I'm a trans man and local trans activist, AMA

[Sideris]

Hi there, folks.

As the title says, I'm here to respond to questions in good nature.

For a bit of background information, I'm 30 years old, a trans activist out of necessity (being the first 'out' trans person in numerous spaces, which didn't have any rules or regulations before, but have since been commended for ease of process by some new trans members or trans members who have been referred by me), have been 'passing' for about three years, now.

Ok. I have another question.

This is possibly outing, which is one of the reasons I've not wanted to mention it before now.

Can you accept that if a woman is raped by a man she has every right to be scared of men.
If yes, would you accept my friend, who was raped by a transwoman (read her ex partner who put in a dress and decided he wanted to be a woman), has a genuine reason to be afraid of transwomen accessing women's only spaces, especially the shelter she and her children ended up in?
She is still in the shelter and is absolutely terrified that she will be harmed again by male bodied people claiming to be female.

This thread is upsetting me. I am staggered by the gaslighting and manipulation offered by OP.

I thankfully and luckily have never been raped or sexually assaulted. It hasn't been my experience. I do realise it happens though and I can empathise with women and girls who have experienced that trauma and can fully understand why they wouldn't feel comfortable with 'penis owners' in toilets, changing rooms, hospital wards and prisons.
Can you tell us op why there seems to be so little empathy and understanding regarding these legitimate concerns within the trans community?

It's probably been asked before but I haven't seen an answer.

Thanks for continuing to answer.

You say that you are happier when ‘treated as a man’ and when you ‘look in the mirror and see a man’.

So, now that you have made some bodily modifications to look and sound more masculine, you and others are more likely to perceive you as male?

Can you see that schoolgirls seeing and hearing a fellow student who still looks and sounds exactly the same as their previous ‘boy’ self will continue to perceive that student as male?

Go back to last year. Let’s say ‘Ben’ had popped into the girls’ changing room. Would you expect the girls to have been indignant and alarmed? Or should they have known that he was likely to transition a year later and thus was ‘always a girl’, so his presence would be just fine?

You seem to be saying the latter. I don’t see how anyone can honestly believe that, but I assume that a lot of policy makers must also think that way. Others seem to think that saying ‘Call me Bonnie instead of Ben’ should instantly change how s/he should be perceived (even if ‘Bonnie’ didn’t say it to them).

You’ve been through a physical transition. You know it’s not as simple as thinking yourself male so being thought of as male. Can we stop pretending that it is?

I'm really indecisive. I'm like to see the pro arguments in both sides of any debate or decision, no matter how small and my position is usually nuanced due to this. I'm like Chidi in The Good Place.

I appreciate discussions like this as I genuinely want to understand the needs of trans people and how they came to their realisation and decisions to act.

Every single account I have read and discussion I have had has convinced me the whole ideology is muddled and incoherent. Feminists aren't convincing me; the words and actions of people who deny biology and cannot even articulate in what way they are men or women are.

OP says they don't believe in sex, that their gender isn't a feeling, biology, or clothes or appearance, or masculinity or femininity. They say it is due to what is written on their birth certificate, that they caused to change, seemingly confusing cause and effect. Or that it's "identity" without saying what this is.

OP, can you explain a little more about what makes you male, as I simply do not understand? What does it mean to live as a man - do you think this is only possible if you pass as a man (i.e. It's down to the beliefs of other people)? Would you consider yourself to be living as a man if people reacted to you in the way you prefer but internally did not read you as male?

OP, do you think it's possible for someone to lie about their gender identity?

Woman' is not being redefined.....I'd recommend another word when speaking of women who were assigned female at birth.

Yeah we tried that. We started saying female but then the tras started insisting that sex was a construct a trans women were female too.

Do you honestly think that if we started calling ourselves 'minkibobs' that some trans women wouldn't start insisting that they were 'minkibobs' too?
Because it's not about the name is it?

Back to my deciding to identify as a black woman. I can put my hair in braids. I can take tablets that will darken my skin tone so I look more like a mixed or black woman. I can tell people I am black, tick the appropriate box on paperwork and embrace black culture. This will not make me a black woman no matter how much I might want to be or feel like one. My dna categorically confirms I am not a black woman.

And should one attempt to do the above, there would be loud cries of cultural misappropriation and racism at play. No way on this earth will there ever be a time when it is legally acceptable to self identify as a person of a different race to that in which you were born. So why is it legally ok to change sex?
There are many aspects of being female that piss me off, mainly around other people's expectations of what a female should look like and how they should behave. Myriad females spend an inordinate amount of time trying to change themselves to fit that agenda. Ultimately, however they change themselves, they cannot ever change DNA. Males cannot become femail, and females cannot become male. All they can do is pretend to be the other sex by emulating gender characteristics. No ones fooling anyone.

If you were hospitalised unconscious with no next of kin present, would you wish medical staff to administer drugs and other treatment as though you were female or male (as you birth certificate now state)?

Do you understand why some natal women are afraid of transwomen being in female only spaces?

Given there's no factual evidence supporting that fear, no

Oh, come off it, op. You're being wilfully disingenuous here. How about the women who were raped or attacked by Karen White in a women's prison? I think they would disagree with you.

I thought this thread might be reasonable, but it's clear that all you care about is your rights, and you're perfectly happy to throw women and women's rights under a bus.

Now you're a trans man you want to find a drag group so you can wear makeup and parody women? What on Earth is that all about?

And you thought being male was all about protecting women when you were a child. Where has that protective instinct gone now?🙄

You can ask people not to call you cis. I've not used the term during the duration of this thread. I would continue to include all women under 'women', though, so I'd recommend another word when speaking of women who were assigned female at birth.

Firstly, no-one is assigned a sex at birth. The sex of a baby is observed. Secondly, could you explain why adult human females have to have another descriptor added to the term 'woman' when we are women? Why should a term that has always been used to describe us have to change to suit a small group of people? Why should a small group of people be allowed to appropriate the very definition of us? Can you see why that might anger and upset women?

Re the changing room scenario:

The girls' subjective experience of a boy is the same, regardless of the boy's feelings about himself. I understand this is distressing for someone with gender dysphoria to face, but the humiliation for those girls is the same. The loss of privacy and dignity is the same. Why should the girls in this situation be forced to collude with an illusion for the benefit of a male person when it may be distressing for them? Why does the trans person in this situation have no reciprocal responsibility to support the non trans people's feelings?

Thank you for your replies OP. I think many readers here have learned a great deal, largely about the hugely unequal standards of treatment expected within this dynamic. Which, incidentally if you'd like to look on the relationships board, is a dynamic often recognised by women in unhappy relationships where a male partner sees themselves as entitled to much higher privilege, respect, resources and service than they see the female partner as entitled to. This dynamic is often discussed here in helping women escape harmful relationships and to rebuild shattered self esteem and confidence: women here help each other escape situations where their feelings and needs don't matter but they are required to meet the feelings and needs of others.

Do you understand why some natal women are afraid of transwomen being in female only spaces?

Given there's no factual evidence supporting that fear, no

But trans women offend at the same rate, and with the same offending pattern, as other men, so you second sentence is simply untrue. Now you're aware of that, does that help you understand perhaps?

Misogyny being real doesn't get changed by me counting attacks against all women as misogynistic. It doesn't change when some of the 'women' assaulted are factually men or nonbinary, it doesn't change when systems are set up to discriminate against women regardless of if they have the ability to give birth, regardless of how tall or short they are, how weak or strong. Yes, men perpetuate crimes, that includes trans men, that includes all men. It is the nature of the masculinity that's taught that rots men.If you see 'womanhood' exclusively as oppression, I genuinely feel for you, as it shouldn't be. But other than us doing our best, me doing my best, do you expect me to be able to over throw misogyny singlehandedly purely because others seem to think I'm trying to throw women under the bus by wanting safety and respect for all women, regardless of expenses for extra training and extra staff to prevent harm to any women?

What garbled mess is this????

How can a woman being attacked be a man? Are you now saying you think trans women are factually men?

'Womanhood' IS an oppression, no need to feel sorry for me. I don't feel the need to leave it, I stay and fight.

Woman is a gender not a sex, therefore womanhood is the state of belonging to that gender.

You might think that gender is an innate immutable fact.
But I believe it's a social construction in order to arrange society, in our society's case into a patriarchy. That's how come expressions of what it means to be a man or a woman change over place and time.

Those gender roles are policed and rewarded by society at large (hence why in treat differently when I'm wearing make up to when I can't be arsed) and are imposed on us at birth.
I did not decide to be a woman, society decided that when I was observed female at birth and then treat me accordingly.

It's not about whether you CAN give birth it's about whether you are perceived by the wider society to be able to.
So for example I recently went to a job interview and was told by someone on the inside to not wear my wedding ring because the company were less likely to hire a a married woman in her 30's because she's more likely to go on maternity leave.
Of course that's illegal but it's very difficult to prove and bears no relation to whether I can give birth or not. A trans woman wouldn't have that problem because it's bloody obvious they aren't going to need maternity leave.

No need to answer this if you already have but...

There is a trans man YouTube who completed the whole physical transition and then basically realised that the reason he did it was because of rapes/sexual assaults against him. He thought that becoming a man would make him feel safe and like his own protector. He said that although therapy had been available,he had been so focussed on just transitioning at the time that he hadn't talked through that stuff like he should have.

I suspect his story is not common. But it does make me wonder - how much therapy before your transition addressed your sexual assaults and whether they contributed to your desire to transition?

You said they flung diagnosis at you left right and centre, like bipolar. Is it possible that trans is just another example of that rather than actually having you talk through certain things that they maybe don't know of or should have considered more?

The arrogance, misogyny and not giving a shit for the safety and dignity of women and girls which the OP has displayed on this thread is the best sunlight we could ever have shining on why self I'd should never be allowed to happen.

Great post @Michelleoftheresistance

Gender is a performance but it's not a performance that we ourselves perform as a solo artist, instead it's a performed upon us by society at large.

The idea that we can just decide not to be women anymore is so so offensive. It implies that we could have just chosen to have the vote or be paid the same.

Do you not think it's interesting that the inheritance laws stay the same for trans men, so a woman can't become a man and inherit?

This is an excellent question -

Why does the trans person in this situation have no reciprocal responsibility to support the non trans people's feelings?

Thanks Michelle.

So not women but cervix havers?

People with a cervix is usually preferred.

. It's certainly not my preferred term. As a woman, I prefer the term 'woman'.

Why does the trans person in this situation have no reciprocal responsibility to support the non trans people's feelings?

This ^

I tried to explain this in an earlier post but mine was waffly so thank you to someone for distilling the same thought process.

Women are told constantly during this debate to empathise and be kind. Where is the empathy and kindness towards them though when they say they are scared?

I suspect his story is not common.

I suspect it's a lot more common than we might think. There's a reason the numbers of adolescent girls being referred to the Tavistock now far outstrips that of adolescent boys.

This is a wonderful thread. I've never read such babbling nonsense in my life, and all in one place! OP, thank you for this incredible gift. I'll be showing your incoherent burbling to all my fence sitting friends. You've already cleared the fog from two of 'em, great job!

Q - why does the trans person have no reciprocal responsibility etc
A - because they are brave and special, because if you are 'born in the wrong body' this trump's everything, we all have to feel sorry for you and let you do whatever makes you feel good

I'd just like to clarify one thing for the OP who makes the same argument that many TRAs make about behaviour in toilets. That vile and violent behaviour from either sex (or any gender) should not be tolerated and is down to police or providers etc to enforce sanctions for people committing crimes.

As many women realise, it is not simply criminal behaviour we'd rather not experience in toilets, changing rooms etc. What may be seen as normal behaviour from a woman can be a signal of predatory behaviour from men. Aggression, intimidation and threat aren't always, or don't start out by being, physical or breaking laws.
Following into toilets, striking up conversation, asking personal questions, offering tampons, standing staring at a teenage girl... Direct experience has taught be that these can turn into unwanted harassment when done by men; very much less so by women. Yet we are now being taught that our experiences and instincts should be ignored and only if an interaction turns out to be criminal should we have somehow avoided it.

(Or tutted and moved away, as one elite trans ally suggested).

This is where sex segregation has proven effective but apparently something has now changed (no one has explained what and women are still being murdered at a rate of at least two per week by current or former partners).

On a similar note pope, I always wondered if TRAs planned on decriminalisation of voyeurism and flashing - as both could easily be carried out with a "legitimate" reason once anyone can access the women's facilities. And no "it's a crime and as such would be punished anyway" doesn't work.