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.

Oh and another one who definatly didn't want children. No way. Not happening.

I now coo over every young child I see and physically hurt to not have one. Good job I didn't get myself steralised (which I considered requesting at one point because of periods!) as girls having blockers are potentially doing.

There is a huge difference between being a tomboy and having gender dysmorphia. Please do not trivialize such things by suggesting there is any comparison.

the problem with identifying as ‘non binary’ is that you are just isolating yourself from your sex class and basically opting out of the gendered crap that the rest of us still have to put up with

Noone is forced to stay put and put up with it though are they. I mean perhaps this is how those stereotypes are finally shattered; one by one the young folk cotton on that the whole thing's a con, and escape the nonsense by calling what the stereotypes were meant to refer to "genders" and identifying the fuck out of both of them! All the while making no difference to their biological sex. Or perhaps just enough of them do it to make the whole idea of gender stereotypes applying to one sex or the other a completely ridiculous farce anyway.

So I don't think "non-binary" makes anything worse for anybody else at all really. Just because you don't call yourself non-binary doesn't mean you submit to a binary. People have a fair bit more intelligence than that.

It is possible and it's a really scary to think about. I hated the girly stuff imposed on me as a child.

Daimbars, you'll find JuzzaL doesn't have her own definition of the word "lesbian". Her definition - female homosexual - is what the word has always meant. It doesn't include anyone male.

A GRC isn't a magic wand and to relabel sex between two members of the opposite biological sex as "lesbian" is pure role play. Nothing wrong with playing pretend, or dressing up, but it's not the same as a sexual orientation and it doesn't change the meaning of words. It doesn't clothe the emperor either.

Definitely - I would have been on hormones by 12, even if I had to steal them. Would have saved myself all sorts of problems later like having beard removal.

Obviously if you are currently with a female partner but are also potentially attracted by males then you are bisexual. So lesbian/bisexual is just the "can someone with a penis be female" argument poorly disguised.

Hang on so you are saying despite the fact I am in a same sex relationship, and only attracted to people of the same sex, I am still not allowed to refer to myself as being in a lesbian relationship because I don't mind that trans women call themselves lesbians too?

I thought feelings didn't matter and biology was everything?!

By that same logic am I not allowed to call myself a woman because I don't mind trans women calling themselves women?!

So lesbian/bisexual is just the "can someone with a penis be female" argument poorly disguised.

It's a stange and uncomfortably personal way to approach the argument though, don't you think? To repeatedly take someone's opinion and use it to batter their sexuality - their sexuality ffs, that intensely intimate defining characteristic - and instead of having them defend their argument on the one hand, to instead make them defend their sexuality on the other is a gross bullying tactic.

By that same logic am I not allowed to call myself a woman because I don't mind trans women calling themselves women?!

Yeah, that's usually next.

An interesting thing I have noticed is the most vociferous opponents to gay equality often come from devout Christians who admitted having homosexual tendencies in their youth.

I’ve also noticed women who could possibly have transitioned in their youth are now the strongest opponents to the trans ideology

The difference is that, when you declare yourself to be homosexual or heterosexual or bisexual or what have you, you can explore and change your mind as often as you like. There is nothing irreversible abut it.

Whereas transitioning to a different gender involves a highly traumatic, practically irreversible physical intervention. It involves preventing your body from doing what it naturally wants to do and forcing it into a different shape. Which in some cases is indeed what the person needs and wants. But in many cases it's something that the person may regret.

There's nothing wrong with making people wait until they are of legal age to take such a hugely important decision. Allowing, or even forcing children into making such decisions is obscene.

Im not sure i would have transitioned, but i have wondered, as i have always been political and militant, and it could have easily been something i got carried away with

Men calling themselves lesbians and trying to shame lesbians into having sex with them is gross rapey, bullying tactic.

Indeed, anyone who does that is bang out of order.

There's more than one way to bully a lesbian.

Apologies, I didn't realise you had excluded males from your set of possible partners daim, I assumed as you see transwomen as women and you're attracted to women that you'd consider them as partners. Gosh it'd be useful to have a term for biological women exclusively attracted to other biological women wouldn't it? The tangles our language gets into when woman no longer means woman and lesbian no longer means lesbian. Wouldn't it be simpler all round if we kept woman and lesbian to their current dictionary meanings and added new terms for trans people and attraction to trans people? All of which is rather far from the topic of this thread.

Hey thanks @RatRolyPoly I had to go away and bang my head on a brick wall so I'm pleased you stood up to the playground bullies for me

Just informed the wife we no longer fit the criteria for being lesbians and apparently we are both bisexual now, despite neither of us being remotely attracted to men. It gave us a laugh anyway so thanks for that!

I think people who transition don't think hard enough about the fact that

1. You can't actually change sex. There is a LOT of wishful thinking and magical thinking involved.
2. If you become transgender you drastically reduce your pool of potential mates. There are far more men or women who want to have a relationship with an effeminate man than those of either sex wanting a relationship with a transgender person.

Young women who eschew femininity would have more mates of either sex just being butch women rather than going down the trans route.

@JuzzaL am I still allowed to call myself a woman or are you going to hound me on every thread calling me a liar about that as well?

No worries @catkind apology accepted, although being married to another natal women should have given the game away really.

As an aside, it makes pretty uncomfortable reading that lesbians are now being dictated to who they should and should not be attracted to by both TRAs and GC feminists. Surely it's an individual's right to declare her own sexuality, not for others to label her.

I think human sexuality is a tad bit more complicated than the labels "gay", "straight", "lesbian" and "bisexual". There was a thread around here not long back about it; titled something vaguely goady like, "is homosexuality innate?", but actually it was quite good.

Perhaps it needs resurrecting in order to spare this thread for the OP?