What do you think it actually means to be transgender?

[coatlessinspokane]

I really want to understand it, because I want to be fair to everyone. So putting aside the whole transgender in women's prisons/ sports (which I think is obviously unfair on women because of biological disadvantages) then what does actually being transgender mean?

Does it mean that you identify with the opposite sex so therefore you willingly take on the characteristics associated with that sex (ie. the gender) like wearing skirts, makeup, etc if you ID as female? Thus allowing you to feel that you belong to the other group.

Or does it just mean that you like wearing skirts, makeup etc in which case you've been duped into thinking that you need to ID as female because society has taught you that not only does gender exist but that it correlates completely with sex?

I suppose it's coming from a place where I think dresses, makeup, high-heels all that shit is a burden, a fucking stain on my life, yet I don' t ID as male. Isn't "gender" just another way of saying "personality" which is basically a scattergraph of personalities with such loose correlations to sex (or at least they would be if pesky social influences just fucked off) that it barely has no meaning anyway.

I feel conflumped by the whole thing and fear that I may never understand it. Not that it affects how we should treat people (nicely) but I'd like to understand what it really means.

It sounds to me like you understand it pretty well now OP. Also loving the word "conflumped".

I'm not sure if it's there now, but I c&pd this from a Stonewall document last year.

^
' The term transgender also includes people who express gender characteristics that don’t correspond with the characteristics traditionally ascribed to the person’s actual or presumed sex. This can include:
• Gender benders • Gender blenders • Drag queens • Drag kings • Butch women
• Effeminate men • Anyone who chooses, for whatever reason, to self-identify as transgender
'
^
Their current definitions are in here - I don't think they answer your question.

www.stonewall.org.uk/help-advice/glossary-terms#t

I don't think we're meant to understand it, just accept it (whatever the consequences).

The meaning has changed a lot over the years and it can help to get a historical perspective.

Useful thread:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3463920-Lets-go-back-to-2007

In the current year it seems to mean whatever an individual wants it to mean. The lack of definition is one of the many issues.

Until recently trans meant transexxual meaning people who experience crippling discomfort with the sexed aspects of their bodies for reasons not explained by other issues like PTSD etc. for them, being seen by others as the opposite sex is extremely helpful. See Buck Angel and etc. such people are helped by xsex hormones to be able to live a quiet life.

Now though being trans means literally nothing. Stonewall def quoted above. “Anyone who Identified as trans for any reason”

So in short to me being trans means having significant dysphora with ones sexed body and being an adult so one has the ability to consent.

Also love “conflumped”

Yes, sounds right. I see all the dress and makeup stuff as irrelevant to being a woman.

Name changed for this
I live with a transwoman and her partner in a house share. Transwoman is 39 and girlfriend is 22.
It doesn't come up that much however I can still hear a male dominating a woman when he shouts at her to do better and tells her he will clap for her when she does good. Just experience though.

I don't know how to explain it but it's not right. It's a man dominating a womann but because they are a "woman" they say "it's just being fiesty."

It's a meaningless term. It's so broad as to mean nothing.

Namechng1 can you slip her the link to the trans widows thread?

Transgender to me means a man who has undergone surgery to have his male genitals replaced by the genitals of a woman (or vice versa). Unfortunately it appears we all now have to agree to those who want to identify as the opposite sex whenever they want to. I have trouble with this and how we have to deal with it tbh. How do we know who really wants to identify as the opposite sex or those who are taking the opportunity to jump on the bandwagon for their own perverted needs? How do we keep our children safe when they are taught that men are women and women are men? And anyone is allowed to share a space? I feel sorry for kids these days tbh. They must be so confused 🙁

Lately what I am hearing from people who buy into the whole thing is that it is supposed to mean your "gender presentation", which is to say whether you feel you prefer in terms of clothing, pronouns, etc. This is meant to be completely separate to your sex.

Clearly there are all kinds of questions to ask about that, but it seems to be how they are thinking about it.

Has it been proven that men and women's brains are different and if so, do transgender/sexual people's brains conform to the "format" of the sex with which they identify?

Or is that bullshit?

The way I see it your identity is the stories you tell yourself in your head about who you are. You might identify as a northerner, a musician, a kind person, a woman. For a variety of different reasons, sometimes people get a story lodged in their head that doesn't match with reality. This is unfortunate because reality is ultimately not avoidable and will keep coming back to bite you. For some the story is so strong and firmly lodged that the only way to live with it is to try to change their bodies to match it more closely.

And sometimes once you get an idea in your head, everything you see around you seems to confirm that idea. Like when a hypochondriac thinks they are ill, every slight ache or pain or mood change is a symptom. Humans over pattern match. When the base story is false, by necessity the confirming details become weak and far fetched and illogical. Hence all the stuff that's so offensive, mostly to women, about being a man because you always liked football or being a woman because you feel soft and like glamour.

Having a self-narrative that isn't true is generally hurtful to the individual. If my narrative is that I'm brilliant at my job and reality is that I'm not then a) I won't try to improve and b) I'll find performance reviews very upsetting. If my narrative is that I'm female when actually I'm male then I'll be disappointed every time I walk by a mirror or have to undress.

The best solution is to try to change your narrative to a more realistic one. Which most people in the normal way of things manage to do as part of growing up. I feel like I'm a brilliant musician but my band didn't sell any tracks so perhaps I'm just an enthusiastic one having fun and that's okay. I feel boyish but actually my body is female, it's fine to be a short haired football loving woman.

Unfortunately with transgenderism, people who get this particular inaccurate identity lodged now have a Greek chorus confirming that their story is true. Which makes it even harder for them to untangle their lives. Doubly so when applied to children who may not yet have learned what the material reality is before they're told that their story trumps it.

I'm not saying transgenderism isn't real; human brains are complex and difficult and sometimes patterns get built in that you can't just go back and change. We need to expect though that when our identity stories don't match reality, other people will see reality.

PencilsInSpace
Every day I think of saying something but she's in her first love stage, and without saying too much, she needs a visa and wants to marry this person. She says she is lesbian and believes it. I just hope when she gets the visa she can break away. She really believes twaw.

thirdfiddle

Yeah, I think that's this idea of identity has become a problem more generally, and it's quite different IMO than people who are suffering from some sort of body or sex related dysphoria.

I see the idea of identity being essentalised in a lot of areas, not just with regard to gender presentation. So maybe the whole ideology of gender is drawing on that. For ears now there has been a lot of emphasis on people being "who they really are" and so on, how important it is to validate that.

I think even anti-genderist perspectives have played into it unwittingly, because it's tended to emphasise things like, people should be able to dress as they like, because it's important not to impose social expectations. So you have a male who is drawn to more traditionally feminine expression, and now that is really important to validate, and they way people have interpreted that is that somehow it's not just a clothing preference, it's some essential expression of their identity.

Has it been proven that men and women's brains are different

Because women’s bodies are physically different than men’s yes of course you can measure physical differences in the brain as well.

Of course, absolutely no one has ever shown any functional relationship between one of these differences and any behavior or set of behaviors. There is no evidence that “brain sex” differs in any specific way that matters. Could also be that brain differences may develop due to living as a female (eg heightened fear responses etc) rather than that the brain being Different is the cause.

Studies on trans women’s brains have shown that homosexual men, whether they are trans women attracted to men or men attracted to men have a few structures that appear somewhat “feminized” - measurably different from both men’s and women’s averages. This difference does not hold up for trans women attracted to women so, likely has more to do with sexual orientation than gender identity.

Great post Third fiddle, thank you.

It means bigger all to me as I don’t thing gender is a useful describer or a person (it’s just their outer appearance and preferences). I’m still in the days of transsexual and transvestite (the distinction between the two is very clear and physical).

I feel boyish but actually my body is female, it's fine to be a short haired football loving woman.

Yes I guess that is the crux of the clash between TA and GC ideology.

FWRlurker that is very interesting thank you. I didn’t know the sexual orientation thing. And yes of course men’s brains would be different from ours but that we shouldn’t infer different functionality from that.

Yet people always do.

"When I use a word," said Humpty-Dumpty...

In clinical circles, and now mainstream, there is a belief that gender (as opposed to sex) is biological, not cultural. So where a person's sense of gender doesn't align with their biological sex, that is a fixed and unchanging state so cannot be changed, by therapy or time.

IF this is actually case (and from my family's experience I don't think so) I can't understand why it is acceptable that this group of vulnerable people are expected to undergo lifelong medical treatment as opposed to the rest of society being educated to change our expectations of how men and women should have to fit into highly rigid stereotypes, so that they can live with less distress in their own, unaltered bodies.

Interesting thread and great posts, thank you.

A gendered environment creates a gendered brain.

Your male brain is your male brain; it has structures within it specific to your sex that control Male hormones and puberty. Anything beyond that is personality and personal interests. Humans label those things as stereotypically male or female and patriarchy has embedded structures that maintain them.

There is no character trait that's innately male or female, other than potentially the way a mother acts after they have their baby as pregnancy and early post partum hormones do physically alter the structure of the brain for a while to support bonding and attachment. Children are extremely sociable from a very young age and socialised to pick up cues and so learn conventions associated with their sex from a young age. This is why often children with asd are gender non conforming as they are less able to process social communication interactions and also are sometimes less atuned to peer interactions. And are less interested in being like their peers who by age 3 are often very clear about their likes and dislikes and have often very much absorbed or are rather "parroting" gender stereotypes such as clothes, colours and activities.

There are more differences in terms of "gendered brains" within each sex than between them.

The brain is plastic. Learning a second or third language physically alters the structures of the brain that's detectable in scans, scans show differences between taxi drivers with or without 'the knowledge' of either sex. So to say a brain has features of the opposite sex shown on scans is pure sexism.

Personally I think many young people are very harmed by sexism and stereotypes, "toxic masculinity and femininity," especially if they don't fit in. There's also a lot of homophobia.

For a very small minority it's a very different thing and more linked to body perception. Seven hex writes well about this. She describes her experience very differently to being based on sexism, she wasn't particularly interested in girls activities when a young boy (though I feel in the recent past girls and boys activities were the same) although she clearly did receive homophobic bullying from friends and family too.

The current meaning of transgender insofar as I can see is:

Person with sufficient structural power and privilege to impose their internal sense of self, however disconnected from material reality, onto all persons with less structural power and privilege.