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.

I identify as a man because I just am. - I've said I can't really explain it haha so that's it really.

A man is an adult human male.
There are three significant & measurable factors which inform the definition of man, being human, adult and male.

How a man chooses to live, dress or love is immaterial.

[quote alexk3]@Datun

I think we have to agree to disagree really, I'm never going to go around calling myself a lesbian because it's just not me, so I don't expect female-attracted trans women to have to call themselves straight. NO, being gay isn't an identity, my friend just is gay, and she includes trans women in that. Nothing against people who don't though.[/quote]
Indeed.

I'm just not sure how many gay people will thank this ideology when the protections and acceptance they have fought for over decades will be eroded and dismantled.

We look back on criminalising homosexuality as archaic and inhuman. Attacking men for only loving other men and putting them in prison? Barbaric.

But attacking women for only loving women, absolutely bloody fine in 2020.

alexk3 to echo the others, thank you for engaging I have found what you've said so interesting.

words matter though. lesbians are women attracted to other biological women

your friend can identify as a lesbian but bluntly if she's happy having sex with people with male bodies no matter how they are dressed and how long their hair is, she's not a lesbian. frankly im always amazed at how much biphobia there seems to be around the trans movement - there's nothing wrong with being sexually attracted to men and women

The words lesbian, heterosexual, homosexual are all based on sex. And, they are already taken. Both legally and culturally.

Indeed, they were not very happy, but in many cases ( all that I have found ) they have found happiness without needing to change anything about themselves.

It's a tried and tested solution to the problem that has gone seriously out of fashion

• DianasLasso R0wantrees really not trying to mansplain anything but apologies alexk3 I was just about to say similar. alexk3 you definitely weren't mansplaining to anyone *

I did put a 'wink' emoji at the end, I wasn't being serious.

Comes across as transplaining maybe?

I think we have to agree to disagree really, I'm never going to go around calling myself a lesbian because it's just not me, so I don't expect female-attracted trans women to have to call themselves straight. NO, being gay isn't an identity, my friend just is gay, and she includes trans women in that. Nothing against people who don't though.

What do you think being gay is then? You say it isn't an identity but how can it not be in your eyes if being gay is something any person on the planet can be based on the language they decide to use for themselves?

I'm a woman who has been married to a man for 20 years. If he decided to call himself a lesbian tomorrow does that make us lesbians now? Have we always been married lesbians (including all the years same sex marriage was not legal)? How does that impact the category of people formally known as lesbians? How might they feel if we turn up to a lesbian event and start educating them about our path to lesbianism?

You seem really unwilling to consider the wider effects of what you advocate for beyond your own social group or address the legal ramifications of what Datun was pointing out.

I believe there are still 100+ countries in the world that still do not have full civil rights for gay and lesbian people. How do the activists in these countries go about advocating for themselves if the countries that have achieved this are busy pulling up the ladder behind them? This leaves those people in an incredibly weak position to argue for the full raft of rights because by definition of language they no longer exist in a tangible way.

I believe there are still 100+ countries in the world that still do not have full civil rights for gay and lesbian people. How do the activists in these countries go about advocating for themselves if the countries that have achieved this are busy pulling up the ladder behind them?

In Iran, homosexuality is illegal and punishable by death.

Homosexuals have to transition in order to have a same sex relationship.

Iran has the highest number of sex change operations on the planet, except for Thailand.

You seem really unwilling to consider the wider effects of what you advocate for beyond your own social group or address the legal ramifications of what Datun was pointing out

i think this is the absolute crux of the problem. People not willing to look beyond their own peer group of people they like - because of course we should make laws in this country based on the group of people we happen to know and like and who we know wouldnt behave like arseholes

my husband is a kind and decent man who would never hurt anyone. That didnt mean that when he became a cub leader he didnt have to have a DBS check. why? because some adults do hurt and abuse children in their care. the law was made to safeguard children from adults who would abuse them

laws exist to protect women from men not because all men are abusive arseholes but because some men are and we cant tell which is which. it doesnt matter how a man dresses, what make up he weras or how much of himself he alters, he's still fundamentally at a chromosonal level male and women have a right to keep male people out of their spaces

Alex, you said in your first post:

"... I suppose some trans people try and wear clothes more typical of their desired sex (for example) but that can either be because that's what they enjoy, or for the sake of passing which alleviates dysphoria..." (my emphasis)

And I said - This business about "passing". Isn't it much more likely that people do notice but are polite?

Wasn't talking about you specifically. Nevertheless you say that has hurt your feelings.

It was not my intention to do that and I am very sorry that has happened. I can get Mumsnet to remove the post in question if you'd like?

I'm not talking any more about it because I am slightly losing the will to live - a man attracted to men (trans or not) is gay, and a woman attracted to women (trans or not) is gay. That's what I think and it's not going to change

@BaronessBrighterThanYou

I'm not really bothered, yes perhaps people do notice. But sometimes they don't, not all trans people are 'clockable' even though most here seem to think they are.

Transplaining meant for the people saying what trans is and isn't when they're not, that wasn't aimed at MBD or Alex just to be clear!

.. I'm not really bothered...

Super.

@LemonadeAndDaisyChains

thanks I was a bit confused, am really just trying to answer questions, nothing is mean to be patronising etc. Probably will stop soon because taking its toll a bit

@BaronessBrighterThanYou

bothered about whether you remove the post...

..a man attracted to men (trans or not) is gay, and a woman attracted to women (trans or not) is gay...

Not super.

bothered about whether you remove the post...

Smashing.

@alexk3 I read it back and thought "ooh fuck, that didn't come across as I meant it and can be taken the wrong way so thought I'd better clarify!
Sorry about that.
I meant more the walls of text and "corrective thinking" videos that come your way whenever people post to show you "how to understand better".
Glad you know your own mind

This is a very frustrating thread.

Alex, I have a great deal of empathy for you. Feminism includes you. And it examines the reason for women transitioning.

All I would say to you at 19, is people do change their mind. You must know that intellectually, even if emotionally you think it won't apply to you.

Keira Bell is about your age and has/is detransitioning. She was asked what we could have said to her 17 or 18 year-old self. And she said 'nothing, I knew.'

Until she didn't.

Presumably you have already been through puberty. So waiting a few more years may not impact you very much. I urge you to do so. At least for anything that is irreversible.

www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/health-51676020

@LemonadeAndDaisyChains

ah okay I get you!

@Datun

yes I know about her case and it is really sad. Looking at her interviews, she seemed to encounter a lot of homophobia which I haven''t experienced, and she says she thought transition would fix her depression, which I don't think either. I'm not going to wait because I know what I want, really.

The words lesbian, heterosexual, homosexual are all based on sex. And, they are already taken. Both legally and culturally.

This. The term "trans woman" means literally any male who "identifies" as a woman. Any. male. Lesbians are female people who are solely attracted to other female people. It's absurd to consider a heterosexual male a lesbian. And it's harmful to not allow same sex attracted people to have a word to describe them.

This really has been a great discussion all round and I'm really grateful that everyone's taken the time to post such thoughtful and detailed responses and points which I think have been really well made.

I do just want to gently remind people that Alex is only one person who has gamely put themselves forward to answer everyone's single-handed (and at my request so I do feel somewhat responsible for the thread).

That's not to say that everyone shouldn't robustly put forward strongly held points of view, and I think this has by and large been a notably respectful discussion. Just a request to bear in mind that Alex is rather out there alone in this context and to consider how it might be the other way around if you were the one person on a trans rights forum fielding lots of questions and points at once from all angles.