what questions do you have but don't feel you can ask trans people?

thanks! my only hesitation is that I don't want to create a moderation burden, but I hope people will both be civil, but also willing to open up about their concerns, questions, and perspectives - I find the trans topic is weirdly taboo IRL (at least with people who know I'm trans), so it's hard for people to have honest conversations and learn anything (and also, for me to understand what they're feeling and wondering about).

That said, I notice this most with liberals and cis allies, people who wish to be polite and respectful are the most likely to not talk about it.

Conservatives and anti-trans people are more willing to share their opinions, but also usually less willing to listen or take seriously any information or perspectives that are presented. That said, I still have found respectful conservatives more willing to talk about trans stuff than liberals, and early in transition I found that more satisfying and helpful, it made me feel less alone and gave me a way to think with people in a way I couldn't get from my liberal friends. That's really unfortunate, I think (for lots of reasons, it's not exactly healthy for me to be exposed to anti-trans views, even when I can see why they don't make sense rationally).

Yes, without gender norms or social expectations, I would still transition, at least medically.

Testosterone made me depressed, anxious, suicidal, anhedonic, and gave me night terrors. That was true for me even when I socially transitioned and lived as a woman full-time in every part of my life. Estrogen's impact on my mood is hard to overstate, and those benefits happened well before there were changes to my body. This has been called "biochemical dysphoria", and not every trans person experiences it, though it is common.

When I transitioned, it was mostly for my health and well-being. I had little hope of ever passing because I transitioned so late in life, so my goals were fairly minimal - basically I just realized I was a burden to the people in my life who cared about me (like getting those phone calls that I was in the ER again), and I realized being a repressed trans person might be causing problems for me and making me this way. I felt an obligation to do what was right by me, so I could be a better person for those around me. I underestimated the effect hormones had on mood and well-being. If I knew what I know now, I would have transitioned much earlier. I have no idea how I survived so long (looking back, I really almost didn't).

So yes, I transitioned without the social aspects ever being the main goal, because I never was motivated by that primarily. I felt dismissive of gender (I even hated gender) and whatever gendered desires came up were a low priority to me. I would never be so selfish as to prioritize those needs over practicalities like holding down a job, or not being a hate crime statistic. It turned out my closeted cross-dressing wasn't just about a silly desire to wear dresses and skirts, I didn't know that.

Yes, HRT both improved my mood, and I also feel far more comfortable in the body it's giving me. Fuck gender stereotypes, though.

There being no gender norms would actually be even more liberating. It means we're not pressured into only wearing femme clothing (when going the estrogen route) or masculine ones (when doing testosterone).

It'd open up a ton of possibilities for cis and queer people alike; wearing skirts on warm days for men also, or wearing pretty nail polish, or short hair for women...

Ultimately, the ideal is indeed the removal of repressive gender norms. When these are gone, we can fully express ourselves; taking hormones would be perfectly okay, not taking them as well, and so on. People certainly still would, but they'd feel happier not being bound anymore.

I'm a trans woman. I've never been feminine. No one picked on me because I was "girly". No one secretly thought I was gay. My interests were geeky, but they were "boy" geeky.

I don't believe in gendered personalities. People have genders. Personalites don't.

it does seem like those with body dysphoria actually feel uncomfortable in their bodies, and want a different body

That's often a part of it, but it's not universal. There are many trans and gender diverse folk who don't experience things through this lens.

if there were no gender norms or societal expectations, would you still want to transition?

Yes, but it would look different. The social part of my transition was important to me, because it influences how people see me. It shapes whether they see me accurately, or see me as someone I am not. My appearance can cause them to stick me in the wrong gender box, and that is something that I needed to change.

But if we existed in a world where there were no gender boxes, where gender was as diverse as people themselves are, then my transition would have looked different. I'd still needed to have addressed the physical aspects of my body. But socially? If my birth name didn't automatically carry a gender with it, if my clothes and my presentation didn't automatically carry gender with them, then my social transition would have looked very different.

So, my question: if there were no gender norms or societal expectations, would you still want to transition?

Yes. The evidence of that is that butch/masc leaning trans women and femme leaning trans men both exist.

Before I got top surgery (boob removal), being alone in my room with my boobs just there would give me dysphoria. I didn’t really have a way to exist in my body without feeling dysphoria after puberty started (although I felt it at times before then as well). Other people noticing and treating me like a girl made it worse, but being away from them didn’t make it go away. Periods made me suicidal, and that’s not really a public event (unless you’re having a truly terrible day).

Some trans people don’t like the ‘I was born in the wrong body’ explanation because it’s kind of overly simplistic. Not problematic or anything, just at the level you’d explain things to a child. Like, if you were born with a clubfoot or cleft palate you wouldn’t necessarily want an entirely new body, you might just want your foot or mouth fixed, right? Some people feel that way about transition, and I think I lean closer to that myself.

I can only speculate on what I’d be OK with if I didn’t need HRT and top surgery, but I will say a decent number of trans people, even trans people on HRT and who have had/want surgery, are also gender nonconforming for their actual gender as well. Not ‘oh they don’t pass,’ but for example lesbian trans women who specifically choose a butch look, or gay trans men who choose a twink aesthetic.

I would still want to transition. I was a very proud soft "tomboy" growing up, parents who encouraged it, had no reason to not be perfectly happy as a butch woman except for the fact I still felt a disconnect and dissociation from my body that I couldn't place. I tried different pronouns online, put on a binder and suddenly I crashed back home into myself. Felt like I was in my body rather than floating around it and dressing it up and no longer felt misshapen like a crushed bottle. I still have shoulder length hair, still paint my nails, I'm just perceived and look a way that feels right to me now.

I also have a trans man friend I knew from childhood who was always very feminine, mainly in his love of dolls but also a very gentle and sensitive personality. Surprised us all when he came out really. But again, it's nothing to do with our personality or interests (and there are loads of transmasc femboys too), it's something more abstract and core to our sense of self than that

If there had been no gender norms and transition was freely accessible I would've transitioned younger. I would've been able to more easily play with gendered expectations at a young age without having to fear punishment.

I spent my teenage years confused because I enjoyed mildly masculine coded things, was attracted to women, and hated having a male body. I didn't really get more feminine until my mid 20s, years after I started transitioning.

I'm relatively old for a non-binary person, so I didn't realize I'm trans until my late 20s. But I identified as a feminist starting in my early teens and majored in Women's and Gender Studies in college. I put about as much work into deconstructing my view on gender norms as one person reasonably could. But it wasn't until I gave myself permission to lay down the burden of trying to be a woman that I started to feel like the rest of my life was worth living.

I haven't tried HRT or surgery, but having gender affirming clothing, hair, name and pronouns (ie. socially transitioning), and having people in my life who respect my name and pronouns, has been extremely helpful in letting me be comfortable enough to live my life.

Sure, I can talk extensively about that - what are you most curious about?

I should also say, it's different for men vs women, because testosterone will thicken vocal chords and make the voice more masculine naturally, so trans men on HRT have an advantage this way, though trans men still often have to voice train, learning to pitch lower and trying to open the vocal tract more to have a larger, deeper voice both have to be learned.

(This all assumes puberty blockers were not provided and the transition is happening as an adult, which with the healthcare bans for minors in the U.S. is an unfortunately common reality.)

On the flip side, trans women don't see any improvement from estrogen to their voice - the vocal chords remain thickened, and their vocal tracts remain larger.

When I socially transitioned I tried to teach myself and voice train by myself, but after months of little progress, I decided to go to a local speech language pathologist (SLP). I continued to teach myself and train on my own, but the speech language pathologist was able to help direct me, and crucially, to demonstrate principles to help me learn.

I learned some of the basics of vocal training in general - how to sustain pitches and strengthen the voice, practicing SOVTEs, and other exercises singers or actors might do.

Voice training is grueling, one of the worst parts of transition. Vocal dysphoria is a nightmare, and in my experience even once my voice passed all the time (i.e. on the phone people hear a woman and I get "miss" and "ma'am", as well as in person), the voice still sounds wrong to me, and I can't hear it as a woman's voice. In that way it's similar to other kinds of dysphoria - I am much more sensitive, so even once I look like a woman to other people, I still see a man or boy in the mirror.

But with vocal dysphoria, you are constantly exposing yourself to your voice. With other forms of dysphoria, you can get breaks by not looking in the mirror, not having sex, and generally checking out of life - escapism and dissociation can be really effective, but vocal training demands regularly paying attention to your voice, and persistently altering it. It's psychological torture, and a lot of us struggle to make progress because of it. Some even use it as a form of self-harm.

It took 8 months of weekly visits to a SLP and daily, full-time training (i.e. every day I had exercises and I was intentional with my voice, and basically was voice training 24/7, always paying attention and changing my voice) before I saw a shift. The progress for me felt like a major shift all at once, a lot more of the work was cognitive than I expected, more about the ability for my mind to recognize what I'm supposed to be doing. In a way it felt like I suddenly just realized I always knew how to sound like a woman and it just clicked. The time it takes varies, generally voice training is a life-long effort and it never ends. My vocal dysphoria is some of the worst dysphoria I suffer on a daily basis, and some day it would be nice for me to train with the goal of helping alleviate my dysphoria, but up to now I have been more pragmatic and focused on having a voice that other people hear as natural and female. Here is a voice clip I uploaded 4 months ago - to me this voice reminds me of a gay man's voice, I can't hear a woman. :-/

Anyway, let me know what further details you might be interested in 😊

This is just a fact I learned along the way, not so much personal experience, but I thought it was super interesting to learn that apparently one of the biggest differences between masc and femme voices isn't just pitch but more constant variation in pitch.

Afab folks are typically less monotone and use pitch more excessively throughout their speech which I thought was really neat. Unrelatedly, I also heard Hank green explain the physiology of voice recently and how your voice can "break" or what the difference between your "head voice" and "chest voice" is, and the reason amab folks vary pitch less seems almost certainly (edit: I don't actually know what the fuck I'm talking about, this is just me processing information together, I have no idea if it's actually correct, take with an ocean of salt) a product of different vocal cord physiology after experiencing puberty (your vocal cords change in a way that makes it harder. Those same changes are what's responsible for your voice breaking more often, as you struggle to control the now sharper difference between lower and higher pitches you can create. Where afab and prepuberty folks can more easily manage a smooth gradient in pitch), which is also really interesting!

If anyone wants a video on the vocal cords explanation stuff I can link to it, it was from hank's "ask Hank anything" with Jacob Collier

For me, it looked like doing voice training. It was largely self guided, watching videos here and there. This was in the time when trans instructional videos were far less common than they are now, so it was a bit hit and miss. But, I got my voice to a point where people didn't know how to gender me by voice alone, and looked for other cues and clues.

Ultimately, I ended up getting vocal surgery to shorten the length of my vocal cords.

dysmorphia

Dysphoria

At what age do you think it’s appropriate for someone with gender dysmorphia to make a decision to go through the medically assisted chemically induced transition process?

This is another one of those questions that exist as a wedge tactic designed to make trans people sound dangerous.

The reality is, the only medical option offered to young trans kids is the option to pause their puberty until they're old enough to be responsible for their own decisions, at which time they can choose which puberty they want to experience.

And what time is the right age for that? Whenever they need to do it, because going through the wrong puberty is a traumatic experience.

As soon as puberty starts, they should at least have the option to delay their choice with puberty blockers, and probably soon after to start HRT, if it's clear it's a permanent thing.

Ada already covered this.

"chemically induced transition process" is not the right language - you would do for a trans person the same thing you would do for a cis person undergoing problems with puberty, something that children have been safely doing for decades, and which cis children with precocious puberty continue to do even as trans children are banned from having access to the same care.

The answer to your question is determined through a discussion with a doctor, mostly with the aim of reducing the harm for a trans child of going through the wrong puberty, and that's just whenever puberty starts in their body.

This pausing of puberty is the only care minors usually receive, it does not "induce [a] transition process", it pauses a transition process until they are of legal age and can decide to undergo the puberty of their choice.

Here is a decent article written by a bioethicist covering how trans affirming care for minors came about, and why it is endorsed by every major medical association: https://www.openmindmag.org/articles/care-not-controversy

When ever a doctor thinks is suitable

Because that body was so unpleasant I was considering suicide. There was a wrongness pervading every aspect of my life. And I've long liked the term "hormonal dysphoria" to describe how in some trans people such as myself the mere act of having the wrong sex hormone dominance essentially has very similar symptoms to major depression.

I tried plenty else first. I attempted to man up, I grew a beard and got somewhat strong. I tried being an effeminate man and cross dressing for a bit. I tried religion. When I transitioned there were still old trans people giving the old advice, to wait to transition until the only alternative was suicide. I hit that point at 19 and began hormones at 20, but in a more accepting world I'd've probably accepted myself at 16.

It can be really hard to understand why trans people transition - the answers are complicated and involve explanations of the neurobiology of sex and gender.

One way to help you understand is to imagine or even try out being in the wrong sex yourself - if you are male, imagine you were born a woman, they named you Sue and expect you to date boys, play with dolls, dress in frilly skirts and dresses, and so on. Why can't you just be Sue authentically? Why bother with horomones and social transition?

When it feels wrong to be in the wrong sex, it is due to how your brain developed as a fetus, and you can't help that the wrong sex hormones make you depressed and anxious, you can't help that your body feels completely wrong, you can't help that the only known solutions to the suffering is to take the right hormones, to fix the body and to live as your actual gender. Cis people don't have to go through that struggle, so it's harder for them to understand what it's like to be trans. It makes complete sense you would have difficulty understanding, even as a trans person I struggled to recognize I experienced gender dysphoria or that I needed to transition - it was not obvious at the time.

Many people go out of their way to transform their bodies, from diet and exercise to drugs and surgery. My question is why not? It's your flesh puppet; decorate it how you like.

For me at least, there's a pretty significant difference between being in a body i find revolting versus one I don't. I wanted to live my life as someone I could tolerate, who didn't make me feel disgusting.

I'm not underselling it, dysphoria is repulsive. I felt like a freak, I felt wrong. I just did whatever I had to do to fix that. Validation wasn't something I sought as much, it's certainly nice to be recognized but I transitioned for me first and foremost.

I basically believed this most of my life, and it was a big part of why I never transitioned. I felt it was offensive to women for me to claim to be one. Even once I transitioned, I had a really hard time using makeup because I felt like a traitor.

Ultimately, I found reading Julia Serano really helpful. I learned that my fear of embodying feminine stereotypes was more about not wanting to appear feminine (even as a woman), and that ultimately this was more about an entrenched anti-femininity perspective than anything like feminism. I learned that makeup is pragmatic and useful, a way for me to alleviate dysphoria, to help me cope, and that I am not a "traitor" for using it. Being pretty and feminine is important to me, as a woman, and it's not surprising other women want to be pretty and feminine too. They shouldn't feel bad for wanting to be that way, even if women should not feel obligated to only be one kind of hyper-feminine woman.

Regarding being an effeminate man: I have had conservatives tell me this, that I need to just live as a really effeminate man. I just don't know what to tell you, being a man is not right. When I first transitioned, I didn't care as much about the social elements. It turned out testosterone was ruining my mental health - I had severe depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation - all of which cleared up quickly after blocking the production of testosterone and getting on estrogen. Estrogen consistently makes me feel high, it's better than opiates. Not every trans person is this way, but a lot of us are. It's called "biochemical dysphoria". In a way, I would have been willing to settle for having an orchi and living as a eunuch with estrogen supplementation - it would be a lie to say I was a man, and I would know that, but if I could have estrogen and live without testosterone in my body, that is most important to me. Living as a woman has always been important to me, but I never thought I could - that was a dream too far, in a sense. It felt like how I should have been born, but since I wasn't, I resigned myself to living as a man. That estrogen will make me look like a woman and i am able to live and be a woman now is like going to heaven, it's a dream I never thought I would live.

So, tl;dr I have to take hormones because I was born with a condition where my brain can't handle testosterone, and I would have probably killed myself, and generally I lived a very low quality of life before HRT. I was a burden to those around me, and I transitioned for my health and to be a functioning person in society.

I think we all live within the language of gender, and trans women who have lived as men and are insecure in their womanhood often lean heavily into feminine roles as a compensation. I did this even before I transitioned, but it didn't feel like I was contributing to a stereotype of women as a man - I was "gender non-conforming" then. But as a woman the very same behaviors become stereotypical. I like to cook, sew, bake, etc. and those were comforts to me before I transitioned, but are also important to me now. If anything, once I transitioned I felt more freedom to stop clinging to more stereotypical roles, and the more I can validate my womanhood, the more freedom I feel within my womanhood. Either way, I tend to make an exception for myself when it comes to being stereotypical - I figured being trans is rough enough, I can't solve patriarchy all by myself, and it's not up to me as an individual to overcome such huge social and structural problems. I like being feminine, and I am lucky enough to enjoy it now, so I will. If anything, I've learned to stop judging other women for when they are feminine, as a whole I have become more embracing of women as a result of transition.

Since middle school and throughout high school and college I got progressively more and more depressed due to repressed gender dysphoria, and starting HRT has almost immediately started reversing that. I had always been outspoken about how gender roles were stupid and never cared about using "women's" things (like I shared my mom's hair products and stuff), but none of that changed the fact that I was extremely uncomfortable in my body, and being perceived as a man was something to avoid as much as possible. If people made jokes like "that's how you know you aren't a woman haha" I would always fight back against that, but being compared to women felt like more of a compliment.

Plus imo anything a trans person does that could "reaffirm stereotypes" wouldn't do that more than any cis person doing it. I've heard similar things from some cis feminists, where they felt that if they did something stereotypically "girly" it would be hypocritical of them, until realizing that the entire point was that you should be able to do those things if it makes you happy. Avoiding stereotypes can reinforce them just as much as doing them, since then it makes the people claiming the stereotypes as universally true seem like they have a view worth changing yourself for.

Don't you think transitioning reaffirms gender roles and stereotypes?

No, because transitioning at all requires massive amounts of gender transgression that trans people are often severely punished, or even killed for.

I also don’t think it’s correct to blame societal problems (like sexist gender roles and stereotypes) on individuals. If it’s the individual’s responsibility to dismantle gender roles and stereotypes every single day in the way they dress and interact with society, are you doing it? If not, why do trans people carry a higher burden than you?

This also presupposes that trans people all become gender conforming upon transition, when in fact many trans people are also queer and/or gender nonconforming on top of being trans.

I'm probably missing something, but why isn't being a really effeminate man enough, that there's the need to take hormones and change your pronouns?

I’m a trans man and not a trans woman, but let’s pretend that says butch woman instead of effeminate man. So why couldn’t I be a butch woman? Because I wasn’t one. Seriously, people did not know what sexuality box to put me in before I transitioned. I clearly wasn’t a straight woman (no makeup, a mix of teen boy clothes and some feminine tops) and I was too feminine to be a butch lesbian, but not feminine enough to be a lipstick lesbian. And I don’t say this to mean ‘nobody accepted me in the lesbian community and I had to transition to fix it,’ because I never got any shit from other queer people over it. (And I’m not attracted to women regardless.)

So, socially not transitioning wouldn’t have made me any less gender-confusing to other people. And on the personal level, I needed HRT because periods made me suicidal, all the effects of T make me happy, and it’s my body and I get to do what I want with it. Male pronouns also feel more natural to me than female, so I see no reason to not use them.

Gender =/= interests and personality. We all have a diverse range of those things and it's never the reason we transitioned - our gender is something more core , abstract and personal than that. There are butch transfemmes, there are femboy transmascs. Many trans men I know were very feminine children (some are now very feminine men), I wasn't, but we all had the same sense of wrongness in the way we were shaped and treated by people that all clicked into place when we tried to change that.

The reason trans folks may (but not always) cling to gender norms is often to pass better and stop other people gendering us wrongly. I love being a trans guy with long hair and nail varnish but it means that I get misgendered at my job constantly, which causes a conflict in myself because it doesn't feel like who I am. Makes those things I love a bit less enjoyable :/

Femininity has nothing to do with my own experience of gender. I wasn't feminine before I transitioned, I'm not feminine afterwards.

My very existence challenges gender stereotypes, and I wouldn't have it any other way

Yes, they is a good default for anyone you don't know the pronouns of, in general. And it's great that you care about doing what's right already!

The way to approach this is to make it absolutely clear that you're supportive. Use "they/them". Tell your neigbour about your friends kid and how happy you are for them etc. And then just follow their lead. They'll tell you what they need when they're comfortable doing so, but you've just made it a lot easier for them to get to that point

You don't want to stigmatize or make assumptions, so it's best to let people determine what they disclose and when, and to just respect people's pronouns and self-identification.

Unfortunately nothing is universal, they/them can sound like a great way to politely handle the ambiguity, and it can still accidentally make someone feel bad, even if it's reasonable and ultimately their fault for not disclosing their pronouns.

It sounds like your mindset and intentions are good, so just keep going with that - signalling you are trans-supportive will make people feel more safe and willing to disclose around you, but in the meantime just let people come to you and disclose. Using neutral language in the meantime is just a bonus!

love for my peers and allies, and spite for my enemies. i am made of iron. i will persevere. i will prevail.

Every alternative is worse.

Spite.

I mean, the suicide rate is pretty high, relative to cisnormies.

This year has sucked but I've been keeping my shit together at least.

in-person non-electoral organizing keeps me sane

I had to leave my home and family behind in a conservative state to seek safety in a liberal state with trans protections on the books. I'm still unpacking boxes and wondering how soon I will need to flee the country ... It's like rock climbing, everything is dangerous and you just keep laser focused on what is right in front of you. The stress keeps you in a state of momentum and can distract you and give you a sense of agency. When there are gaps when I can lose my focus, I break down. It's overwhelming, but there is no alternative - you don't choose to be trans.

My sibling, what you need is a sun jacket! They’re very light, breathable, and baggy. I got mine at REI but it was kind of pricy since I try to do as close to Buy It For Life as possible, and there are more affordable ones out there.

That would be the dysphoria flannel shirt

Are there cis people that are angry and emotional all the time for reasons you don't understand?

Well, it's the same thing when you see it from trans folk...

For me it was the opposite, I became way calmer and happier once I started HRT.

It's complicated, hormones can influence behavior, but most trans women who take estrogen don't subsequently shout at people as a result. We don't know what was going on with her, but it's not just the hormones, even if they may play a role.

For what it's worth, I became a much more pleasant, well-tempered person as a result of hormone therapy. Calmer, happier, and more social, and I attribute that mostly to the benefits of being on the right hormones.

I guess there are multiple factors. I think the biggest one is just the personality of the person. But starting taking hormones is basically a second puberty for the body. Most trans folks do not become as irretable as a person in their puberty but if one has a predisposition to it, a transition may trigger that a bit.

Neither trans men nor trans women become more aggressive due to HRT! Early on, you might have some mood swings as your body adjusts (you're going through puberty after all) but my understanding is that because of the regimented way we receive it, we're actually much less likely to get those sorts of shifts because our hormone levels are more controlled than cis peoples. But it also just depends on the person, T has made my partner a bit more crabby but I've chilled tf out. It sounds like this particular person just has a very reactive personality

I see that you mentioned there are studies that point to Trans likely being a mismatch between the brain and body at development. But, do you think there is also a link that involves childhood trauma? Or is the science very clear?

Gender identity does not seem to be influenced by trauma, and we have decent evidence it's genetic, though it's a complex trait and there isn't a single "trans gene". Trauma might be more common in trans populations, but that is true for gay folks as well, it's not that the trauma makes them gay, but being gay does make them more likely to be victimized and experience trauma. I myself thought that trauma caused my gender dysphoria (or the experiences I had, which I now realize are gender dysphoria), and it took a long time for me to learn there is good evidence trauma isn't causing my dysphoria (part of this is that I recovered from PTSD, and this alleviated my PTSD symptoms, but did not alleviate my gender dysphoria).

Here are some follow-up articles and citations I have read, and which you may find helpful:

• Joshua Safer's "Evidence supporting the biologic nature of gender identity" (DOI)
• Joshua Safer's "Etiology of Gender Identity" (DOI)
• the collective research of Daphna Joel and Dick Swaab for the current scientific theories of "brain-sex" (which likely plays a role in gender identity and gender dysphoria):
  • Joel & Swaab, 2019, "The Complex Relationships between Sex and the Brain", (DOI)
  • Joel, 2015, "Sex beyond the genetalia: The human brain mosaic", (DOI)
  • Swaab, 2008, "A sex difference in the hypothalamic uncinate nucleus: relationship to gender identity", (DOI)
  • Swaab, 2000, "Male-to-female transsexuals have female neuron numbers in a limbic nucleus", (DOI)
  • Swaab, 1995, "A sex difference in the human brain and its relation to transsexuality", (DOI)

In a video format, some of this is broadly summarized in these videos:

• Neuro-biology of trans-sexuality: Prof. Robert Sapolsky
• Robert Sapolsky: Brain Gender

On biological sex more generally I recommend these videos:

• Julia Serano's overview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZymYiwoRoC0
• Sex & Sensibility: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVQplt7Chos

I also highly recommend reading this literature review to better understand why trans healthcare is so important, but also why it's not considered controversial in an otherwise conservative medical establishment:

What We Know Project, Cornell University, “What Does the Scholarly Research Say about the Effect of Gender Transition on Transgender Well-Being?”, 2018.

...

often find myself uncomfortable with Trans people in person, but I often wonder if half of that is simply that I don’t know how to treat someone. The ones that I met that had relatively normal behavior I found pretty easy to talk to and I felt for them. But ones that were more complicated, say neurodivergent beyond dysphoria, or they had a lot of emotional trauma, made me very uncomfortable. Do you think most of this issue is that as children we are taught how to treat people that are squarely female or male, rather than learning how to treat people as a whole?

I don't know all the reasons you have for discomfort around trans people. I can experience that discomfort too, and especially as you mention when there are other issues like neurodivergence (which is a common comorbidity with gender dysphoria). Beyond the behavioral issues, I have identified in my feelings that gender clashing or inconsistency can bother me - a combination of a masculine signal like a beard and a feminine body like breasts can look wrong to me, and I suspect this is mostly a social norm - I have been raised in a society where being gender non-conforming is taboo. This is not unlike ableist perspectives - the ways that we might feel uncomfortable around people with amputations or birth defects that make their bodies not "normal".

One of the ways to help with this is exposure therapy - being around or exposing yourself to positive experiences with people who are "not normal" can help acclimate you to those differences. It's a long, hard process to undo that cultural programming, though - I have internalized a lot of transphobia, and that has made my transition much more difficult, as my body becomes "not normal" (the experience is akin to feeling like a monster, like being less than human).

So you would have to examine what about trans people is unsettling to you, there is a lot there to figure out - but probably it's just your internalized transphobia (which is fairly typical, you shouldn't feel especially bad for this - it's not like you chose to be raised that way).

I often wish the world wasn’t so hostile, but I also find that some things that were set in motion in my childhood are the hardest to change. It’s easy to change what I act on, but harder to change how I feel.

That's my experience too, and it's a shame because a lot of things set in motion when I was a child are not adaptive or good for me or others now. 😅

Thanks for your questions and thoughtfulness, I hope I have been helpful. ☺️

That particular episode was one of the final steps in breaking down my own internal resistance to accepting myself.

I might have to try to find this, thanks!

For me it’s somewhere between that and hearing the name of a dead family member that I had a complicated relationship with.

Neat side note, not all trans people have a dead name. One of my friends had a gender neutral birth name and he just kept it. Some people get all the luck 😂

I met two people with my dead name and a third who used the nickname I used to (think Christina/Tina) all in the same job. I thought it would be weird, but I realized that I never identified with those names, I just used them because it was expected.

I imagine it's different for other people, but that's how it has been for me

hm, no - I don't think it works that way for me, anyway.

My deadname felt very much like "me" and I lived as the wrong gender for decades, so one of the ways I adapted to that was to implicitly think about my deadname as not a man's name, so when I met other guys with the name I had this horrible feeling like they shouldn't have my name, and that's not what I'm like, and so on.

When I transitioned and took a different name, the deadname within a few months started to lose its gender-neutral sense for me, and it's like the name went back to being a male name without that dissonant feeling - which led me to mostly feel repulsed that I ever went by that name. It feels so wrong that I was ever called that, and so when I see or meet people with my deadname it's mostly just a reminder of those feelings - that I went through this awful experience, but also that I'm so relieved I'm not that anymore (a kind of affirmation, in a way).

Is that what it's like to meet someone with your ex's name?

Yes, but that name is so distant to me that it no longer feels like it ever belonged to me. At best, it was borrowed.

Yes.

That wasn't as much my experience but I never really distinctly disliked the name I used before transitioning, it just wasn't what I needed at the time

That being said, my relationship with gender has ended up being very messy, and I now go by a different spelling of the name I used as a kid, so whether I fit into the umbrella of "trans" is complicated

I just started working at a new place, and my closest coworker has my deadname. Threw me for like half a second, but hasn't been an issue at all otherwise.

I don't think I've ever met someone with my deadname, it is quite a rare name :)

No one has my birth name. My parents made it up by combining their names!

I knew a woman who gets very anxious if she meets someone with her deadname. She couldn't be friend with and tries to not speak with the deadnamed person, etc. I hope it's better know.

I often meet people with my born name, I don't really care. I mean, I met people with this name before changing mine so it's ok, it's a very common name. I have a friend named like that. The hard thing is to not react to the name.

Basically I don't think otherkin or transracial identities are related to being transgender.

I wrote more extensively on my thoughts on otherkin identities in this comment.

I wrote more about transracial identities in this comment.

And in general, it is a good idea to respect people's self-identity even if you feel skepticism about its validity - I don't have to know someone has 100% figured themselves out and has the self-awareness to back up their identity claims. This goes for cis people as well as trans people. Whatever skepticism I feel can remain private so I don't cause that person any distress, and so I remain polite and respectful.

I do believe non-binary, gender-fluid, and agender people are natural variations and are "valid" as much as binary-gendered people, the science and evidence does not really contradict these identities and only seems to affirm their existence.

In cases of the neo-Nazi who identified as a woman, I know this is a major controversy but if there are reasons to believe they are earnest in their identity it should be respected, even if they are despicable. How we know if someone is being earnest is harder, it's a way trolls exploit this respect of self-identity. So we look at a troll's other behavior to help us gauge, and we judge them for their other behavior, not their identity.

All bodies contain the ability to differentiate into what we know as male and female, to varying degrees and in various mixtures. Transgender is just a medical variation in how this normally plays out and spans times and cultures, whereas these other things don't really have a similar basis.

Which of these should be contested and which should be validated?

Identities don’t really need to be either validated or contested, especially if the person didn’t ask for it. Validation will likely win you more friends, though.

Obv use their preferred names and pronouns to be respectful, as with any person. But beyond that, there’s really no need to get involved in their identity at all. It’s a deeply personal thing and it’s unlikely they’ll change it for anyone other than themselves.

Are there any self-identities which you would consider invalid?

I just want to be clear. Blahaj lemmy does not allow invalidating of other folks identities.

It's a non issue. Broadly speaking, trans people are far more afraid of rejection and violence from cis people than cis people are of seeing unexpected bits. Which is to say, this idea that trans people are just wandering around bathrooms flashing their bits at people is nothing but a narrative designed to stir up fear and anger aimed at trans folk. In reality, we tend to do everything we can to make ourselves small and invisible in spaces like that, because there is no safe way to navigate it

Ada covered this well - generally trans people are afraid to use changing rooms and communal spaces like that, being trans is very stigmatized. There are a lot of trans people that don't even use gender-segregated public restrooms at all because of this.

So I haven't really heard of or considered a case where a trans person was flaunting their trans / gender non-conforming body in a communal, gender-segregated space. I suspect it's a fairly rare issue, esp. since trans people make up 0.5 - 1% of the population.

You have to also wonder what it's like for intersex individuals who were born with ambiguous genitals or who otherwise have bodies that don't fit into either male or female categorization, how should we handle communal showers and changing rooms for intersex folks?

But in practicality, people with bodies that aren't "normal" tend to try to hide their bodies and are less likely to use communal spaces where nakedness exists. Even before I transitioned, when I was merely a child, and I had to change clothes for gym class, I basically couldn't do it in the male locker room. I had no idea why I was so extremely uncomfortable with it, but I just couldn't. So I had my grades docked in gym class because I gave up trying to change before class - I would just wear my normal clothes, and the teachers would penalize me for it. I was a good kid, and I never broke rules - this was one major exception, and it bothered me.

When I started social transition, I did start using women's restrooms in public, but I was never bothered by anyone or accosted, and I was usually accompanied by supportive cis women.

I've never been in a changing room or naked in front of others, though, and I wouldn't have considered it. I also wouldn't use gender segregated restrooms anywhere that I might run into people I knew. I only did it when I could remain anonymous and just slip in and out, and usually only because I didn't have an alternative.

Now that I have had bottom surgery, I would be more open to using a changing room, but I would still be mortified that people would notice anyway.

I wouldn't have even gone swimming around others pre-op, but now changing rooms and spas seem like possibilities for me. That's part of why gender affirming care and access to surgeries is so important - it is part of how trans people are able to integrate into such a cis-normative society, it's a way for us to fulfill the social expectations put on us, for our bodies to become more "normal".

I've always found it strange that conservatives wish primarily to withhold that kind of care, since gender affirming care was originally developed around what made cis people comfortable - it used to only be offered to trans people who were likely to pass, who were straight, and who were willing to move to a new city and live a new life with a fabricated past. This erasure of transness is exactly what you would think conservatives would be on-board with ...

As a child, written. (I remember the best were the write-in sex stories in Cosmos magazine.)

Sometime as a teenager it became a mix (socially adapting to boyhood), but probably 80% visual, 20% written. Erotica was more like a special occasion, like taking a hot bath and having a bottle of wine - more fulfilling and valuable, but more occasional and requiring more time. Visuals were more pragmatic, quick, and frequent.

Now I find the ideas are more important than the visuals, so even when visuals are involved it's more about the scene or idea than just the visuals. I would have said that was true before, but testosterone libido is more nagging and you don't always feel like investing in such an unfulfilling activity.

Libido on testosterone was impulsive, animal-like, and disturbing to me. Like a cigarette addiction. I hated living that way.

On estrogen, it's not that my libido feels lessened (in some ways it feels stronger, I swear it made me more horny, which I was disappointed by), but it feels less impulsive, more connected, and generally deeper.

I like the comparison of estrogen libido being like a hot coal, while testosterone libido is like quick-burning pine.

Unrelated to being trans (well, at least I think it is), but I have aphantasia. Written erotica is basically useless to me, because I can't visualise!

I like Hentai manga best, personally. The story does add to the experience

Pre-testosterone was written, post is visual. Can't explain it

The current science points to gender dysphoria being caused by the brain developing as one sex while the body develops as another.

If you ask whether someone is primarily their brain or their body, I think most would say identity resides in the brain and subsequent mind. In that sense, gender dysphoria is a genetic and hormonal disorder, basically a condition of yes, having the "wrong body" for the brain they developed as a fetus. This glosses over a lot of details and sex is complicated, but that's the rough sketch. The condition arises from the brain and the mind, and in that sense can be labelled a mental illness, but that would ignore a lot of context and evidence we have about what is going on.

It is with this understanding and with the guidance of substantial empirical evidence that transition and gender-affirming care are recommended - it is the only treatment that alleviates symptoms (conversion therapy, for example, increases risk of suicide), but also these are treatments with a very high success to failure ratio. Gender affirming surgeries have lower regret rates than practically any other surgery, much lower than knee replacement surgeries, for example.

So we deal with gender dysphoria differently than we deal with other mental illnesses because of what we know about the condition. We know that people with body dysmorphia like anorexics feel distress about their body and might seek surgery to "fix" their bodies, but we don't have the large body of evidence that those surgeries improve patient outcomes, relieve symptoms, or are low risk. So we treat anorexia differently than gender dysphoria, because they have different causes and require different treatments.

So gender dysphoria could be classed as a mental illness in a way, but it's important not to be confused by this and think it's a fabrication or that people with gender dysphoria could just think their way out of their condition - it's biological and not able to be solved with therapy or anti-depressants. Trans people respond really well to living as their gender (go figure!), and we see the same with cis people who are raised as the wrong gender (like in the case of David Reimer). We also see that cis people who are forced to take cross-sex hormones, like when homosexuals were given criminal punishments of estrogen treatments in the UK as in the case of Alan Turing, that those people become gender dysphoric in the same way. Gender dysphoria is not just for trans people, forcing cis people to be on the wrong hormones make them depressed too - are cis people just mentally ill when they have symptoms from being forced to live and medically transition to the other sex? It's not different for trans people.

But my experience with being cisgendered is one of feeling like my spirit would belong wherever it was born to

The few cases we have of cis people being medically transitioned in some way without their consent suggest that this simply isn't the case, at least for many cis folk.

Alan Turing and David Reimer are both examples of cis folk who were medically transitioned without their consent, one as an adult, one as a child, and both experienced severe dysphoria. They ultimately both took their own lives

But my experience with being cisgendered is one of feeling like my spirit would belong wherever it was born to. I identify as a man and would feel out of place in a woman's body, but if I had been born into a woman's body I would feel out of place in a man's. That's my mental picture of what being cisgendered is.

This is something I struggled with as well, but the more I look into it the more convinced I am that (at least for me personally) feeling this way is simply an indication that I’m agender and just lacking any meaningful dysphoria or reason to act on it.
The way I understand it now is that truly cisgender people actually identify with their assigned gender in a way that I can’t really relate to, but that I see trans people describe as gender euphoria. My own experience is very much what you described, where I identify as male simply because that’s what I was assigned and it doesn’t (really) bother me, and it’s helped me conceptualize dysphoria a lot better to understand that my disconnect isn’t with “wrong gender” but simply with “gender” at all.

I’m not saying the only reason you could struggle to relate the same way I do is not being cis, but maybe you’d benefit the way I did from reading about being agender?

I think this is all extremely variable from person to person and can't really be generalized, including the libido thing. Transition brings unusually deep change, including to sexuality, but the way it plays out is extremely individual

No worries, these are personal questions but that's what I've signed up for.

The answer is that it varies significantly. It's not uncommon for trans women to experience a reduction of libido on estrogen, but I experienced increased arousal and libido (much to my dismay, I wanted libido to reduce). However, I think viewing libido as just "more" vs "less" does not portray the changes accurately. Testosterone libido felt different, more desperate and animal-like. It was like a simple biological urge, like hunger or the need to pass a bowel movement. It felt imposed on me, and like a hijacking of "me".

Estrogen libido was deeper and more meaningful, more emotionally connected and harder to just stamp out. Testosterone libido was like performing a duty, estrogen libido was like yearning, pining, burning lust. Estrogen libido feels right, testosterone libido felt awful (to the point where I wondered if I was on the asexual spectrum).

The further into transition I got, the more my dissociation melted and the more dysphoria I experienced as a result - and in this case, the more I experienced bottom dysphoria. I started to wear underwear to bed to hide my genitals, and I started to recognize when I was dissociating during sex, and trying to avoid it by opting to not be touched. I couldn't stand being the center of attention in sex, focusing on me and my orgasm was very upsetting and usually I disappeared when this happened.

All this varies significantly among trans women - many of them feel no bottom dysphoria at all, and enjoy topping. Many of us feel varying levels of dysphoria, and either cannot use their genitals at all, or very little.

I was a middle case - I could have sex, but it required accommodations and working around my issues, usually by hiding the genitals and treating them more like female genitals (treating the glans like a clit, and so on). I found using a vibrator much more pleasurable on estrogen than before transition, and I really did not like having erections so I did everything I could to promote penile atrophy (but ultimately I didn't have much penile atrophy - I would have trouble being hard enough for penetrating, but still technically could sometimes). This was all pre-op, obviously post-op sex changed significantly - I am finding I am surprisingly more comfortable now being the center of sexual attention, though I still have dysphoria and there are struggles I have to work around (like feeling my new genitals are like the old ones).

I'm not sure my prostate changed much at all, to be honest. I didn't notice any difference, but post-op, vaginal penetration is prostate stimulating and featured more heavily. (Anal took more prep and time to do and could be painful, so it was admittedly done less frequently. Also, it could introduce gender feelings in a way, which could increase my dysphoria - sometimes gender-affirming activities can emphasize how much I'm not a woman, and can ironically backfire and make things worse.)

Honestly I am not sure there is a particularly perfect way to raise genital preference, but it is good to be transparent and honest about your preferences, it might be good to raise early and in a context where you are opening the floor to understanding their needs and preferences too, esp. around any dyphoria they might experience and what their needs are.

The majority of trans folks are pre- or non-op, so it's best not to assume anything about their genitals, and if you have preferences it's even more important to communicate about.

For transmasc folks you might need to examine your preferences and the extent to which female gentials make you see men as women (just like when men really enjoy penises on trans women), and just be honest with yourself and your partner, and be careful not to invalidate someone's gender.

Tbh, this isn't that far from talking about hair and sexual preferences with cis people, it's just good to be sensitive because being misgendered can be really dehumanizing.

I don't know what to tell you, most aspects of being a woman feels right to me. Even without knowing consciously a specific change will feel good, making changes that make me more like a woman end up feeling good. There is nothing about being a man that seems right to me.

I think we can't choose to be binary or non-binary, just like cis people can't choose to suddenly be the opposite sex and be trans. Gender identity seems to be biological, and we can't change it (e.g. through conversion therapy, it's just not effective). if we could change gender identity, probably the conservative medical establishment would recommend those methods rather than transitioning, but as is, transitioning is the only effective way to alleviate gender dysphoria.

So there are problems with the binary model, but I do believe some people are women and some are men, anyway, including trans people. Not everyone is non-binary, or find an identity like that affirming or "right".

While I can see there are many problems with gender, I don't think trans people should feel primarily responsible for those problems. We live and breathe within gender, as do cis people, but trans folks are the least advantaged in that context. We struggle to live as our gender, so when we use gender to feel ourselves, I don't think it's this horrible act of reifying gender as a sin, but instead I think it is a positive and life-affirming activity. That's not to say there isn't anything toxic about gender, or even problematic about the way trans people use gender, but I'm not going to wring my hands about this any more - trans people were dealt a bad hand, they're trying to survive within their context and we should grant them some space for that.

So, much of gender is a social construct, but being a social construct doesn't stop it being real. Society has a bias towards a gender binary, and that creates the social context in which we come to understand and experience our own gender. These social frameworks creates the lens through which we learn to understand ourselves.

Lets say I grew up on an island full of men. I had never seen or met a woman, and didn't have a concept of women. In that environment, my experience of gender would have been different. I'd still have experienced the discomfort, and disconnection, I'd still have experienced dysphoria, but it would have manifested very differently. I wouldn't have identified as a binary woman in a world without women, and I wouldn't have had the language to describe my experiences, but I'd still have had a discomfort I couldn't address, and I'd still have known that I was different to the men around me in ways I didn't have the language or the concepts to explore.

But I didn't. I grew up in country town Australia in the 80s, when societies bias towards a gender binary was strong. And my own gender is binary too.

I do sometimes wonder what my experience of my own gender would be like if I'd have grown up in a different context, if society allowed space for genders that don't have to fit a binary. Would I still be binary? The truth is, I don't know. But what I do know, is that my experience of my own gender does fit on the binary, and knowing that, and thinking about it doesn't change it, because however I got there, my gender isn't a choice. It's just who I am.

Another consideration is how the penis is related to in terms of your gender, if a guy is into the woman because she has a penis, does he see her penis as a woman's genital, or is it still male?

One way to explore this is to ask how you would feel if the penis were not used for penetration, not even used erect - would you still be attracted to her if her penis remained flaccid and was stimulated more like a clit?

If you want her primarily to take a "masculine role" in bed, and you primarily want her penis to function like a man's penis, the appeal might be motivated from a place that on some level still thinks of her and her genitals as male.

Sometimes it's just about the novelty and taboo, which are frequent objects of sexual desire (think of how popular incest porn is, etc.). Sometimes it's about a repressed bi- or homo-sexuality, where the woman with male genitals becomes an ideal basis for fulfilling some of that forbidden desire.

Simply seeing the gentials as male is probably common, and on its own isn't the biggest crime, but if that translates to not seeing and treating her as a woman I think that can be really problematic.

The issue of objectification is separate, and I would even argue some objectification can be desirable in sex (or at least aiming to never objectify does not seem like an absolute ideal), we sometimes wish to be sexual objects (whether that's healthy or not) - but we rarely wish to be seen as men.

not sure I can speak to this, not really directly related to trans folks either

As far as I know, pup/petplay is an outgrowth of queer male leather with leather pups being the prototype. Ponyplay has similar roots, probably a little more tradionally het. A fair amount of it, especially in porn, is just female submissive cishet roleplay. There is also overlap with furries.

It is relatively common in the straight-ish kink and leather communties in the US. There are leather pups all over gay leather. I can't speak to the lesbian communties.

If you're in the US, get involved with your local bdsm/kink community. Saw a girl come out as a hu-cow for the first time at a recent event.