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.

And shockingly, no professional involved gender services had ever explored the link between the two, due to the approach of 'positive affirmation' and 'no questions'.

And presumably any research into this would be shut down because rather than being a way to understand the phenomenon, it would be framed as being done to undermine the affirmation treatment regiment.

Alex, thanks for your patience and good humour, recognising MNers’ friendly intentions.

My question is, what exactly do you understand the GRA requirement of “living as a man” to mean? Is it something you yourself consciously do? If so, what does it involve? As you can probably guess, I wear trousers and flat shoes, have always done jobs both men and women do etc. I wanted to be a boy when I was young, but that was because women’s lives back then were so restricted.

Other than using women’s changing rooms etc, I don’t notice that I’m living as a man or woman. But do you see a difference, in you own life?

Thanks for all the time you’re giving this. I hope you’re getting something helpful from it too.

Why have so many human societies over the millennia developed similar gendered norms, despite sometimes evolving separately and with no contact with each other

Because what ends up being codified, and then socially enforced, arises initially from biology and from the differences between males and females. So for example, females become pregnant, carry young, give birth and then nurture and feed their young......this implies and necessitates nurturing & nesting instincts.....which further along the line ends up with systems of purdah, for example, in which women are not permitted to leave the home at all.

Female tends to be symbolically represented by the private/interior world, Male by the public/exterior world - and this is also reflected in the biological sex organs.

Stereotypes arise from deeper symbolism, some of which does have its origins in the body/biology/sex.

Just for the record, that's not any better

No

I don’t understand the ‘confusion’ around the fact that its the word shitty thats the issue, not the personal view

You what? Why not answer the question instead of talking in riddles lol
You said there was a quote function, I'm pointing out there actually isn't, unless you pay?Unless we all have a quote function now? If so then fair enough but didn't know if so

If you want to highlight and quote without a subscription, then you copy and paste the post, or the section of it, you are responding to, and you insert one asterix at the beginning of it, and one at the end.

However, so far you have nothing much to say or add other than " it' my view","it's my experience". And quite frankly I'm tiring of your pointless posts. You surely know that there is never going to general agreement with your views here, so what are you trying to achieve?

People have bent over backwards to outline in some detail how they see things, and why they have come to the conclusions that they have.

Could I ask, as this thread has nearly filled up, that it be left at 999 posts so that Lemonade has the opportunity to apologise to the trans widows for calling our behaviour "shitty"?

I’m finding the “haha”s and “lol”s pretty distasteful

Yes, always the sign of a disrespectful & ignorant poster. Trivialises everything, and wit no ability to contribute meaningfully.

@TinselAngel

Could I ask, as this thread has nearly filled up, that it be left at 999 posts so that Lemonade has the opportunity to apologise to the trans widows for calling our behaviour "shitty"?

Completely agree.

Best of luck for your future surgeries and you find happiness in your body

How trite. You ought to bring out a series of greeting cards.

I wonder why the quote function doesnt work for certain posters

Maybe its the equipment, i know things are different on mobiles for example

tinsel will do

I hope all of those that are their sending best wishes for the radical surgery and hormone treatments, are still there in equally affirmative ways when/if the desire to detransition arises; because judging from what most young detransitioners say, those same people become pretty scarce afterwards, usually resorting to accusations of "You can't really have been trans".

That's the thing! When you accept a creed and sign up without question, then when you grow disillusioned with that creed, often you find that the supporters/comrades/brothers and sisters desert you.
You become ex-communicated. Cast out.

@Justhadathought

I hope all of those that are their sending best wishes for the radical surgery and hormone treatments, are still there in equally affirmative ways when/if the desire to detransition arises; because judging from what most young detransitioners say, those same people become pretty scarce afterwards, usually resorting to accusations of "You can't really have been trans".

That's the thing! When you accept a creed and sign up without question, then when you grow disillusioned with that creed, often you find that the supporters/comrades/brothers and sisters desert you.
You become ex-communicated. Cast out.

Not true

Not true

How can you say it's not true when that's exactly the experience many detransitioners say that they have had?

It is telling when women describing male control/ abuse have their accounts of such abuse denied, minimised or are attacked/maligned for doing so.
Whether those women identify as 'transwidows', 'detransitioners/ desisters' or not.

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

I hope all of those that are their sending best wishes for the radical surgery and hormone treatments, are still there in equally affirmative ways when/if the desire to detransition arises; because judging from what most young detransitioners say, those same people become pretty scarce afterwards, usually resorting to accusations of "You can't really have been trans".

If you're still reading this thread @alexk3, it's you who needs to be sure about what you're doing, not your friends, not people on the Internet, not anybody else. If you're not sure, wait until you are before doing anything irreversible (like testosterone). And like others on here, I'd recommend waiting a few years even if you think you are sure - you're young - take your time.

Not true

It is true for most of the detransitioners I have heard talk abut their experiences. Reason: If you are convinced you are trans and commit to full transition, but later realise that you have had a change of heart, it casts doubt on the whole ideology. If 'being trans' is a real thing, and not simply a way to cope and deal with dysphoria or distress......then you can't have really been 'trans'. Being trans is not a fixed state, as it suggests it is a position of moving between one thing and another.

Tinsel FWIW I did feel rude talking about you rather than to you, but I really didn’t like the use of ‘shitty’. It was a pretty low blow.

Maybe @LemonadeAndDaisyChains will apologise 🤷‍♀️

For those at the back - again, I wasn't laughing at operations etc - WTF are people deliberately misreading for?!
I was talking to another poster, am I only supposed to talk to trans people only if its about what they're doing to their body? He even said he'd rather the odd lol and talking about something else than keeping going on about mutilating their body!

@ContentiousOne

yes because I’ve read the book I know all of that, it’s grim.

@ChattyLion

I’ve read a lot of detrans stuff before but might look there.

@jewel1968

I think a society like that would make it easier for women/GNC people but not trans people really, I think i’d still have dysphoria. No worries though has been fun.

@Winesalot

thank you!

are still there in equally affirmative ways when/if the desire to detransition arises

Of course I would

Here you go though Lemonade, it's your chance to do the decent thing and apologise to Tinsel and the other trans widows for your comment about their personal lives.

@Thinkingabout1t

Thanks, and I think changing name /pronouns is the main thing really.

@Justhadathought

I mean I thought it was a nice thing to say to be fair and it’s my ~mutilation~

@OldCrone

thanks I am sure though

@LemonadeAndDaisyChains

there’s no telling some people

If you want to highlight and quote without a subscription, then you copy and paste the post, or the section of it, you are responding to, and you insert one asterix at the beginning of it, and one at the end

That's what I do but was told there was a quote function for all.