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.

Now I'm confused. Daimbars if you are biologically female, which you seem to be saying, then your civil partnership to another female makes you a lesbian.

But lesbians are, by definition, female homosexuals: biologically female people who engage in sex only with other biologically female people.

It's a sexual orientation, nothing to do with gender. So a biologically male person cannot be a lesbian. Saying so doesn't diminish anyone's relationship, but if you don't meet the definition of a group you're not a member of that group.

I am officially confused, Daimbars. Are you biologically female or is "being a lesbian" essentially a private label for what the world would call a heterosexual relationship?

Because if so I can quite see why JuzzaL objects. Lesbians are subject to all sorts of pressure, up to and including corrective rape and murder for being homosexual. Heterosexual relationships are privileged. Were I, a heterosexual, to claim to be a lesbian while my partner was biologically male, that would be dishonest and an affront to lesbians.

This thread has made me realise that a lot of people wanted to reject being female rather than particularly wanting to be male.

So if there was a surgery and hormone free non binary option would you have taken it? Rather than a full on transition?

Meh, I reckon if having 72 different Facebook genders comforts young people in their gender-non-conformity, I think that's cool. There are no hormone regimes or surgical requirements for naming one's relationship with traditional ideas of masculinity and femininity, as far as I know.

I think far from being transexual, many of us would probably have been some bizarre gender variant in our snowflake years; and possibly even a little better for it.

Oh @JuzzaL you don't give up do you!

Lesbian: Female homosexual.

I am female, I am homosexual, I am therefore a lesbian.

We did take the surgery and hormone free option. Thats what being a tomboy used to be called, and it was a big deal to reject the stereotypical feminine 'choice'.

daim and juzzal, your argument is about "identity" lesbians isn't it.

Male born lesbians are "identity" lesbians.

One of you thinks that's ok, one doesn't.

We get it. Now stop bickering.

I could have written your OP myself. Absolutely wanted to be a boy, my idol was George from the famous five. Diagnosed autistic as an adult.

Sitting here feeding my third baby right now, I am horrified at the thought that could have all been taken away from me if I’d been offered hormones to transition when I was so desperate not to be myself as a child. I am not a particularly ‘feminine’ woman at all, but I am most definitely all woman and I’m very glad I am.

I saw a post on a FB group about a 4yo being trans today.

Thats what being a tomboy used to be called, and it was a big deal to reject the stereotypical feminine 'choice'.

Who cares what they call it if it makes easier for them to keep on that difficult path?

It's not bickering, its serious. Lesbians have a protected characteristic, and they are our canary in the coalmine as far as I'm concerned.

I care Rat as TRA's want to claim and redefine our identity and language, you only have to look at the way 'lesbian' is being claimed to see where its heading.

Re who is and isn't a lesbian- doesn't Julie Bindel and the poster SomeDyke argue that homosexuality is not an innate , born with condition and that women could choose to be a lesbian? How is that any different from Daimbars as a biological lesbian saying she "identifies" as lesbian?

Generally this calling out of posters as not being (biological)women/ not being (biological) lesbians is tiresome, as well as being very prescriptive of what being a woman/ lesbian is.

I didn’t just want to be a boy, I was convinced I was one for years. Something my very matter of fact mother didn’t give a single thought to, thank god.

I was much better at being a boy than a girl. I played boy sports better than the boys, I had boy interests, I was even convinced I had an unformed penis. Puberty was awful.

I’m now a very gender critical woman who is daily grateful I didn’t have my childish delusions indulged. It would have been child abuse in my case, pure and simple. Due to my experiences I find it very hard to not see all other cases as the same.

No, but being raised by a Spare Rib era feminist, I was essentially left to be as tomboyish as I pleased, our house only had gender neutral toys, my brother and I were put in jeans and I had practical hair. I wasn't really like the other girls at school, but my mum encouraged a critical view of society and gender stereotypes so it didn't bother me. I picked and chose what I liked from girls and boys fashion, interests. As a teen I was a rocker/grunge/indie fan so as another poster wrote upthread, gender nonconformity and experimental bisexuality were kind of just the in thing if you were interested. But the boys in eyeliner were still very much testosterone fuelled boys, and the girls in big boots with shaved heads were aggressively female. I kind of miss those days. I can't believe twenty years on and we are back to being told off for talking about periods. I reckon a lot of my more insecure friends who were gender nonconforming at the time because they had issues they needed to work through, might have been pushed into becoming trans if around now. Most of them did find ways to figure themselves out though and become happy as they were. Only one person out of about twenty GNC teens I knew then had actually continued onto transition and live as a trans adult. Most are all pretty ordinary middle aged folk. Men or women we all end up wrinkled with short hair and fleeces, and bills to pay.

Re the lesbian bickering I would suggest the GC feminists pick their battles. You're not likely to get your legitimate concerns m taken seriously if you start claiming two biological women in a relationship are no longer allowed to call themselves lesbians because they don't mind if two trans women in a relationship also want to call themselves lesbians.

Not really. Being told I couldn’t do things because of my sex made me bloody livid, so I always made a point of figuring out how I could do them anyway, to prove that I bloody well could do them, and in some cases did them better that the males who were ‘allowed’, as a way of proving that ‘girls can’t do x’ was one big fat lie.
I was more determined to prove that females shouldn’t have their lives curtailed by not being male, than thinking I should have been male. It was the absolute bloody injustice of the situation that enraged me.
I mean, I wasn’t girly. To look at, I would probably equate these days to the deliberately non-binary (I wore rolled up trousers, doc martens, combat jacket, heavy metal band t shirts, and went through a trilby phase...) I’m straight, so no external coercion to trans away the gay.
It just made me pissier when people tried to control me by gender, however non-conforming I was.

Lass, yes the "innate" bit came into use along with phrase "sexual orientation, it was part of the campaign of acceptance, "born this way". (I imagine this discussion has gone on for all time though).

I'm just recounting what I heard at the meeting. It's probably all on the video.

The reason I challenge "identity" is because of the political manipulation of this concept going on to include "gender fluid" cross dressing as a innate orientation to be protected.

Woman and lesbian are protected characteristics under law. Given that's women's right are under threat, and lesbians and our sexual orientation, I don't find being prescriptive of these 2 things tiresome

The "being prescriptive" is with reference to certain posters on FWR who appoint themselves as arbiters to decide that other biological women's life experiences and opinions don't fit the criteria of what a real, biological woman thinks, says or does.

@JuzzaL we're not talking about some random person on Twitter, we're talking about me. I have asked you nicely numerous times to stop calling me a liar and a bullshitter when I say I'm a lesbian so please once again can you stop. It's tiresome.

Who cares what they call it if it makes easier for them to keep on that difficult path?

Yeah, I care. Calling oneself non-binary is supporting the binary, in order to say 'but I'm not like that'. Well indeed, for none of us are.

Nobody is binary.

To reject being a woman in favour of being non-binary, is to acknowledge the sexism of our society and then say 'well that's okay for the rest of you, but not me, I'm different'.

It's not okay.