that sex is important and pronouns are just total guff about what you want to be called that make no difference to whether you get access to the women’s refuge. (Yes, I have read pronouns are rohypnol, but the argument only works if you actually ascribe belief to the pronouns and believe that they are related to sex status, rather than just a name people want to be called).

There is no embellishment or untruth here.

I took oestrogen. My body did the rest.

I later had a vaginoplasty and labiaplasty, however those are not observable (in the day-to-day life sense).

I didn't say they were equally valued. I said one was valued over the other, but that does not mean one is unvalued.

Yes he seems to have completely reinvented the orthodoxy of reproductive biology all by his little lonesome!

I am now wondering what colour the sky is in his universe.

What did they do to you in that clinic? Have you considered suing them? They’ve obviously caused a lot of mental damage. You can’t even remember your own backstory. You poor poor lamb .

There is a point at which you are demanding people have a level of perfection in their communications that is simply not possible, and which would be debilitating to communication at all to attempt.

Maybe if people like JKR can send along their statements to be vetted for every possible nuance of interpretation ahead of saying or writing them, they'd get closer. They can tell her how to say it so no one will think that she believes people can change sex (even though she says and has continuously said for years that she does not think people can change sex.)

There comes a point in every one of onepost's The-World-According-To-Meee derailings when you begin to wonder about his grip on reality. First he was a gay boy, then his observable sex changed , quite naturally, to female. Driven, no less, by his genetic makeup.

Or maybe it's his grip on truth.

If masculinity is highly valued, does that not make femininity less valued? Or are you saying both masculinity and feminity are equally highly valued?

(Putting aside the contentious issues of what masculinity and femininity are for a moment)

That’s hilarious, you should write fiction. You’re certainly creating plenty on this thread.

Masculinity is highly valued, yes. But that doesn't automatically make femininity unvalued.

Gay and Lesbian are far more than identities. There are cultures and sub-cultures.

Previously married women who believed themselves to be straight enter lesbian relationships all the time. The same with men. Identities and affiliations change. The relationship dynamic changes, the cultural placement and/or acknowledgment of couples remains socially (and sometimes legally) contentious. Lesbian feminist space is different than radical femiinist space.

My relationship with my husband is more than just sex. We are part of various communities. Our children have never known 'two dads.' My neices and nephews have never had 'two uncles.' When you create labels for other people, they have to make sense in the world. My husband and I would feel very unwelcome in a bathhouse. I wouldn't be allowed in the door.

We don't know the reality lived by JKR's friend. It is none of our business. We do not have to make it make sense.

I'm going to guess that you're not gay or lesbian. The butch-femme dynamic wasn't how I understood its use in the OP or in the subsequently linked blog post. The dynamic was surprisingly absent, which is why I introduced it in my initial response. It's a gender topic, for certain. It was really pervasive in the 80s and 90s lesbian and gay cultures. But I don't believe it has anything to do with trans.

The men the OP was discussing are/were maligned because of something else. I never heard any gay man being dismissed out of the community as not manly enough. Men made room for all men. It sounds like the culture has changed since the 80s.