[RD] Ask a trans person II: 2 trans 2 sexual

[schlaufuchs]

I don't consider there to be a real distinction between sex and gender. As I said in an earlier response, I define gender as a trialectic relationship between the society/culture, the self (i.e. one's experiences, feelings, thoughts, relationships, etc.), and the body/biology. None of these can properly be described in isolation as their meaning only exists in their relationship and interplay. The body and biology inform the social and cultural definitions of and attitudes towards gender: how gender looks, how it is performed, what is to be expected, what are the boundaries of acceptable and unacceptable performance, archetypes, myths, and so on. Likewise, every person has a body, which exhibits biological features, and the existence of that body inherently constitutes a relationship with the self that informs how the individual perceives, performs and relates to their gender. Every person is raised in society, and their understanding of gender necessarily exists in relation to that social dynamic. Whether it be assimilation, parody, rejection, or some complex array of feelings, all of that is necessarily in relationship to the gender they know as society defines it, and in turn, the social relationship to the body also informs the self's relationship to one's body. Finally, society drives biology: biology is only ever experienced, navigated, and mediated socially. The definitions we apply, what, how many, and where boxes are drawn are decided socially, and informed by our social understandings of knowledge and gender (e.g. it's a truism that men are stronger/faster than women, but this is always necessarily a product of a) how we define men and women, and b) premised on abstractions based on averages where the significant overlap is heavily downplayed or disregarded). And these, too, are mediated through the self. The way I understand and interact with biology is heavily informed by my transness, my own experiences with my biology, and the social biological frameworks I have been taught or studied.

So as I said, I don't draw a distinction between sex and gender. My gender, the way I understand and perform my womanhood is defined by a) the social and cultural knowledge I have absorbed over my lifetime, b) the specific experiences I've had, the things I've read, c) the body I have, and how that body relates to (a) and (b). My partner has a different relationship to womanhood than I have, and that comes from different experiences, different relationships to society, and a different body with a different relationship to that different body, and different ways of mediating the relationship between her experiences with that body and its functions, the social expectations placed on that body, and so on.

As a quick example, a cis woman has had the experience of being sexualized and fetishized from a young age, being catcalled by old men at age 9 or 10, learning how to navigate drinking with the perpetual looming threat of rapists and other abusive men, being more likely to be on the receiving end of abusive partners and domestic violence, having to pay a premium for certain products that men do not, being constantly taught and having reinforced that their opinions don't matter, that their social function is to be quiet and look pretty, that their value is only ever in relationship to a man, and so on.

By contrast, a trans woman might not have experienced the sexualization and fetishization, but probably experienced a lot of homophobia and bullying. They might have been "socialized as men," but that socialization is of course part of the trialectic: it is social expectations about how to perform masculinity viewed by someone who is not a man and struggles to relate to the teachings. It's once again that push-pull between the body, the self, and social attitudes/expectations to the body and self that exists for all of us, and which is distinctly different for all of us. Later on if they come out, the violence, the harassment, the transphobia and transmisogyny, the transfeminine-specific fetishization, one's sexuality and relationship with dating, etc. all play a heavy role in how we experience, internalize, understand, relate, and perform gender.

And this, of course, is without bringing other intersectionalities into the mix. My relationship to my gender is heavily informed by my whiteness, my class position, my being a beneficiary of the global hegemon, American capitalist culture, and so on. A trans woman, say, who is black, or who has grown up in poverty, or who grew up in an evangelical household or in the global south, is of course going to have radically different cultural, social, and biological relationships that are going to inform a similar, but ultimately fundamentally different relationship to transness and to femininity than I will. In much the same way that trans men and trans masc people have different relationships to transness, and cis white women, cis black women, and a trans white woman all have similar but fundamentally different relationships.

 

[IglooDame]

@schlaufuchs (and anyone else trans who is willing to answer)

Do you place any weight/value on a distinction between sex and gender?

Does a distinction for gender or sex require specific parameters defining sexes or genders? (I know I asked a similar question before, just in a different context)

Do you have any thoughts on the recognition of a third gender in some culture(s)?

I don't pretend to be as well-informed (or as thoughtful) as schlaufuchs, but my thought has always been that sex is physiological, and gender is, er, everything else. That's why "intersex" has a different meaning than "nonbinary".

 

[caketastydelish]

@schlaufuchs what would it mean for trans in america if trump is relected or someone else who shares his views? And because you keep bringing up the matrix. is agent smith supposed to be trump?

 

[caketastydelish]

As someone who has seen the Matrix many many times (and I was obsessed with in my dorky teenage years) I honestly don't like comparing the movie to trans people. No offense, but no trans person is Neo. Neo has the power to remake the matrix as he sees fit, thus easily destroying any Smith. But no one IRL is like that whether they are trans or not.

 

[schlaufuchs]

@schlaufuchs what would it mean for trans in america if trump is relected or someone else who shares his views?

If he’s elected, that will signal the need to start arranging concrete escape plans. If he moves to ban HRT at a national level, that is the point I leave. I’m not going off estrogen. I find it unlikely I will survive detransition for very long. Even just the two week stretch I was off estrogen last year due to gaps in coverage was absolute torture. I was breaking down by the end of it.

And because you keep bringing up the matrix. is agent smith supposed to be trump?

No. The matrix represents cisheteronormative society. The runners (who are, canonically, the ~1% of the population who are predisposed to reject the matrix, experienced in the form of a distinct feeling of “offness” about the world around them) are trans people.

The agents are enforcers of cisheteronormativity. When runners wake up (literally hatching from an egg), they are flushed from society, forced to live underground, off the grid, and are only able to re-enter and move about in the matrix by adopting the guise of a cis person, and performing cisnormativity. When their queerness is detected, the system reacts quickly and violently to expel the intruders. The agents can appear anywhere and at any time. People you otherwise trust or have known for years can suddenly turn into an enforcer and start attacking you with little to no warning, just as any cis person can harbor transphobia and react, at times violently, upon the discovery of someone’s transness.

Agent Smith represents the fascist element within cisheteronormativity. He is someone who has moved beyond merely enforcing the boundaries of the normative status quo, and towards a position which despises queerness categorically, and recognizes it as an inherent complement to the existing order. Thus, it arrives at a more radical “solution” to the “problem.” Reloaded and Revolutions continue this point: showing that fascists, when allowed to move freely within a community, will rapidly metastasize, remaking those around them into fascist carbon copies of themselves, and exterminating those who refuse or resist. Revolutions shows the ultimate endpoint of fascism: everyone is either fascist or dead, sitting atop a ruined husk of a world, and still the fascist is not satisfied.

Smith is not representative of any one individual, just as the agents and runners are not representative of any one individual.

As someone who has seen the Matrix many many times (and I was obsessed with in my dorky teenage years) I honestly don't like comparing the movie to trans people. No offense, but no trans person is Neo. Neo has the power to remake the matrix as he sees fit, thus easily destroying any Smith. But no one IRL is like that whether they are trans or not.

The co-directors of the movies are both trans women, and have said in interviews that the trans allegory was a component part of the production and a valid reading of the movies. The character Switch was supposed to be explicitly trans in the first movie, but this got nixed by the studio. The scene where Neo is pushed onto the subway tracks by Smith and held down is loosely autobiographical. A metaphorical retelling of Lana Wachowski’s lowest point, when she stood in a New York subway station contemplating throwing herself in front of a train, unable to stand the agony of trying to be cis. A homeless man was in the station then, and the thought of someone witnessing her death caused her to not go through with it, and she accepted her trans identity shortly after that.

Neo is not *literally* trans, but a metaphor for transness, just as the Matrix is not literally *the world* but cisheteronormativity as a concept. In the metaphor, what Neo learns to do is manipulate the rules and confines of the cis normative world he has lived his whole life, and transcend them. In other words, he realizes what all trans people eventually necessarily must realize: that cisnormativity is an artificial construct - the rules are all made up - and to be trans requires one to unlearn those rules, and understand that they can be broken and bent freely.

It’s not literal, but theme in art very rarely is to be interpreted as literal. To give an example, in Carrie, blood represents female sexuality, conveyed through the metonymy of the period. Initially this blood scares Carrie, and she rejects it and seeks to suppress it. As do others through social stigma and pressure, just as liberated female sexuality is condemned and repressed in our society. Ultimately, Carrie is showered in blood. She finally accepts the blood and her telekinetic power, and , in a cathartic display of grotesque violence, massacres the whole student body, showering the gym in blood. People are terrified by her power, and ultimately her mother murders her for it. This is read as reflective of the way that female sexuality and female empowerment are viewed as both alluring and dangerous by society. They are quick to bombard and shower her with blood the instant her first period occurs, but are horrified when she turns that blood back around in them. Women who own and freely enjoy the empowerment of their own sexuality are met with violence and death.

It doesn’t mean that periods literally give women magical telekinetic powers. The telekinesis is a metaphor. It represents the social power and the danger an empowered, sexually liberated, independent woman presents to society.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I don't consider there to be a real distinction between sex and gender. As I said in an earlier response, I define gender as a trialectic relationship between the society/culture, the self (i.e. one's experiences, feelings, thoughts, relationships, etc.), and the body/biology. None of these can properly be described in isolation as their meaning only exists in their relationship and interplay. The body and biology inform the social and cultural definitions of and attitudes towards gender: how gender looks, how it is performed, what is to be expected, what are the boundaries of acceptable and unacceptable performance, archetypes, myths, and so on. Likewise, every person has a body, which exhibits biological features, and the existence of that body inherently constitutes a relationship with the self that informs how the individual perceives, performs and relates to their gender. Every person is raised in society, and their understanding of gender necessarily exists in relation to that social dynamic. Whether it be assimilation, parody, rejection, or some complex array of feelings, all of that is necessarily in relationship to the gender they know as society defines it, and in turn, the social relationship to the body also informs the self's relationship to one's body. Finally, society drives biology: biology is only ever experienced, navigated, and mediated socially. The definitions we apply, what, how many, and where boxes are drawn are decided socially, and informed by our social understandings of knowledge and gender (e.g. it's a truism that men are stronger/faster than women, but this is always necessarily a product of a) how we define men and women, and b) premised on abstractions based on averages where the significant overlap is heavily downplayed or disregarded). And these, too, are mediated through the self. The way I understand and interact with biology is heavily informed by my transness, my own experiences with my biology, and the social biological frameworks I have been taught or studied.

So as I said, I don't draw a distinction between sex and gender. My gender, the way I understand and perform my womanhood is defined by a) the social and cultural knowledge I have absorbed over my lifetime, b) the specific experiences I've had, the things I've read, c) the body I have, and how that body relates to (a) and (b). My partner has a different relationship to womanhood than I have, and that comes from different experiences, different relationships to society, and a different body with a different relationship to that different body, and different ways of mediating the relationship between her experiences with that body and its functions, the social expectations placed on that body, and so on.

As a quick example, a cis woman has had the experience of being sexualized and fetishized from a young age, being catcalled by old men at age 9 or 10, learning how to navigate drinking with the perpetual looming threat of rapists and other abusive men, being more likely to be on the receiving end of abusive partners and domestic violence, having to pay a premium for certain products that men do not, being constantly taught and having reinforced that their opinions don't matter, that their social function is to be quiet and look pretty, that their value is only ever in relationship to a man, and so on.

By contrast, a trans woman might not have experienced the sexualization and fetishization, but probably experienced a lot of homophobia and bullying. They might have been "socialized as men," but that socialization is of course part of the trialectic: it is social expectations about how to perform masculinity viewed by someone who is not a man and struggles to relate to the teachings. It's once again that push-pull between the body, the self, and social attitudes/expectations to the body and self that exists for all of us, and which is distinctly different for all of us. Later on if they come out, the violence, the harassment, the transphobia and transmisogyny, the transfeminine-specific fetishization, one's sexuality and relationship with dating, etc. all play a heavy role in how we experience, internalize, understand, relate, and perform gender.

And this, of course, is without bringing other intersectionalities into the mix. My relationship to my gender is heavily informed by my whiteness, my class position, my being a beneficiary of the global hegemon, American capitalist culture, and so on. A trans woman, say, who is black, or who has grown up in poverty, or who grew up in an evangelical household or in the global south, is of course going to have radically different cultural, social, and biological relationships that are going to inform a similar, but ultimately fundamentally different relationship to transness and to femininity than I will. In much the same way that trans men and trans masc people have different relationships to transness, and cis white women, cis black women, and a trans white woman all have similar but fundamentally different relationships.

Do you regard gender/sex as a social construct, and/or made up?

Is the term/label "woman" (or "man") inherently cisnormative?

Does asserting a self-definition as one label or the other require an acceptance/assumption that there is some meaningful, non-trivial difference between the two?

If the aesthetic labels/signifiers were historically reversed in our society.... the people who traditionally wore dresses, high heels, wore their hair longer etc., were called "men" and traditionally had penises, would you be a man?

If the roles were historically reversed in our society... the society was matriarchal and the people who traditionally did the outdoor cooking and yardwork and fighting and playing with trucks were called "women" and traditionally had vaginas, while the people who traditionally did the indoor cooking, housework, childcare and playing with doll-babies were called "men" and traditionally had penises, would you be a man?

In other words, is it about the role or the "style"... for lack of a better word, or both? Something else? Another way of getting my thought out, I guess, would be to ask you if the type of person you are... better corresponds, in a qualitative and/or quantitative sense, to the cisnormative label of "woman" than it does to "man"? Or is it that you would be a woman, regardless of the historical, societal, sociological development of the woman's traditional role in society?... As in... if women had dominated society and made it matriarchal, taking on all the roles that we now typically associate with men... you would still be a woman?

Do you see a distinction between a person who says/thinks/feels that although they have a penis, the type of person they are, has been defined by society as belonging solely to the people with vaginas ... versus a person who says/thinks/feels simply that they should have been born with a vagina, but they were born with a penis instead?

 

[Lexicus]

Do you regard gender/sex as a social construct, ie made up?

Caution that social construct =/= made-up.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Caution that social construct =/= made-up.

I changed to "and/or", which is how I originally wrote it, then changed it to "ie", then back to "and/or" and then settled with "ie"... ultimately I figured that @schlaufuchs would address that if it was worth addressing... again, I thought a question now was better than a "perfect" question later.

 

[caketastydelish]

If he’s elected, that will signal the need to start arranging concrete escape plans. If he moves to ban HRT at a national level, that is the point I leave. I’m not going off estrogen. I find it unlikely I will survive detransition for very long. Even just the two week stretch I was off estrogen last year due to gaps in coverage was absolute torture. I was breaking down by the end of it.

What is HRT? estrogen injections? How realistically could HRT be banned?

 

[Sommerswerd]

@schlaufuchs I have some questions that, if you elect to answer, I request you read all before answering any, or even thinking about the answer to either, to the best extent you are able:

Do you think it is reasonable for people to internally evaluate gender assertions based on their own subjective perception of the asserting person's honesty/credibility/"genuineness"? In other words, do you think people should be free to reject assertions of gender they subjectively find are disingenuous, malicious, fraudulent or otherwise dishonest?

Do you think the answer to the above varies from person to person, depending in turn on a subjective perception of whether the evaluator honesty and genuinely accepts and/or embraces the existence of trans identity as legitimate in the first place? In other words, do you subscribe to the notion that people who acknowledge, accept, or embrace the legitimacy of trans identity, can also point out when people are claiming trans identity fraudulently... or do you think that rejection of a person's claimed gender identity is never reasonable/acceptable under any circumstances?

 

[Sommerswerd]

Is it cisnormative to say that gender is based solely on genitalia?

Is it transnormative to say that gender is not based solely on genitalia?

Is it transnormative to say that gender is based primarily on psychology rather than genitalia?

Is it cisnormative to say that gender is based primarily on genitalia rather than psychology?

Is it transnormative to say that gender is based on a confluence of factors rather than a single factor?

Is it cisnormative to say that gender is not based on a confluence of factors, but rather a single factor?

 

[Perfection]

Do you think it is reasonable for people to internally evaluate gender assertions based on their own subjective perception of the asserting person's honesty/credibility/"genuineness"? In other words, do you think people should be free to reject assertions of gender they subjectively find are disingenuous, malicious, fraudulent or otherwise dishonest?

I'm not trans but like what would be the occasion when you'd really need to give a crap? Like I can think of zero cases in my daily life where something super important would be threatened if I abided by someone's stated gender preference.

Like really just calling people what they want to be called is pretty danged easy to do. It's like no thinkin just being nice and it won't result in the collapse of society I double triple promise.

 

[IglooDame]

What is HRT? estrogen injections? How realistically could HRT be banned?

(I think you added that question into her reply)

HRT = Hormone Replacement Therapy. In the case of Gender Affirming Medical Care, replacing testosterone with estrogen or vice versa. For the estrogen side, there are delivery options - pills taken sublingually (under tongue) or orally (swallowed), patches, regular injections, or there's an every-three-month pill injection (I forget what you call it). And for the estrogen-takers, testosterone blockers and or progesterone are sometimes also prescribed.

HRT (estrogen) is more commonly understood to be a medical treatment for older cis women.

Three states have already effectively banned transgender-type HRT, so pretty realistic in that sense. I'm quoting a friend elsewhere here: "They don't make it an outright ban, which would be easy to legally challenge, but done by making it illegal, for example, for any company that takes other monies from Medicaid, to provide GAHC for ANYONE. Forbidding insurance carriers from covering GAHC. Prohibiting nurse practitioners (who do the bulk of the work in this field for trans adults) from prescribing or treating patients in need of GAHC. Making telehealth appointments for GAHC prohibited. The list goes on, and is causing providers to cease these services."

 

[IglooDame]

I'm not trans but like what would be the occasion when you'd really need to give a crap? Like I can think of zero cases in my daily life where something super important would be threatened if I abided by someone's stated gender preference.

Like really just calling people what they want to be called is pretty danged easy to do. It's like no thinkin just being nice and it won't result in the collapse of society I double triple promise.

Agreed, but in the spirit of trying to see the other side, I can think of two circumstances. The first is where the person is presenting as that gender for fetish (or I suppose performance art) rather than identity reasons, and one doesn't want to participate in their scene. The second is where one thinks the person is doing it because mental illness and one thinks feeding into the mentally ill person's delusions will hurt rather than help them. The second one is the more insidious because #1 one can believe they're actually helping the person ('being cruel to be kind', or some such) and #2 it's complete BS regardless.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I'm not trans but like what would be the occasion when you'd really need to give a crap?

I had some in mind, but since I specifically directed my question to @schlaufuchs not you, I'll wait to hear from her.

Like I can think of zero cases in my daily life where something super important would be threatened if I abided by someone's stated gender preference.

That makes sense, because of the bolded... you are neither female nor trans, so it makes sense that you can't perceive the application of the question/situation. So your inability to "think of" why the question is relevant is self evident, which is simultaneously why your above question isn't valid. You can't perceive of the situation where it applies... because it doesn't apply to you.

Like really just calling people what they want to be called is pretty danged easy to do. It's like no thinkin just being nice and it won't result in the collapse of society I double triple promise.

You're projecting a sentiment/position onto me that's inaccurate, because you're misinformed about my stance on these issues overall. You're trying to be a hero, and virtue signaling... which is fine I guess, but totally unnecessary. In other words, you're preaching to the choir, relax.

@IglooDame - I had a different situation in mind... actual, real life situations, not hypotheticals, but I really wanted to give @schlaufuchs an opportunity to talk about it first, because as you've said earlier, she is really well-informed and thoughtful on these issues. She may already know what I had in mind, or she may even be wary about responding in the abstract and ask me to present the situations first before responding.

 

[Evie]

Speaking as an actual trans person, using "virtue signaling" to describe people who respect us goes a long way toward making you questions appear to be in bad faith. Food for thought.

But as apparently you're only interested in the answer of one specific trans person, I shall say no more.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Speaking as an actual trans person, using "virtue signaling" to describe people who respect us goes a long way toward making you questions appear to be in bad faith. Food for thought.

That's a good point and I apologize. I was being a snarky jerk. In fact upon reflection, me going after @Perfection for "trying to be a hero", was in a way, doing the same thing I was accusing him of. I'm not the arbiter of what constitutes allyship.

But as apparently you're only interested in the answer of one specific trans person, I shall say no more.

I'm also interested in your answer(s), and an answer of any trans person. Please feel free.

 

[schlaufuchs]

So just as a reminder, there is a real person on the other side of that screen. It takes me a lot of time and effort to compose these posts, and I have to admit it's a bit exasperating to spend hours on a detailed response to a question, get zero response that you've read or comprehended what I said, and then return several days later with a half dozen questions that don't really acknowledge what I said the last time. Of course this is a question-and-answer thread, and I'm happy to answer questions you might have, but I'm not a chatbot. I'm a real person whose time is valuable. Please be mindful of that when you're asking questions.

Do you regard gender/sex as a social construct, and/or made up?

Yes. But just because something is a social construct doesn't mean it is arbitrary or fake. To paraphrase Marx, we operate in the real world. Our social constructs are fixed within material reality which is defined by history, by society, by geography, and by biology. Money is a social construct, but that doesn't mean you can grab any old scrap of paper and declare it a currency, nor that you can skimp out on paying your taxes without real consequences. Likewise, language is a social construct, but that doesn't mean you can make up any old agglomeration of phonemes and call it English. Gender is connected to the body and biology, as I have said now three times, but gender is also connected to history and social relations - the way we define man and woman, masculinity and femininity today, are qualitatively different than all previous definitions. The feeling of alienness, of categorical disjunction from the masc/fem binary descends in part from the mind and body, and is intrinsic to our species, but defining your gender by analogy to extraterrestrial beings is something that can only exist today with our modern myths and tropes about aliens. But, and here's the crucial part, this is also true of masculinity and femininity - of man and woman.

Is the term/label "woman" (or "man") inherently cisnormative?

No. The categories are colored cisnormatively because we live in a cis patriarchy. We see this in the assumptions people make about gender - that woman = "gives birth", or "has XX chromosomes" or "has breasts" or "breastfeeds" and so on (and note also these assumptions are likewise ableist for the same reason that they are cisnormative). But the fact that I can be a woman, and have a definition of womanhood that functions and makes sense within my life, and which is logically and definitionally coherent, demonstrates that woman is not cisnormative in essence.

Does asserting a self-definition as one label or the other require an acceptance/assumption that there is some meaningful, non-trivial difference between the two?

Of course. Otherwise neither you the self-id'er, nor the person you're talking to would recognize the difference. That I describe myself as a woman and not a man, means that there is some criteria that delineates the two. But again, as I keep emphasizing this is true for everyone. Your definition of gender, your characterization of yourself as a man, is a self-identification based on a self-definition that makes sense within your life. Even if your gender was given to you by someone else, it does not become real unless and until you accept it. You identify it. You model it. You perform it. In this reification by self-affirmation, your mental model of gender adjusts to accommodate yourself and your self-identification. Everybody's definition for gender necessarily includes the gender they self-identify as, and as every individual is different, every self-definition of gender is different.

If the aesthetic labels/signifiers were historically reversed in our society.... the people who traditionally wore dresses, high heels, wore their hair longer etc., were called "men" and traditionally had penises, would you be a man?

I don't think so. Once upon a time European noble fashion did call for high heels, long hair, and leggings for men, and yet still there were trans women in that society. As I mentioned earlier, we know an internal gender tendency is at some level inherent to every person. Everybody is born with a predisposition to some gender or other. We know this because children begin identifying as a gender almost as soon as they can talk, before a lot of the "socialization" has occurred, before much of the cultural trappings are learned or properly understood, and preferences for one or the other are expressed. And these expressed gender identifications do not fit straightforward, enforced norms. AMAB children identify as girls, AFAB children identify as boys, children identify as nonbinary, even in environments where transness is not modeled for them, even when parents actively and (at times violently) push back on or suppress those expressions. There is, quite undeniably, something about gender that transcends cultural and social context.

That being said, the specific question is incoherent to me. As I've been saying, gender and gender identity do not hang on any one specific essence or criterion. Gender is a confluence of factors which must necessarily and exclusively be described in relation to one another. Gender - even the ones we hold as static and absolute - are not objective essences. They change and alter according to social and political context. It is simply not coherent to describe vir/femina and man/woman as identical or synonymous. Even when some overlap occurs, a lot of separation also occurs. You cannot decontextualize gender, and you cannot decontextualize sex. It is not possible to say definitively what I would have been in another time period or cultural context. But, again, that is true for you as well, even in a different patriarchal society where the penis is still associated with masculinity.

If the roles were historically reversed in our society... the society was matriarchal and the people who traditionally did the outdoor cooking and yardwork and fighting and playing with trucks were called "women" and traditionally had vaginas, while the people who traditionally did the indoor cooking, housework, childcare and playing with doll-babies were called "men" and traditionally had penises, would you be a man?

See above.

In other words, is it about the role or the "style"... for lack of a better word, or both? Something else? Another way of getting my thought out, I guess, would be to ask you if the type of person you are... better corresponds, in a qualitative and/or quantitative sense, to the cisnormative label of "woman" than it does to "man"? Or is it that you would be a woman, regardless of the historical, societal, sociological development of the woman's traditional role in society?... As in... if women had dominated society and made it matriarchal, taking on all the roles that we now typically associate with men... you would still be a woman?

You keep dancing around this question, and I have answered it several times now. Gender is a confluence of factors. Those factors cannot be disassembled or examined in isolation. They can only be understood and described in relation to one another. It is actually literally impossible to describe them in isolation. You cannot talk about biology without talking about the way cultural factors define the bounds and terms of biology, and you cannot talk about culture without talking about the body and biology. There is no essence. There is no sole criterion. There is no different angle, no clever solution, no trickety-trick that is going to square that circle. You need to understand and accept that no amount of hypotheticals are going to reveal the deeper underlying essence you are looking for. I'm just going to keep giving you the same answer.

Do you see a distinction between a person who says/thinks/feels that although they have a penis, the type of person they are, has been defined by society as belonging solely to the people with vaginas ... versus a person who says/thinks/feels simply that they should have been born with a vagina, but they were born with a penis instead?

No. Everybody has a different relationship to gender. Everybody has a different gender identity. Everybody mediates, reconciles, and characterizes that in a different way. They all are personally valid because they all are reflections of what is going on within themselves, and what makes sense to their life, their experiences, the things they know, their body, and their internal sense of gender.

@schlaufuchs I have some questions that, if you elect to answer, I request you read all before answering any, or even thinking about the answer to either, to the best extent you are able:

Do you think it is reasonable for people to internally evaluate gender assertions based on their own subjective perception of the asserting person's honesty/credibility/"genuineness"? In other words, do you think people should be free to reject assertions of gender they subjectively find are disingenuous, malicious, fraudulent or otherwise dishonest?

Do you think the answer to the above varies from person to person, depending in turn on a subjective perception of whether the evaluator honesty and genuinely accepts and/or embraces the existence of trans identity as legitimate in the first place? In other words, do you subscribe to the notion that people who acknowledge, accept, or embrace the legitimacy of trans identity, can also point out when people are claiming trans identity fraudulently... or do you think that rejection of a person's claimed gender identity is never reasonable/acceptable under any circumstances?

To a point, sure. There are trans grifters, sure. There are detransitioner grifters. Every trans person before they come out is necessarily performing a "fraudulent" cis gender identity. I think it is fair to call out obvious bad actors, especially when their cynical performance is harming a marginalized community. But again, this is also true of cis people. Cis men and women perform false or cynically overexaggerated gender identities all the time - think Andrew Tate, think pick-me's. I think, particularly with marginalized communities, it is very easy, however, to overapply their need for speculation or call-outs, even when done in the interest of "protecting the community." Trans people do this all the time - truscum do it when they decry self-id or tenderqueers, trans masc and nonbinary folk do it all the time to trans femmes, trans people do it to nonbinary people, a lot of people do it to those they think are eggs, a lot of trans people do it to detransitioners. It is understandable to do it to the obvious bad actors - the rah rah trans rights folk that turn, seemingly overnight, into truscum pick-me's, the "detransitioners" that work to restrict access to hormones while themselves continuing to take hormones out of the public eye, and so on. There's a very fine line to walk here. But that's true of any marginalized group, and discussions about such matters happen internal to every community.

Is it cisnormative to say that gender is based solely on genitalia?

cisnormative = making assumptions about gender on the basis of cisness, proceeding in life as though everybody is cis, that cis is the norm (and trans is an aberration), or defining gender solely through a cis lens. Assumptions about genitalia fall under the cisnormative umbrella, but it is not the umbrella itself. In the same way that a woman (trans or cis) necessarily must understand masculinity, masculine culture, and masculine behavior - both because they are inundated in it from birth in every facet of culture and society - and because navigating our patriarchal world requires an understanding and anticipation of patriarchal norms, it is not coherent to describe a femino-normativity within our present world. The same applies to trans people. (To anticipate future questions) it is not coherent to describe a transnormativity, because no trans person proceeds in life under the assumption that everyone is trans, or that trans is *the* norm. We would either wind up dead or very quickly be disabused of the notion. Thus: transnormativity is not a Thing.

Is it transnormative to say that gender is not based solely on genitalia?

transnormative is not a Thing.

Is it transnormative to say that gender is based primarily on psychology rather than genitalia?

transnormative is not a Thing.

Is it cisnormative to say that gender is based primarily on genitalia rather than psychology?

Not necessarily. One of the big debates in the second- and third-wave feminism is essentialism - that there is something fundamental about female anatomy per se that drives gendered tendencies, versus artifactualism - that gender is a social construct, and so femininity is arbitrary and driven by particular experiences. This was almost singularly a conversation by and between cis women. Transfeminism rejects both extremes and recognizes gender as a confluence of factors.

Is it transnormative to say that gender is based on a confluence of factors rather than a single factor?

transnormative is not a Thing.

Is it cisnormative to say that gender is not based on a confluence of factors, but rather a single factor?

This is, again, an incoherent question. You can have a definition of gender that recognizes gender as a confluence of factors which still operates under a cisnormative lens. Cis feminists do it all the time.

What is HRT? estrogen injections? How realistically could HRT be banned?

HRT is hormone replacement therapy. A treatment whereby certain hormones which the body overproduces are suppressed while certain hormones which the body underproduces or is unable to produce are increased. The object is a) to achieve a hormonal balance that reduces emotional or bodily distress in the patient, and b) change one's physiology to better match their internal gender. In trans women that means:

an antiandrogen - a drug which arrests or reduces the production of testosterone. Typically taken orally
an anti-androgen - the main ones are spironolactone (usually called "spiro") - the most common in the US; cyproterone acetate (usually called "cypro") - the universal standard in pretty much every other country; finasteride - typically prescribed to reverse hair loss; bicalutamide ("bical") - a less prescribed option (many doctors will dismiss a request for it out of hand) - but preferred by a lot of trans women in the US because it's a much more effective androgen blocker that minimizes some of the worse side effects of spiro, and cypro (generally seen as the best option) is banned in the US.
----> typically the end goal (absent bottom surgery which shuts down t production almost entirely) is to reach a state of monotherapy. If your body reaches a hormonal balance with sufficiently high estrogen levels and sufficiently low testosterone levels, the production of testosterone shuts down and antiandrogens become no longer necessary. This is good because each of the antiandrogens carries side-effects (depression in cypro, dehydration and liver damage in spiro, anemia and liver damage in bical, depression and liver damage in finasteride), and minimizing exposure to them is generally a good thing.

estradiol - a compound which increases the estrogen level, and causes physiological changes to make one appear more feminine. These can be taken a variety of ways - orally, sublingually, with gels and patches, or by intramuscular injection. Oral is generally considered the least effective - less absorption meaning a lot of the estradiol ends up in your liver and kidneys and ultimately flushed out of the body. This means it needs to be prescribed in higher dosages, which increases the risk of liver failure. Sublingual is the next most effective - it cuts out a lot of the liver damage and absorption is much better. Patches and injections are generally understood to be the most effective, with patches being the most expensive treatment of all, and injections being cheap and quite freely available (you can synthesize estradiol valerate - the injectable version - fairly easily and cheaply in a home lab with the right equipment)

progesterone - another feminizing hormone which can help both increase your breast size, and help them to come in fuller/rounder. It also counteracts a lot of the reduced sexual arousal effects antiandrogens cause, while making you WAY more emotional. Typically taken orally, though some studies suggest taking it rectally increases absorption quite dramatically (again, meaning lower doses for the same effect which helps cut down on side effects.). Progesterone is not included in the trans Standards of Care (because no real studies on its benefits for feminization have been done), but trans women swear by it, and have done for some time. It's often difficult to find doctors who will prescribe it (because it's not in the SoC). There's also a lot of debate about when to take it. Some say taking it in the first year of HRT reduces breast growth (based on a) anecdotal evidence, and b) the fact that progestogen production in cis women doesn't start until a year after puberty onset), others say taking when it's not needed has no effect. Some say cycling it (taking it for a stretch of time and then going off it for a stretch of time) helps increase efficacy, as it models the hormonal cycle in cis women and also reduces the risk of the body acclimating to the drugs, reducing the efficacy. All of this is completely up in the air (as so much of trans healthcare is), because little of it has been studied rigorously, and a lot of cis assumptions have been baked into the way studies were historically conducted. A lot of trans care is based on community knowledge, personal experience, and studies conducted on cis people.

Trump can ban it in a variety of ways. The easiest way for him to do so, is to direct the FDA to ban prescription of medication for off-label use. All trans healthcare is off label, so banning off label would effectively ban all trans care. He could do this without any congressional approval or oversight. This would also be the most extreme measure, as some 20% of all prescriptions nationalwide are for off-label uses, so it would hurt everybody.

He could ban the drug outright. Many states have already moved to do this. It would require congressional approval, but if he has majorities in both chambers, it's definitely something he could do if he wanted to.

He could impose gatekeeping and greater restrictions on how and when an individual can be prescribed the drugs. So for instance, he could require 2 years of continuous psychiatric evaluation before prescription, he could require proof that confounding disorders like depression or anxiety (things that we’re seeking HRT to treat) have been effectively mitigated, or prohibiting prescription to those with other psychological disorders like autism and adhd (both of which are very heavily represented in the trans population). Any of these would consistite either an outright blanket ban or de facto ban on large portions of the trans population. Again, many states (most prominently Missouri) are moving to do this right now.

Trump promised in his campaign announcement that banning gender affirming care at any age was something that he would do on day 1 in office. So it absolutely is both something he wants to do, and can do.

 

[schlaufuchs]

Speaking as an actual trans person, using "virtue signaling" to describe people who respect us goes a long way toward making you questions appear to be in bad faith. Food for thought.

But as apparently you're only interested in the answer of one specific trans person, I shall say no more.

Also this. My opinions are my own, based on my own experiences and things I have read. They are not absolute or universal, nor should they be seen as representative of the way all trans people think. The benefit of this thread is that you have a lot of trans people (though admittedly a very white-skewed and transfem-skewed population), all with different experiences and different perspectives. This isn't an ask a Sophie thread, it's an ask a trans person thread. Evie's or emzie's or fy00sh's, or Igloo's perspectives on these matters are every bit as valid and worthwhile as mine are. I've personally learned a lot from reading what they have to say, even just in this thread. Please do not to be dismissive of their voices.

 

[Sommerswerd]

So just as a reminder, there is a real person on the other side of that screen. It takes me a lot of time and effort to compose these posts, and I have to admit it's a bit exasperating to spend hours on a detailed response to a question, get zero response that you've read or comprehended what I said, and then return several days later with a half dozen questions that don't really acknowledge what I said the last time. Of course this is a question-and-answer thread, and I'm happy to answer questions you might have, but I'm not a chatbot. I'm a real person whose time is valuable. Please be mindful of that when you're asking questions.

I haven't started to read the rest of your post yet, but i wanted to first stop and thank you for all of your answers to my many questions. I have been trying to be thoughtful and restrained about my posts in this thread, based on my reading and impression of the OP. Specifically, as you may have noticed, I have been trying to stick to asking questions. I came to the conclusion that your intention was for this thread to be informative rather than argumentative, or a medium for debate. More specifically, I have tried hard to resist temptation to offer commentary, counterpoints, disagreements, etc., and overall, to avoid trying to debate you or other trans people who respond to my questions. My thought has been, that if there is something I truly do not understand, to formulate that into a question to get additional explanation or clarification and if, on the other hand, I simply disagree with something, keep it to myself and move on to something else, as again, I didn't see this thread as being offered for debate purposes. That is part of the reason that I have not been offering reactions and commentary to your answers.

I recognize, now that you have pointed it out, that this could make it seem like I was not paying attention to your responses. I assure you that is not the case. I also confess that while I understand/follow, some of what you have said, some of it I do not, so forgive me for asking things that might come across as repetitive. Again, I am trying to be thoughtful about just asking questions about things I am trying to understand, rather than debating or offering critiques, impressions, challenges, etc.

I regard this thread as a priceless golden opportunity to hear thoughtful, detailed responses to questions on this very personal, sensitive subject and again, I thank you for being willing to engage in this way. I realize that my rapid-fire questioning/interrogatory style can come off as hostile/aggressive and I apologize for that as I don't intend to be hostile. I also recognize and appreciate that you are not obligated to answer any of my questions and you are certainly not under any obligation to respond quickly or according to any timeline. Please feel free to take as long to respond as you like and feel free to disregard any questions you don't feel like answering. Please don't feel the slightest pressure to respond to my questions quickly. This is totally voluntary on your part and I fully recognize that.

As I've said on other threads in the past (paraphrasing) I came to the conclusion relatively recently, that I did not need to fully understand trans identity in order to make a conscious decision to embrace trans identity and offer love and support to trans folks. I really appreciate you offering a opportunity to ask questions in a medium where you have expressed an intention to allow some leeway as far as the questioner coming off as offensive, because it allowed me and continues to allow me, to ask things that I would have just kept to myself, opting to remain ignorant rather than risk hurting the feelings of a trans friend, whether online, or in person. My interaction with @Perfection and @Evie just now is a perfect indication to me of how easy it is to come off as hostile towards trans rights and trans identity, and it reminds me that not everyone on these threads is going to be fully aware of what my overall attitude towards trans identity has been on these threads and I shouldn't get so indignant about it.

Again, thank you for taking so much time to answer my questions. I will go read the rest of your post now.