FTM transition - can I just rant/discuss?!

[shehimthey]

I'm just putting this out there because I have been down a rabbit hole these past few months, trying to get my head round this whole issue. I'm totally with the argument that trans rights should be supported but not at the expense of women's rights. The arguments in the main seem to centre around trans rights seemingly being exploited by men to further oppress women (and I don't mean all trans MTF or TIMs but the TRAs)

However I really want to talk about the young women who are transitioning and how totally seductive the idea must seem. I have seen so many Youtube videos of lovely young women going through Transition. The whole, '1st day of T' cult and the rapidly lowering voice, the appearance of hair, the changing jaw line etc. Honestly, I am jaw on the floor at some of the 'young boys' that have appeared out of this process. I am almost convinced that it might be a good idea. The lovely Mums that suddenly have a handsome son instead of a lesbian daughter. I can really see how as a parent you could be convinced. And then I hear someone like Alex Bertie say that they're not interested in 'bottom surgery' and then realise that you have a female person, passing as an utterly charming lad, but with a vagina. And there's loads of them on Youtube (my most recent watch was Skylarkeleven) and most of them look so happy 'being men' but most of them don't go for the 'bottom surgery'. So they're handsome, passing 'men', usually having adopted a boisterous, tattooed, bicep flashing, laddish personality, coming across to all their Youtube fans as success stories but having to deal with the fact that they have a vagina - young women with facial hair, mastectomies and deep voices. And infertile.

I do'n't know where I'm really going with this other than to say that in some ways it must be 'easier' for a lot of young women to 'become men' because the results of taking T are so obvious and pretty convincing. And of course the appeal is immense. No longer do you have the status of 'woman' and all the shit that that entails - bye bye oppression (if you pass and most seem to) I weep at the lovely lesbian girls that are transitioning themselves into transmen but I can't say as I blame them. And I can't say that I blame any parent that has a suicide threatening teenage girl who convinces them that by transitioning they will be 'happy',

So I guess this post is about acknowledging this and acknowledging the parents who have to deal with their daughters going through this and maybe bringing it back to the damage that is happening to women from this angle. The emphasis seems to be on the MTF and all the issues that brings up,

I know it goes without saying that most people on the Feminist Boards are acutely aware of this aspect. I'm just wondering where this is going to go. I almost commented last night on the site of non-binary, Jakeftmagic (Alex Bertie's 'partner') that I lamented the loss of his beautiful singing voice from his 'lesbian' videos of 2014 to the non-binary, T-taking, be-bearded singing voice he demonstrates now but how cruel would that have been?

I was pissed off last night watching the Miriam Margoyles programme when she was talking to a fantastic black female sheriff in America's deep south. They filmed an LGTBT event and who were suddenly sitting centre stage and getting all the focus? The "T" element again. Suddenly the story of a powerful black woman, rising up and achieving was delegated to trans people complaining about the prejudice they experience.

As I said, I'm not sure what I want out of posting this other than to chat on the Feminist Board. Thanks for listening if you've made it his far!

There is apparently a market on gay hook up apps for transguys as they look like very young boys and after all an ass is an ass. Also some gay men are curious about vaginal sex but don't find women attractive so...but obviously those are all fetishistic sex things, actually finding a gay man to be your partner must be pretty unlikely

Did anyone see the article from the young trans man lamenting how shallow and sex obsessed she was finding the gay hookup scene using Grindr etc? She was all, why oh why is it like this, why is everyone just looking for sex, and I was like...did you ever actually talk to a man before you decided that you wanted to be one?

Possibly lesbians in the TRA community are not marginalised because they toe the party line. But one step away from that in act or ideology and they will be ostracised, called TERF, bullied and harassed, just like those who are currently marginalised and subject to all the above behaviours because they consider that sex and gender are different and that women do not have penises and that as lesbians they do not desire penis.

I haven't seen my acquaintance in real life since she started transitioning, just pics on social media, but I don't think she'd pass as a young boy - she's more of a chubby middle-aged mum...

Dodo I thought, like you, that there was some heavyweight counselling in place for girls who want to transition.

Thing is, there's not really "heavyweight counselling" anywhere in the NHS anymore. Even people who are not managing day-to-day (unable to work etc) and are suffering after extreme/obvious trauma (eg. CSA) can't access adequate talking therapies. Let alone those who are managing to some extent in daily life, who present with more complex, subtle issues after a lifetime of gender bollocks from society.

I don't think people realise just how poor and how medicalised the mental health system is, so of course people don't realise just how little counselling potential trans people get, or how the overall system sort of sweeps them towards a medical, rather than psychological solution. There is no money and little will to do anything else.

And of course, papering over the cracks of society and pretending its all random individual issues has been psychiatry's bread and butter for a long time...

Also, it's probably irrational and I fear for their futures, but I do feel sort of betrayed by some TIFs. It's like choosing to join the bloody regime rather than the resistance.

I didn't know there is a culture of buying T online.

There is. And it's not just buying T online. They are binding - and schools are putting out guidance not to dissuade young girls from binding but to make allowances for them in PE lessons when they can't breathe. There are entities that send out binders for free. They are using scripts taken off the internet in order to coerce their family GPs to prescribe T on "bridging prescriptions" while they wait for the referral to GID to come through.

And more, and more, and more.

Figures from Tavi and Port and other NHS gender clinics are the tip of the iceberg.

I don't understand what you mean by the idea that lesbians are marginalised.

There is a long history of lesbians being side lined, having difficulty accessing health care, not being believed that they are experiencing domestic violence (coz women don't hurt women right?!), and discrimination in all sectors of life. Stats from many years ago suggested that lesbians were at high risk of anxiety and depression, and had difficulty accessing treatment for it (not sure about current info, I'm out of the loop now). There is a huge wealth of cultural examples too, film and literature showing the difficulties faced by lesbians.

As suggested above take a look at the link. It gives real, everyday experiences of the current state of the lesbian community.

Just wanted to add this which I think nicely illustrates the cruelty of those telling people they can change sex whilst not actually believing it.

Can I just ask what TIM and TIF actually stand for? I can guess what's meant but I'd like to know what the terms are.

MissMoneyPlant, I know the dire state of NHS mental health services, so I'm not sure why I hadn't joined the dots on that one! A close relative had to wait 9 months for an initial appointment when in a barely functioning state (for non-trans reasons).

I think I though that even if there was a similar wait, the counselling would then be the first thing, not the start of an unofficial transition first, followed by 'affirmation'.

Collidascope: OJ is such a hypocrite, isn't he? That post clearly shows him admitting that a transman isn't a real man. Yet he would have us believe the mantra "Transwomen are women".

I think your post makes some interesting points, OP. For me what's kind of sad is that for a very long time in the 20th century there was a niche for these young women as masculine-looking lesbians - women who would have short hair, wear suits and so on. They probably wouldn't "pass" as male but they adopted a masculine style of dress. But now that's not enough. They have to take testosterone, remove their breasts and grow a beard - and that's progress?

One of my daughter's schoolfriends always had a slightly masculine style of dress. She now identifies as male, though as far as I know hasn't had surgery of any kind. I can't imagine that it will make her anything other than deeply unhappy - not accepted by either men or women.

Trans Identifying Male and Trans Identifying Female

Because male to female and female to male are inaccurate. Nobody can change sex.

Yeah, Hackmum. Owen Jones logic: penis is so magic it can be male or female but mundane vagina is always female. Misogny in action.

Also, it's probably irrational and I fear for their futures, but I do feel sort of betrayed by some TIFs. It's like choosing to join the bloody regime rather than the resistance.

My feelings exactly. My family member had a fairly shit childhood. Her parents made a huge display of pride and approval and favoritism of her younger brother and put her in constant charge of his care, deflecting all her own needs. Generations of bullying sexism played out all around her in her larger family.

Porn fed boys were brutal and callous.

An old fashioned solution would have been to work like hell to get the fuck outta there but she didn't do that.

Although I am trying to maintain the extra support I used to offer her, I can't accept what she's done as anything other than capitulation.

She's in Canada. They started endorsing all this stuff a decade earlier than here, so she's 10 years down the line. There has been no requirement for counselling for many years. Anyway how incredibly skilled a counsellor would have to be to counter destruction of self esteem by pervasive sexism at the same time as cult like encroachment via the internet.

Of course. I should have researched the facts a bit more before letting my opinion run away with itself. I really don't understand the deeper workings of how gender transitions are dealt with at all. Nor had I considered the idea of detransitioning. My opinion is inspired by the happy ending stories I've seen online and from watching JustJaz and another channel 4 documentary on 3 ftm transmen back in 2015. Not from an understanding of the 't' black market amongst other things.

It was stupid of me to assume there would be money in the NHS for counselling for this. Maybe they'd get one of those blocks of phone counselling sessions.

@Collidascope Yeah, Hackmum. Owen Jones logic: penis is so magic it can be male or female

made this specially for you

Jazz Jennings is a suicidal, depressed, isolated teen with no sexual function and the genitals of a small male child, who has been exploited by his parents since early childhood. Jazz is not a success story.

If you last watched Jazz Jennings in 2015, it may be worth catching up a bit on their story - from what people have told me of more recent documentaries, it's looking less and less like a "happy ending" story. I feel terribly sorry for Jazz - pushed uncritically into early, medicalised transition by parents whose main motivation seems to have been their 15 minutes of fame, prescribed puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones by a doctor who's a family member, and now left with severe issues of dysfunction and not enough tissue to operate on.

I hope when Jazz is older he sues the hell out of everyone involved in what was done to him.

I know, Ceesadu. There's such a positive-affirmation-happy-ending message out there (parallel to the 'trans people are so victimised!' one), and so little consideration of long-term prospects.

I tend to wrestle for ages over minor and well-established medical treatments for my kids (one of them is a bit wonky in several respects -- teeth, joints, mental health, eyes...) and one of the things we always ask is, 'What are the downsides of this treatment? What about if we don't treat? Are there any long-term studies on both sides?'

I just can't see how all of that can justifiably be omitted for trans treatment programmes.

@DodoPatrol If there are no brakes on the transition process, that is terrifying. And something I wasn't aware of. I thought every transition was monitored carefully by a specialist doctor. I also assumed gender transitions would need to be funded privately. Which is why I didn't consider the impact of low NHS funds.

As for the lesbian in the family, I'm it. And I'm in the 29-34 age bracket haha.

@AdalindSchade apparently not a happy ending at all. Can puberty blockers be reversed? I understood that she took the blockers so that her body wouldn't physically develop into that of an adult male. Which made sense. Because it's very hard to pass as female once male puberty has taken place.

I hope I'm. It being horribly un-PC here but I can't get my head around a man (born male) wanting to remain married to a woman who has decided to transition to male.

How does that work?