I’m trans and I fully support JKR AND disagree with the eradication of womens spaces

[JPWG2450]

I may get flames for posting, here of all places, but have found there is just nowhere else to have this view.

I’ve lurked on MN for many years, occasionally post or contribute to threads, and I haven’t name changed. It’ll be a long one so please bear with me.

So, for background I’m a mid 30s female to male transsexual
began my transition at 18
have had full gender reassignment surgery and am considered for all intents and purposes ‘Male’

HOWEVER

i am fully aware that I have not, and cannot ‘change’ my sex.
I can (and have) cosmetically change my body to make it appear more masculine, but I’m fully aware that it’s still essentially a female body that has been surgically altered.

I can (and have) get my legally sex changed on paperwork, I can get a new birth certificate
but I’m aware that it doesn’t change my sex at birth, or on any document prior to the legal change
nor does it change my chromosomes or DNA

When I began my transition, the world wasn’t the woke place it is now, most trans people were much older than me, you couldn’t readily access gender identity services and most GPs hadn’t even heard of them.There was no provision for children to be diagnosed or treated for gender related issues. You quite rightly had to wait until you were an adult to make choices about your life/body.

Whilst I don’t regret my choices, and am far happier in my life. I also recognise that a lot of my childhood was traumatic, abusive and extremely stereotypical.
I do not rule out that had I been allowed to express the more ‘masculine’ aspects of my personality, I may have felt more comfortable in my own skin.

The world has changed however,
and though I sound ‘belong’ to the trans community, I do not.
for several reasons

1. Because I no longer feel the need to label my gender, or sexuality,
2. Because largely the trans community is toxic and if you don’t fit their narrow minded (ironic I know) view of what it means to be trans, you are unwelcome.

I did what I did, I changed my paperwork, I changed my body, i reinvented myself in to someone I felt more comfortable as, but I did it quietly, privately and without forcing my views down anyones throat.

Once I began to present as make, I stopped using female only spaces, because It wasn’t right for me to do so.
I could not demand to be validated as a man, and then chose the female aspects of life I preferred.

As someone who has been assaulted, both prior to and after my transition, I recognise everyone’s right to feel safe.
I recognise that in sexual terms, a trans woman with a penis is just as much of a threat as a man with a penis. Likewise, a trans man who has had surgery, or has had body altering hormones etc.

I do not believe single sex spaces should be eradicated, or that self identifying as another gender gives anyone the right to access spaces they otherwise would be denied access to.

i can understand that as a trans woman you may feel uncomfortable in a male space, as there will always be others who view you as a threat and attack,
I faced this myself prior to surgery when I felt unable to use female spaces but was concerned about my safety in male spaces

i chose to use alternative facilities, family or disabled changing, I chose to pee or change at home. I did not force myself or my opinions in to other peoples spaces.

i fully acknowledge that WOMEN menstruate.
not people
I menstruated, until I was given MALE hormones.
Saying that women menstruate, give birth, breastfeed etc, isn’t disrespectful or triggering it’s just a biological fact.

I use male pronouns, because legally my sex is male and if you saw me, you’d naturally use male pronouns.
I don’t announce them, I don’t demand anyone else use them,
nor do I demand to know anyone else’s.
i feel that it’s discriminatory to include pronouns on things like emails and name badges etc.
it implies that someone’s gender is relevant when I’m most cases it is not.

if I have a query with a company knowing the pronouns of the individual I’m communicating with doesn’t answer my questions or fix my problem.

What it does do is allow misogyny within organisations but allowing pronouns to dictate how someone is treated.

and finally, as a huge Harry Potter fan I’ve always loved JKR
so when I first started hearing that she has said trans people didn’t exist and she was transphobic etc etc

i didn’t post it all over social media, or. In my Harry Potter merch.
i READ what she had said.

and she was RIGHT
and in no way being homophobic, she literally acknowledged that genuine trans people were not who she was talking about.

Yes, There is a small percentage of people who are truly trans, have dysphasia etc, which after all is a mental illness.

but the vast majority now, are young boys who are effeminate, young women who are butch, they are gay, lesbian, bisexual, androgynous, abused, or unwell people (often children) who instead of being accepted and learning to accept themselves, or being treated and given support for genuine mental health issues, are being sold the lie that they are trans, non binary etc, that they are marginalised, and discriminated against

Theyre ‘coming out’ to fit in
Their normal bodily changes are being medically prevented because they prefer playing with Lego to barbie
Or they like ballet and not football so they must be trans, because changing their gender will solve all of their issues.

She was right to stand up for women
Right to say sex cannot be changed

Next, I heard ‘JKR wrote a book about a trans woman who kills women’
so I READ the book, which isn’t remotely about a murderous trans woman.
in fact her previous book did have a minor trans character, and she treated it very sensitively

Then recent ‘JRKs new book is about a woman who is persecuted and killed for being transphobic’

so guess what? I read that one too,
and transphobia is mentioned in passing once,
The murdered individual is actually said to be ableist, and that isn’t why they were killed.

I despair at the world we live in
im all for equality
But it isn’t equality to expect special treatment
it isn’t equality to eradicate someone else’s rights or safety in favour of your own

it isn’t equality to shove your beliefs in someone else’s face and then tell them they’re wrong because their beliefs differ

But
i can’t voice any of this
because if I don’t jump on the bandwagon and create uproar because someone’s ‘erasing my identity’ by stating facts,

Then my identity will be invalidated by the very community to which I am supposed to belong

Very interesting thread OP I am glad you took the time to write it. Voices like yours are vital. All anyone wants is to find self acceptance and peace in life. For that reason I think transition should remain as an option for adults, however there needs to be counsellors and medical professionals who are not beholden to any ideology so patients needs can be best served. It needs to be a process that can’t be rushed into without the patient being given time to process each individual step and understand the possible outcomes good and bad. Unbiased, long term research is needed too.

One observation I have from reading accounts from trans individuals is that those who can freely acknowledge their biological sex and have accepted it as part of their journey seem to be able to find peace with themselves much easier then those who do not.

@FunnyTalks

Personally I wish more parents were like you.

Not wanting your child to go through unnecessary trauma, or to feel they must conform to stereotypes or be convinced they need to change, because by it’s very definition, transition is changing, is a healthy attitude.

As a young child I didn’t wish I was a boy
I had no concept of what gender felt like .
I simply wished I could play with cars and ride BMX and not wear skirts, and I was told that only boys could do those things.

Telling a child they are trans because they don’t fit someone else’s definition of gender is just as, if not more harmful than what I went through.

Allowing a child to be a child, and not trying to put them in boxes is the only way to stop both types of trauma.

You aren’t trying to stop your child being trans. I imagine if they came to you as an adult and articulated feelings or discomfort with their body that could only be eased with transition, you would understand that.

Youre simply trying to allow your kids to figure out who they are without the rest of the world giving them unnecessary labels, and that’s perfect understandable

@JPWG2450 thank you for that.

I'm really sad to read how restricted you were, as a child.

I especially liked the way you put Youre simply trying to allow your kids to figure out who they are without the rest of the world giving them unnecessary labels, and that’s perfect understandable

That's just it. It feels as if there are labels being forced onto kids from both "sides". A brief look at any high street will show you how horrifically stereotypically gendered everything still is. And if you're a kid who rejects those labels, then here's another group of people, trying to tell them they must be trans or non binary. Both sets of labels are unnecessary for children.

I respect that you, and any adult, have the right to do as you wish to your body, OP, but I’ll always be implacably opposed to surgical transition. I appreciate I’m coming at this from the luxury of not having any kind of dysmorphia (beyond the ‘usual’ dislike/dissatisfaction with parts of my body that plague too many women socialised to meet impossible beauty standards) or having a trans relative. But whichever ‘strand’ of transness you consider, I can’t see why surgery should be an option.

There are those with a genuine dysmorphia, who hate and are repulsed by their sexed body. I have sympathy for them, as I have sympathy for anyone who has an uncomfortable, even traumatic, disconnect between mind and body. But we don’t give people with anorexia surgery to staple their stomach; we don’t amputate the limbs of people with BDD, so why do we perform mastectomies and hysterectomies and penectomies on people with gender-related body dysmorphia?

Then there are those into whose company I’d suggest OP falls: brought up within rigid gender roles, conditioned that only boys do this and girls do that. The girls looking desperately to escape sexual abuse and/or misogyny and the pornsick male gaze; the boys often being pushed towards transition because of parental homophobia; and, increasingly, either sex being caught up in the current online influences and trends. I have huge empathy for these - predominantly young - people, having encountered misogyny and objectification and being viewed as second-class because of being born female myself. But these are all social pressures, social constructs, social problems…why is surgery being offered as a treatment to society’s issues?

And finally, there is the group of which MN dare not speak its name. An older cohort, overwhelmingly one sex, who in the main wish to retain their biological genitalia but add some particular physical - one could say sexual - characteristics of the opposite sex. We don’t sew tails onto furries, so why is this cohort receiving surgery on the NHS?

I strongly advocate for access to robust, sensitive, empathetic psychological support, every step of the way…but never surgery, because whichever way you look at it, it’s not the body which is at fault.

Your post has made my day OP, thank you so much for writing and sharing it.

I only earlier on today had a post about transgender deleted by mnet. I fully accept your identity as a transman. I support you to feel safe and comfortable in your own body. I would not discriminate against you at work or in any other setting and I would defend you if I heard anyone else doing it. I also agree with you, you cannot change your sex. For that reason I cannot agree with the statement that transwomen are women. My dd (teen) says because I do not accept that transwomen are women I am transphobic. Would you agree?

@BenCoopersSupportWren
Whilst having had surgery I cannot fully agree that there should be no surgery, because I 100% feel that had surgery not been an option for me at that time in my life I would have probably taken my life as a last resort to being unable to cope.

I do not disagree with your views.
Mental health support was not readily available to me, talking therapies to allow me to expire my discomfort and potentially accept myself were not offered, so I will never know if surgery would’ve felt necessary for me had alternative options felt accessible.

I feel more should be done to allow people to express themselves without perceived gender roles
safe supportive spaces should be available for people to work through their feelings

And at the end of that, surgery should potentially be available as a last resort.
I suspect if more people were not trying to fit in to a gender box, or transitioning in the same way everyone else has (because if I don’t have this surgery and do this or that I am not accepted as trans)
far fewer people would opt for surgery,

Personally, although the specific sysphoria I had has largely been eradicate because I no longer have those body parts, or they look vastly different
i still have issues with my body, still have dysphoria around certain things

i feel differently about my body now, but as to whether it was worth it, whether I’d do it all again, it varies.
some days I’d do it again without hesitation, other days I would seek further therapy as an alternative

So while I wouldn’t personally remove surgery completely as an option
I certainly wouldn’t push it as a cure the way some do.

@CherryIsNotTheOnlyFruit

In my opinion (and obviously I respect those who’s views differ)
trans women are not women, they are trans women.
They were not born in to the body or society that women are. They don’t know what it feels like to menstruate, or carry a child, they don’t know, and never will how it feels to be in a female body. Because their body will always be male, with or without surgical alteration.

likewise, trans men, myself included are not men, they are trans men, who will never know what morning erections feel like, or how it feels to be born with male expectations.

it isn’t transphobic to see a distinction.
Had I been born male, I would have lived a different life, with different experiences and expectations.

I can live as a man, look like a man, have a reasonably male looking body. But I cannot pretend to be something im not.

What riles me is that plenty of trans people make the fact they are trans in to a huge part of their identity, they self identify as trans, they often make careers and successes of themselves solely through being trans.

They are using their ‘difference’ to further their life plans, but if someone else comes along and says they see them different, they’re being phobic.

Thank you OP for such a thoughtful and considered post.

Yes, this: "What riles me is that plenty of trans people make the fact they are trans in to a huge part of their identity, they self identify as trans, they often make careers and successes of themselves solely through being trans.

They are using their ‘difference’ to further their life plans, but if someone else comes along and says they see them different, they’re being phobic."

The trans woman who is different and special and runs inclusion programmes, and also indistinguishable from all the other women.

I'm sorry that you lost your fertility in that way. The NHS is very resistant to permanently impeding the fertility of most people.

Thank you for engaging with my views on surgery so thoughtfully, OP, even if we don’t fully agree. I’m sorry that there wasn’t more psychological support available to you when you were in need of it; in a very different, non-trans sphere I support a loved one with complex MH needs and it’s been heartbreaking to see the relentless slashing of NHS MH support in all areas.

In your opinion do you think it’s more or less helpful to have transgenderism viewed as purely an “identity” now rather than a medical/mental health issue? (Again, this is one of the points where I find it difficult to square the circle of “not a health condition - but needs surgery to ‘fully’ treat” - I use ‘fully’ guardedly, recognising what you say about the push/pressure/belief within certain vocal parts of the community that if you don’t proceed to X point, you’re not truly trans.) I can of course see the danger of it being stigmatised, as all MH conditions sadly still are to a greater or lesser extent, if considered as such…but I cannot get past the belief that surgery is such a radical approach to take to an otherwise physically healthy body that it must be the sign of profound mental distress on some level to put oneself through it, and what is that if not a MH condition?

@BenCoopersSupportWren

For me it’s absolutely a mental health issue, so I do understand why surgery seems so out there, and as I’ve said, I feel if better MH support was available then surgery might not be the most available option.

For me also, I struggle with the identity aspect of being trans.

Trans, by its very definition is to go from one to another. It is a journey to get you where you need to be.

Identifying as trans, and making it your whole identity as so many people do negates that journey.

I didn’t grow up feeling I should’ve been trans, I grew up feeling I should’ve been male, and being trans is just the result of that.

I transitioned

I am as ‘male’ as a biological woman can ever be, and I no longer define myself as trans, because I have no need to.

If we met in person, I wouldn’t feel the need to announce my gender identify, unless it was relevant to our relationship (for example, a romantic/sexual partner obviously would need to know and understand my biology and body)

Identifying as trans

Then Wanting to be accepted
as your acquired gender, but wanting to retain the rights and opportunities afforded by your birth sex, it just doesn’t make sense to me.

I think it also feeds directly back in to the harmful stereotypes that cause a lot of people to question their gender in the first place.

This idea that identity is a set of characteristics and that everyone who identifies in a certain way must all feel the same.

It’s just taking someone’s already fragile MH and pressuring them to act in an expected way rather than supporting them to live their own life.

I know you're not here for sympathy, OP, but I am sorry for what you suffered as a child.

Thank you OP, that makes a lot of sense. I hope the journey you’ve taken has brought you self-acceptance and happiness. I wish there were more voices like yours representing the needs of transpeople.

You seem lovely OP. Thanks for sharing your insights and answering questions. Your voice is very welcome

This is a very interesting post OP as my partner is trans (FTM) and had transitioned before I met him but I had known him a long time ago before he transitioned.

When we got together I did a lot of research to be able to get things clear in my head and to make sure I didn't offend him with my ignorance. I contacted a charity to get information from them as there doesn't seem to be much in the UK to educate trans partners. In the end I just talked to him, asked him questions, told him I didnt need to know the ins and out just that he was happy and settled and if there was anything I needed to know or do to just let me know. Since then we've become best friends as well as partners. I know the struggles he has had and seen how he has overcome them. I've also never seen him as anything other than a man as he knew from a very young age he was in the wrong body.

His family and friends are all very supportive but he has had a lot of issues in the past due to previous partners not accepting him for who he is as he hasnt had full below reassignment surgery due to the high risk. I actually dont care what he has down there, our love life is amazing and that wont change. We support and respect each other which is more than either of us have had before.

@subolooo oh, that's lovely! All the best to the both of you .

@IcakethereforeIam Thank you, thats very kind :)

op thank you for being so open and honest I'm sorry that many trans people like yourself are just simply trying to get on with their lives yet TRA's and loud voices are speaking for you all in a way that is aggressive and untruthful because like you stated JK has never said the things they claim plus non binary and trans seems to be the new goth instead of an actual struggle faced by someone who would rather deal with it privately than announce it to the world. Its sad that views cannot be expressed freely. I hope this mad time will pass.

Echoing cake - wishing you and your partner all the best, subolooo.

@ArabellaScott Thank you so much 💜

Thank you for posting this @JPWG2450 . You are very welcome here.

Thanks for the interesting and refreshing post.

It’s become very clear that the type of aggressive ‘trans activism’ that hounds female academics and authors from the workplace, puts on a balaclava to scream at women, leaves bottles of urine at a human rights organisation, and insists on lecturing young children on sexual matters, has nothing to do with actually helping trans people. If anything it just embarrasses trans people and silences rational dialogue about their needs.

So what is it, do we think? Who is it for? Who are the lse ‘trans rights activists’? Is it incels rejoicing at finally getting female attention, albeit negative? Confused teens who love having an excuse to police their parents’ speech? Employers looking for a lazy way to tick the ‘diversity’ box without having to actually engage with any women or ethnic minorities?

Who are these people and why are they so aggressive?

In my view, it’s just angry young men in the West, enabled by ‘useful idiots’ often their girlfriends or the press looking for an excuse to write about genitals. If these angry young men were from other cultures, these men would become terrorists, or join a drugs gang, or go punk. But instead they wear fetish gear in bright pastels and shout at women. Because they can (and because they ain’t tough enough for that other stuff).

At least, I hope it’s just angry young men. It worries me how obsessed the movement seems with primary schools and preschool story hour 😔

@JPWG2450 out of interest, have you had any follow up from the medics who carried out your surgery? As in, have they contacted you to assess how well the surgery alleviated your dysphoria?

@FartOutLoudDay

no, in fact I was discharged from the gender clinic BEFORE I had my surgery. The surgeons did a follow up phone call to check if healed and left me in the care of the local district nurses.

That just blows my mind! Thank you for answering.