Would you have transitioned if you were a child today?

[isabeltydoria]

This question was asked on another forum, but I wanted to copy my answer here too and ask it here too (I hope that's okay?)

Would you have transitioned if you were a child today?

Just a yes or no would be interesting if you don't feel like commenting further; I'll put my (long!) reply into a comment.

No, I was always a very girly girl, despite my mother wanting me to have my hair cut short like a boy which I hated - I wanted to grow it long but she wouldn't let me. I had plenty of access to boy's toys via my two elder brothers but never showed any interest in them, preferring my little pony and barbie.

I think I was desperate to prove myself as a girl, hated having my brother's hand me downs etc and fully subscribed to the barbie /princess thing of female appearance. Being a fat mixed race girl with short dark hair in the 1980s didn't really cut it.

I imagine if you put 50 trans guys in a room in 20 years and asked them if they were happy with the decision they made in their youth (ie to transition or not) the majority would say they made the right choice and couldn't have imagined living a happy life if they had hadn't transitioned. And there would probably be 2 or 3 trans guys who wished they hadn't transitioned - would it be fair to say none of the trans guys should have done it because a few regretted it?

Are you suggesting that there are not 50 trans men (what's with the guys?) on this planet at this moment who didn't transition 20 years ago, i.e. 1998? I'm sure this could be done now.

You seem to me to presume too much.

My last post was directed to daimbars

I was a fearless girl with younger brothers. I was the leader of the girl gang and they got drawn along as members. Boys were followers to me at that age.

I wouldn't have but my mother almost certainly would, which would have meant that I likely wouldn't exist.

What I am certain I would have done is wear a breast binder though. I sort of did this anyway, with wearing several bras, day and night. I HATED having large breasts. Hated the attention they garnered. As a shy teen who was not in anyway flirtatious or overtly sexual, I found the aggressive sexual attention to be nothing but frightening and distressing - I would have done just about anything to have avoided it (I did have an eating disorder and had DIY ways of flattening my breasts).

I was a speshul snowflake and would have done pretty much anything to get attention.

I’d like to think I’d have been ratted out before I did any damage, which is one of the things that concerns me most about self ID and the removal of gatekeeping. By all means identity / dress / etc as you wish where it doesn’t do any harm to yourself or others, but keep a gate where there is the potential for it to do so.

@JuzzaL I would like to politely ask you stop hounding me and accusing me of bullshitting on every thread I post on.

Literally every time I reference being gay you come on and accuse me of lying to try and discredit what I'm saying and it's getting really tiresome.

I have attached my conversion from civil partnership from marriage certificate as proof of my lesbian status. Can you stop with the accusations now please?

Nope, not for a second. I was an outrageous tomboy and rejected pink and princesses from my very earliest memories of childhood. I pushed my way in with the boys every time I felt they had something I wanted, I cut my hair to an inch long, took up every rough sport I could find, preferenced "boys" subjects (even when I was better at "girls" stuff) and considered myself no different in mind from any boy out there which, strangely, showed me to be quite different from many girls...

But I did all these things, even from my very earliest memories, specifically because I knew I was a girl, not because I considered I might not be. I didn't want to do what I was told, I didn't want to take what I was given, and looking back it's tough to know even what I did like except to say that I wanted things all the more that I wasn't supposed to have.

So no, not me. I felt awkward and clunky and physically intrusive as a teenager, but boys didn't seem to have it easier with their inappropriate erections and the wet dreams; leaving sheets to be changed by their parents - teenaged cringe!

I might have gone for non-binary at that point, but as a label for my "I want whatever looks good from the gender menu" persona rather than anything else. And actually that might have helped me more easily understand my nascent relationship with gender stereotypes, who knows? It certainly may have helped me normalise it rather than feeling isolated and a little bit strange...

Oh, I see I've come in at quite a tense moment. Not much productive can come once a natal woman married to a natal woman cannot be a lesbian. Ho hum.

Okay @JuzzaL we will have to agree to disagree. You say only lesbians who actively reject being part of the LGBT community are really lesbians and I say I am proud to be an L in the LGBT community.

My polite request still stands, please can you give over with the accusations.

No I wouldn't have transitioned.
Growing up in the 80s, it was easier to be gender none conforming. I played football with the boys, climbed trees and wore jeans and tshirts mostly, but I also had dolls and played with make up too.
I knew I was a girl and was happy with that because I didn't encounter any limitations.
I still none conform now, I have short hair and dont wear make up but I wear dresses etc.
I have never felt a specific gender, ever. I must be fortunate to have not been pushed either way as a child.

Lesbian: Female homosexual.

That being said, I think daim fits your criteria...

But anyway, subject of the thread and all that.

More

This lesbian knockabout argument went off at the meeting on Wednesday, If I can remember properly it went like this:

1. "sexual orientation" is an invented term used in campaigns for acceptance, pre campaigning it wasn't really a way gay and lesbian people described fancying people (this came from the older generation so I am inclined to accept their word for it);
2. you can be a lesbian even if you have had PIV sex, Shelia Jeffrey said this to great cheers so again, I am included to go along with that;
3. Bisexual again is a relatively new term for fancying both, and not synonymous with lesbians who have shagged men in the past. Try before you buy and all that, if you want to say you are a lesbian now you can;
4. Women own lesbian, and intend on keeping it.

It all got a bit shouty, but they all seem to be saying much of the same thing (excusing the very young loud person that called SJ a see you next Tuesday, however she explained dysphoria is present for her.

"Identifying" is the language matrix overlaid on top to make bodies irrelevant by genderology.

Once you remember the motive of "identifying" and the "gender identity" being taught to kids is to make fetish into a protected sexual orientation legally then it's all clearer.

If you can legally be both male and female whenever you like you can take your kink wherever you want with no questions asked.

Or perhaps not, we are still free to decide on the politics of this folks.

I am sure I've upset a few people with this post so this could be goodbye...

Hey @RatRolyPoly

Not much productive can come once a natal woman married to a natal woman cannot be a lesbian. Ho hum.

Well quite. My marriage is certainly not inclusive of men but apparently I'm not a real lesbian and have no right to call myself one!

Anyway moving on... it's interesting what Rat says about being non binary. Do GC feminists agree the non binary folk are generally pretty harmless? They wouldn't be able to get hormones or surgery so there would be no worries for parents of non binary teenagers around fertility etc.

I know the GC feminist view is it's special snowflake and it's irritating to use the pronoun 'they' but I see it as a harmless way of GNC teenagers to place their identity.

Blimey never thought I'd see myself nodding along to @Picassospaintbrush - wonders never cease. Sounds like an interesting meeting!

It should be harmless but its again co-opted by the less harmless agenda isn't it?

With the demand for legal changes to accommodate "identity" it's a conformist movement. Being non conforming used to mean rejecting the establishment and bureaucrats, now it is demanding certificates for it. Not very rock and roll.

Not me but I have a close friend who is a lesbian and now in her 40s. She told me as a child she would have taken the opportunity to transition as she had a preference for dressing in traditionally boys clothes and presenting as a boy. Now she is a very happy female and comfortable being a lesbian

Like I said before daim, you were misunderstanding me on AGP. I could have been clearer I suppose but I don't see the need to NAMALT and NATALT in every post .......