I think the hard-distinction that trans people have as putting themselves in little boxes like ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ are kind of harming the whole idea.
Having tea parties isn’t girly. Playing with dolls isn’t girly. Wearing pants isn’t masculine. Playing in the dirt as a kid isn’t masculine. They’re just kid things. There’s too much emphasis on what’s boy or girl like, and people are convinced they’re “a girl” because…they like pink? They like tea parties? They like the clothes that girls wear? You can still be a guy and like those things, those aren’t “girl things”, they’re just things. I hate this idea that everything has to fall into one of those two categories, and if you like something from the ‘other side’ you’re trans.
It’s perfectly acceptable to like/do things that the other sex does, without BEING that sex.
Yup. When I was a teen I had a lot of dark coloured clothing, I wasn’t a goth but my family thought I preferred dark clothes. I actually prefer bright colours, whether it’s pink, yellow or baby blues. The older I get the less of a shit I give with expectations of gender stereotypes. I’m 27 and had my hair dyed bright blue a couple years ago and I got comments from middle aged men telling me that there was something wrong with that. I still get comments from the guy who lives across the road too.
I’m all set up for the down votes, but in my experience as a non-trans individual, there are two common components to being trans. There is the masculine/feminine side of things, aka gender, which I find to be incredibly stupid because it’s a cultural construct that is largely self imposed in the adult world as long as you don’t have hair thick skin. I really want to do away with gender and gender roles entirely so no one is in a box and everyone can do what they want regardless of what they identify as.
Then there is the body dysmophia side of things, where you physically do not feel comfortable with the way your body presents. This I totally understand, despite not suffering from it, and is imo the only legit reason to transition.
If anyone wants to teach me anything about this, feel free to leave a civil comment and we can have a discussion.
I’m afab, but don’t feel like a woman. I recently immigrated to a country with a gendered language, and it feels almost like faking an accent to use feminine words to refer to myself- like I’m clearly misleading people, but in a mostly harmless way. I’m not sure if I’ll ever transition, but if I do, it won’t be because of me hating being inside my body, it will be because it feels more honest to those around me and I kinda feel like a scumbag “deceiving” them constantly.
I don’t really know much about trans theory, so I don’t know if there’s a good argument to convince you, but I think mine is a good reason to transition.
Afab? And yeah that’s kinda my point, I want to do away with gendered language because it seems kinda pointless. And can you explain more about what you mean by deceiving people?
Assigned female at birth-in my case it means I’ve been treated like a woman my whole life and have a female body.
In a utopian world, there might not be gendered language (and the women I’ve talked to about it here mostly feel empowerment by it, so who knows), but I don’t live in that world. I don’t think it’s fair to put the burden of ending sexism on trans people before we transition (not that you were, but some do). Trans people are a pretty small part of the population and we’re having a tough enough time getting people to allow us to legally transition, we can’t change the culture ourselves, so we have to exist in a gendered culture (I also think it’s dumb, but I can’t make much of a difference there. As a basically still closeted trans person, I’m probably doing a lot to go against traditional gender roles though, on second thought).
It feels like when I introduce myself as a woman (or in this language use any adjective or noun to describe myself), it doesn’t feel true to me. I don’t know why (and I’m not planning on making any significant changes until I do), but it just feels like I’m hiding something when I suggest that I’m a woman.
I know that’s nebulous, but so is identity. I know women well: I have sisters and plenty of female friends and I’ve dated women. I don’t think I fit the model for how women relate to the world. I feel like my perspective is much closer to that of the men I know.
Weirdly, other people also don’t treat me completely like a woman either. No one’s ever spoken over me in a meeting (though I’ve occasionally seen it happen to other women in these meetings), I’m given heavy things to carry, and my bosses have mostly given me decision making power pretty early on. I have experienced sexism (and certainly the kind of sexual harassment that comes from existing in a city), but less so than other women seem to. I’m pretty tall and well spoken, but slim and baby-faced, so I don’t know how much can be attributed to my appearance.
I think appearance does impact this. I’m tallish (same height as average man here) and slim straight build, not the plush womanly figure and yes, people seem quicker to assume I am smart or strong than ladies who are shorter/busty/curvy. Which has got to be infuriating to be on the other side of.
I did read once that androgynous-ish people and those who disregard sex roles are happier, on average, than people who hold tightly to sex roles. Maybe this is part of why, we get treated more as a person than simply man or woman.
You were assigned a sex at birth. If you have female genitals, you’re a female (the sex, not the gender). That’s what gets assigned at birth. Doctors don’t give a shit about gender, and do not assign it when you are born. Gender is a societal construct, and something you adopt as you age/learn. Sex is for the purposes of identifying you for paperwork/citizenship.
I really hate this prevailing idea in trans communities that doctors “gender” you at birth. They don’t. They issue a classification of sex based on your genitalia for the purposes of identification.
That’s actually a pretty contentious topic in trans circles (transmedicalism/truscum). Personally I don’t really see the issue with transitioning for whatever (well-informed) reason, as long as you’re not taking up resources for those with dysmorphia
Check out the Gender Dysphoria Bible online; it’s a very good resource. Or read the WPATH-8 recommendations if you want the actual scientific/medical consensus.
In my experience as a trans person with gnc tendencies, you cannot simply wish away gender for everybody. There are people who don’t really feel any attachment (“agender” people). But most people do, deeply.
As an aside, starting a conversation by gatekeeping how people in a group you don’t belong to are allowed to feel, then gatekeeping how they are allowed to express themselves, is generally not a way to get them to open up to you.
The equivalent for me might be “as a white person, in my opinion there are only two valid reasons for a black person to have their hair in locks (a and b), any black people who want to respectfully explain anything about that to me are free to do so…”
If I open the conversation like that, I’m not likely to gather much new information.
I think that may be why you’re not getting the polite interactions you’re looking for, your post was not particularly friendly.
That’s fair, I need to take more care for how I phrase things. I appreciate the resource, but I’ve found that I don’t learn as well from textbook esque resources than I do from having conversations. I’m very confident that I am agender, so I suppose my experiences are reflected in my beliefs. But it seems very odd to me that more people within the LGBT community don’t agree with my line of reasoning, as it’s a more freedom based approach to the same goal of liberation from gender roles.
As far as the gatekeeping goes, I explained why I phrased it that way in another comment, but I do agree it was a poor choice.
And so far no one has actually attacked me, so I consider these discussions to be fairly successful, although I wish people wouldn’t downvote that other user as that stifles their point of view.
That’s the issue I have generally - is the automatic assumption people take that I am attacking them rather than trying to have a conversation so that I can educate myself on the topic and understand better.
I’m just gonna quote something else you said in this thread
You were assigned a sex at birth. If you have female genitals, you’re a female. That’s what gets assigned at birth. Doctors don’t give a shit about gender, and do not assign it when you are born. Gender is a societal construct, and something you adopt as you age/learn.
I didn’t read this in reply to me and think “oh, here is somebody who is attempting to educate themselves and understand me better.”
If your goal is to get people to share some of their most intimate and complex personal experiences with you, perhaps there are more effective communication styles?
Can you see how it might come off as somebody who believes they already know the topic and is trying to educate other people?
I’m correcting a misconception that person had about their experiences. Doctors do not give you a gender. They assign a sex (M or F) for the purposes of identification.
Basically, what did the doctors guess your gender was going to be based on your genitals.
Is wholly untrue and counterproductive to tell people. I’ve been told many times that your gender is not your sex, and they are two separate things. To incorrectly espouse that doctors assign gender and not sex upon birth, is frankly, appalling. This is not something that is open for opinion, it is a statement of fact. And an incorrect statement of fact is either ignorance, or malice.
People are still throwing “gender reveal” parties for their unborn infants. If you think doctors in the real world aren’t concerned with fitting children into sex-assigned gender norms, you experienced a different medical system from me.
Is it right that doctors and parents, in general, guess gender based on genitalia? Is it good? I think we agree that it isn’t.
I think the hard-distinction that trans people have as putting themselves in little boxes like ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ are kind of harming the whole idea.
Having tea parties isn’t girly. Playing with dolls isn’t girly. Wearing pants isn’t masculine. Playing in the dirt as a kid isn’t masculine. They’re just kid things. There’s too much emphasis on what’s boy or girl like, and people are convinced they’re “a girl” because…they like pink? They like tea parties? They like the clothes that girls wear? You can still be a guy and like those things, those aren’t “girl things”, they’re just things. I hate this idea that everything has to fall into one of those two categories, and if you like something from the ‘other side’ you’re trans.
It’s perfectly acceptable to like/do things that the other sex does, without BEING that sex.
Yes. This is just gender stereotypes. Let’s abolish gender stereotypes instead. You do you, fam.
Yup. When I was a teen I had a lot of dark coloured clothing, I wasn’t a goth but my family thought I preferred dark clothes. I actually prefer bright colours, whether it’s pink, yellow or baby blues. The older I get the less of a shit I give with expectations of gender stereotypes. I’m 27 and had my hair dyed bright blue a couple years ago and I got comments from middle aged men telling me that there was something wrong with that. I still get comments from the guy who lives across the road too.
I’m a Cis, straight man. Know what my favourite colour was growing up? Magenta
Objectively the most lit color in the CMYK color process.
Colour me shocked.
Do you like reading books?
Yes it’s fine to do gender non conforming things, for both cis and trans people.
But being trans is not simply a presentation preference.
I’m all set up for the down votes, but in my experience as a non-trans individual, there are two common components to being trans. There is the masculine/feminine side of things, aka gender, which I find to be incredibly stupid because it’s a cultural construct that is largely self imposed in the adult world as long as you don’t have hair thick skin. I really want to do away with gender and gender roles entirely so no one is in a box and everyone can do what they want regardless of what they identify as.
Then there is the body dysmophia side of things, where you physically do not feel comfortable with the way your body presents. This I totally understand, despite not suffering from it, and is imo the only legit reason to transition.
If anyone wants to teach me anything about this, feel free to leave a civil comment and we can have a discussion.
I’m afab, but don’t feel like a woman. I recently immigrated to a country with a gendered language, and it feels almost like faking an accent to use feminine words to refer to myself- like I’m clearly misleading people, but in a mostly harmless way. I’m not sure if I’ll ever transition, but if I do, it won’t be because of me hating being inside my body, it will be because it feels more honest to those around me and I kinda feel like a scumbag “deceiving” them constantly.
I don’t really know much about trans theory, so I don’t know if there’s a good argument to convince you, but I think mine is a good reason to transition.
Afab? And yeah that’s kinda my point, I want to do away with gendered language because it seems kinda pointless. And can you explain more about what you mean by deceiving people?
Assigned female at birth-in my case it means I’ve been treated like a woman my whole life and have a female body.
In a utopian world, there might not be gendered language (and the women I’ve talked to about it here mostly feel empowerment by it, so who knows), but I don’t live in that world. I don’t think it’s fair to put the burden of ending sexism on trans people before we transition (not that you were, but some do). Trans people are a pretty small part of the population and we’re having a tough enough time getting people to allow us to legally transition, we can’t change the culture ourselves, so we have to exist in a gendered culture (I also think it’s dumb, but I can’t make much of a difference there. As a basically still closeted trans person, I’m probably doing a lot to go against traditional gender roles though, on second thought).
It feels like when I introduce myself as a woman (or in this language use any adjective or noun to describe myself), it doesn’t feel true to me. I don’t know why (and I’m not planning on making any significant changes until I do), but it just feels like I’m hiding something when I suggest that I’m a woman.
I know that’s nebulous, but so is identity. I know women well: I have sisters and plenty of female friends and I’ve dated women. I don’t think I fit the model for how women relate to the world. I feel like my perspective is much closer to that of the men I know.
Weirdly, other people also don’t treat me completely like a woman either. No one’s ever spoken over me in a meeting (though I’ve occasionally seen it happen to other women in these meetings), I’m given heavy things to carry, and my bosses have mostly given me decision making power pretty early on. I have experienced sexism (and certainly the kind of sexual harassment that comes from existing in a city), but less so than other women seem to. I’m pretty tall and well spoken, but slim and baby-faced, so I don’t know how much can be attributed to my appearance.
I think appearance does impact this. I’m tallish (same height as average man here) and slim straight build, not the plush womanly figure and yes, people seem quicker to assume I am smart or strong than ladies who are shorter/busty/curvy. Which has got to be infuriating to be on the other side of.
I did read once that androgynous-ish people and those who disregard sex roles are happier, on average, than people who hold tightly to sex roles. Maybe this is part of why, we get treated more as a person than simply man or woman.
Assigned Female At Birth
Basically, what did the doctors guess your gender was going to be based on your genitals.
You were assigned a sex at birth. If you have female genitals, you’re a female (the sex, not the gender). That’s what gets assigned at birth. Doctors don’t give a shit about gender, and do not assign it when you are born. Gender is a societal construct, and something you adopt as you age/learn. Sex is for the purposes of identifying you for paperwork/citizenship.
I really hate this prevailing idea in trans communities that doctors “gender” you at birth. They don’t. They issue a classification of sex based on your genitalia for the purposes of identification.
That’s actually a pretty contentious topic in trans circles (transmedicalism/truscum). Personally I don’t really see the issue with transitioning for whatever (well-informed) reason, as long as you’re not taking up resources for those with dysmorphia
Check out the Gender Dysphoria Bible online; it’s a very good resource. Or read the WPATH-8 recommendations if you want the actual scientific/medical consensus.
In my experience as a trans person with gnc tendencies, you cannot simply wish away gender for everybody. There are people who don’t really feel any attachment (“agender” people). But most people do, deeply.
As an aside, starting a conversation by gatekeeping how people in a group you don’t belong to are allowed to feel, then gatekeeping how they are allowed to express themselves, is generally not a way to get them to open up to you.
The equivalent for me might be “as a white person, in my opinion there are only two valid reasons for a black person to have their hair in locks (a and b), any black people who want to respectfully explain anything about that to me are free to do so…”
If I open the conversation like that, I’m not likely to gather much new information.
I think that may be why you’re not getting the polite interactions you’re looking for, your post was not particularly friendly.
That’s fair, I need to take more care for how I phrase things. I appreciate the resource, but I’ve found that I don’t learn as well from textbook esque resources than I do from having conversations. I’m very confident that I am agender, so I suppose my experiences are reflected in my beliefs. But it seems very odd to me that more people within the LGBT community don’t agree with my line of reasoning, as it’s a more freedom based approach to the same goal of liberation from gender roles.
As far as the gatekeeping goes, I explained why I phrased it that way in another comment, but I do agree it was a poor choice.
And so far no one has actually attacked me, so I consider these discussions to be fairly successful, although I wish people wouldn’t downvote that other user as that stifles their point of view.
That’s the issue I have generally - is the automatic assumption people take that I am attacking them rather than trying to have a conversation so that I can educate myself on the topic and understand better.
I’m just gonna quote something else you said in this thread
I didn’t read this in reply to me and think “oh, here is somebody who is attempting to educate themselves and understand me better.”
If your goal is to get people to share some of their most intimate and complex personal experiences with you, perhaps there are more effective communication styles?
Can you see how it might come off as somebody who believes they already know the topic and is trying to educate other people?
I’m correcting a misconception that person had about their experiences. Doctors do not give you a gender. They assign a sex (M or F) for the purposes of identification.
Is wholly untrue and counterproductive to tell people. I’ve been told many times that your gender is not your sex, and they are two separate things. To incorrectly espouse that doctors assign gender and not sex upon birth, is frankly, appalling. This is not something that is open for opinion, it is a statement of fact. And an incorrect statement of fact is either ignorance, or malice.
People are still throwing “gender reveal” parties for their unborn infants. If you think doctors in the real world aren’t concerned with fitting children into sex-assigned gender norms, you experienced a different medical system from me.
Is it right that doctors and parents, in general, guess gender based on genitalia? Is it good? I think we agree that it isn’t.
But it is the case.