Please help me understand trans

[waitwhatth]

Please can you help me to understand a person born female living as a male.

My assumptions are that they grew up as you would traditionally know a Tom boy, wearing tracksuit and short hair.

As an adult, the same style of clothing and relationships with women.

In years gone by, would have been a female lesbian.

Now it is a trans male with a woman, so is that classed as a heterosexual relationship?

The living as a male I am also struggling to get my head around. I get the clothes worn are probably bought from the men's section, but that doesn't make you a man. It's just a preference of the clothes you like to wear.

So what else does living as a man mean?

As much as possible can this not be a negative debate, but positive comments to genuinely help understanding of how people in this scenario feel and what it means and why it isn't simply a different type of woman. Why does it have to be a trans male?

why it isn't simply a different type of woman. Why does it have to be a trans male?

Very good question! As you say, such girls and women have always existed, with no need to convince the world or themselves that they'd changed sex. In fact, 'masculine' women have often had to correct other people's assumptions that they were men!

Even longer ago, when women weren't allowed to do anything adventurous or prestigious, some disguised themselves as men. They weren't having identity crises, just working around the rules.

Today's 'trans men' put a lot of effort into learning how to walk with a male swagger and, of course, take dangerous levels of testosterone in order to grow male levels of facial hair, drop their voices and bulk up. Many of them go very big on learning how to join in with male 'banter' - much of which is deeply misogynistic. That's given several of them pause for thought, but others take it on board enthusiastically.

You're right about 'transing away the gay' in many cases, where you're looking at a lesbian girl who transitions into a facsimile of a straight man. There are also many 'trans men' who consider themselves gay - that is, they're straight women pretending to be men. This doesn't seem to go too well for them, gay men being more interested in male bodies.

Regulars on this board agree with you, but we now have a fair few 'trans' posters who might offer different answers. Or, then again, they might not. Nearly all transactivism is about 'trans women'. They forget about the bearded women until they think they might be able to score a point by bringing them up.

I don’t know whether many transmen hang out on MN FWR. There may be better places to ask, if it’s a trans perspective you want.

The only person who has spoken to me about doing it, I was very careful to raise concerns in a caring rather than critical way- I’ve read that, did you know that- because I wanted to know she’d seen the information. She had no interest in a different perspective though. Dead set on following through.

Really wasn’t a Tom boy as a child. But from a traumatic background.

Not all women who don't dress 'girlie' are lesbians.

My take on girls wanting to not grow up as women is trauma, sexual abuse, autism, or seeing violent porn or just not wanting anything do with having to grow up and 'do' what is currently an obsession with looks, clothes, botox, nails, hair.

But we can't ask questions or study this because that would be 'conversion therapy' which they are trying to ban. Currently you'd just lose your job if you don't affirm their 'trans' identity.

It is all so harrowing, so many girls will be destroyed by this.

They think that their lives would be easier and that they would be happier if everyone around them believed them to be a man and treated them accordingly, for example by not sexually assaulting them.

Hmmm. As you're not a new to Mumsnet @Tukmgru it's surprising to see you tell another poster to keep her thoughts to herself? That's not how discussion works on this board.
The history of silencing research into children and trans issues is well established from the debacle that is GIDS as evidenced in Hannah Barnes book Time to Think to the interim report from Dr Hilary Cass. Back in 2918 Lisa Littman's research into ROGD was cancelled as was James Caspian's research into detransitioners. The reseach was deemed transphobic.
The prevalence of co morbidities in girls believing their pubertal bodies are wrong and can be fixed with a sex change is well established. Children with autism, sexual abuse, eating disorders, self harm and life changing events such as being in care are all over represented in the data.

A list of reasons, given by detransitioners themselves. If it hurts your feelings then maybe you aren't really up for a discussion about it.

OP, this is the tactic used to dismiss concerns and hence why we cannot discuss the issues at hand. Because the thread will get activist after activist telling you (and me) to shut up and sit down.

Then when we don't, they report you for 'generalisations' or 'transphobia' or 'not in the spirit' and get you banned.

Where is alison belittling, dismissive, or joking @Tukmgru ? She says it’s harrowing.

She describes perfectly many women’s experiences and the frustration of watching girls’ lives destroyed by medicalisation because of the affirmation model.

Please can you help me to understand a person born female living as a male.

I can't help you understand it because it doesn't make any sense.

The only way to live as a male is to be male.

Everything else is sexism. All the "living as male" that confused women do is based on sexist ideas of how men and women ought to behave.

There are wide raging reasons underpinning females adopting a trans identity.

A common feature is an underpinning sense that that 'transitioning' will relieve distress/discomfort. This expectation can range from a hope that it will reduce somewhat to 'and everything will be fine once I do'.

All females with trans identities who I have worked with have been trying to escape feelings that they have found hard to tolerate. Often, they are feelings they don't understand, and they search for a narrative to help them make sense. For some girls, the trans narrative provides this.

I am very much in favour for all people who are very distressed to access therapy to help reduce distress. I don't think this should be compulsory (it wouldn't even work if this were the case), but it should be a requirement in advance of receiving medical intervention known to cause harm (but given based on risk:benefit evaluation). I think this should be the case for all medical intervention used to reduce psychological distress.

Psychological intervention should involve exploring a range of narratives that could be contributing in whole or in part to the distress. Doing so opens up opportunities to explore a range of different solutions/ways to alleviate the distress, sone of which could have less risks and deliver the same, if not better, results.

In psychology, we call this 'formulation'. Our training teaches up to consider as wide ranging hypotheses as possible and to explore them all. I am baffled by many in the profession being so ready not to apply this approach to one set of patients, thinking this amounts to conversion therapy.

I am considered to be even more dangerous as not only do I advocate for the above, I suggest that after exploring genuine exploration of alternative possible narratives, when the trans narrative is the one that makes the most sense to the patient, further work should be done to help them reconcile their healthy body with their trans identity - so they don't need invasive treatment that will cause harm and further health risks.

The fact that the above approach is deemed completely sensible/advisable in cases of psychological distress rather than GI continues to blow me away.

Vaishnavi Sundar's four-part documentary is worth watching -

Dysphoric: Fleeing womanhood like a house on fire

I can only assume the difference between living as you describe and as a trans man is as a PP describes, wishing to be seen by others, and therefore treated by society, as a man rather than a women.
There could be multiple reasons this is preferable to that person. But society treats men differently and this person wants to be treated that way, maybe?

*My assumptions are that they grew up as you would traditionally know a Tom boy, wearing tracksuit and short hair.

As an adult, the same style of clothing and relationships with women.*

Not necessarily. All the gender-confused or trans-identifying females I know or have known personally (all early teens to early 20s) were conventional girls. Pink, frocks, dolls etc, not necessarily exclusively. All from families who did not push gendered stereotypes on them.

In every single one their gender issues arose with puberty, and several have since been diagnosed with ASD.

One in particular comes to mind, who found puberty an overall positive experience. Apart from periods, she actually liked her developing body. There was no endurance whatsoever of any dysphoria. She is, however, autistic, and struggles with social interaction and overload. The more she looks after herself and understands how to prevent and manage overload, the less dysphoric she is.

She is exceptionally intelligent, and understands the biological basis of misogyny - yet at the same time is full on TWAW TMAM etc. When the cognitive dissonance overwhelms her it is just like when she is in autistic overload, and, sadly, trans ideology becomes her safe space. Partly because she fears 'betraying' her friends.

A common feature is an underpinning sense that that 'transitioning' will relieve distress/discomfort. This expectation can range from a hope that it will reduce somewhat to 'and everything will be fine once I do'.

I know three transwomen - two that I knew before transition, and one that I didn't. The two that I knew before have been unhappy for a long time, and certainly don't seem any happier for changing their names and pronouns (they don't dress as women, and I'm not sure about hormones etc.). The other (who does dress as a woman, again I don't know about medical treatment) does seem happy, but I didn't know them before, so I can't comment on whether transitioning has improved their life.

Always interested to see the comment about Tomboys having short hair. I find it odd that short hair = masculine as I grew up in the second half of the twentieth century and almost all (80+%) women and girls had short hair, this beginning in the twenties and not ending till the early seventies, when very long, loose hair became a fashion for young women, especially if vaguely hippy or at university. At the same time long hair became the fashion for young men, too, instead of the short back and sides style of the fifties and sixties. Hair length is not sex-related at all! Nor trousers for women, who simply found post sixties that trousers were more convenient (unless you had had a couple of children and had stress incontinence!). We had thought such gender stereotyping was gone but now it rears it head again and people are suggesting that certain types of personality are male and others female. Ain't so, which needs explaining. And as for being a transman, mostly it's childhood trauma and non-acceptance of being same sex attracted.

With ROGD it certainly seems to be autism that is the linking factor. Which is so sad when they have irreversible damage done to their bodies from so early on.

The tomboy thing is one I don’t get either. My sons have/had loooong hair. Not a signal for bring effiminate for them, nor for many of the other chaps with long hair I know. But, for at least two trans-identifying young males long hair and swishy dresses seemed to be the thing. But then their hairstyles were very feminised.
Means fuck all to me, I’ve had everything from skinhead to hair down to my bum - None of thst ever changed my sex.

I always supported people dressing how they wanted, but I cannot get my head around that that should mean either you are living like the opposite sex or that you ARE the opposite sex.

I live in France and there are a really small number of women with long hair here. Most have short hair.