Am I alone in wondering where the WOMEN wanting to trans are?

[loveyouradvice]

They feel so invisible....

Everywhere I look there are men who have or are transitioning to be transwomen - on magazine covers, on all women shortlists, in the media....

But where are the natal born women who are/have transitioned?

The only two I've come across are:

• one who detransitioned and wrote movingly about it, after ten years as a transman
• the american high school wrestler who is fighting to be allowed to fight in men's categories

My DHs cousin is F > M transitioning. Causes an outrage on MN though as shes only 16.

Mates DH is a nurse in a private clinic (not naming it) and he deals with oodles of people F > M and M > F.

A friend of mine is transitioning. He's a lovely, genuine man who was clearly extremely unhappy as a woman.

I don't think he'd touch MN with a barge pole though with all the stuff on here. And MN is the poorer for that.

Another thing that annoys me about the constant trans debating on MN is that this group are almost exclusively ignored. Their wants and needs ignored by other women, great. Also no concern for safety issues either. I mentioned on another thread that a relative of mine who works with prisoners who are mentally unwell had told me that far from worrying about ‘fake’ trans men their biggest current concern was female born prioners transitioning to males attcking other female inmates and how this issue could be resolved long term/which estate should they be paced in. MN response: ‘As far as I’m aware there are no transmen in prison, your information is wrong’. Unbelievable really.

Sorry should probably read ‘fake transwomen’ although if they are fake I’m not sure...?.?

Loads of teenagers are identifying as trans F>M. Two of DD's best friends, one 'came out' at 13 and is now a 'boy' at school, another has just changed pronouns aged 14. There are thousands of girls all over the country deciding they are trans/non-binary, often in clusters of groups of friends or contacts on social media (in certain teenage 'fandoms' linked to particular bands/youtubers/films etc it seems almost mandatory to claim some kind of LGBTQ+++ identity, according to 15-year-old DD who is immersed in all this stuff). With any luck most of them will grow out of it before they are old enough to start on hormones and surgery.

I only know one middle-aged woman who is transitioning to male - fast-tracked despite long history of mental and physical health problems. But most middle-aged women who were gender non-conforming as children or teenagers are now seem to be at ease with their female bodies, whether they are still gender non-conforming, or lesbian, or bi, or straight.

It seems much more common for men to come out as trans in middle age (both MtF trans people I know started at around age 40).

They are quietly getting on with their lives, like most transwomen are.

The attention seeking loons are the ones who grab the headlines with their constant weeping and wailing and me, me me.

I don't know a single MTF. Every trans person I know (about 8) is FTM

The only trans person I know is ftm. I also worked in a gender realignment clinic for a while and the majority of patients I saw were ftm. I'll never forget one 18 year old break down and weep with joy when he was told he'd be getting a full hysterectomy and wouldn't be having periods any more. That was when I realised, ok I'll never fully understand this, but it's real.

However, I take your point about trans men and women in the media and have often thought that myself. My top theory is that no matter what you feel your true gender is or how you later identify, most people will have been raised as the gender that correlates to their sex and been conditioned accordingly by society. So trans women raised as men still have the same sense of male entitlement, the same confidence to advocate for themselves and belief that they should be in positions of authority. And likewise trans men raised as women are still more keen to stay quiet, blend in, not cause a fuss, and generally "know their place". Because you can juggle labels all you want, but children are socialised from birth to behave in certain ways according to their perceived gender, and that's a very hard message to unlearn. So no, I'm not surprised at all that their are more trans women than men in prominent roles. It's not to do with who they are, but how they were raised.

Good point, OP. Check the anecdotal evidence coming your way, though. 🤣

I don’t know any transitionists.No anecdotal “evidence” to offer, I fear.

I was just coming on to post exactly what ellieme posted.

We don't need to talk about most of them just as we don't need to talk about the majority of m>f people because they are quietly living their life.

It's the small percent of total scum who are tarring everyone else who are/have transitioned that people are actually talking about on mn and other places (In my opinion)

I think you get a skewed impression from MN because so many on this site think that the majority of trans people are actually men just pretending to be trans so they can harass women.

Have a look at Aydian Dowling, Loren Rex Cameron and Chaz Bono if you're interested in some inspiring trans men

One of my best friends is FTM and has just had top surgery at the age of 34. He's been living as a man for about 3 years now. I've known him since we were 11 and he is the most level-headed, sensible and smart individual I know. He identified as bi and presented in a very butch way before transitioning.

Trans isn’t a fucking verb. Transition is the word you’re looking for.

I have a sibling 18 years transitioning f>m. I think it's a phase tbh although I'd never say anything to them. Whatever they do I'll support them regardless. Going to get enough grief and stigma off other people, they don't need it off me as well

Jack Monroe, Chastity Bono, Shiloh Jolie-Pitt (allegedly). There have been a fair few women in history. The Anne Sebba book ‘Parisiennes’ has a section about quite an unpleasant woman called Violet who was FTM and collaborated with the Nazis.

Oh Chaz Bono, forgot he change.

I saw a great play yesterday called Testosterone. It was written by and starred a guy called Kit Redstone who recently transitioned from female to male. It was very funny, almost painfully moving and brutally honest not just about the positives of his transition but also about what he misses about being a woman. It gave me a whole new perspective on the transgender experience. Apparently the show tours a lot. If it comes to your area it's definitely worth seeing.

www.theguardian.com/society/2018/feb/25/transgender-wrestler-mack-beggs-wins-texas-girls-title

A transitioning F->M person in the news really recently, I'm surprised the OP wasn't aware of it. They are begging to be allowed to compete in the male wrestling category but aren't being allowed to as they were born female.

NordicNorway’s post is one of the best I’ve seen on this topic.

I believe FtM are slightly less common than MtF but it’s barley anything. And FtM aren’t women, they are men.

I think NordicNobody has a key point. The socialisation at very early ages still affect behaviour as adults regardless of of whether a person has transitioned or not.

There are more MTFs than FTMs. I don't think anyone really knows why but I suspect it's related to the fact that there's a wider range of gender expressions considered acceptable for a woman, from very feminine to very butch.

The other factor is that FTMs pass better, so they're less noticeable. Once on testosterone, they go almost seamlessly from being assumed to be very butch lesbians to being assumed to be male. There's no long lasting bearded woman phase, as there can be for MTFs. Even to the well trained eye, it can be hard to reliably pick out an FTM from the crowd, and that means that because they're not obviously visible they can live quiet 'stealth' lives and are sometimes assumed to not exist.

Of the two main players at Press for Change, which pushed through the move for the Gender Recognition Act in the late 1990s were one trans man and one trans woman. Both were awarded an OBE or MBE for their work.

Stephen Whittle, the trans man, went through the system the same time I did in the Manchester area in the early/mid 1970s. He is now a professor of equalities law at Manchester Metropolitan University.

In those days trans men were fairly rare. Most were trans women like me - the ratio was about 90% trans women and 10% trans men even with those of us transitioning young for those days as we were.

Today, that has changed with more people transitioning at school (in the 1970s, whilst I had seen doctors during the 60s when still at school and had very early in life nothing would be done until you were 'an adult').

The ratio trans women to trans men has shifted to be much closer to 50/50 the more younger people have come through.

But what was said earlier in this thread is true. When I transitioned 45 years ago there were no rights and no prospect of anyone ever having any. And we were repeatedly warned of that and had to sign waivers pre surgery. As practically all transition then was physical not just social.

So only those where transition was 100% diagnosed as safe by multiple doctors over long assessment was approved. About 90% of those who were assessed in the 1970s were turned away and thought to have psychiatric conditions that would not lead to successful transition.

We do not know if the reason were more trans women than men then than now is physical or social. Some argue that there is an issue with testosterone and its effects on the developing baby that creates trans woman. Others suggest it was just easier for trans men to live as tomboys than for trans women to be accepted by society as just girly boys.

I think it is probably a bit of both. Plus there was less that could be done for trans men then, because the surgical options such as creating a penis are fairly recent innovations. Surgery for trans women had been happening experimentally since the 1930s on small numbers of cases. As in the movie The Danish Girl.

Plus - as also said earlier - most of us with no rights and not seeking them - were just happy to be cured and to get on with our life and live it happily.

I was a writer and could have quite easily made a big thing out of my trans status but chose not to in order to protect the younger ones in my family (my brothers kids and grandkids). They had only ever known me as their aunty because I transitioned before they were born. So we planned to tell them when they were old enough to understand - as, unlike today, there was no social media and nobody talked about this at that age.

Sadly the tabloids put paid to that hope.

Nor was there any trans activist movement of any kind back then so most of us never knew one another and there were only a thousand or so in the UK as well. Not tens of thousands as now.

So we just got on with living not trying to change the universe.

I only ever occasio