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.

"A bad idea can bring more acclaim and recognition to its originator than a good idea, if the bad idea is simple (especially if it involves no mathematics), and if it appeals to a wide variety of people."

Yes, I think that includes the bad idea that some males are actually women, because "woman" feelings.

I didn't say those 2 characteristics (AGP/HSTS) aren't manifested in some people, just that I don't recognise them in myself or anyone else I know.

I was neither a fetishist nor a flambyant effeminate homesexual that played with dolls as a child, unless you count action-man (I thought you guys didn't like stereotypes?)
A lot of trans women I know I'd describe as pretty much asexual, if I had to guess. We don't really compare notes TBH. I'm not even sure if I know anyone who claims to be a lesbian either, but I do know a few with male partners, etc.

Have you any idea what HRT does to a male sex drive?

Have you any idea what HRT does to a male sex drive?

Presumably you mean cross sex hormones?
HRT is hormone replacement therapy, intended to mitigate the impact of women's menopause.

yeah potayto, potarto whatever.

This video describes my perspective of myself pretty well and directly critiques Bailey/Blanchard typology. It's also my kind of funny.

I clicked your links, dare you click mine?

Contrapoints?

Oh God, Contrapoints - their video on 'Gender Critical' was woeful. Nice production values, though. Contrapoints dropped out of grad school after a couple of years and doesn't have a qualification beyond a bachelors in philosophy, so I wouldn't exactly say they are an authority on psychology.

I also don't particularly like watching Contrapoints because their videos are filled with casual sexism and misogyny (such as the claim that any woman who doesn't wear makeup and fake nails is doing that to 'flex' on on feminine women and to be 'cool girls').But I've always thought that there was something unusual about Nathalie's claim to being a woman, in that Nathalie just reads like an over the top drag queen to me.

I clicked your links, dare you click mine?

Bloody hell. This isn't a game.

I don't think her videos are a good idea for anyone who's easily triggered, and that includes tran people.

So as might imagine, I'm a big fan.

She got interviewed by The Economist, don'tchaknow?

I still read your shitty links from beginning to end.

My shitty link directly relates to this topic, my sense of identity and your hero Blanchard and his Big Science. It could also explain why I don't get perpetually triggered by hanging out here and talking to y'all, which I'm sure must annoy the hell out of one or two of you.

Your loss.

@SpartacusAutisticus

I'm not a fan of Blanchard tbh so don't really need to see a take down.

That's cool. long story short, AGP/HSTS isn't the full story and Blanchard concedes this. Some people here might think AGP/HSTS is the full story, and they would be wrong.

Sounds a bit niche then, by which I mean unpleasant

@MadBadDaddy

I didn't say those 2 characteristics (AGP/HSTS) aren't manifested in some people, just that I don't recognise them in myself or anyone else I know.

I was neither a fetishist nor a flambyant effeminate homesexual that played with dolls as a child, unless you count action-man (I thought you guys didn't like stereotypes?)
A lot of trans women I know I'd describe as pretty much asexual, if I had to guess. We don't really compare notes TBH. I'm not even sure if I know anyone who claims to be a lesbian either, but I do know a few with male partners, etc.

Have you any idea what HRT does to a male sex drive?

Not a great deal, judging by the amount of transwomen online with boners. I have spent quite a bit of time on various fora for TW. And their ‘allies’.

madwoman1ntheattic Yeah stay classy. I'm on TW fora too, and I don't see any, but I'm not really looking TBH. And I doubt any that you've seen in your exhaustive research are on the meds I'm on. 'Boners' as you delicately put it, are a memory. The boners I do see are all attached to big hairy men, but I'm sure you didn't want to know that.

Just mentioning it. Your experience seems to be atypical. 🤷‍♀️

Dominance displays are so interesting.

@Cailleach1

I know the topic has moved on a little. However, one thing struck me at the beginning. It was said that a transperson was repulsed by the sex characteristics of their body and they wanted the body of the opposite sex. This translated into a transman wearing a prosthetic where external male reproductive organs would be.

I could be wrong, but it strikes me that the body which is reviled and objectified seems to be the female body. The vast majority of transwomen fully retain their male reproductive organs. Do they really have a revulsion for their maleness? They seem to be as proud of their male organs as much as any other bearer of same. Indeed many active transwomen seem happy to prominently portray them or weaponise them. Plus ca change.

So much female time and energy is wasted on body issues and self-consciousness about appearance. Especially at an age where the energy of girls and young women should be focussed on establishing the foundations of their lives on which their future will rest.

Just my viewpoint.

Sunday Times today 'The detransitioners: what happens when trans men want to be women again? Laura Dodsworth meets the individuals whose stories are rarely told' (extract) I fear that the detransitioned women I interviewed are canaries in the coalmine. Not only for detransitioners, but for womanhood. They all, in some combination, found being a woman too difficult, too dangerous or too disgusting. “I put the problem inside myself,” says one, “when actually it is with how the outside world sees women who don’t conform to feminine norms.”

These interviews, and my wider research, have uncovered common themes of girls who felt they didn’t fit typical feminine stereotypes, and felt uncomfortable in today’s hypersexualised culture. High rates of sexual abuse, harassment, autism, self-harm, personal rejection of being lesbian and homophobia all play a part. Feminism has made life better for women, but is it any easier to be in possession of a female body? Cosmetic surgery continues to grow in popularity as women chase the feminine ideal — females underwent 92% of all procedures recorded by the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons in 2018, and breast enlargement remains the most popular. But at the other end of the scale, globally, there are thousands of “gofundmes” for “top surgery” — female-to-male double mastectomies. I wonder how many might come to regret their surgery?

If you read the stories on the Detrans subreddit online forum, detransition has been a difficult experience for many. How should this be addressed? The women I spoke to said they were all accepted as trans fairly unquestioningly by therapists and doctors. Should the assessment be more thorough and investigative? Does the current “affirmative” treatment model allow the “wrong people” to transition — people for whom simply being a girl, a woman, a lesbian, could have been an acceptable and happy experience? (continues)

Thomasin, 20
I recently found one of my first Tumblr posts, which went along the lines of: “I don’t like wearing dresses like other girls, I don’t want to put make-up on, could I be agender?” I applied how I felt about sexuality to gender: I don’t fancy boys so I must be asexual; I don’t feel like girls so I must be agender.

I soon felt confused by agender and non-binary, and I thought it would be easier to say I was a boy and decided I was transgender. I joined some transgender groups on Facebook. Some older trans people started messaging with me, which, in hindsight, was pretty ropey. I had just turned 16 and one person I was talking to was a man who identified as a trans woman in his forties. I don’t think it was OK that he talked to a 16-year-old girl the way he did. If I’d tell him I had doubts about being trans, he’d say doubts are normal and I should ignore them." (continues)
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/25f95e06-bf8f-11ea-9ea2-5a548b3aebca?shareToken=a5fb9ca37a2581ef711137892c097192

thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3965451-the-times-the-detransitioners

@FloralBunting

Dominance displays are so interesting.

Aren't they just? And so interesting to watch unfold in real time.

Along with blatant attempts to piss on my leg and tell me it's raining.

Though I generally find pissing contests are also another form of dominance display.

Along with blatant attempts to piss on my leg and tell me it's raining.

On a coercive control collated resource thread, LangCleg referred to Lundy Bancroft's ' Why Does He Do That? In the minds of angry and controlling men':

"Because the patterns of coercive control are the same whether they are taking place within the confines of a one-on-one intimate relationship or in the open theatre between males and female victims in the overheated social media environment. Similar advice on avoiding and/or dealing with coercive control applies to both areas.

A couple of quotes from Why Does He Do That? by Lundy Bancroft:

YOUR ABUSIVE PARTNER DOESN’T HAVE A PROBLEM WITH HIS ANGER; HE HAS A PROBLEM WITH YOUR ANGER. One of the basic human rights he takes away from you is the right to be angry with him. No matter how badly he treats you, he believes that your voice shouldn’t rise and your blood shouldn’t boil. The privilege of rage is reserved for him alone. When your anger does jump out of you—as will happen to any abused woman from time to time—he is likely to try to jam it back down your throat as quickly as he can. Then he uses your anger against you to prove what an irrational person you are. Abuse can make you feel straitjacketed. You may develop physical or emotional reactions to swallowing your anger, such as depression, nightmares, emotional numbing, or eating and sleeping problems, which your partner may use as an excuse to belittle you further or make you feel crazy.

IN ONE IMPORTANT WAY, an abusive man works like a magician: His tricks largely rely on getting you to look off in the wrong direction, distracting your attention so that you won’t notice where the real action is. He draws you into focusing on the turbulent world of his feelings to keep your eyes turned away from the true cause of his abusiveness, which lies in how he thinks. He leads you into a convoluted maze, making your relationship with him a labyrinth of twists and turns. He wants you to puzzle over him, to try to figure him out, as though he were a wonderful but broken machine for which you need only to find and fix the malfunctioning parts to bring it roaring to its full potential. His desire, though he may not admit it even to himself, is that you wrack your brain in this way so that you won’t notice the patterns and logic of his behavior, the consciousness behind the craziness.

You can read the whole book here:

the-eye.eu/public/Psychedelics/Psychedelic%20Praxis%20Library%203.0/Collections%20by%20Subject/Social%20Progress/2002%20-%20Bancroft%20-%20Why%20Does%20He%20Do%20That%20Inside%20the%20Minds%20of%20Angry%20and%20Controlling%20Men.pdf

And remember: every reference to partner/boyfriend/husband can also apply to online troll/stalker/abuser."

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3452784-Coercive-Control-a-need-for-better-awareness

From the Sunday Times article (linked previously)

Lee, 62
(extract)
I transitioned when I was 44. I thought I’d be a different person as a man, happier and more confident, but my life was still screwed up. I saw a counsellor for five years, which helped me understand why my life has been so complicated. I thought I wanted to be male. But how would I know what it’s like to be a male? I’ve never been one. I can’t be. I’m an approximation of a male on the outside, but really I’m a woman on testosterone who has had surgery" (continues)

"I see the cause of my transition as being my mother, grandmother and father. My brother was idolised by my mother and grandmother. He was the golden child who could do no wrong, their “little darling”. I was a “little heathen” and a “hussy”; I could do nothing right. My mother was always angry with me and very critical. I spent most of my childhood saying sorry and pleading with her. I hated my body from when I was a child. I thought I was fat. I hated the frilly dresses my mother would put me in. I wanted to wear the same clothes as my brother and have the same haircut as him, but she wouldn’t let me. My body felt like a prison when puberty started. I thought my periods were like a nightmare, it seemed so wrong to have blood coming out of my body.

When I was 15 my father got in touch with us after many years. I was pleased to hear from him. He would take my brother and me out and he bought us things — a stereo, clothes — and gave us money. He seemed like the perfect father. He invited us to stay at his house and my mother didn’t want us to go, but wouldn’t say why not. Of course I went anyway.

The first evening he raped me. He came in the next morning and he did it again. Afterwards I think I sat in the lavatory for about an hour. It’s like I didn’t know where I was.

Later my mother told me how violent he had been. She told me about a time he’d hung me out of the window by my ankle when I was a toddler to scare her. I have a feeling I was sexually abused as a child before she left him.

One morning when I was 44 I saw a female-to-male transgender person on television. I’d never seen one before. I thought: “That could be me.” It seemed like it might be the answer. I went to see a gender doctor privately in London. On the first appointment he said, “Let’s not waste any more time,” and injected me with testosterone. It was what I wanted, but I now think it was wrong — what I really needed was psychotherapy. I was screwed up. It was my head that needed help, not my body. I really liked the testosterone. It took a long time to get a beard and body hair, but I built up muscle very quickly." (continues)

Lee bravely went public about her experiences out of deep concern for others in similar circumstances.

Newsnight 26 Nov 2019

Daily Mail November 2018
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3414138-Im-not-meant-to-be-a-bloke-Woman-who-changed-gender-to-become-man-called-Lee-says-sex-swap-was-a-huge-mistake

I think my concern right now is what women feel and experience. How women are being marginalised and demonised about their own sex. Maybe, when the balance starts to be redressed, which it will be, then I will think about other things.

The majority of society is in the middle of the spectrum.. It has outliers, at the moment the Hard Left is trying to dominate. For success to happen it has to have its scapegoat - Anti-antisemitism become the core but was found out. Women are the target under the guise of trans rights (though trans do have rights but not the rights some of them want). If the hard left can silence a large enough group, then that will be wonderful for them. Women seem to be their easy target because their hard line, misogynistic view of women is that we wont bite back - REALLY. A lovely masculine view that has been peddled for aeons. Society likes the middle ground. We are pack animals, in order to survive, we take the middle way. Eventually we take back that ground if we feel it threatens the pack. The pack is feeling threatened at the moment.

Just thoughts, nothing cemented in my mind, just wanted to add a little something

I am interested in your experience MadBadDaddy.

Reading alex's thoughts, I was very concerned about how young they sounded, how little life experience they really have and how what they describe is much like many older lesbians remember feeling. It's one reason so many older women are concerned about young women transitioning too soon.

You have mentioned that you have children, so you experienced the family benefits of a straight male before embarking on transitioning. You still have your penis as well, and have commented on looking at large penises.

From your point of view, do you think your life would have been better if you could have fully transitioned, removing your own penis etc at a much younger age? Or do you feel that your trajectory of being a fertile straight man before becoming a straight woman with a penis is a better one?
Are you concerned about young men transitioning before they are fully mature?