[RD] I'm transitioning. If you've ever been confused about the T in LGBT, ask me anything

[FriendlyFire]

19, Megan, she/her/her, pre HRT. Seems a bit light on infomation; sure you don't want more?

Btw I went clothes shopping with friends today. I picked up my first skirts, along with some girl shorts and a single top. Pretty exicited :3

Iam not sure if anyone already asked this but whos paying for the surgery and is it expensive ? Iam just curious because of the high cost of US medicine and simple procedures can result in bankruptcy

Pretty brave for someone who is so young to make the surgery, I have seen some weird documentory with people they did some surgery but never went all the way. I'd imagine that medical science has advanced somewhat since then.

I think that looking half-way in between would create far more problems, then having the complete surgery.
At least a solid Blue state you will have less problems, though I imagine you will always suffer from casual discrimination and stereotype ? or is that racism ?

 

[cardgame]

At least a solid Blue state you will have less problems, though I imagine you will always suffer from casual discrimination and stereotype ? or is that racism ?

If HRT and everything goes well, nobody even has to know.

 

[emzie]

Iam not sure if anyone already asked this but whos paying for the surgery and is it expensive ? Iam just curious because of the high cost of US medicine and simple procedures can result in bankruptcy

Pretty brave for someone who is so young to make the surgery, I have seen some weird documentory with people they did some surgery but never went all the way. I'd imagine that medical science has advanced somewhat since then.

I think that looking half-way in between would create far more problems, then having the complete surgery.
At least a solid Blue state you will have less problems, though I imagine you will always suffer from casual discrimination and stereotype ? or is that racism ?

15-20k. Insurance covers it here in Ontario. Insurance should cover it in NYS, but I imagine there's a lot more run around from insurance companies there over it.

 

[Zelig]

Any idea of medical tourism pertaining to it?

 

[emzie]

Any idea of medical tourism pertaining to it?

Everyone I know who has had SRS was able to do it here in Canada. Before I confirmed OHIP covered SRS (and routinely covered it) I checked prices in Thailand. Getting SRS in Thailand is at least 10k USD, plus the cost of getting there. And frankly, at that price point, there's a lot you're not getting. I wouldn't do those procedures unless I was out of other options. The real deal is still 15k+ even in Thailand, plus airfare, plus hotel expenses (21 days or so).

 

[FriendlyFire]

If HRT and everything goes well, nobody even has to know.

Contre is not planning on getting any cosmetic surgery ? As I mentioned before with conmestic surgery it impossible to tell the difference, but people can find out that you are a Trans and then once that information is out it can create problems.

Unless you openly tell everyone you are Trans, guess thats a delema,
You can always hide your self as Trans and change your mind later

 

[Manfred Belheim]

As I mentioned before with conmestic surgery it impossible to tell the difference

Well for some people this is no doubt true, but clearly not for all people. If you're unlucky enough to already be 6 foot 5 with very broad shoulders then I'd shudder at the level of surgery that would be involved in undoing that.

 

[NovaKart]

Yeah a lot of people just look very mannish or wommanish and it would be really hard to change that. Although some non-trans people look mannish or wommanish anyway, like Linda Tripp.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

contre - is your avatar a selfie?

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Yeah a lot of people just look very mannish or wommanish and it would be really hard to change that. Although some non-trans people look mannish or wommanish anyway, like Linda Tripp.

Which is kinda the point. There's so much variation inside of present definitions of womanhood and manhood that the idea that trans people need to look "convincingly" like cis people of the same gender in order to be accepted is ridiculous.

For every possible physical definition of what a man or woman is, there are numerous exceptions that beg the question of why we have those definitions in the first place.

There are five attributes by the classic biological definition of sex which one must possess all of in order to be categorized as that sex:

Hormones in the correct balance
external genitalia
internal genitalia
secondary sex characteristics
Allosomes (23rd chromosome pair)

If you don't have all 5 of those in the way biology says are necessary to be male or female, you technically aren't, and are intersex.

The problem is this: most of these are never tested for. Gender is assigned at birth, purely on external genitalia alone. In other words, the other 4 categories are never consulted. That means that a sizeable portion of the human population is being forced to identify a certain way, behave according to certain social norms, and is judged according to certain standards, based purely on the shape of their genitalia as judged by the doctor at the time that the birth certificate is filled out.

So what do we do, then? Do we judge that all of these people are not really men and women, but fake? Do we regard them as second-class men and women, inferior to those who do have all five attributes in order? Or do we accept that the biological definition of sex is nonsense, as are all expectations about appearance that stem from it?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

The biological definition of gender is not nonsense.

The social definition of gender is.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Which is kinda the point. There's so much variation inside of present definitions of womanhood and manhood that the idea that trans people need to look "convincingly" like cis people of the same gender in order to be accepted is ridiculous.

No-one said anyone needs to look like anything, just that "it's impossible to tell the difference" is not true in a lot of cases. Your own statement even agrees with that.

 

[shadowplay]

I used to know someone who was intersexual... he was raised as a boy. He was born with internal testicles that were positioned inside his body like ovaries, and a penis that functioned more like a clitoris. He couldn't ejaculate and erections were extremely painful.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

The biological definition of gender is not nonsense.

The social definition of gender is.

Thanks for that contribution and for invalidating our existence.

No-one said anyone needs to look like anything, just that "it's impossible to tell the difference" is not true in a lot of cases. Your own statement even agrees with that.

Eh, lots of people think that actually. But the idea that there's a difference between a trans woman and a cis woman that can be judged in terms of physical appearance is the nonsense part. A woman looks like a woman, whether she is cis or trans. She is a woman, and her appearance is by definition the appearance of a woman.

 

[_random_]

So a question for Cheezy:

What does it mean to feel female to you? Or to feel male for that matter? I suppose I feel male myself, but it's a bit of a fish-in-the-water situation, and I can't imagine myself in any alternative state. Can you explain a bit more what that's like?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Yup, that's exactly what I did there!

 

[NovaKart]

I can't really agree with the idea that just because I feel I am something it automatically changes my appearance and I look that way.

 

[Borachio]

What do you mean?

I think you're just posing as someone who's transitioning for the sake of argument. I don't believe, and your words seem to support this view, that you're in anyway in a comparable position to Contre and Omega.

Now, I think I understand why you're posing. And it's quite interesting (presumably, you think that everyone in a certain sense actually is transitioning, or something of the kind). But it is a pose, imo.

Still, I could be quite wrong (and tbh I haven't read every post in this thread with the attention they deserve). In which case, please accept my apologies.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Eh, lots of people think that actually. But the idea that there's a difference between a trans woman and a cis woman that can be judged in terms of physical appearance is the nonsense part. A woman looks like a woman, whether she is cis or trans. She is a woman, and her appearance is by definition the appearance of a woman.

Right well... when I said "nobody is saying..." I didn't mean nobody in the entire world, I meant nobody in this thread and it wasn't the point of the quote you replied to.

And regardless of how you want to word it, I'm sure you understand the point that trans women often retain masculine characteristics and so (on average) do not always look like cis women (on average). As I said before, your own initial reply acknowledged this. How you feel about this, or how you think others feel about it, is another topic entirely.

 

[emzie]

Contre is not planning on getting any cosmetic surgery ? As I mentioned before with conmestic surgery it impossible to tell the difference, but people can find out that you are a Trans and then once that information is out it can create problems.

Unless you openly tell everyone you are Trans, guess thats a delema,
You can always hide your self as Trans and change your mind later

I wouldn't call most of the procedures cosmetic. They're therapeutic.

Well for some people this is no doubt true, but clearly not for all people. If you're unlucky enough to already be 6 foot 5 with very broad shoulders then I'd shudder at the level of surgery that would be involved in undoing that.

Nothing can. You'd always be 6'5 (actually you might drop 1-2 inches on HRT) and you'll always have broad shoulders, a barrel of a chest ect.

contre - is your avatar a selfie?

I wish. You can see my photos in the OP though.

I think you're just posing as someone who's transitioning for the sake of argument. I don't believe, and your words seem to support this view, that you're in anyway in a comparable position to Contre and Omega.

Now, I think I understand why you're posing. And it's quite interesting (presumably, you think that everyone in a certain sense actually is transitioning, or something of the kind). But it is a pose, imo.

Still, I could be quite wrong (and tbh I haven't read every post in this thread with the attention they deserve). In which case, please accept my apologies.

Cheezy is answering questions from a unique perspective. Don't you dare question the validity of it within this thread. If you wanna object to the idea to gender fluidity, do so elsewhere.