Where are all the middle aged women who should be transitioning

[IcakethereforeIam]

I'm new here, I'm sorry if this has been covered or if I've got the wrong end of the stick.

I don't understand the apparent lack of curiosity in some quarters at the massive increase in girls wanting to transition. I went to school in the 80s, while my friends and I knew vaguely about sex change it was not something we thought about applying to ourselves. Perhaps we just kept it inside.

Advocates for allowing children to transition (affirmation only? ), think they don't grow out of the desire. Others say over 80% desist (watchful waiting?). I believe the first cohort believe the uptick is down to an increase in awareness of the possibility of treatment. Surely, if that is correct, there should be hundreds or thousands of closeted women around my age wanting to change their sex. Where are they? Has anyone looked for them?

If they aren't there, then why the disconnect.

Stella O'Mally raises this at the NZ conversion therapy consultation. Very interesting. About 9 minutes in.

You’d think the unprecedented rise in girls wanting to transition or present as male - without a corresponding explosion in middle aged female transitioners - would result in calls for some kind of pause.

Why are so many girls wanting to take exogenous androgens and have their breasts/uteruses/ovaries removed? What the actual fuck is going on? How much of it is social contagion versus internalised misogyny, neurodivergence or homophobia for girls who are lesbian?

It hurts my heart that no one seems to give a shit, or that at most it engenders a shrug. And comes back to how girls don’t seem to matter that much, certainly not enough to try to work out what’s afflicting them

Does the increase in teenage FtM run in parallel with a decrease in anorexia and bulimia?

Previously this was high in girls, but I don’t hear about this anymore.

Some of them may be employed in the various organizations pushing the narrative because they may appear less threatening to the general public/ children. I bet they are in fact.

It’s interesting that parallels are always drawn by gender ideologists between gay and being trans - yet despite the fact that being gay is much less stigmatised today than twenty, thirty or fifty years ago, there haven’t actually been massive increases in the estimated proportion of the population who are gay. Yet it’s a routine claim that the massive increases in FTM in particular are because of decreased stigma. This doesn’t make much sense - if it’s just down to less stigma then yes, where are all the middle aged transmen? (And a few anecdotal ones ad demonstrated on this thread isn’t evidence of massive numbers, either.)

One thing I never get is why young gender nonconforming girls feel that they (a) have anything in common with the middle aged MTF transitioners, especially the vocal ones who are public representatives of the trans issue, and (b) are happy to think of themselves as similar to these middle aged male transitioners and happy to see their identities represented by them. When I was a fourteen year old lesbian/bisexual girl there was no-one I felt more alienated from or angered by than middle aged white men. I would have baulked at any of them claiming to represent me in any way, even the gay ones.

So why do teenage girls seem to fall in line behind them as a common cause when it’s clear they are groups right very little in common? I think as well as all the obvious social contagion stuff, porn culture etc., there’s something very odd there going on around the collapse of youth feminism, and a desire for some kind of male approval in very strange forms that we possibly haven’t yet got to the bottom of.

I hear my students talking about the “job” of feminism being to “bring men to the table of social justice” and so on; and I cannot help but think of how fucking incredulous and angry my teenage self (who had grown up watching her working class grandmother serve all the men and boys first at dinner in order of seniority before any woman or girl got a meal) would have been at the thought that any woman’s job is to “bring men to the table”.

Why aren’t these girls more angry at middle aged men? Why as soon as middle aged men put on a dress are they revered as gender social warriors by teenage girls? There’s something there about wanting to forgive the oppressor in some way that’s deeply unsettling.

I'd go with simply.

Did all our who am I where do I fit stuff when puberty > teenager> late teens early 20s as is usual.
Often by way of. Being part of a tribe indicated by in my era clothing.
Listening to angsty music. No one understands me!
The usual stuff. Then out the other side behold through that v intense part of life.

Learned about male gaze from when boobs started growing. Got through the horrible bit when you change from child in public view. To sexual object for too many men. The detached assessment of body, the leers, the stares. Horrible and a big unwanted change.
Yep that's s thing. Learned to ignore it.
And then boys coercion, getting more aware of double standard for things seen as sex related. That we're at risk just sort of by being alive and female. Etc.

Yep lot of shit.

Then we just sort of get on with it.

Middle aged? Seen all the stuff. Most women have babies raise kids all that goes with it. Have handled enormous amounts bad behaviour men.

We just get on with it.

Unless dysphoric, thinking about it. I can't relate to wanting to live and be seen as a man.

Why?

Well. Because I can do the things they can do. I can dress as I like. I don't get hassled judged like did when younger. I have no desire to hang out with men, I was often accepted as 'honorary bloke' and I have heard plenty.

I don't want to learn a new walk, get to grips with toilet etiquette. Act as uncomfy man would when nasty shit about women girls etc chat.

No thanks.

In short.

We've got to grips with getting through life as a woman in a male dominated society.

We've grown up. We are expected to 'get on with it' no matter what.

We've experienced sexism, gynae issues, pregnancy, childbirth, discrimination, Street harrassment, coercion from partners, sexual assault, got out of Dodge when dodgy man radar gone off.
All sorts of things, not all, not as bad, whatever. Things because we're girls/women.

Been there done that come out the other side.

Get on with life. Responsibilities. Priorities. Pragmatism. Hardened maybe, inside. To the shit life throws at us. Not all because female. But plenty because.

Opt out now?

Why would i want to be a man, after all that I have learned? When I'm finally mainly invisible to them and it's lovely?

Middle aged + women are fucking AWESOME.

(That's part of the reason so many men feel threatened by us 🙂)

That wasn't short sorry!

Just read again and notice I think two posters know women middle aged + who they have said-

No hormones or anything
One, maybe both can't remember. Masculine haircut. Masculine clothes. Change name. (To like. Joe, Sam etc or John Dave. Having said that, I've met loads women/girls who had nicknames Dave bill etc).

They pass pretty well? As male? With no medical interventions hormones etc?

Just being called Geoffrey, male gendered clothes and a haircut? IE apart from name (could be taken as nickname), have hair clothes not going to be totally definitely not any woman would have?

People think they men? Really?

What about breasts, height, hips, voice, hands etc?

A woman in blokey clothes with short hair doesn't read as a man. Really.

If they did, butch lesbians wouldn't get shit from men would they. Also would struggle to get into lesbian bars, or find a gay woman to go out with them. Because they'd say of piss off you're a bloke.

Are you sure it's not being taken as male, but simply men have zero interest in what women menopause zone or over look like. And everyone not fussed?

Have they been invited /dragged along to older men stuff for the lads?

Beers and footy on TV?
Pub and bitching about wives/ bad jokes/ have you seen the new barmaid etc?
Watsapp group of blokes only?
How reacted with just men at coffee machine and blokey banter?
Pub toilet etiquette? Going in cubicle is seen as a bit suss with lot of men. Unless sit in there for at least 25 mins so they think having shit (v much avoided men prefer home turf for that generally).
Etc etc.

Passing as man? Unlikely. More likely. No one really cares tbh.

@IcakethereforeIam Excellent point. It's almost as though ROGD is a highly valid phenomenon.

I think one of the reasons teenage ftm transitioners worry me, is that I might have been one of them if I was growing up now.
I was the archetypal tomboy, was one of the boys growing up, I often struggled to fit in and really wanted a tribe
. Even now I can count on one hand how many times I have worn a dress and sometimes still wear mens clothes. But I'm happily female, would never consider myself male and certainly don't want to be.

CheeseMmmm
Not sure if you're commenting on my post. If so, I'd just say I don't know these people very well in real life. But I have noticed a physical, if subtle change in some of the women I took to be lesbians, so maybe they are taking medication, I don't know. I think if you paused, you would read them as women (as their build is not quite male) but at a glance, if you didn't know them you might see male. I'm not pulling this out of thin air.
Somehow I doubt this goes in hand with them changing their friends or social demographic. I'm straight but have quite a few lesbian friends and I get the impression that locally it's a community that know each other pretty well and is quite trans inclusive.

Loads of women say.

Have said for years.

That it's obvious why binders are appealing to girls the years breasts start to be noticeable.

That girls have for years tried to disguise developing bodies one way or another. For various reasons ALL related to male gaze.

That it's shit coming to terms with all the things that change in how you are thought of, judged, viewed by whole society.

Dodge male gaze, get rid of breasts, no leering, navigating narrow line between looking 'nice' fitting in etc and .. asking for it.

I mean so much and it's bollocks.

Who wouldn't want to be able to go about in shorts and zero judgement, have more freedom without constant subtle reminders you're at risk, not have your appearance commented on constantly. Pretty, too thin/bit chubby... Skirt too short, you'd look lovely with hair styled/longer/bit of makeup. Why do you always cover up/that's too revealing...

Just play games, do hobbies, wear comfy clothes, not assessed as sex object, ... Etc.

Loads and loads of women know exactly why happening.

Of course we're non entities. Obviously wouldn't know anything about being a girl ..

Humph. Whole thing male centred, male gaze, misognynist shitshow.

I think we have to factor in the normalisation of cosmetic surgery over the past couple of decades.
Girls grow up now in an age of surgical procedures being as accessible as a new haircut.

Don't like something? Not a problem. Cut it off, plump it up, shove some silicon in it.
Girls getting boob jobs for their 18th birthday. Girls getting breasts removed.
Two sides of the same coin. It's girls being taught to hate themselves. Hate their bodies.
And it's women being exploited by a despicable surgical industry that has no moral decency and trades on misery.

I wonder if the fact that when we were teens there was more gender neutrality or gender ambiguity amongst popular culture figures.
I recently watched some old top of the pops with my teenager, and we commented about figures like Alison moyet in her huge shapeless clothes, and Annie lennox with her very short hair and boy George.... There was few female popstsrs dressed in just underwear, infact even the very feminine ones were dressed in real clothes.
We didht equate being female with the image girls and boys do now... As a pp said.. Big hair, no pybic hair, plumped lips, tiny clothing.
It all seemed much more generically accepting back then.
Less defined and labelled.
So your tribe was easier to identify with, and how you looked was not linked to your gender.
I would definitely have been encouraged to transition as a child and teen, only used the male shortening of my name, only wore my brothers cast offs, rode a boys bike, had shirt hair, liked climbing trees.. Thought I was George from the famous five... No one told me it was because I was really a boy in a girls body... Because I wasn't. I just like that "tribe"

Because the internet didn’t exist in the 1980s. People didn’t talk about gender but sexuality. People “came out” as gay. The word “trans” didn’t exist. Nobody “came out as trans”.

I repeat: the internet didn’t exist. Kids grew up doing a multiple of activities but not staring at screens watching hours of fellow teens’ musings about their “identity”.

Agree with poster above: Boy George et al - nobody batted an eyelid. Nobody talked about “gender fluidity” but the word “androgynous” was used at times.

A man in make up didn’t claim to be a woman.

nolongersurprised: Why are so many girls wanting to take exogenous androgens and have their breasts/uteruses/ovaries removed?

This exactly.

Imagine if men could get pregnant, we'd never hear the end of it. The experience of pregnancy took me by surprise, it was an absolute priviledge and a bit of a trip. I honestly felt sorry for men because they could definitely never experience it, I said this often in my late pregnancy and I meant it.

If I were a trans man, I'd bloody well keep my reproductive organs.

This is digressing from the topic.

I was also thinking maybe middle aged butch lesbians have settled into friendship groups and supportive communities of other butch lesbians and are more surrounded by their tribe / comfortable with themselves than lone middle-aged transitioning men.

We have an actual biological transformation into menopause. Women are amazing!

Agree with your points redjellybean. Skaters, goths, grunge, metal, ravers, indie kids, those kids with the furry stuff (crasher?) etc - boys and girls within each tribe were very similarly dressed to each other. Loads of boys with long hair and /or eye makeup and loads of "androgynous" girls.

What I find so creepy about the current situation is that although teens into gender ideology may well be rebelling against their logically minded parents, they're really not rebelling against the "system". Gender ideology is a consumer dream (the more identities, the more products to sell) and having lots of people becoming life long patients is awesome for big pharma. Not to mention the clever trick in turning the very women with the means to protest (the cultural capital of youth plus no caring responsibilities for kids or elders) into agents of the patriarchy, intent on undoing the rights they take for granted.

@HeatonGrove

I am a middle aged woman with short hair, no make up and I wear trousers pretty much all the time. Gender ideology suggests I have transitioned. I just never noticed.

I actually feel desperately sorry for girls/younger women today who feel that if they do not conform to exaggerated norms of femininity (big hair on your head, no hair on body, big lips, painted nails, hour glass shape figure,skimpy clothes etc.) they can no longer consider themselves female so decide to transition.

That form of womanhood strikes me as closer to drag :D

@Isthatthebestyoucando Great link for Stella O'Malley - shame she was limited to just the 15mins - she has so much knowledge and balance to share. Hope she's contributing to the UK consideration

It surprises me not one little bit that a few of our regular TRA posters know “loads” of middle aged women transitioning . It doesn’t actually surprise me to know that they exist.

What would surprise me is if someone could present data of new referrals to adult gender clinics showing a huge rise in much older women, in line with the same rise in teenage girls. Because if someone could demonstrate that it would back up the argument that these older women now have the confidence in society to transition that wasn’t there when they were teenagers.

Funnily enough, the adult gender clinics seem to be getting loads of referrals for women in their 20s, not 40+.

Something that Stella said - adolescent girls driving the huge rise in wanting to transition

and also the growing rise in those wanting to detransion. 24000 on detrans Reddit now, I think.

You can't change sex anyway. Transition is superficial/cosmetic.