I used to feel like that for many years, feeling afraid that I might ask the wrong question or say the wrong thing to a trans person that might offend to make fun of their situation and all the suffering they had to go through. Now I wonder if I did ask those questions, maybe I would've realised that I'm trans a lot sooner than I did.
I thought @Perfection perceived some of my questions as hostile and/or an attack on trans identity and he tried to step in to defend trans folk by being sarcastic/mocking/condescending towards me. I responded by snapping at him, essentially to mind his business, I also added a bit that he was misreading my politics and feelings towards trans identity. At the time, I was also irritated because I thought Perfection was projecting a damsel-in-distress trope onto trans folk... then @Evie stepped in to defend Perfection and question my motives/approach, and at that point I realized I was wrong.
I worried about that a little, maybe a lot... but like I said, I took @schlaufuchs offer as genuine and saw it as an opportunity to increase my understanding with a little bit less risk of coming off as offensive. Like I've said here and elsewhere. I didn't, and still don't understand everything about trans identity, but I realized that don't have to understand everything in order to embrace it. So I'm embracing.
. My understanding is going to have to be backfilled as I go. As I also said, I can certainly see how my questioning could have come across as negative/hostile. It's completely understandable from my standpoint for you to have been taken aback. I'm grateful that folks have been patient and willing to answer my questions and I think I've learned a lot from it. I'm sad that I scared you, and I hope what I've learned was worth it.
Doesn't giving young people any fair, meaningful opportunity to utilize puberty blocking treatments depend on introducing them to trans identity at a young age? I recognize the potential catch-22 here but I can't see any way to separate those two things.
I know this is months later, but thanks for creating the thread.
Somewhat similar though different situation. I’m going to be a bit embarrassed about it since I’ve held it in for so long. I’ve always resisted the whole “trans woman is a woman”, in context outside of the broader culture war. In that, I find myself, a straight man, questing if I’m gay if I find say Blair White (I know, she’s a bad example. But an example I know off the top of my head that passes for a cis woman that most would know) attractive. I always had it in my head “does it make me gay if I find a trans woman who passes as a cis woman, irregardless if she had bottom surgery or not, attractive?”.
You ever wonder why many trans people don't realise they're trans until later in life?
Typically a good thing. If everyone lists their pronouns, then me listing mine doesn't automatically flag me as trans. This is the reason allies and sympathetic folks will do so.
That's good to know. I always worried it would come across as virtue-signaling (or worse, as you point out, as mocking).
