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

[REDY]

I'm not sure what you mean. The body I'm developing or the body I had?

The body you had. If I would be in woman body I would enjoy much more sex with myself I think. I would never dare to ask if there would be not such topic.

Omega said that she felt dysphoria - "The best way to describe it is that you suddenly feel... Nothing. Just your entire emotional state shuts down and you literally can not feel any emotion (unless you count dread as an emotion,min which case it's a but load of dread) as emotional pain just washes over everything. It honestly feels like it will last forever in that moment and it's really hard to not just want to curl up in a ball and die. It's a very terrible state to be in and I wouldn't wish it upon even my worst enemy."

I imagine myself taller and more beautiful but it seems that transexuality is not just "higher level" of being dissatisfied with genetics.

 

[Omega124]

Since you asked nicely, I'll attempt to awnser your questions. Some of them just don't really fit my situation though, but I'll twist them as much as I can to give useful awnsers.

<3

You say your anxiety has decreased. Have other mental health issues been explained and improved by the dysphoria diagnosis and treatment? Have any been unaffected?

Disclosure, I'm not in hormones yet so I literally can not awnser this question as it's currently phrased.

That being said, if you asked "has any mental health issues been explained by discovering I am trans", I do have an anecdote about that.

Long before I was trans, I knew that I'm actually a pretty kinky individual (IOT might not have been a good influence in this aspect growing up ). More specific than that, I have a huge submissive streak going on; I'll spare the exact details since i know this is supposed to be a family friendly site, but let's just say I really like the idea of getting spanked and what not.

Now, common gender roles have women being the subordinate in the relationship. I've always suspected that a part of my wanting of being the submissive of a relationship is because I want to be the woman of the relationship, so to speak.

Spoiling the rest because this is going to get a little NSFWish. Read at your own risk.

Spoiler why am I even disclosing this? :

that being said, but when I browsed the dark corners of the Internet, I was more interested in seeing deceptions of women on the bottom, albeit with a woman also on the top. Even while still identifying as male, my guess is that I empathized with women more than I did with men. Because my mind really was female deep down.

Either that or it was just me being attracted pretty much exclusively to women. :shrug:

I'm also very very curious about your wife's answer. My number one question isn't even a question for you.

Again, I'm not married nor do I have a wife, but I do have a boyfriend, and I can talk about him and his reaction to me transitioning.

We met over the Internet, and actually before I came out as female. We were distant friends back then, not close but he really took a fancy to me after I came out to him, and very soon afterwards we went into a relationship. At first it was really more of a practice one, since neither of us were having luck in the meatsphere and we wanted the concept of being in a relationship. But soon enough we really did fall in love and we had our first anniversary in January and oh my god he's just so amazing

As for his reaction, well, he knew from the very start of our relationship that I'm trans, but he's been super supportive of me and everything. More importantly, he likes me as a woman, not as a trans woman, which I've heard can be an issue for trans people trying to find love. A lot of men want to date trans women because they want a woman with a penis, but I want to eventually have female genitilia. My bf, however, is not like that at all, which is amazing.

He and I met here actually, so I'm not name dropping him if he doesn't want the attention of an ask a thread. However, if you read this, [bf name], you're more than welcome to post c:

How important is it to you personally to be a conventionally attractive woman? What extra effort, besides the medical stuff, do you put into your appearance?

Very, for me. As I said before, one of my friends once said I was the girliest girl he ever met. I don't want to just be female, I also want to be femme. One goal of mine is to reach a point where I can wear skirts/dresses everyday, and never wear pants again. That would be the ultimate expression of my own feminity.

That being said, not every trans women is like that. Some are actually pretty tomboyish. Most are in between. And no matter how femme I want to present myself, a lot of my hobbies are still traditionally masculine, like fighting/rts/fps games, politics, martial arts, etc, and I don't see that changing any time soon.

Are you sick of bra shopping yet?

Not at that stage sadly

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.

I feel that conversation has ran its course, and I have commented on it earlier this thread, so I will not address this again.

Question! (I'm interested in your answers to my other questions too! And contre's answer to this question!)

I try my best to use correct pronouns, but it's unclear sometimes. I understand that you're a she, and that you didn't become a she when you realized you were a she, you already were. But if I saw a photo of you as a small child and said 'he', is that entirely wrong? Does it bother you?

I would have purged all my pictures as a man already so that won't be an issiue

Yeah, I would consider it wrong and be annoyed even in a context line that. If I was already a female and just realized it, as you said, then to use he in that context would be in fact implying that isn't the case, and that I was male who became female.

If you look at a Wikipedia for any trans person (Lavernne Cox, the Wazokskis, Chelsea Manning), they will use the pronouns of their identified gender, even before they even came out. If wiki can do it, I think everyone can.

If you maybe didn't pass, but you were treated just as though you did, would that be good enough?

Maybe? It's a hard question to awnser, because I would likely not even know I'm not passing if people were treating me like I was. I would like to pass for my own sake if not for societies, though, so I'm not sure if it would be enough in practice

If a fully functional female reproductive tract were available as readily as what you're already planning to have done, would you take that option? Would you opt in to a menstrual cycle (which, we'll note, many cis women opt out of)?

Hell yes, I'd take it all, bleeding included. It would be the ultimate confirmation that I am female, no matter how painful it is. I really don't want children to begin with, and while it's mostly "I just hate children in general" mixed with some "there's already too much children without parents to justify not adopting even if I liked and wanted children" and "my genes are terrible and shouldn't be passed on, I'm doing the world a favor by naturally selecting myself out", the fact that I can't be his or her mother is up there on why I don't want (biological) kids.

 

[emzie]

Well, more broadly, how the whole experience so far has been for her.

Specifically, when you said "I am a lesbian, ya, though wifey has a more complicated answer." But then you covered that in post 90.

In her own words:

My answer is somewhat uncomplicated. I consider myself heterosexual. Having to address my own sexuality forced me to look at the width and breadth of my relationship with Emily and come to an understanding that her gender is a very small part of of who she is and the life we have built together or the love I have for her. So if it means that she must live her truth to be truly happy then I can at least open my mind to the nuance that is sexuality. If I was single I would be with men, but my relationship with her is simply much much more than that.

d'awwwwwwwww

 

[emzie]

The body you had.

It was a pretty run-of-the-mill male body. I was 6' tall (183 cm) and ~180 pounds (~80kg). I could grow a full beard and if I kept it tidy, I was told it looked good. At the time, I convinced myself I liked it, but now the thought of a beard would be the stuff of nightmares lol

If I would be in woman body I would enjoy much more sex with myself I think. I would never dare to ask if there would be not such topic.

You might think that, but you'd probably be surprised. The psychology of intercourse changes based on hormone levels. With much much lower levels of testosterone, there's far less control over arousal. To be crude, if you were to start watching an adult film, you would have a physiological reaction and could do something about it if you desired. If I were to start watching an adult film, I would probably get distracted by wikipedia. I'm not even kidding. Sex is enjoyable, of course, but it's a different kind of enjoyment.

 

[Zelig]

I believe I would be. But chat I missed last night has got me wondering whether those of us that don't think we care about our gender are just comfortable enough with it that we're clueless about what a difference it can make. Wet fish.

I missed that chat too and still haven't read it, but added the "I hope" bit (before posting) when I thought about that.

Yeah, I would consider it wrong and be annoyed even in a context line that. If I was already a female and just realized it, as you said, then to use he in that context would be in fact implying that isn't the case, and that I was male who became female.

If you look at a Wikipedia for any trans person (Lavernne Cox, the Wazokskis, Chelsea Manning), they will use the pronouns of their identified gender, even before they even came out. If wiki can do it, I think everyone can.

I follow the "most recent self-identification pronoun" rule when writing because it's best-practice, but I find it mildly annoying in practice. I'd really rather the language contained widely-accepted gender-neutral pronouns when I'm talking about something (e.g. The Matrix movies) where someone's genitals aren't relevant.

(Also interesting to note, non-pronouns don't follow the same rule - e.g. you'd typically talk about Cassius Clay until he started identifying as Ali.)

 

[Omega124]

I follow the "most recent self-identification pronoun" rule when writing because it's best-practice, but I find it mildly annoying in practice. I'd really rather the language contained widely-accepted gender-neutral pronouns when I'm talking about something (e.g. The Matrix movies) where someone's genitals aren't relevant.

With all respect, no. That's terrible, because it would basicilly single trans people out and other them compared to cisgender people of either sex. In some ways, that's actually worse than misgendering, because when you dehumanize certain members of the population like that, I feel like that will encourage transphobia. Not saying you do encourage that or you are transphobic, but this is a really bad can of worms than I'd rather we not open.

And if I read that wrong, and you want to get rid of he and she altogether, I'd still disagree with that because I don't see anything wrong with gendered pronouns in itself. I feel liberated and smile when people refer to me as a she or her, as it serves as a form of validification of who I am.

(Also interesting to note, non-pronouns don't follow the same rule - e.g. you'd typically talk about Cassius Clay until he started identifying as Ali.)

It depends on the person on Wikipedia actually. Muhammad Ali changed his name late in his life realitvely speaking, when he was already famous as Clay. Someone like Nicolas Cage or Bruce Willis, however, is consistently referred to as their preferred name.

In practice outside of Wikipedia, though? Who really calls Ali Clay except for the fact he was born as such? I think you made a great argument... On cleaning up the Wiki page of Ali to make it more consistent with other pages. That's about it.

 

[Zelig]

With all respect, no. That's terrible, because it would basicilly single trans people out and other them compared to cisgender people of either sex.

No, I want gender neutral for everyone.

And if I read that wrong, and you want to get rid of he and she altogether, I'd still disagree with that because I don't see anything wrong with gendered pronouns in itself. I feel liberated and smile when people refer to me as a she or her, as it serves as a form of validification of who I am.

I don't see anything wrong with gendered pronouns, I'd just prefer to have an acceptable gender-neutral option for contexts where gender is irrelevant. I'd be happy to be referred to with a gender neutral pronoun.

There are so many things about myself which I think are more important than my gender, that I'd prefer to convey in a pronoun.

In practice outside of Wikipedia, though? Who really calls Ali Clay except for the fact he was born as such? I think you made a great argument... On cleaning up the Wiki page of Ali to make it more consistent with other pages. That's about it.

*shrug* For "consistency" like that, "Koppenhaver" should have all instances changed to "War Machine": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Machine_(mixed_martial_artist)

 

[Omega124]

No, I want gender neutral for everyone.



I don't see anything wrong with gendered pronouns, I'd just prefer to have an acceptable gender-neutral option for contexts where gender is irrelevant. I'd be happy to be referred to with a gender neutral pronoun.

There are so many things about myself which I think are more important than my gender, that I'd prefer to convey in a pronoun.

In practice it wouldn't be used for everyone. You can make up a xir pronoun, or whatever, but that xir I bet you will only be used to refer to trans people by most people. After all, going back to Ali, is there any real reason not to use he when referring to him? Does using xir really change what, say, an article reads about him? No, it really wouldn't at all. It would just make everything more confusing to people by adding a third pronoun which doesn't really covey more meaning to a topic. Henceforth, this third pronoun would simply /not be used/ unless it adds something, such as the whole issue of trans pronouns.

English is constantly evolving, sure, but it's evolving in a way where redundant concepts are taken out, not new ones added in. That's why a lot of the edits done in the 19th century to make English more like a Romance language grammatically haven't stuck; it made English grammar needlessly complex and by a generation or two we mostly forgotten those rule changes.

As for your last point, what realistically could be conveyed in a pronoun that currently isn't, then? What actually /is/ more important than gender to you?

Edit: in regards to War Machine, it's a stage name that he changed to be his legal name due to a legal dispute. In this case, context matters. I'm pretty sure he isn't going around asking people to stop calling him Koppenhaver, like how the other people who changed their names actually did seriously change their names.

 

[Zelig]

Actually, it does seem that it's mostly just English being pronoun-deficient. Since there are no plural male/female pronouns, plural-"they" comes across as gender-neutral, while singular-"it" comes across as non-gendered. I'd like to see plural male/female added, singular-"it" be the default for gender-neutral contexts, and for people to stop using singular-"they". I'm not proposing a path to get there, I don't think there is a realistic one, I'm just saying the current state of English pronouns is suboptimal.

List of things more important to me than gender is really too OT for this thread. Like I mentioned above, if I was suddenly de-gendered, it's possible I could change my mind, but as it stands, gender is somewhere down the list.

 

[Omega124]

Actually, it does seem that it's mostly just English being pronoun-deficient. Since there are no plural male/female pronouns, plural-"they" comes across as gender-neutral, while singular-"it" comes across as non-gendered. I'd like to see plural male/female added, singular-"it" be the default for gender-neutral contexts, and for people to stop using singular-"they". I'm not proposing a path to get there, I don't think there is a realistic one, I'm just saying the current state of English pronouns is suboptimal.

See, singular they is one of those things that actually is perfectly grammatically fine and has been used since Middle English, but 19th century revisionists tried getting rid of because pronouns don't work that way in Romance languages. "Every pronoun has to have its place, you can't have the same word meaning plural and singular". Much like the other stupid rules they tried to add, like the inability to split an infinitive (in a Romantic language like French it physically is impossible because an infinitive is one word. In English it's two so there's nothing actually wrong with it), we are waking up and getting rid of them because stupid unessecary rules are stupid.

I don't like it for people since we currently reserve it for objects. It seems pretty dehumanizing to go to using it for people. Like, really dehumanizing. There's nothing wrong with they. Just use that.

 

[NovaKart]

At least English only has separate pronouns for he/she/it. Some languages have gendered words for the pronouns you and I and grammatical gender for adjectives.

 

[Omega124]

At least English only has separate pronouns for he/she/it. Some languages have gendered words for the pronouns you and I and grammatical gender for adjectives.

Yeah, I'm taking Japanese right now, and I noticed that's the case in that language. Not so much for you, since a pronoun for you just isn't used to begin with at all (not to say there isn't you, there's anata and a few others, but they're just not /used/), but there's a whole classification of various I pronouns depending on both gender and politeness.

Like, there's watashi, which is gender neutral and polite, but means something different between men, where the more informal boku is the one used everyday, and women which are expected to use it as their everyday pronoun (in general, women are expected to speak more politely/formally than men are). On the female side, there's atashi, which is less formal and considered more feminine, and is the pronoun I tend to use outside of class because of the latter fact. Besides watashi and boku, there's also ore for men, which is both extremely masculine and extremely informal. Wikipedia even claims there's more than just those 5, ranging from various different formalities, locations, and genders, but those are the most commonly used ones.

Speaking of which, yes I do plan on going to Japan one day. I'm trying to wait until I transisition, though, since I feel like id enjoy myself better if I could go how I truly am.

 

[red_elk]

Actually, it does seem that it's mostly just English being pronoun-deficient. Since there are no plural male/female pronouns, plural-"they" comes across as gender-neutral, while singular-"it" comes across as non-gendered.

I think it's common at least for most Indo-European languages. "They" is gender-neutral simply because there are too many situations when you have to refer to mixed-gender group. Like "villager" does have gender, but "villagers" don't.

 

[NovaKart]

They is ok for hypothetical situations like if you said, "If anyone comes by give them a brochure," but if someone said, "I spoke to Barbara and they said its really cold in Alaska," I'd think that was very awkward sounding.

 

[Arakhor]

And if you said, "if I have a new partner and I really like them," it sounds like you're playing the pronoun game.

 

[Evie]

And some languages don't even have the *concept* of a gender-less word. (See: French).

In comparison, english with the singular "they" has it perfectly easy. It's got deep historical root (Chaucer, Shakespeare and Jane Austen all used it), and it's pretty accepted in modern grammar - it's just a bunch of Victorian language fanatics and the people who were indoctrinated in their cult of they-is-plural-only who ever objected to this one.

(Like most everything else from the Victorian era about language, it's just stupid).

They is ok for hypothetical situations like if you said, "If anyone comes by give them a brochure," but if someone said, "I spoke to Barbara and they said its really cold in Alaska," I'd think that was very awkward sounding.

Not as awkward as "And xir said it's really cold in Alaska". You just haven't gotten used to the notion that not everyone falls into the male/female binary yet.

It was a pretty run-of-the-mill male body. I was 6' tall (183 cm) and ~180 pounds (~80kg). I could grow a full beard and if I kept it tidy, I was told it looked good. At the time, I convinced myself I liked it, but now the thought of a beard would be the stuff of nightmares lol

Don't I know that feeling. Except I haven't so much convinced myself I like it as convinced myself I need it because otherwise I'd be criminally unsightly.

 

[NovaKart]

Not as awkward as "And xir said it's really cold in Alaska". You just haven't gotten used to the notion that not everyone falls into the male/female binary yet.

No, it has nothing to do with that. It's because we've established that Barbara is a specific person we're talking about here and referring to her as they makes her sound like she's two people.

I have no issue using a genderless pronoun when speaking Turkish and Kurdish.

I agree that zir would sound even worse.

 

[Evie]

Fair enough.

But if I say "Do you have a problem with this sentence", do you start wondering who else I'm addressing? No, of course not. Because you're used to you being used in both plural and singular senses. They's just the same ; you just need to get used to it.

 

[emzie]

Language is ultimately a tool. It doesn't define reality, it attempts to describe reality. Sociolinguistics is beyond the scope of this thread. That's multiple university level courses of what gender is and what it's roots are.

If you want to attempt that kinda debate, I would ask you make new thread and I'd recommend you set limits to it in the OP. Define how you are using words, because the casual reader may get confused if you're using known terminology in an unfamiliar way.

 

[Borachio]

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

I find I have no good answers to the question. What does that say about my religious views?

For example: if a tree falls in a forest and I hear it fall, where is the tree? Out in the forest or in my head? And where is the forest? If it's not in my head, then where is it? And how do I know where it is if it isn't in my head?

Moreover: is my head in the world, or is the world in my head?

In the end, can I know anything about something I know nothing about?