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

[Cheezy the Wiz]

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?

It's not an entirely foreign concept. You have a gender identity, don't you? Presumably (based on your response) it's male. So what makes you feel male? When you examine your identity, your maleness, what makes you agree with the idea that you are male, instead of saying "no I'm not, I'm [something else]?"

There are so many things that together create the feeling. Now as I said I'm not a woman, but genderfluid, so this feeling changes and is not static. When I feel more feminine I feel more of a desire to adhere to or engage in stereoypically feminine traits: I'm more bubbly, I feel those social pressures to be pretty or look a certain way (when I experience gender dysphoria it is always while feminine), I desire to present femininely and be "read" as a woman (you might say that my self-actualization is feminine during this? Like I feel understood when read as a woman) I feel much more comfortable in the company of women than men (like I'm "one of the girls" so to speak, but not "one of the guys"), and most of all, I quite simply feel that "woman" is the correct descriptor of me.

Yup, that's exactly what I did there!

You did, by insinuating that our identities are merely constructs, but that biology is the final determining factor. As if biology is not a social construct!

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.

I'm saying it's a normative statement. A woman is someone who identifies as a woman. The statement "x looks like x" is a truism. Thus, saying that a woman looks like a woman is a truism.

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.

See what I don't understand is why someone would make the brutally offensive statements earlier in your post, and then end with something like this.

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.

I mean yes, this phenomenon exists, but it really only exists because of the continued dominance of the idea that the socially-accepted standard for cisgender men and women's appearances are the only correct ones, from which all other appearances deviate in some way or another. There are definitely men whose bodies have been shaped by estrogen and women's bodies who have been shaped by testosterone for a long time, and that has left permanent features on their bodies. But my point earlier is that even within presently-accepted boundaries of cisgender identity (meaning the whole "5 attributes" thing) there are significant enough deviations from the socially-accepted ideal as to make any single objection to a trans person's appearance with reference to this ideal as both meaningless and unfair.

It's essentially Platonic idealism applied to gender.

 

[Akka]

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.

That's just circular reasoning.

 

[emzie]

That's just circular reasoning.

This is not a debate thread.

 

[Akka]

This is not a debate thread.

Sure. But then it should also apply to Cheezy too then, especially when he debates with blatantly false arguments.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

I mean yes, this phenomenon exists, but it really only exists because of the continued dominance of the idea that the socially-accepted standard for cisgender men and women's appearances are the only correct ones, from which all other appearances deviate in some way or another. There are definitely men whose bodies have been shaped by estrogen and women's bodies who have been shaped by testosterone for a long time, and that has left permanent features on their bodies. But my point earlier is that even within presently-accepted boundaries of cisgender identity (meaning the whole "5 attributes" thing) there are significant enough deviations from the socially-accepted ideal as to make any single objection to a trans person's appearance with reference to this ideal as both meaningless and unfair.

It's essentially Platonic idealism applied to gender.

I'm sorry but I think a lot of that is rather strange thinking. Plus you keep talking about socially-accepted this and correct that and all these other notions of value judgement which are simply irrelevant to what I said. If you are a trans woman who happens to have a lot of masculine features and characteristics then you're unlikely to be indistinguishable from a typical cis woman. And yes, there may well be a tiny percentage of 6 foot 5, broad shouldered cis women, but they do not make up the statistically significant population you are claiming.

And no, this is not me saying that they SHOULD look that way, or are any the lesser because they don't look that way, it's just a description of how things are. And it's clear that a significant fraction of trans women DO want to pass as cis women or there would be no demand for incredibly expensive HRT and surgery etc. None of this seemed particularly controversial when Omega herself said it on page 9:

Unfortunately, this is one of the few things where we can't really do much about it. The best you can do is get hormones early enough that it influences none growth (early puberty), which of course is generally too late for most trans people when they can actually start transition (late puberty or even post puberty)

Then again as long as we're infertile due to lack of uterus transplants being a thing, it doesn't really matter in the long run. I don't think hips are really the first or even a thing most people look at. Shoulders might be more of a problem, but I'm blessed with having a more femme build in that department in the first place.

 

[emzie]

Sure. But then it should also apply to Cheezy too then, especially when he debates with blatantly false arguments.

I'm not seeing a question here. However, in the spirit of openness, I'll try and rephrase what he said in a way that's not circular.

Gender is not synonymous with sex. A woman is whatever people decide a woman is. There's no Platonic form of Venus off in the shadows. There's no need to a litmus test.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

I'm sorry but I think a lot of that is rather strange thinking. Plus you keep talking about socially-accepted this and correct that and all these other notions of value judgement which are simply irrelevant to what I said. If you are a trans woman who happens to have a lot of masculine features and characteristics then you're unlikely to be indistinguishable from a typical cis woman. And yes, there may well be a tiny percentage of 6 foot 5, broad shouldered cis women, but they do not make up the statistically significant population you are claiming.

And no, this is not me saying that they SHOULD look that way, or are any the lesser because they don't look that way, it's just a description of how things are. And it's clear that a significant fraction of trans women DO want to pass as cis women or there would be no demand for incredibly expensive HRT and surgery etc. None of this seemed particularly controversial when Omega herself said it on page 9:

What Omega said I don't disagree with. But she's describing what I'm describing, I'm just wording it differently. What I'm doing is describing the inner workings of the problem that Omega skimmed the surface of.

I mean, assuming that your statement is a normative one and not an objective one, we are all saying the same thing: "this standard exists, and it's harder for trans people to fit into it than it is for cis people to do so."

 

[_random_]

It's not an entirely foreign concept. You have a gender identity, don't you? Presumably (based on your response) it's male. So what makes you feel male? When you examine your identity, your maleness, what makes you agree with the idea that you are male, instead of saying "no I'm not, I'm [something else]?"

I've got a masculine name and a beard and a penis and basically everyone interacts with me under the assumption I'm male. I basically go with the flow of my assumed identity and that's served me well so far. That's not to say I conform to male stereotypes 100%, but when I deviate from them I don't think of myself as being somehow "not a man." And I guess what I'm trying to understand is how you get from point A to point B there. Does that make sense?

 

[Bootstoots]

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?

My understanding is that most transgender people have all five of those sexual characteristics of their biological sex, but that their gender as they perceive themselves (and wish to be perceived) does not match their sex. Although people with ambiguous genitalia, chromosomal abnormalities (Kleinfelter Syndrome, Turner Syndrome, XY but apparently female, XX but apparently male, etc), unusual combinations of hormones, or having few if any secondary sex characteristics certainly exist, the assignment of sex can be said not to be arbitrary for the vast majority of individuals, including the majority of transgender people. It seems that the main issue for most transgender people is that there's a social expectation that their gender match their sex at birth, and people who have a gender-sex mismatch face severe discrimination.

Is this correct? I don't mean to downplay the problems intersex people have, but it seems like that's a different albeit closely related issue.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

I've got a masculine name and a beard and a penis and basically everyone interacts with me under the assumption I'm male. I basically go with the flow of my assumed identity and that's served me well so far. That's not to say I conform to male stereotypes 100%, but when I deviate from them I don't think of myself as being somehow "not a man." And I guess what I'm trying to understand is how you get from point A to point B there. Does that make sense?

It sounds like you judge your identity primarily on how other people perceive you. Have you ever explored how you see yourself, independent of that exterior reference?

A huge sign for me was that many of the stereotypically "manly" or "masculine" things I was told or expected to do and be as a child and young adult just seemed wrong to me. Foreign, inapplicable, undesirable. In children transgender identity often expresses itself (gender identity is roughly solidified between 6 and 11 years of age) in the form of gender nonconformity: boys playing with girls toys, or wanting to wear girls clothes, or watch girls' shows, or be called by a girls' name (and vice versa). In people older than that social norms are becoming more firmly entrenched, and a sort of self-policing with regards to behavior sets in. So for example: I knew I liked wearing girls' clothes, but my brain told me that this meant there was something wrong with me because only freaks do that, so I forced myself to stop and tried to forget it because it was so embarrassing.

Imagine the torment of being forced to be something you're not, and living with both the shame of knowing you're different and also the confusion of not knowing what is happening to you because of a total blackout on information about it. I didn't know what a transgender person really was until I was probably 25 or 26 (3 years ago roughly).

My understanding is that most transgender people have all five of those sexual characteristics of their biological sex, but that their gender as they perceive themselves (and wish to be perceived) does not match their sex. Although people with ambiguous genitalia, chromosomal abnormalities (Kleinfelter Syndrome, Turner Syndrome, XY but apparently female, XX but apparently male, etc), unusual combinations of hormones, or having few if any secondary sex characteristics certainly exist, the assignment of sex can be said not to be arbitrary for the vast majority of individuals, including the majority of transgender people. It seems that the main issue for most transgender people is that there's a social expectation that their gender match their sex at birth, and people who have a gender-sex mismatch face severe discrimination.

Is this correct? I don't mean to downplay the problems intersex people have, but it seems like that's a different albeit closely related issue.

It's a common misconception that sadly continues to be forwarded (see: the "genderbread person" ). The problem is that, as I was describing above, it creates a dichotomy between our "brain gender" and our "real sex" and this is both nonsensical and delegitimizing.

The problem is that biological sex is not an objective truth, it's a construct created by scientists with their own deep-seated biases geared toward a gender binary, and exploited by a bourgeois society in need of new scientific justifications for gender roles.

Here are two articles that debunk the idea of male and female biologically gendered bodies:
Male vs. Female Brain? Not A Valid Distinction

Sex Isn't Chromosomes

 

[_random_]

It sounds like you judge your identity primarily on how other people perceive you. Have you ever explored how you see yourself, independent of that exterior reference?

Not really. I don't really know if I have that ability, or if it would be worth using if I do.

A huge sign for me was that many of the stereotypically "manly" or "masculine" things I was told or expected to do and be as a child and young adult just seemed wrong to me. Foreign, inapplicable, undesirable. In children transgender identity often expresses itself (gender identity is roughly solidified between 6 and 11 years of age) in the form of gender nonconformity: boys playing with girls toys, or wanting to wear girls clothes, or watch girls' shows, or be called by a girls' name (and vice versa). In people older than that social norms are becoming more firmly entrenched, and a sort of self-policing with regards to behavior sets in. So for example: I knew I liked wearing girls' clothes, but my brain told me that this meant there was something wrong with me because only freaks do that, so I forced myself to stop and tried to forget it because it was so embarrassing.

Okay, I can mostly follow this. Thank you.

I didn't know what a transgender person really was until I was probably 25 or 26 (3 years ago roughly).

I'm 21, so do forgive any persistent ignorance.

 

[Bootstoots]

It's a common misconception that sadly continues to be forwarded (see: the "genderbread person" ). The problem is that, as I was describing above, it creates a dichotomy between our "brain gender" and our "real sex" and this is both nonsensical and delegitimizing.

The problem is that biological sex is not an objective truth, it's a construct created by scientists with their own deep-seated biases geared toward a gender binary, and exploited by a bourgeois society in need of new scientific justifications for gender roles.

Here are two articles that debunk the idea of male and female biologically gendered bodies:
Male vs. Female Brain? Not A Valid Distinction

Sex Isn't Chromosomes

On biological sex, I'll try to be more precise: there are two clusters of generally similar genitalia, hormone distributions, secondary sex characteristics, etc. The distribution of genitalia in particular is a U-shaped distribution with the vast majority of people clustering on either of the two sides of the U. In the vast majority of cases, these correspond to the presence or absence of at least one Y chromosome with a functioning SRY gene. Occasionally the genitalia come out ambiguous, or there's something like androgen insensitivity that causes different phenotype than we'd expect on the basis of chromosomes alone, but those are fairly rare, likely no more than 1% of the population.

Is this, at least, generally accepted? I did read the New Statesman article you linked, which contained a lot of interesting historical background on how the theory of sex chromosomes developed (blatant sexism included), along with discussion of chromosomal abnormalities and sex-determining systems in other animals. I didn't see anything that would refute the above claim though.

I certainly agree that the distributions of most brain characteristics overlap greatly between men and women and average differences between male and female-gendered people are usually swamped by between-person variation. I meant something more along the lines of this: current Western society is gendered, with a spectrum that is traditionally reduced to a binary consisting of male and female, and a transgender person identifies much more strongly with the gender that is considered not to correspond with their biological sex than with the one that does. Genderfluid people do not identify strongly with either gender, and will take on gender roles of either or no gender in a context-dependent way.

Is that reasonably accurate? It's amazing how hard it is to think precisely about gender.

 

[cardgame]

Borachio, I believe Cheezy has already stated he's not transitioning - he's genderfluid.

Cheezy, I believe hobbs is on your side with that statement about biological/social definitions and things have gotten entirely misconstrued.

Now, a proper question for the thread: if someone says they're 'into trans women' do you find that creepy/fetishizationed or are happy to hear it? Generally speaking.

 

[Borachio]

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.

OK. Fair enough.

But tell me please: is gender fluidity a type of transitioning or isn't it?

 

[classical_hero]

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.

That is how I feel.

I am wondering why we are using gender problems to redefine the whole definition of gender? Just because some people do have a problem, doesn't mean that we should then get rid of the whole definition.

 

[emzie]

That is how I feel.

I am wondering why we are using gender problems to redefine the whole definition of gender? Just because some people do have a problem, doesn't mean that we should then get rid of the whole definition.

That's nice, dear. Do you have a question or are you here just to make us feel unwelcome?

 

[NovaKart]

That is how I feel.

I am wondering why we are using gender problems to redefine the whole definition of gender? Just because some people do have a problem, doesn't mean that we should then get rid of the whole definition.

Yeah what I disagree with is people being so absolute on the issue and it seems like they're insisting up is down to make a philosophical point. I mean if someone is trans and transitions to a woman that's one thing but if I with a mustache and male features and everything say I'm a woman that means I look like one? I doubt many people really do this so I'm answering the philosophical point cheezy was making really.

Anyway, I think we should open another thread because it looks like contre wants it to be a strictly ask and answer thread.

 

[sophie]

Yeah what I disagree with is people being so absolute on the issue and it seems like they're insisting up is down to make a philosophical point. I mean if someone is trans and transitions to a woman that's one thing but if I with a mustache and male features and everything say I'm a woman that means I look like one? I doubt many people really do this so I'm answering the philosophical point cheezy was making really.

Anyway, I think we should open another thread because it looks like contre wants it to be a strictly ask and answer thread.

They aren't making a point, they're telling you who they are, and just because who they are is different from who you are doesn't mean you should instantly assume they are faking it for ulterior purposes, that's seriously fu[REDACTED] up.

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.

Exhibit A.

 

[NovaKart]

They aren't making a point, they're telling you who they are, and just because who they are is different from who you are doesn't mean you should instantly assume they are faking it for ulterior purposes, that's seriously fu[REDACTED] up.



Exhibit A.

I never said they were faking it. I said simply saying you're female doesn't change your appearance on its own and I really disagree with the idea that we can't have any concept of what a man or woman looks like because its all determined based on how we choose to identify. And yeah before anyway posts photos of Louis XIV era France or men in the renaissance I realize it is culturally determined to some degree.

 

[Borachio]

I may be effed up as you put it.

But I still have to speak as things appear to me, don't I? (That's really not quite the same as making assumptions, imo.)

If I'm mistaken - and I scarcely ever claim that I can't be, remember - I'm not sure what's upsetting you about it.

Have you never encountered a mistaken person before, then?