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.

don’t think it’s ‘absurd’ to say that you writing that ‘i am not and never can be’ male would make me feel dysphoric? obviously it is a fact but it’s also clearly something that i already know.

Of course you already know it. And it's something that you're going to be reminded of every day of your life, so you need to come to terms with it. Relying on people to always tiptoe around you and not mention it is not going to work.

i think it’ll help my dysphoria because t and surgery change everything i’m dysphoric about.

I wish you all the best with whatever you decide to do with your body. But I would have said much the same thing to a woman who was certain that breast implants or a nose job would fix all her problems.

And also to underline that no one should be surprised that female voices are prioritized here over others. And no apology or qualification will be given for that.

This.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

it’s ok, this threads changed a lot! yes you’re right, it’s just sad to me because I really would love to just be happy being a lesbian, and I was for a few years until my dysphoria got worse

I do think it's quite an interesting intellectual exercise to wonder what it might be like to be in a male body.

Especially when viewed through the knowledge of how men and women are socialised differently.

The male ownership of space, attention, authority never even occurred to me, until I analysed it as a result of someone pointing it out to me.

When you actually start to look, it's shocking.

For instance, if a woman talks for 30% of the time in a meeting, the men feel she has dominated it.

All the studies where women have pretended to be a man, and got the deal, job, service, that they wouldn't have otherwise.

I was shocked the very first time I realised that men do not feel vulnerable or hold a key when walking across a deserted car park - not only don't hold it, it would never occur to them.

That 'unlicensed cab' just says to them it's going be cheaper.

My boyfriend used walk the dog in the woods at dusk. He thought the reason I didn't is because I was scared of the dark, in a woo sort of way.

I never occurred to him that he might be overpowered in a place where he couldn't ask for help.

I would say that the idea of innate gender has been co-opted by a bunch of males, not invented by them.

, I do think that the feeling that you as a person does not match your sex , here called your gender identity , has been around for ever.

And I think that in a gendered society, many people do feel that they fit and see the,selves as masculine or feminine

I don't have a feeling of my 'gender' or gender identity. I know that I'm a female, but that's only because I have a female body. I know that back in the day the original trans researchers (Johny Money and all that) defined gender identity as 'the sense that a person has of being biologically male or female."Ok, so I know that I'm a female. But what stumps me is this use of the term 'sense'. What does it mean to sense I'm a female? Do I think I'm female because I'm female? Or would I still think I was female even if I was in a male body? This is impossible to test!

@FloralBunting

I will look more into it - I write a lot at uni about feminism/female perspectives so if anything it’s useful for that! I just don’t really agree with the concept many have of gender as just not real, but yes 100% will look more into it.

@OldCrone

I know yeah it’s just a lot when you hear it 5 days straight! it’s alright though no hard feelings like. thank you

I guess Alex that what some here would wonder is, did your dysmorphia get worse because of something inside you, or did some outside influence make it worse for you. The good old nature vs nurture debate .

Just then people say there's no transphobia on here, it's all just "concern for spaces"

It's really not just "concern for spaces". Nor is it transphobia to disbelieve in gender identity ideology. It shows how little you understand about what we think. It's the whole category of woman/female as a class which we are talking about, and the innumerable ways that affects us.

it’s ok, this threads changed a lot! yes you’re right, it’s just sad to me because I really would love to just be happy being a lesbian, and I was for a few years until my dysphoria got worse

I'm sorry it makes you sad I do understand it's more complicated medically.

Datun oh god, yes, the 30% taking thing pissed.me.off but did not surprise me.

I have also lost all patience with being interrupted and talked over and am quite rude in response to it at work now. My absolute favourite phrase (which I have not yet used in a professional context, but it's probably only a matter of time): "I'm so sorry, did the middle of my sentence interrupt the beginning of yours?"

I do think that the feeling that you as a person does not match your sex , here called your gender identity , has been around for ever.

Really? What does 'gender identity' mean to you? I don't understand how me as a person wouldn't match my sex, because my sex is just what sort of body I have and me as a person is just personality. How is my personality supposed to match my sex? Isn't that just sexism and stereotypes?

@datun

i didn’t mean it in a social way really! been trying to steer away from like socialised things to avoid people telling me i’m transitioning to get privileges. originally i just meant like purely in a physical sense, whether like even if you lived on a desert island and never saw anyone again would you still want a female body or would you change? there’s a semi-popular ftm youtuber who made a video for questioning trans people and said basically that - ‘would you transition if you were on an island and wouldn’t be impacted by other people’ which i think is a good way to think about it really. you’re right about all that stuff tho it is awful.

@WeeBisom

i think that’s quite definition, sort of? I don’t see myself as a bio male but then I kind of do in a weird way, like as in internally? I don’t mean in a brain sex way but just something about me which (again) does not make any sense. The ‘sense’ bit is weird but I suppose they weren’t really thinking about non-trans people when they wrote it, and most non-trans people won’t think about their ‘sense’ of being their bio sex because they just are?

alex, I wouldn't say that some people's feeling of gender isn't 'real'. It clearly is, you and I are discussing it. It's more that feminists ask questions about what causes and influences those feelings, and if it is in fact, a neutral phenomena, or (as is the perspective of many women here) if it is part and parcel of a cultural control system that has developed over a long time, is entirely arbitrary, and actively disadvantages the female sex particularly.

Alex I think the more interesting thing for me is that when I was your age and younger I probably would have said I had a gender if such ideas had been around then. I would have identified as male, because everything about me screamed male. I have really never been attached to my body in any other way than just hoping it worked as it should, and developing female secondary sex characteristics really rocked my world, in a bad way, If I thought I could have got shot of them I definitely would have.

This is why so many older women are asking you to take it slow. Honestly you’re not the only one ever to feel the way you do at your age, and up until a few years ago people just got on with it, grew up and worked their way through it.

I think whoever it was earlier in the thread who said that because people are thinking about it it’s becoming an issue is probably right, I mean if I’d thought I could have changed my body and made myself more in the image of how I saw myself then I most likely would have, and I was just the sort of person to have made a bloody big deal of it too. I would have been you, in fact I probably would have been more argumentative.

I think you’ve got it the wrong way around. Many GC women have been where you are, in fact I think many more women than those who are GC have. Don’t forget this subject is still quite niche and most people wouldn’t have a clue what we’re on about. We know how life experience helps you accept yourself as who you are. It’s not that we find transgenderism foreign at all, quite the opposite. We understand the mindset and all the misery and body hatred, but because we’re older we’ve had enough life experience to see it through and out the other side. The thing is, you’re in the middle of the story and you haven’t thought beyond the next chapter yet. You say if transitioning is a mistake then so be it, but it’s not is it, because you’ve still got a whole life to live yet, and you have no idea where that life will take you or how you’ll feel or what you’ll want in a few years time. I’m not being patronising, I just know it’s a being young and naive thing, because I was once young and naive, nobody could tell me anything because I knew it all. I made a huge mistake when I was your age and it’s taken me 20 years to undo the damage, and I still haven’t fully managed to recover. I had no idea when I made that mistake what it would cost me, I was like you, I thought well if it’s a mistake then so be it. You won’t be able to undo changes that testosterone does to you, and a lifetime is a long time to live with it if it’s not what you thought it would be.

Like I said upthread, don’t discount what older women say. We have a perspective you can’t possibly have yet because we’ve been there, done that, so we’re coming from a place of knowledge, not the ignorance some of your comrades think we are.

The ‘sense’ bit is weird but I suppose they weren’t really thinking about non-trans people when they wrote it, and most non-trans people won’t think about their ‘sense’ of being their bio sex because they just are?

Yes I agree. It's impossible to unmoor that from any social conditioning you've received and the knowledge that you are the sex you are, as I said to Lemonade. You are more likely to feel alienated by your sex, ie gender dysphoria, than have a "sense" of your own sex being correct, I think. I personally am not convinced that such a sense exists, but I do acknowledge the limitations of personal perception and the impossibility of falsifying this belief.

Yes, I think gender identity is heavily tied up in the stereotypes applied by society.

If what you are and how you feel is very different from what society expects of you, there are different ways to process that. One way, and one that is supported by some elements of society, is gender identity ...so you go from feeling outcast to included

But in the same way that many women can not understand that the reason they shave their legs whilst men don't is nothing to do with hygiene and a lot to do with societal expectations, so many people can not see the link between their gender identity and societal expectations

Add in a dollop of body hating and that just proves your innate identity

@midgebabe

I'm not sure actually. My memory of anything beyond like the last week is shaky at best unfortunately. I think it did start getting worse a bit randomly at first, I remember the first time I felt proper chest dysphoria when I was like 16-17 and there had been nothng that would have prompted that. It is much worse now and I don't really know why.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

thank you, yes so much more complicated! and family-wise as well, they're all fine with gay stuff but they just don't understand trans things . cheaper to be gay as well lol

@OldCrone

I suppose outside of personality there's how you're referred to? there's no reason for me to like being called 'sir' in a restaurant, it just happens that I do. Being called 'sir' is wrong on a chromosomal-level, and doesn't match my sex, but I still randomly really enjoy it

@FloralBunting

Yes I sort of get you, I mean 'not real' in the sense that most women here don't think that they have a gender identity, but then I suppose that is neutral? I'm sure I've seen a few people who don't believe it but I am not scrolling to find out haha

I had no idea when I made that mistake what it would cost me, I was like you, I thought well if it’s a mistake then so be it.

Very true. At the same time: would you have listened at that age? I sure didn't. For better and for worse. Haven't we all been there? Heck, Cat Stevens even made a song about it. Half a century ago.

@Whatisthisfuckery

I hope you've sorted/can sort whatever it is you did. I think you're probably right about it being more normal now, which I do think is a good thing but awareness does bring it's own issues as well. This has touched me a lot actually so thank you for writing it. I just currently do not really see another way - I know people slate the whole 'if your child can't transition they'll kill themselves' thing and while it's not always the case it is bloody miserable (which I'm sure you can relate to). I am being so cautious (I've been more unsure than I've let on on this thread), but as I've said over PM every day that I spend worrying, I always reach the same conclusion. I get it's frustrating for older people to see young people being idiots but then also I can't ignore the fact that I'm happily (mostly) socially transitioned and have been for about a year and a half.

I am also so argumentative haha I'm just being very restrained!

@Ereshkigalangcleg

yes I 100% agree, I think that yeah most people just will not think about it at all really.

I guess it was years and years before I untangled what was going on in my head, so no wonder you can't ! Sorry for asking what in hindsight was a very stupid question.

Hi Alex, really interesting to hear your viewpoint and sorry if you feel you’ve had to answer every question relating to trans issues like you’re the president of stonewall or something, obviously you only see the world from your own perspective and experiences and probably have no more experience of the prison system for example, than I have.

I hope no one accuses me of faux concern, but when you talked about your dysphoria getting worse, do you think in time this might get better again? I am no expert at all, but as you acknowledge your dysphoria rather than feeling to always have been in the wrong body, I think it’s extremely wise to focus on your uni course and not rush into anything too drastic or permanent, especially as the long term side effects of testosterone are poorly researched and understood.

Thank you for engaging in this thread (and sticking with it) I think with regards to feminism, the two main concerns are young women (particularly autistic girls and lesbians) undergoing treatment they may eventually regret and the effect on women of allowing men to identify as women without giving proper regard to sex based rights in many areas of life.

I’ve heard it lot’s of times on these boards, that transmen get the rawest deal of all because they still have to contend with the biological disadvantages of being a natal female plus the challenges of being trans, but are often less well represented in the media etc compared to transwomen.

you have definitely helped me understand a little bit better and I wish you very much the best for your life

alex well, yes, as midge mentioned, we all process our experiences in individual ways. Some people are religious in world view, and find a sense that they have a soul - others are not religious in any way, and what others process as evidence of a soul, the atheist would express as their self awareness of consciousness, perhaps.

In these cases, both people are experiencing an unverifiable, internal perspective. The problems arise when one person insists the other person definitely does have a soul, or the other is not allowed to believe they have one. They can both disagree with each other's conclusion amicably otherwise.

In this discussion here, you believe that your feelings are evidence of an innate gender identity. Others here dispute the innateness of that concept, and say that what you're describing, they understand as the response to lots of cultural factors, many of them completely unconscious.

Now, I'm happy for you to decide that your sense of gender identity is an objective thing, even though I disagree. You may well think that everyone has a gender ID, or that if they don't, some people objectively do, and you can make that case to me too. I might ask you to think about your conclusions, you can challenge me on my assumptions, and hopefully the useful conversation continues.

What neither of us can do is require laws or medical interventions to be based in our subjective opinions or beliefs. Those things are mutually agreed for the benefit of everyone in society, and are therefore based in provable, material realities.

The thread specifically asked for trans women and trans men's experiences though, their voice was asked for - who are you to tell them to go away

As well as 'flouncing ( " what about my feelingsmy experience"....), You do have a tendency to mangle ^ wilfully mis-comprehend what has been said, to suit. Nobody has told anyone to"go away". What has been said is that if discussion and disagreement causes you anxiety and suffering, then this may not be the best place to hang out. Certainly if avoiding challenge or conflict of view is what you are after.

To be honest I think more trans people probably lurk this board than any other

Absolutely, Joss Prior seems to live on here....with all of us "cranks".

That's what happens when validation from other people becomes your only way to exist, and when disagreement or lack of affirmation causes you to cease to exist. Your life depends on it.