@DN4GeekinDerb
Bit long but so many thing. DadJoke The technical word for your 'like' is probably gynephillic though a female on synthetic testosterone, even without surgery (of any identity - not every dysphoric female on T identifies as trans man or even as trans), does often have changes to the vulva that not every gynephillic person likes - smell, texture, size, and so on. I personally don't mind but I know others who find the changes offputting. Neovaginas/vulvas are an entirely different thing particularly on a male (some females with certain DSDs have them as well).
Thank you so much – I really appreciate the time you’ve taken to post here, the fact you’ve been willing to share your experience and it’s great to hear directly from someone who is dysphoric.
I did not know gynephillic – that’s a useful word. I’m not attracted to transmen, vulva or not, and I don’t really know much about neo vaginas. I have no idea whether I’d like them or not
Even saying you 'like vulva' can be turned complicated but for 95%+ people just saying you're a straight man will be far more understandable without your defining people you're attracted to by their genitals when there are dozens of other sex characteristics that play quite a big role in human attraction before getting seeing genitals. That's why most of us can tell who we're attracted to with their clothes on and using hormones.
I agree – in a normal context, I’d just say I am straight or heterosexual, but I was asked directly if I would consider a transwoman as a sexual partner, which required this discussion.
So a more nuanced response to that is that I like PIV sex, so having a vulva is a necessary but not sufficient condition for me in a long-term sexual partner, but also, if a person with a vulva was didn’t enjoy PIV, or was unable to have it, I would not consider them as a partner because of the mismatch, even if I was attracted to them.
Also, as a dysphoric person, let me say how much I hate when people think calling me a person with a vulva is somehow better for us. I mean, seriously, it's dehumanizing in any case but using it for people who are distressed by our sexed characteristics seems a particular asshole move. Like, great, thanks for seeing and defining me by one of things about myself I often hate and try to ignore. I'd far rather just be called female if my sex is relevant. Female and male have a meaning for millions of species of animals and plants, they can keep working for humans. There are times I don't like and even despise people can see it, but that doesn't change that anymore than my hating that people being able to hear I have an American accent changes my nationality or how I talk.
Fair enough. I haven’t ever referred to people’s genitals or sex except in the direct context of being asked about my sexual preferences. I have a good friend who identifies as non-binary, and they are deeply distressed by their sex organs, and feel betrayed by them, although they don’t feel that they are “the wrong” sex organs. It’s not a topic I would ever raise with them. I think sex is a real thing, and gender is a real thing, but in the usual course of human interaction, it’s gender that is important. Questioning people about their sex or genitals are usually very rude.
Trans issues are not intrinsically a feminist issue. Even under intersectionality, not everything can be shoehorned in. Feminism, in the dozens of branches which disagree on many of the details and solutions, is about focusing and resolving the issues of those who are female regardless of their gender identity. Trans women and other dysphoric males have many important issues to deal with, but they aren't feminist issues. They're trans/dysphoria issues which deserve attention in their own right. Some people focus on one or the other or on other things. Few people can focus on everything. This idea that we can make every issue a feminist issue and push feminists to deal and talk on it is unhelpful, I think.
Thank you. I think the very heated conflict between GC feminists and TRAs overshadows these important issues.
Now, some trans issues are also feminist issues. The issue with the sharp rise of female kids being referred to gender clinics, the damage encouraging binders is having on female bodies, the lack of research of testosterone on the female body, the issue with trans men who register at their doctor's as male not getting appropriate invited to appropriate cancer screenings because the computers don't yet have space for both sex and gender identity, questioning how do we work with violence stats if we register them by gender identity and not sex... Some people think that's silly but I was discussing female-perpetrated rape recently, something I am a survivor of, and I was asked if my stats included trans women. I can't answer that because I don't collect data but governments and organizations don't usually collect both gender identity and sex information so it's possible. It's hard enough to get people to take female rapists seriously (see what happened with the recent machete rapist case, so many people still saying "you can't rape the willing" when she had a machete) without now having this as another barrier (and I'm using this both because it's personally important to me and because it's one of the few I can think of where trans people are visibly falsely blamed by the public in a way I can give evidence of).
I am so sorry to hear about your experience – I do hope your case was taken seriously.
I think that the government should collect data on the sex and gender of all NHS patients and the perpetrators and victims of crime, as that data would help everyone. If people deny sex as a category this would be impossible, and I think very dangerous.
Transgender people are such a tiny proportion of the population and rape is so prevalent, that any rape committed by or on transgender people would be barely a statistical blip, which is another reason why collecting the data is so important.
If you post unrelated stuff there to 'debate'/rile up people, YABU. That's what AIBU and chat and other places are for. Find something relevant, there are plenty of them that are reasonable for that section.
It’s quite possible I was, but not deliberately, but that ship has sailed. I think it’s best for me just to go back to lurking and learning.
And really, most of us can treat people as individuals and treat trans and other dysphoric people respectfully and want at the class/public/medical/legal level want female/male/lesbian/gay to have specific meanings so we can use the words to communicate - that's their purpose. If we use 'includes everyone who wants to' definitions, it mucks things up. That's why I tend to use dysphoric rather than trans most of the time since Stonewall UK decided crossdressers and similar were under the trans umbrella, I want to be clear I'm referring to people with gender dysphoria regardless of how we identify as to cope with it (also, not all types of gender dysphoria are innate.
I do not agree with Stonewall’s broad umbrella as I think it undermines trans rights advocacy, and that once you conflate gender expression with gender identity, the whole thing becomes meaningless. I’m really interested to hear you say not all types of gender dysphoria are innate, and would love to know more.
There are decades of research on the connection between PTSD and gender dysphoria, many of us diagnosed pre '00 (when dysphoria because it's own diagnosis rather than a symptom of several things) ended up with a PTSD diagnosis. I'm one of them. I may have a genetic predisposition, but I was not born dysphoric and as, by the US largest survey, there is strong evidence that most trans-identified people are survivors of child abuse with a horrifying 50% surviving child sex abuse, so ignoring the role trauma plays in this is to ignore an essential medical need to consider for our communities. Acknowledging that some/many/all of us aren't born this way doesn't make any part of it less valid. We can accept some people are trans even knowing all that).
Do have a reference for this research? I completely agree on acceptance – like homosexuality, it shouldn’t matter what the cause of dysphoria is for it to be taken seriously and believed.
Again, thank you so much for sharing your story and your point of view, and I wish you every joy on your journey.