A question for Transmen and Transwomen

[SpiritOfEnquiry]

I have name changed for this.

I'm not sure whether this is the best board (or place on the internet) to post this but I gather it's watched by many people so I'm hoping to get an answer from people with first-hand experience one way or another. This is not intended to be in any way goady, there just seem to be so many different understandings of what makes someone 'trans' and I think it's important to know what we're talking about.

I'm generally and genuinely curious about how transmen and women view their own desire to present or be viewed as the opposite sex to which they were born.

Leaving aside anyone for whom presenting as the opposite sex is a sexual thing (I gather there are complicated rules on speaking about this on this board and don't wish to be offensive), my current (no doubt very basic) understanding is that it must fall into one or both of two categories:

1. Dysmorphia in the sense of being uncomfortable or horrified by your physical body, or parts of it, as are people who feel a deep revulsion towards a healthy limb.

1. A feeling that you are a man or a woman, regardless of your body, and wish to be treated as such.

The first category I can get my head around to an extent. I don't pretend to know the reasons or best response but I can understand what is being said.

The second causes me more problems and I am curious to know how transmen and transwomen think of it to themselves. What, to you, counts as 'living as' a woman or man? What, in your view, is the difference between being treated as a man and treated as a woman? If you lived in a society where the expectations ascribed to each sex we're different, or you'd received different messages about that growing up do you think you'd feel differently?

Particularly:

A) Do you believe that there are in fact (perhaps even in science) internal feelings/traits etc. common to all women or all men regardless of the society they live in that you, as someone biologically of the opposite sex unusually share, making you therefore really a man/woman on the inside? Or perhaps
B) Do you feel that 'feeling like' a man or woman is indeed based on sexist stereotyping of the society in which you live but, while that stereotyping is alive and well, it's more comfortable for you to describe yourself as being the opposite sex than to try to present as the biological sex you are but live outside of the stereotypes?

Doubtless I'm stepping on landmines left and right, here, but I truly can't find my own way through the difference between "living as a woman" and sexist stereotypes, and rather than immediately conclude that there isn't one, I'd be very interested to hear others' thoughts.

Thank you in advance.

@Datun

The benefit from it is that I think because of it i’m far more empathetic than I otherwise would have been. That empathy has given me relationships with people that I hold and treasure dearly and I wouldn’t have made without it. My career choice stems from my understanding that everyone struggles with their own psychological and emotional battles and I want to help people find a way through that to live their lives as well as possible.

Of course, you don’t need dysphoria (and most people of course don’t) to have developed those empathic tendencies but I think, from a lot of time and therapy considering it, I would not have it without my dysphoria. So as much as I can’t stand my dysphoria it has made me who I am and I like who I am beside that so I have learned to live along side it, and if you took it away would I still be that person? I don’t know.

[quote Blibberty]@Datun

The benefit from it is that I think because of it i’m far more empathetic than I otherwise would have been. That empathy has given me relationships with people that I hold and treasure dearly and I wouldn’t have made without it. My career choice stems from my understanding that everyone struggles with their own psychological and emotional battles and I want to help people find a way through that to live their lives as well as possible.

Of course, you don’t need dysphoria (and most people of course don’t) to have developed those empathic tendencies but I think, from a lot of time and therapy considering it, I would not have it without my dysphoria. So as much as I can’t stand my dysphoria it has made me who I am and I like who I am beside that so I have learned to live along side it, and if you took it away would I still be that person? I don’t know.[/quote]
Well yes, as I said, I have encountered transwomen who, despite saying they have crippling gender dysphoria, wouldn't change it, even if they could.

Which I guess that accounts for the anti-research campaigning.

And, many transwomen will say gender dysphoria is not even necessary to be trans, of course.

But yes, you're quite right that I don't think gender dysphoria is considered a prime source of empathy!

Listening to women and accessing feminism would do the job, and is a lot less paralysing.

@Datun

I am 100% in favour of any and all well conducted research. knowledge is power If it helped me understand who I was a little better then that is always a good thing.

I would struggle to understand why anyone would declare themselves trans without dysphoria, I would need to read their arguments on that to form an opinion.

Listening to women, even ones I disagree with, is the reason I read these boards. I will keep listening and learning, and in general other than when it is about dysphoria I will keep quiet!

I will keep listening and learning, and in general other than when it is about dysphoria I will keep quiet!

There's no reason to keep quiet. We're all allowed to disagree. Trans issues and what gender dysphoria means impact on women's rights, so I feel perfectly free to express my opinion on them. And you should feel free to express your opinion on anything you wish to.

I understand the concept of the hard things in our life making us who we are today. I feel the same in a sense about the rapes, the mental health issues, the extreme patriarchy, the conversion therapy etc. It is part of my experience and therefore allows me to speak with knowledge.

However, those things were all bad, so if I had a pill to get rid of them, I would, because no one should need bad things to grow into their true self.

The things which are innate and weren't influenced by the negative messaging in the world around me, however, I'd never change. Seems to me that the crux of the issue between Alex and others who believe in the innate reality of gender, and those like myself who simply believe there are two sexes and an infinite variety of personalities, is very much this unprovable faith belief in innate gender.

I mean, free country, naturally, everyone is at liberty to believe whatever they want about existence. Some Christians believe it's desirable and possible to 'cure' or healthily suppress homosexuality via prayer and counselling (and sometimes more direct intervention). They can write whole books and set up ministries on the topic, go through the experience and try and convince others and they are completely sincere in their belief.

I reserve the right in a free society to say their belief is in error, and actively harmful, and criticize it on that basis, even while accepting they believe it sincerely and without malice. I honestly feel the same about any people claiming to have once been a lesbian and now are heterosexual. I'm marginally less sanguine about heterosexual males who now claim to be lesbians (Read: entirely cynical)

Yes, and we’ve seen what happens when society starts pretending that fantasies are real, or can be made real with drugs and surgery. Not kind to anyone. But from the safety of our imaginations —I salute my fellow Amazon!

Yes, and we’ve seen what happens when society starts pretending that fantasies are real, or can be made real with drugs and surgery. Not kind to anyone.

Velvet Chronicle article by JULIA DIANA ROBERTSON
July 10th 2020

'Double Mastectomy at 15, Detrans 16-Year-Old Now Seeks Reversal'

(extract)
"Penny was just 11 years old when she decided that people online were right — that she was “transgender.” At 13, she was prescribed hormone blockers, and by 15, she’d had a double mastectomy. Now, at 16, she’s raising money on gofundme for a breast reconstruction.

“Very shortly after surgery, my depression got worse. I hated myself just as much as ever, leading me to a psychiatric hospitalization in October 2019.”

— Penny

Gender ideology — a fairly new and contradictory belief system — is seeping into the school curriculum, pulling kids down the internet rabbit hole, and encouraging young people to question and analyze their “gender identity.”

As an alarming number of desisted and detrans young people come forward, more and more as time passes, they bring visibility and awareness to the medical malpractice that’s been going on for years.

The major surge, in the number of kids who identify as “trans” in recent years, has done nothing to slow the medical field down. On the contrary, they’re willfully ignoring everything we know about how the brain develops, and normalizing youth “transition.”

“During my hospital stay, I realized my mistake. Transition wasn’t the fix I needed and it couldn’t take away my mental health issues. I had never been tested for any body issues, so we assumed it was gender dysphoria… I was completely distraught with my surgery.”

— Penny

It’s being spun as “bigotry” to disagree, and “progressive” to get onboard. Labeling toddlers as young as 1, medicalizing children as young as 8, and performing double mastectomies (“top surgery”) on kids as young as 12, way before they ever even have a chance to reach full cognitive brain development, isn’t progressive. It’s abuse. And my saying so, publicly, out in the mainstream, for several years now, hasn’t been without consequence, even threats. But reading about kids like Penny, fuels me to speak even louder than before.

After Penny decided she was “trans,” at age 11, she “attended a gender clinic to express [her] issues of gender dysphoria.” At 13, she was put on hormone blockers. At 14, she was prescribed testosterone. She was 15 years old when medical professionals performed a double mastectomy on her.

We don’t reach full cognitive brain development till around age 25, and up — And this isn’t something we’ve just discovered. We’ve known this the whole time. Penny’s doctors knew. The entire medical field knows." (continues)
thevelvetchronicle.com/double-mastectomy-at-15-detrans-16-year-old-now-seeks-reversal/

...and there's the dog-whistle:

Many parents have used this as a form of universally accepted gay conversion therapy

As pp pointed out to you on another thread, there is evidence that some parents do this. This was mentioned in the recent Newsnight investigation.

Penny's experience deserves nothing but sympathy and I don't know any trans people that wouldn't offer it. She was let down by parents and doctors and should not have had the agency she had at such a young age. That she only had a therapist after her operation is shocking.

People detrans for mutiple reasons. Some, like Penny, because they realised they were never Trans in the first place. Others detransition because transitioning is hard and there are so many obstacles to overcome.

Fortunately, tragic cases like Penny's are not typical. Young people who are trans deserve respect and support.

Fortunately, tragic cases like Penny's are not typical

How do we know? Nobody will allow the proper research to take place.

I agree that the use of the phrase 'conversion therapy' with respect to trans issues is a bit of a dog whistle these days. Mostly because thankfully, most decent people now understand conversion therapy for LGB people is abhorrent, so it's useful to take that understanding and simply transplant it by calling any talking therapy for gender identity confusion that isn't 100% affirming 'conversion therapy'.

That way you can mask that a significant group of parents and other people are saying 'Better a straight son or daughter than a gay or lesbian one' which is so obviously conversion therapy I'm always astonished TRAs think they can get away with it.

@OvaHere

Fortunately, tragic cases like Penny's are not typical

How do we know? Nobody will allow the proper research to take place.

Whatever the numbers (Wikipedia has a range from 0.3% to 8% total so that includes those that never had drugs or surgery) detransitioners, from a Trans point of view, are unsurprising, given the hoops we have to jump through. This is reassuring, as most of us are fully aware that trans is a "self-diagnosed" condition.

What Trans people don't do is exploit detransitioners, which is what is going on here and elsewhere. I've seen detrans posts complaining about this online and it is mentioned in the Wiki article.

If calling it “gay conversion therapy” is a dog whistle then the DSM must also be “dog whistling.” Like I said earlier, we’ve known since the 1980s that they vast majority of kids with dysphoria grow up to be gay or straight - they don’t go on to develop trans identities. The DSM actually declared there was no link between trans kids and trans adults, and the two conditions are different. There were then multiple psychologists who raised concern that therapy for kids with dysphoria was gay conversion therapy so the practice was dropped. And now for some reason it’s started up again with a vengeance, and this time with drugs involved... despite the fact that we already know these kids are most likely going to grow up gay or bisexual and not trans.

FloralBunting
so it's useful to take that understanding and simply transplant it by calling any talking therapy for gender identity confusion that isn't 100% affirming 'conversion therapy'

The only use of the phrase 'conversion therapy' as it relates to trans-issues that I've seen is used by those claiming gay people are being 'converted' into trans so they won't be 'gay' any more, not the other way around.

MBD, then you're really not paying attention, are you? The recent stories about the government moving to ban conversion therapy have been full of phrases like 'conversion therapy for sexuality or gender identity' and every group I've been part of or read discussing what measures would effectively end LGB conversion therapy, an adult male trans person has come along to remind everyone that they should also be including any attempts to counsel a young person with gender identity issues in ways that are not 100% affirming.

But unless you were that male trans person trying to hijack the conversation around LGB conversion therapy, I don't suppose you would be aware of that, so I'll let you off. Perhaps you can read about it on Reddit? I hear you're a fan.

What Trans people don't do is exploit detransitioners, which is what is going on here and elsewhere. I've seen detrans posts complaining about this online and it is mentioned in the Wiki article.

I imagine most posts this morning are complaining about the blatant attempt to remove a major support space from detrans people (only revoked when someone realised how bad it looks). It's not feminists doing this.

I accept some detrans people feel this way and I never go into their spaces to take up their time and energy with my musings.

A not insignificant part of the detrans community becoming established in their own right was because feminist groups made space at events so they could speak and be heard. They've grown in strength ever since. I see more solidarity between us than not.

The phrase I picked a nit with was 'gay conversion therapy' and again, I've not aware of any trans person complaining that an absence of "100% affirming" support is some kind of hate on us. We might whine a bit about 'gatekeeping' but transitioning is a big step even if we could just pick up our meds at the corner shop. And a lot of 'transitioning' is non-medical and/or reversable and no-one should be burning bridges as a first step.

Obviously any kind of coercion from religious extremists is despicable, whether it's from parents or a local church. And doctors green-lighting surgeries in the way that has been described here sound negligent. But the horror stories posted here are from some US backwaters and this is a UK-centric board. No-one here is getting mastectomies at 15.

And funny you should mention 'hijacking' on a topic appealing for trans-people's experiences that has spent a lot of energy selling the notion that trans people "might" just be confused lesbians by....exploiting detransitioners.

@MadBadDaddy

The phrase I picked a nit with was 'gay conversion therapy' and again, I've not aware of any trans person complaining that an absence of "100% affirming" support is some kind of hate on us. We might whine a bit about 'gatekeeping' but transitioning is a big step even if we could just pick up our meds at the corner shop. And a lot of 'transitioning' is non-medical and/or reversable and no-one should be burning bridges as a first step.

Obviously any kind of coercion from religious extremists is despicable, whether it's from parents or a local church. And doctors green-lighting surgeries in the way that has been described here sound negligent. But the horror stories posted here are from some US backwaters and this is a UK-centric board. No-one here is getting mastectomies at 15.

And funny you should mention 'hijacking' on a topic appealing for trans-people's experiences that has spent a lot of energy selling the notion that trans people "might" just be confused lesbians by....exploiting detransitioners.

We don't agree on much, but I imagine one thing we CAN agree on is that funding is a huge issue, as across the NHS right now, sadly.

We need to be spending a very great deal more on gender questioning kids to begin with, so it can be properly explored, and what drives the dysphoria really understood. Most reaching GIDS have extremely complex profiles, and the level of care that should be on offer to all kids, never mind ones that vulnerable doesn't sound as if it is available - and the waiting lists and care thresholds across the country for CAHMS are completely unacceptable, anyway. Many kids who reach GIDS at all will have spent years in receipt of appallingly subpar, inconsistent care.

Sadly I have seen it argued that affirmation is the only acceptable care pathway. I'm glad you agree that that's just not responsible.

I've spoken to some detransitioners who are actively engaged in trying to campaign for the above. They accept that some kids are genuinely dysphoric. They simply don't think that the thresholds in establishing who those might be is in any way evidence-based, and some don't think surgery, especially, but also meds are necessarily going to cure the dysphoria to begin with. They don't feel exploited - they feel very motivated to prevent others from going through what they have - though of course they're just individuals, and can't speak for all detransitioners. Yet the existence of detransitioners is relevant, because it does demonstrate that mistakes are being made in diagnostic terms, and that that have potentially horrendous implications for the lives of those affected.

I'd also like to point out that many of us have autistic kids, who are a group who disproportionately want to transition. It's not hysteria for us to note that there's often a hugely complex mental health picture, and that there are legitimate questions around whether the dysphoria is a consequence of those mental health problems, an unrelated thing happening anyway, or a driver of them. In fact I'd argue that that is precisely the issue that should be researched, without bias in any direction, in seeking to establish the best care pathway for the young people in question. Mental health problems are the norm in autistic teenagers. Autistic people are also more likely to be gay, and to be gender non-conforming, and to therefore cope with homophobia in schools. They're also more vulnerable to sexual and emotional abuse and exploitation, which can make it very scary to be contending with male attention, as a young teenager. These are all issues that get very little help and support, but should be addressed and explored in seeking to work out what is going on for those kids, and what serves their best interests.

It's such a horrendously complex area and should be getting really nuanced, patient-centred care, that's fully evidence-based. And right now it all looks far too politicised and polarised for that to be what is happening. And that really, really does bother me - I have no idea if full transition might be the ideal pathway for some kids, but I'm not going to rule it out, either. We don't just know. And it's such an enormous step, that we should be putting one hell of a lot more funding into finding out. As it is, follow up seems almost non-existent.

Your 'non awareness' is your own issue MBD. I'm very aware of conversion therapy, anti-lesbian and anti-gay ideas, and all the permutations of it in the broader trans movement. And as I have no interest in expending energy on your education on this matter, I'll leave you to make whichever claims you think are appropriate. As you say, for some reason this thread has been started for you to share your perspectives, and far be it from me to suggest that a feminist forum isn't the very best place for you to share your special wisdom. There are so few places online for you to do that, after all.

The UK Council for Psychotherapy has launched a new Memorandum of Understanding on Conversion Therapy to include ‘gender identity,’ leaving therapists, counsellors, GPs and clinical professionals in a position where they may be afraid to do anything but agree with a patient’s self-diagnosis as ‘transgender.’ Anything other than ‘affirmation’ could lay a professional open to the charge of conversion or reparative therapy.

www.psychotherapy.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/UKCP-Memorandum-of-Understanding-on-Conversion-Therapy-in-the-UK.pdf

Sorry, the original quote was from Stephanie Davis Arai.

wellbehavedwomen I don't pretend to have the answers but thank you for putting the questions across so well.

I suppose the bone of contention, and the reason it has come up under this topic, is the scale of the problem. Hysteria is just as wrong as dismissiveness and neither position does any service to those most affected. As you say, there are some extremely vulnerable people involved, not to mention their families. Weaponising them in any way to score points is just...off. I agree with what you say about funding and it makes the whole issue so depressingly mundane.

Speaking personally (just to nudge things back on-topic for a moment), I talk to a lot of trans people online and IRL but few of them are teenagers (and none IRL). "Trans regret" is a thing at any age but is seen as a minor issue, but I accept the modern youth might be undermining that position. However if anyone described detransers as some kind of pariahs I would be shocked, I certainly wouldn't let such sentiments pass. Being trans is a tough path.
I've tried to imagine what my life would have been like if I was growing up in today's world of increased awareness and support but all I can say is that I wouldn't be who I am today (I probably wouldn't be a parent, for one thing, and even if I was, my kids wouldn't be who they are either) so my opinion on the matter is possibly less relevant than say a parent of a questioning teen. However, I'll take issue with anyone who says "I'm not/They're not trans, so no-one can be". You haven't said that at all and so I can easily respect your opinion and thanks again for putting it so well.

What's illuminating about funding/underfunding in healthcare is that prior to the last election the Labour Party civil servants working on the manifesto went to great lengths to budget for and include a massive healthcare package worth millions specifically for trans people.

One of the men involved in this and who was very proud of his work has since spoken out about his experiences lamenting the outright disinterest in this by trans activists (who are not all trans themselves) within the Labour Party. He noted regretfully that their only interest was in removing women's rights at the expense of anything else that might benefit the trans community much more.

I believe it was a moment of enormous clarity for him as someone who previously had been very supportive.

But it dismayed trans people, according to Heather’s account and the actions of pop-up people like Ellie-Mae and her ilk. It dismayed the pop up people and LGBT Labour because it was the removal of the established legal rights of women that interested them.

Nowhere, ever, have I seen any recognition from any of them of the astonishingly bold, tangible and very expensive commitment that we gave to improve the lives of trans people by ensuring adequate and much improved access to health care services.

It’s not because they didn’t know.

It’s because that’s not what they’re interested in.

medium.com/@lachlanstuart/the-confessions-of-a-transphobe-b4942c06e6e4