Hello, I'm a TRA - ask me anything

[AlphaTransWoman]

Good evening,

I'm a transgender rights advocate. I say "advocate" rather than "activist" because I believe in constructive debate and consensus building rather than the hostile, shouty kind of activism that gets us nowhere.

I am here because I am genuinely interested in seeing if there is some kind of compromise that can be reached between pro trans and gender critical views. Obviously this is difficult because we may disagree about something pretty fundamental. I feel passionately that trans women are women (at least in the psychological and social sense), so there's an obvious divide if you do not.

The question is, can we find ways to co-exist and find an acceptable way forward on some of the difficult issues that arise around trans acceptance? So I'm happy to have a go answering anything you care to ask in good faith. Who knows, we might even make some progress.

Hang on a minute... do you reckon OP might be a gc feminist out to demonstrate the ludicrousness of gender identity? Because some of the things he's saying are just too absurd. OP you can come out now, I've rumbled you...

Quite. There’ll be talk of pillow fights and plaiting each others hair soon.

FFS, I feel like women are being reduced to 1970s sitcom characters.

This is what we're trying to break away from OP.

So boys in the future can make daisy chains and wear dresses and have different hair styles. It's pitiful that they can't do that freely and without comment and I'm angry about that.

Can you truly not see that the trans movement as it stands today is only reinforcing these gendered roles? And making some people like yourself who do not conform to them feel unhappy with themselves?

I can see why, if you feel you can only do the things you want to do if you're a woman why you would want to be one.

Why not start to campaign against society's gender norms so that in the future boys like the boy you were can do and be anything they want to be without constraint.

So it's enforced detransition if I need to use the loo?

What a bonkers comment! Surely you don't walk around in the world and see thousands of women wearing trousers, not wearing make-up, not wearing 'girly' colours etc and think that they are not women? So if you consider yourself a woman, how would not wearing a dress change that? You are just confirming people's feeling that 'becoming a woman' actually just means putting on a costume.

Having experienced the sheer joy of wearing dresses and skirts

They're just clothes.

Hang on a minute... do you reckon OP might be a gc feminist out to demonstrate the ludicrousness of gender identity? Because some of the things he's saying are just too absurd.

I did wonder whether this was a steel man thread. Still, very useful to lurkers. Especially as it's not been shifted off to the naughty step (yet).

OP your description of how you were treated as a child is the GC argument. We want to get rid of those stereotypes that were so hurtful to you.

Don't you want to get rid of them too, so that future children don't have to suffer like you did?

Why are you choosing instead to perpetuate them?

So, if I was to guess, I would say that my unhappiness about being male bodied was created, or at least incubated and encouraged, by gendered roles in society.

And instead of concluding that those gendered roles were wrong, flawed, stereotypes, you concluded that your body was wrong?

I do understand how it's a bit like 'if you can't beat them, join them'. I really do.

One man wearing a daisy chain isn't going to undo centuries of stereotypes.

But neither is insisting they do, actually, apply to every man and every woman and advocating for actual laws to be based around that.

Genuine question - OP have you had any therapy for your gender dysphoria?

You don't mention your age (I don't think) but I have in mind that you're 50+. At any point in your life have you sought help for the the feelings of inadequacy that started age 6?

Also, I don't feel any less a woman when I'm not wearing skirts or dresses (in fact I don't wear them at all) so I think you considering not wearing a dress as 'enforced transition' is possibly rooted deep in your childhood issues. A sort of rebellion if you will.

RE violence by men in toilets, changing rooms, prisons, hospitals, refuges, etc.

Women did not cause this
Women cannot control this
Women cannot stop this
Women are not the problem

But most of all

Women are not shields for men

Get out of our spaces
Stay out of our spaces
Campaign for your own spaces

No, they are not "just" clothes. They are how you present yourself to the world and express your personality, values and allegiances.

This is open trolling. Just bloody stop it now

It always boils down to hair, clothes and makeup. Always.

I'm not sure my clothes express any allegiances. What allegiances are you thinking of?

What you say about enforced detransition if you can't wear a dress is a bit strange. I wouldn't be any less of a woman if my wardrobe was removed and I was forced to wear a sack. Because being a woman is about biology not what's in my head.

Haha knew i'd get deleted😂

”So, if I was to guess, I would say that my unhappiness about being male bodied was created, or at least incubated and encouraged, by gendered roles in society.”

And yet you cleave to an ideology that relies almost completely on those out-dated gendered roles in society, @AlphaTransWoman.

I'm absolutely disgusted.

Clothes are how you express your values?

What am I reading?

No understanding of how absurd you sound.

You need help.

Seriously.

I remember my brother advising me not to wear a skirt when I went to watch the football, back when you could go in the stands. The realisation of why that was didn't give me any sheer joy about wearing skirts and dresses. And I also didn't feel any less of a woman when I wore jeans instead.

So, so offensive. Or oblivious. Or both. Either way, the complete lack of any understanding (or willingness to understand) about what being a woman actually entails is fascinating from someone insisting they are a woman.

Yes I did. During a particularly severe bout of depression, while living as a man, I went to see a gender specialist and pretty much opened my heart to her about my feelings and confusion.

She told me, straight up, that I was a woman.

The thing is how I felt about that afterwards. It was though a huge weight had been released from me and I could start living a different life as a better person.

So much for - I can't tell whether you are a man, a woman or non binary. Only you can do that
Are you making this nonsense up as you go along? You could at least attempt to keep your story straight.

Yes I did. During a particularly severe bout of depression, while living as a man, I went to see a gender specialist and pretty much opened my heart to her about my feelings and confusion.

She told me, straight up, that I was a woman.

I know we are all rolling our eyes at this, but how can an official diagnosis of GD be much different?

Have id in a new name for two years, and a diagnosis not dissimilar to above and get a female birth certificate.

As I said, the point is not what she said but how I felt about it afterwards. I realised it was so right.

I'm not walking into a room full of men standing there holding their penises while I'm wearing a dress. Can you see why that might be an issue?

No, I can't.

I have never stood at a urinal holding a penis, but you have, right? Maybe not wearing a dress but it is not something entirely outside of your ken. You have done it, no big deal.

Men gave Blair White (in a dress) a thumbs up in a male's loo. Give it a go, it may not be so bad!

To be fair, if you are fortunate enough to possess an obviously female body, then you can get away with wearing jeans etc and still look like a woman. I have to wear obviously feminine clothing all the time in order to signal that I am presenting as female to avoid accidental misgendering which I find very distressing.

If the world suddenly became like that tomorrow, I would almost certainly continue taking female hormones because I like the feeling of having a feminine body.

It's the boobies. They do looooove them boobies.

Malaga airport. Nuff said.