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.

That story of desertion is so sad. I don't understand how a father can just abandon and shirk responsibility for his child like that.

Children of Transitioners
'On the pressure to pretend that it’s all OK'
(extract)
"And I want to start with the fact that we have to pretend that it’s OK. Because it’s not just about pleasing your parent, which of course we want to do with all our heart. That’s why we’ve changed the pronouns. That’s why we can’t say Daddy any more. It’s more than that because if you say you are unhappy with what’s happening you are uncool, a bigot, difficult. Perhaps you are made to feel like you are hurting your parent if you get the language ‘wrong’ or that you are breaking a special pact. Your personal is also political and you have to be OK about it… or other parents won’t get to see their kids perhaps. Or trans people will look bad. Lots of people’s feelings rest on you suppressing yours.

Anyway, this idea floated up again when I saw the Twitter reaction to Bruce Jenner’s son Brody. Buzzfeed reported this as: “Brody Jenner Misgendered Caitlyn Jenner Twice On The Hills: New Beginnings And It Didn’t Go Down Well”

www.buzzfeed.com/elliewoodward/brody-jenner-misgendered-caitlyn-jenner-the-hills-new

Probably not the best example, but Brody has already expressed his feelings that his father wasn’t a great dad and wasn’t around for key moments of his childhood. But now dad is trans and Brody’s feelings about his father have to be policed. What seemed clear in the coverage is that Brody doesn’t get to talk about his father on his own terms without outrage from people who can’t possibly understand what it’s like for a child to have to substantially change his relationship with his father like this. So leave the Brodies alone, please. The crowd there to police the language used around trans people aren’t helping.

It’s genuinely not easy to change the language you have used around your parent for all your life. I remember yelling, “Dad!” once after transition to get his attention, and it was only the once because of the anger it produced in my father. Sometimes it felt like my father had died and been replaced by a self-involved imposter. But that’s my damage and not necessarily Brody’s or anyone else’s."

childrenoftransitioners.org/2019/08/09/on-the-pressure-to-pretend-that-its-all-ok/

Not just in my experience, in the experience of dozens of women whose testimony is on this board

OK, but does my opinion not count just because there's a thread on here about trans widows?
I'm entitled to think that's a shitty way to think about your (general your) partner.
They're not dead. They're still alive. Not a widow.
As I said, hypothetical as not happened to me yet but if DH said was trans and I've been with since forever said was trans he'd still be him. Even if was now a her. Aware that probably doesn't make sense but I know what I'm saying lol

No it doesn't make sense, because you are treating transitioning as if they are still the same person but in a dress, and thats not what happens. I would expect you of all people to know that.

@R0wantrees

Its not all about you.

.

TheInibriati
Apologies, crosspost.

No it doesn't make sense, because you are treating transitioning as if they are still the same person but in a dress, and thats not what happens
OK. bit still doesn't negate my view and how I see it.

I would expect you of all people to know that

Not sure why Rowantrees (Ro ) is is re quoting themselves there.
Already answered that,

In reference to the "not all about you" did a few pages back.

You have no idea how you would react. You think there is no material difference between your husband now, and your husband going through transition.

He would still be him.
No he wouldn't, thats the point.
But do feel free to call women who have been through it 'shitty'. On a feminist board no less.

He would still be him.
No he wouldn't, thats the point

Personality? Been with over 20 years. Like to think that plays a part, it's not how you look or present. It's who you are.
"Shitty? Point to where I said anyone was shitty. I've said nothing of the sort. Anywhere.

OK, but does my opinion not count just because there's a thread on here about trans widows?

Do you really think you know more about this than the people who have actually been through it?

Do you really think you know more about this than the people who have actually been through

No.
Nowhere have I said or even implied as much.
It was a question put to me and I answered.
Other people entitled to feel how they feel.

I'm entitled to think that's a shitty way to think about your (general your) partner.

Stop being so disingenuous.

Really not being disgenous.
MY thoughts and experiences.

Why did you deny you said "shitty" about other women's framing of their relationship breakdowns?

You:

Shitty? Point to where I said anyone was shitty. I've said nothing of the sort. Anywhere.

Also you:

I'm entitled to think that's a shitty way to think about your (general your) partner.

OK, can see that.
It doesn't stop me thinking that can't be shit or whatever with different viewpoints - it's more interesting when actual voices her heard as opposed to long screeds thought checking voices

'I said nothing of the sort'

'Of the sort' is doing a lot of work there. Fortunately others have general reading comprehension and can quite clear see what was said to Tinsel, and draw their own conclusions about saying something like that to a woman in her position on a feminist forum.

@alexk3 I realise that I didn't answer your point about waking up in a male body and how I'd feel about it. Since you said you found the responses interesting (and I definitely owe you an answer when you've answered so many questions yourself!) I am another one who really doesn't think I'd care.

Aside from the "holy crap what has happened here?!" science fiction bit(!), I honestly believe my sense of myself wouldn't be altered internally by waking up with a male body because the 'voice in my head' doesn't depend on my outside looking a particular way, if you know what I mean.

I am incredibly grateful to my body for growing and feeding my child and might be sad that I couldn't do that again AND I do believe that having a male body would change the way I am treated by other people (probably for good in many ways, but also some negatives I can imagine). I can see how over time being treated differently might 'change me' too, but I'd see and understand that to be a reaction to the effect of socialisation rather than changing the core of who I am or my real sense of myself if that makes sense?

So I can see the differences but it wouldn't bother me personally or horrify me if that makes sense. I think I'd still feel the same.

Hope that helps with another data point for your 'study'!

Lemonade I'd still be very interested to hear whether you think women should have sex-based rights or not?

These are the 'actual voices' of trans people.

Various people not wanting to hear about trans people's experiences of detransitioning is very common, for obvious reasons.

When I told people I was going to create a photographic series about trans men who wanted to “detransition” and become women again, I was told to expect a backlash.

The women in my project, who are from the UK and other European countries, have all encountered anger, disbelief and trolling online.

People on Twitter have told me I’m not genuinely trans, that I’m transphobic, or that I am a sock account. There are people who refuse to accept there are a growing number of detransitioners.

Talking about detransitioning online has mostly been good for me, because now I’m not alone with it any more. I found all of these women I can now call friends. But it’s also been difficult online — trans people have called me a liar and I’ve been told I should be ashamed because I took resources away from real trans people.

For you. Not me

A woman is an adult human female. This is universally recognised. Anything else is mere mimicry, affectation or emotional fancy.
Feelings and identities shift and change throughout life. They are not fixed in stone. They respond to social and cultural patterns and expectations. Biology is what makes us creatures of earth, and like the vast majority of other creatures on the earth, humans are sexually dimorphic.

I just have my experience which is what I'm sharing

Nobody is doubting your experience. But this issue not about individual feelings, it is about the recognition of biological sex and all that flows from that.

@LemonadeAndDaisyChains

Not just in my experience, in the experience of dozens of women whose testimony is on this board

OK, but does my opinion not count just because there's a thread on here about trans widows?
I'm entitled to think that's a shitty way to think about your (general your) partner.
They're not dead. They're still alive. Not a widow.
As I said, hypothetical as not happened to me yet but if DH said was trans and I've been with since forever said was trans he'd still be him. Even if was now a her. Aware that probably doesn't make sense but I know what I'm saying lol

Telling domestic abuse victims (which most of the trans widows are) that they are "shitty" and then ending your comment on a "lol", is quite something.

Hi alexk3 I just wanted to pick up on what you said here:

It is a really hard thing to figure out, all my friends think it is beyond obvious that I'm trans but I've been worrying about it for years!

Are your friends the same age as you? Late teens/early 20s?

If so, please be very careful about accepting their advice on something this big. I know this is going to sound patronising, and I don't mean it to, but people's life experience at 20 is still very limited.

The trans ideology has only been mainstream for less than 10 years (I would say closer to 5). It has been accepted very quickly and is only now just being challenged. Your friends are likely to have grown up with this narrative and will just see it as an extension of LGB rights. Your friends will be well-meaning and want what is best for you, but how many of them will have truly questioned the prevailing ideology? As your lives lead you down different roads and experiences, your views on some things will change and so will your friends'. The advice they give you today may not be the advice they would give you in 2025.

Imagine yourself at 60 looking back on your youth. Is 22 years old so very different from 20 when viewed from that perspective? Isn't it worth waiting a couple of years before committing to anything irreversible?