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

[Daw]

How could personality and identity remain the same? 'Cause I might not mind a stronger feeling of gender but I can't imagine that not being part of personality and identity.

They (well, okay, the personality at least) couldn't and they wouldn't. They will not, too.

Same goes there:

Of course not. The brain is the seat of your very identity and no one wants that being messed with, even if it might appear to some to be at fault.

It's the same reason I think I'd decline a 'cure' for Asperger's - I might be a better person after the procedure, but I almost certainly wouldn't be the same person.

Like it or not, you will not be the same person in 5 years time from now anyway, inevitably. You'll be a somewhat slightly different you. Also in a decade, two, three, etc. It's normal. In fact, what's worrisome is when one's personality doesn't change with time.
____________________

The core point is: as brain structure changes with age (though we don't know exactly how in every detail), so does the personality. The technology Mech talks about - as I understand him - has a lot to do with that.

 

[Arakhor]

True enough, but at least with age, it's happening imperceptibly slowly and only noticeable in retrospect. The sort of change that I (and presumably Mech) was referring to would probably take place over just a few short days or weeks and thus be instantly noticeable.

 

[Hygro]

How could personality and identity remain the same? 'Cause I might not mind a stronger feeling of gender but I can't imagine that not being part of personality and identity.

From my own experiences and for myself I have a different take on mind, body, identity, and personality than most folks so I'm better listening than explaining.

 

[Borachio]

Where does the body end and the mind begin? Or vice versa.

Come to that, where does the mind/body end and the rest of the world begin?

 

[Daw]

@Arakhor: sure. It's the desire for change that matters. You have zero desire, as far as I understand, and that's fine. Somebody else may want the change as much as they might want a toothache to stop, because it's driving them mad.

So if the technology to make the change possible ever comes into reality, the demand is sure to be there, I guess.
____________________

Where does the body end and the mind begin? Or vice versa.

Come to that, where does the mind/body end and the rest of the world begin?

The answers to that vary depending on respondents' religious views.

 

[Hygro]

I had an endocrinology professor who, as his last line of the class, posed the question / made the case, that sunlight is a hormone, begging the next question that if the sun was part of your body when exposed to it.

 

[Daw]

Was he an endocrinology professor, not a philosophy one? Are you sure? Why are you sure?

 

[warpus]

But to say that brain is in opposition to the rest of the body in some way seems to me as something very peculiar. If thats the case however adjustment in a brain would seem like eventually easier way to go except thats not what the trans people want.

Let's say your brain is wired in such a way that you hate pickled cabbage. It just smells wrong to you, the texture is all wrong, it's too sour, and you just can't see yourself ever liking it.

Would your first instinct, as a human being, be to attempt to change your own personality, so that you can "overcome" your incompatibility with fermented cabbage, or would you rather just stay away from fermented cabbage?

So anyway, you're going to say that this is a bad example, but what I'm driving at is that "changing the brain" means changing who you are. With fermented cabbage it's maybe easy enough to accept how your brain is wired, whatever, change your brain so that you like whatever, who cares, right? But when it's such an important aspect of how a person self-identifies? I think it makes perfect sense that a lot of people wouldn't want to change their brain, their personality, a big part of the core of who they are, etc.

If you woke up and found yourself in somebody else's body, wouldn't you want to get back to your own original body, rather than changing your brain so that it matches up to the body that you are in?

Now, take everything I've said with a grain of salt, I am not transgendered, and so my context and point of view here are just .. theoretical. I can't presume to speak from that point of view, I'll leave that to those who have gone or are going through that sort of experience. But I mean, even though I haven't experienced it, I can understand why people wouldn't want to change their brain and who they are. I'm sort of the same way about who I happen to be!

So I don't think it matters what's easier.

 

[Omega124]

I think warpus put it more eloquently than I did. To piggyback off him, gender is not just whether or not you like fermented cabbage. Gender is a huge part of what makes each and every one of you, you. To be forced to live as a gender you don't identify as is a living hell, daily.

Since I'm assuming most of you are male, let me suppose this question. What if you woke up one day, and suddenly your penis is missing and you can't sit up to pee, every month you painfully exert blood out of where your vagina should be, your chest is much more sensitive and have these large glomps of fat you can't get rid of, your voice is way too high pitched, and you potentionally might even get pregnant.

I bet most of you would go "oh god this is completely foreign to me, I want my old body back". Well, being trans is like that, except I Don't have an old body to go back to (also since I'm mtf, my triggers are different: my voice being too deep, all the hair over my body, having a penis, not being able to wear women's clothing, etc)

 

[luiz]

Best of luck, contre.

I don't have anything to add, as I know nothing of what you're going through, but you're a good person and I wish you all the best.

 

[NovaKart]

A lot of pressure gets placed on trans individuals to pass well. Not everyone can, be it because of money, medical access or other disabilities. The ones who don't pass and don't have strong family support are the ones we lose as friends. Kinda sucks.

Well I think there are some people that just look male or female even if they weren't born that way. I mean like a man who has very little facial hair, soft features and is not tall and doesn't have broad shoulders. It would be easier for him to transition but for some men they're just never going to look like a woman no matter what they do.

From the photo I wouldn't know you weren't born a woman and you even look like you have breasts.

 

[emzie]

lots of questions! This was more popular than I anticipated. Catching up on them now.

 

[Arakhor]

@Arakhor: sure. It's the desire for change that matters. You have zero desire, as far as I understand, and that's fine. Somebody else may want the change as much as they might want a toothache to stop, because it's driving them mad. So if the technology to make the change possible ever comes into reality, the demand is sure to be there, I guess.

Oh, almost certainly yes, but the brain is such a complex beast that even if you could unpick the messy wiring that leads to ASD symptoms and do so in a way that was both reliable and safe, how would you know what else you were changing? Which of my good traits would go away and which of my bad traits would stick around, regardless?

(Possible insensitivity alert!) At least with something like depression, you could adjust someone's dopamine regulators and their confidence levels and what-have-you and that presumably wouldn't affect their artistic talent or suchlike.

Either way, this is starting to to go rather off-track!

 

[dusters]

If somebody wants to google, I can throw out the fact that has been going out in neuroscience for a past decade or so - it has been proven that wiral network scans give different results for cis-men, cis-women, mtf, ftm individuals.

I am not saying that there are only four options, but they were the most distinguished due to the data sample size.

edit - found one paper - https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20032-transsexual-differences-caught-on-brain-scan/

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

So I don't think it matters what's easier.

I know what matters is what is more satisfying. However I wonder if there was a procedure which could guarantee the regular amount of satisfaction through changing the brain why not do it that way? The thing seems to be rather the ending of the disharmony so that the natural energies can be channeled properly. If that could be achieved through adjustment in brain then everything else would just fall in place wouldnt it?

 

[Cheetah]

lots of questions! This was more popular than I anticipated. Catching up on them now.

You did reserve the second post for a FAQ, you know... I thought you were expecting a really huge thread.

And this whole discussion around changing the brain/mind is really interesting. That's why I asked my first question: Changing the body is one thing, but changing the brain is really changing the self. I end up deep down in a philosophical rabbit hole when I consider the implications there, so I usually stay clear of the topic.

But it seemed Omega felt she had always been who she was becoming. I wonder if contre feels the same?

 

[red_elk]

Would your first instinct, as a human being, be to attempt to change your own personality, so that you can "overcome" your incompatibility with fermented cabbage, or would you rather just stay away from fermented cabbage?

If my mind and my body were in a "conflict", I think I would choose the least damaging way to resolve it. In your example it's quite obvious what to do, but if my mind demanded me, say, to chop off my arms and legs, I would seriously think about changing my personality instead. That's of course, the opposite extreme example.

 

[Omega124]

But it seemed Omega felt he had always been who he was becoming. I wonder if contre feels the same?

She. I'm a she. Please use correct pronouns.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

She. I'm a she. Please use correct pronouns.

Looks like at last we got bunch of girls around on CFC. Its alright they are all lesbians I think I am that bit myself too...

 

[Omega124]

Looks like at last we got bunch of girls around on CFC. Its alright they are all lesbians I think I am that bit myself too...

I mean, just because someone is trans doesn't nessecairly make them lesbians either. Gender identity and sexual orientation are unrelated to each other.

I can be trans and like men, or I can be trans and like women. So just because I may identify as gynosexual (sexually attracted to women), not all trans women are.

Just want to clear that up.