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.

And I fully expect that last post will shortly be deleted

@Lubeyboobyalt

You're not going to get a sensible or unbiased answer here I'm afraid - Enjoy the manufactured echo chamber.

What would a sensible answer look like.

I am slightly older than a middle aged woman who has been told I just haven’t realised that I am trans because I do a “man’s” job, I drive a “man’s” vehicle and I dress in “men’s” clothing.

I can assure you that I am all woman and have the Caesarian scars to prove it.

I think the difference is that when I left school we were told we could do anything we liked. This became a reality a few years. later.

Then with the advent of trying to get as many people into university and the mantra that without a degree you will just end up in a minimum wage job, opportunities to do anything was gone.

I wonder if this has something to do with the differences

We seem to have gone backwards.
Even when I left school in the 70s you could dress what ever way you wanted and not be told that there was something wrong with you that needed medical intervention.

Now if you don’t dress a certain way, you don’t conform with a narrow version of what your sex is then you are trans.

Something has gone very very wrong.

Or it could be because life was f**king hard and you just didn’t have time to think about what gender you wanted to be, what box you wanted to put yourself in.

You were just you and what you had between your legs didn’t dictate your life.

Or it could be because life was fking hard and you just didn’t have time to think about what gender you wanted to be, what box you wanted to put yourself in.

Yes, this movement is definitely a reflection of how increasingly narcissistic society is becoming.

@Kennykenkencat
Totally agree that society has gone backwards in this regard since the 70s/80s.

Yes - and I remember the 80’s, when everyone could be as feminine or masculine as they liked, and the boys wore makeup and styled their hair to within an inch of its life, just as much as the girls. Good times.

Yes, this movement is definitely a reflection of how increasingly narcissistic society is becoming.

I think also about how medicalised having a social dilemma has become. Some people do make money off the back of all this, unfortunately. The hard sell tells people that have a problem that there is a (money making) solution to. But before, wearing what you wanted, following a career you were good at, having hobbies you enjoyed did not need to be gendered - yes, there were still stereotypes but it was ok to break them. And it was ok not to follow the herd. In fact to some degree rebellion and originality were celebrated not medicalised.

I also think it's interesting how much is tied into clothes. Much like teen tribes always have.

Non binary seems, in some cases, to hint at a kid of superiority in the way the grunge did: we're above such things as fashion/ the crowd.

And yet, there appears to be a non binary uniform that isn't actually non binary. Non binary biological girls tend to be short hair/trousers/ no makeup. Much like grunge me at 14. Non binary biological males tend to have longer hair, wear nail varnish and eyeliner. Very much like the lads I knew in my teens. And this is why, even though I try to get it, I feel like I do when my own teenager explains what life was like in the 90s.

@Enough4me

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.

There's still a high prevalence of eating disorders in young people. Body dysmorphia and seeking cosmetic enhancement unrelated to gender issues also remain common.

@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.

There's has been an increase in both those born boys and those born girls presenting for treatment but it is still a tiny minority of children. The Bell case showed that only around 1 in 100,000 under 17s was referred for physical treatment in the most recent year.

Girls do now outnumber boys but I expect this is more down to the increased social and media hostility aimed at trans women. Imagine being a trans teenager seeing trans women constantly portrayed as predators, fetishists or misogynists - would you come out of the closet in that environment? Hopefully with upcoming generations having more enlightened views on this subject young trans women will not be so scared to come out in the future and my guess is that the numbers will equalise again at some point.

There are loads of young butch lesbians knocking about by the way, and quite a few middle aged butch lesbians who subsequently came out as trans. Of course you would know this if you are active in the LGBT community.

There are loads of young butch lesbians knocking about by the way, and quite a few middle aged butch lesbians who subsequently came out as trans.

What about middle-aged heterosexual women with children coming out as trans? Where are they? Most of the middle-aged men who decide they are transgender are heterosexual. Where are the female equivalents of Caitlyn Jenner, Jane Fae and Helen Belcher? They should greatly outnumber the males following the pattern seen amongst children and young people.

In the 80s and early 90s as I grew up there were so many ways to be a young woman. I was easily able to be gender stereotype non-conforming without any drama or having to “identify” as anything. I just had short hair and wore jeans and T-shirts and trainers.

If I’d grown up later, in the world of extreme feminine performance we have been in i May we’ll have developed differently. I’m just old enough now to not give a shit.

Colour me shocked that a 4000 increase in girls wanting to transition is hand waved away to centre boys - the male of the species is always the important one amirite

And yes what OldCrone asks

Girls do now outnumber boys but I expect this is more down to the increased social and media hostility aimed at trans women. Imagine being a trans teenager seeing trans women constantly portrayed as predators, fetishists or misogynists - would you come out of the closet in that environment?

Where do you live? In a parallel universe?

We have the Scottish Government which can't wait to reform the GRA.

Here is a thread of Labour MPs falling over themselves to dismantle women's rights to give trans-identifying males everything they ask for:
twitter.com/ripx4nutmeg/status/1442783041395564549

And here's a bit of ITV propaganda touting for Mermaids:
www.itv.com/hub/butterfly/2a5387a0001

So much hostility.

What does a butch lesbian coming out as Trans mean?
Trans girls not revealing themselves and detransitioners are due to societal transphobia then?

How do we define transphobia?

I believe the rise in transition of girls to men during puberty and young adulthood is merely a reflection on the majority of girls hating puberty and what it does to their body very publically and mens response to those changing bodies.
It’s a bloody shock
I hated it. I knew huge numbers of other girls that hated it. That was 1980s
No one told us about Breast binding, hormone treatment, etc- I would have bitten off the arm of anyone who did
I wore baggy clothes, trousers, had short hair. I was trying to hide my body . No one told me I was a trans man - I had barely heard of gay and lesbian people.

I think we need evidence of the journey these girls go on and what happens when the true end of puberty hits when the brain goes through its final development in early twenties I think then a lot of these trans men will become less body dysmorphic. I think it also changes when you start to mix with older women at work and just get on with life outside of the school years obsession with appearance and sex that is a daily event anoungst their friends.

@OldCrone

There are loads of young butch lesbians knocking about by the way, and quite a few middle aged butch lesbians who subsequently came out as trans.

What about middle-aged heterosexual women with children coming out as trans? Where are they? Most of the middle-aged men who decide they are transgender are heterosexual. Where are the female equivalents of Caitlyn Jenner, Jane Fae and Helen Belcher? They should greatly outnumber the males following the pattern seen amongst children and young people.

Well its well known that trans men present younger so many of them never get that far, this study found the average age of trans men presenting for treatment between 2011-2014 was 24 and trans women was 34: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6189985/ but the mean age across both sexes is falling considerably. A third of those presented were assigned female at birth incidentally, I expect the numbers are more even now.

It's difficult to pin down exactly the reasons for the age differential, but I suspect it will soon largely equalise. The classic late presenting trans women, who spent decades in the closet and trying to deny who she was until she just got to the point in middle age she couldn't stand it any longer is hopefully becoming a thing of the past as younger generations become more tolerant of trans women.

You haven't answered my questions barley.

What about middle-aged heterosexual women with children coming out as trans? Where are they? Most of the middle-aged men who decide they are transgender are heterosexual. Where are the female equivalents of Caitlyn Jenner, Jane Fae and Helen Belcher?

I think with younger trans boys, I have seen a very good point made by a female detransitioner who has pointed out the links with eating disorders and that a lot of these trans boys want to be just that - boys.

I do sometimes wonder if anyone asks them to picture themselves as a 45 year old man with baldness and stubble and middle-aged spread? Not as a 'gotcha', but a way of thinking about whether they actually want to be a man, or if it's something else they really want - to just not be themselves, to have a relationship with another 'boi' who will be gentle and kind because basically they are a girl and they don't see that anyone else will be able to give them that.

@OldCrone

You haven't answered my questions barley.

What about middle-aged heterosexual women with children coming out as trans? Where are they? Most of the middle-aged men who decide they are transgender are heterosexual. Where are the female equivalents of Caitlyn Jenner, Jane Fae and Helen Belcher?

I just answered you, they came out younger so never got that far.

How do we define transphobia?

I think that's another of those terms which can't be defined. Along with 'gender identity', 'Living as a woman' and 'woman'.

Definitions are transphobic.

they came out younger so never got that far.

You're saying that 30 or 40 years ago female transgender people outnumbered male? Really?

@OldCrone

they came out younger so never got that far.

You're saying that 30 or 40 years ago female transgender people outnumbered male? Really?

No, I'm saying that trans men have historically come out at a younger age than trans women although the gap is narrowing and the prevalence between the sexes is also narrowing.

It's very difficult to know what factors in a deeply transphobic society created the differences in prevalence or age of transition but we are now seeing that gender dysphoria appears to occur at similar levels for those born male and female and that the age of transition is also equalising.

I just answered you, they came out younger so never got that far.

I don’t understand. Can you please explain.

Are we seeing that??