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.

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.

Why are there so few male sex workers in general?

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.

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 not everyone woman should feel obligated to only be one kind of hype-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.

Many don’t even care all that much about gender roles or stereotypes, compared to the importance of the physical body. Hormones, surgery, etc. If it wasn’t about physical traits then usually someone would live as butch, drag queen, etc instead of the pain and expense of unnecessary transitioning.

Most women don’t want to be in a man’s body and having relationships, sex etc in an effeminate man’s body. Most men probably don’t want to be in a woman’s body forever full time, at work, sports etc either.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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…

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

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

Yes.

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.

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 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?

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 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 :)

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.

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

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

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).

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.

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

Spite.

Every alternative is worse.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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…