this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2024
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Excuse you, I would never tell someone they are not really trans. If they say they were made trans by life circumstances, I would tell them that that is likely not true, but I would never dictate someone's gender.
I'm somebody who absolutely does think I am trans purely by life circumstances, but I also recognize that the vast majority of trans people aren't. Like I am incredibly glad that I transitioned and am now living life mostly stealth as a woman, years down the line, but I'm almost positive that if I wasn't put through literal hell as a child (in the very cruel and specific ways that I was) I wouldn't have even thought to have transitioned as a young adult. Perhaps I am completely incorrect in my assumptions about myself, and I would have turned out this way no matter what, but I find it hard to believe that if I wasn't relentlessly bullied, harassed, beaten, and rejected by my peers as a child, that I would be sitting here now as a woman. I feel like I literally became a woman by sheer force of will in order to save my life, because I literally could not continue as the broken husk of a "man" I was at 21, and by some miracle it worked. But maybe I'm just delusional, idk
What do you think happened that made your internal gender change? To me, and to most trans people in my experience, it was a discovery of an already present internal gender and not a change.
It is also true that people who are more introspective, such as people who experienced trauma, are more likely to come out as trans - perhaps this is true for you.
I guess I am rather unique in my experience of transness in that I started living full time (and even passing) as a woman before I even self identified as one. The thing is, lifing as a women for aabout a year literally changed my internal sence of gender, I wanted it to happen and I made it happen. Maybe that's just me rationalizing my inherent "transness" but that's my recollection of events.
I'm sorry if I misunderstand, are you saying you were forced to present as a woman? If so, I'm sorry that happened to you but it does sound like it worked out for you.
If that wasn't the case, to me it sounds like you were unconsciously aware of your gender but had conscious defense mechanisms that took time to work down.
My experience isn't all that dissimilar, in that I admitted to myself and my therapist that I was "not cisgender", knowing perfectly well that that would definitionally mean I am transgender, but also denied that I was transgender. This was repression, "still cis though" to a higher level. It sounds like your experience was similar.
Forced? Only by myself, as I thought it was the only way to keep living, though maybe that's just proof that I am trans, and I simply constructed a bunch of mental hoops to jump through due to internalized transphobia?
Yeah, that's what it sounds like to me. Cis people don't transition their gender even if it's "just for a year", but trans people do try really hard to not be trans especially just before coming out.
I think it's worthwhile remaining open to this but not really valuable to trans people to like make it part of activism or anything. There are enough instances of people saying things like their sexuality has completely shifted for me to be open to the idea that what gender we're attracted to can change. I don't think we know enough about being trans to be certain one way or another, trans people however have a very understandable defensive reaction to this because we don't want it to be weaponised against us as "fake" or whatever.
My basic point is this: If it's inflictable, it's curable.
I for one knew my gender from about as young as I could talk (Edit: I repressed this for many years due to massive social pressures). I remember my assigned gender being inflicted upon me at a young age, when I did not immediately conform. If you asked me pre-transition but after I realized I was trans whether or not I would press a button and become cis in my assigned gender, I would say that that feels like losing a significant part of myself. If you were to ask me, if I could have pressed a button and become a cis in my actual, realized gender, I would have said yes and that it wouldn't have been a major loss of self at all. This is true pretty much my whole life. But I lacked the self awareness to realize this about my self, and that has changed, not my actual gender. We are quite literally gaslit our entire lives in regards to our assigned gender. Usually, before one comes out, one tries to embrace their assigned gender only to find that they do not feel comfortable (i.e. dysphoria).
I don't reject people having fluidity in their gender or sexuality. The way I view it, there is a multidimensional spectrum and people tend to inhabit different areas of it. If they did actually change sexuality or gender, and not just discover it, due to fluidity, then they might inhabit an area that includes something close to or exactly their assigned gender as well as their realized gender.
The leading theory for what makes people trans, and gay for that matter, is hormonal fluctuations during critical moments in fetal development. In other words, we are born this way.
"Cure" is loaded language. Your gender doesn't need curing, your gender is what it is.
If it can be changed, then yes perhaps it can be intentionally changed. But what the mechanisms are for that to occur are absolutely not understood and any attempt to forcibly do so to anyone should be considered a violation of human rights.
I don't disagree with the reasoning everyone has for being extremely defensive about this possibility, I just also don't really rule it out as solidly as many others do. I get it though. I do understand why people have such a reaction to this and want it to be untrue. I feel like we don't really understand any of it though. We've barely scratched the surface.
I also think a lot of the research is trying to confirm the idea that people are born this way. IE working from the conclusion. Because the science is performed by those with a desire for it to be the outcome because it's the safest outcome for trans people. I'm not really convinced all of it is good.
I don't know. I've just seen a lot of change in myself in my life and am open to the idea that we're not as fixed as we believe. And of course that that's OKAY and doesn't change anything about how people should be treated or viewed.
Yes, my point in saying "cured" is that it is a loaded statement but is logically consistent with the idea being trans is inflicted upon you by something external, and that would lead to conversion therapy which has been shown to not work.
There does need to be more research. The current research supports what I've said, and future research could change that. However, at the very least some people are born trans, even if others somehow become trans in some critical early developmental milestone.
As for the idea that the research is seeking evidence of transness being inherit at birth: that is not the case, there have been many attempts to study so called "sudden onset gender dysphoria" or the idea that someone could suddenly become trans, and those studies can't find any evidence for that (other than one that asked TERF parents if it seemed sudden to them, who of course said yes). Other studies have shown that people tend to have a concept of their internal gender from about as soon as they can talk, which is the earliest we could possibly test, indicating that if it is not prenatal then very early in life.
I think this lacks an open mind. This reaction isn't that surprising though, I do get why you and other people are very invested in this. I think you're too wedded to gender overall though, I find the camp of trans people writing about the idea that eventually society will enter a post-gender phase to be the most compelling theory. If gender can be abolished then it can also change.
Gender abolitionism usually focuses on roles and rigidity surrounding it, not the idea that we will eventually have no actual genders. Gender is biologically real but all the social constructs surrounding it are not. If this is not what you have read, I'm interested in links.
But there is no world in which I am not a woman - but very much a world where I am happy to reject the social constructs built up around womanhood.
I still posit that anyone that can actually change their gender (not realize it and change presentation and potentially roles) was gender fluid in the first place.
This reasoning errs much too close to bio-essentialism for me, it's the same line of thinking that leads people to "you have to have dysphoria or you're not trans".
I believe all trans people. I do believe that all trans people have gender dysphoria (otherwise there wouldn't be a reason to transition) though many do not recognize it and believe they are trans (which they are) but do not experience dysphoria (which they do). Think of this in a pure motivation sense. One does not make major life changes without something informing that decision, which is what dysphoria is.
I am seriously interested in gender abolitionist takes that aren't just abolishing the strict roles/styles/behaviors affiliated with gender. I don't think you can provide this, because gender abolitionists do believe people have an intrinsic gender (or rather, one may have an intrinsic gender, wrt agender individuals) they just don't believe that one's gender should be defined by someone else and that a lot of the roles and behaviors attributed to gender are regressive and need abolished. To which I agree. I am a woman but I am not gender conforming (rarely wear dresses or skirts, present relatively butch, and reject all gender roles).
Your rigid line of thinking here could easily convince someone that conversion therapy is a reasonable treatment for gender dysphoria, which it most certainly is not. Because why would it not be, if it could work? My answer to that is that my intrinsic gender is too much a part of me to rip out: you can't change my gender. I would not be me if you tore my gender out of me.
Frankly, I'm kind of growing tired of discussing trans issues with cis people, especially when they keep telling me I'm biased ("I know why you're so defensive about this"). I have a gender, if you don't then that is good for you, but you can't take my gender from me. Please genuinely consider that this is based on my life experiences, whereas your view is informed second hand on others' lived experiences, if you wish to continue this discussion with me.
You can't "believe all trans people" while also not believing the trans people who say their experience is not gender fluidity but an actual mid-life change in gender.
Ultimately you can only be one or the other.
As for those people without dysphoria, several of them will openly say they think they can choose one or the other, but prefer one, but don't think this is the same as gender fluidity. Are they wrong?
"I believe all trans people" while having a biological gender essentialist belief is not possible.
This is the basis for literally all cyberpunk and transhumanist takes on gender as the elimination of biological limitations turns the entire of sexuality into something of an avatar swap. If you've spent any time in VR, where some insight into behaviours of people and culture has played out, you start to get a sense for where this could go. What gender is that person with the smoke avatar? No gender. Which, for the record here, is a gender that a lot of people say they already are, which does not at all fit into the gender biological essentialism. You NEED to exclude people who say they have no gender at all (not non-binary, those with explicitly no gender) in order to fit this concept together.
I am not cis. Not sure why you've decided this, fucking disgusting response and the reason I waited days to bother responding to this tbh. The way this part of your response makes me feel is unlikely to ever go away when I see you elsewhere on this site, wtf were you thinking.
I want to say, once again, that this is a platitude. It does not fit into the view that you're taking. You genuinely can't believe all trans people while having this view.
Sorry I assumed you were cis. Nothing you said implied otherwise, you never talked about your experience with gender and referred to trans people in a way that made it sound like you weren't a part of them. This conversation isn't going to go anywhere because you are insistent on telling me what I believe and don't care when I say otherwise. I don't believe in all that stuff you said I do. I will know to avoid the topic of gender when I see you on this website in the future as well. Goodbye.
What I'm telling you is that you're stating things that are incompatible views.
You can't "believe all trans people" while explicitly saying that you disagree with trans people who say they have no gender, or trans people that say they are not gender fluid and very much feel like they can and have changed gender at a later point in life.
These are not compatible things. One of these things MUST be untrue.
You want to by hyper-inclusive and nice to all people, I get that you don't want to exclude people which is why you are saying "I believe all trans people" (because you're not a bad person). But at the same time you are stating a position that is not open to a certain position, largely for good reasons, you are defensive about how it could be used to harm us and have a naturally protective reaction that wants to reject the very idea of it because of the danger it also opens us up to. This has explicitly been the only reason you've presented for opposing it "this could be used to argue in favour of conversion therapy" - purely a position taken from a trans activism perspective. What I am trying to get at is that you shouldn't approach this from the trans activism position but rather than from a philosophical perspective analysing gender.
Doing a "I don't wanna talk to you anymore" doesn't make any of the things I've pointed out here any less true. You can't hold incompatible positions simultaneously. They need to be more deeply examined.
I certainly can believe all trans people are trans while not believing that they are necessarily correct about their views of when or how they became trans. I simply don't necessarily believe every aspect of the narrative they tell about their gender. People aren't that self aware.
You believe they're trans but don't believe their stated gender? So you want? Secretly misgender them inside your head?
I'm being intentionally uncharitable here because I don't think you've examined this and really think you should. I do not think you're a bad person, just that you haven't yet examined these contradictions.
... Jesus. You're
... Did I say I don't believe their stated gender?
You're being extremely obnoxious about what you perceived to be a contradiction because you keep making shit up about what I believe. I already told you I didn't want to continue this discussion twice. I would rather not block you but this is getting ridiculous.
Yes. You did. When you reworded your "I believe all trans people" to "believe all trans people are trans" you did that explicitly because you were highlighting believing them on the trans part but not on the rest.
If you don't believe that they are not genderfluid, or that they are genderless (because you believe that gender is biologically intrinsic), then you do not believe their stated gender.
... Are you being intentionally obtuse? I never fucking said I don't believe in a gender or gender fluidity. I keep saying I do and you keep saying I don't. The only reason haven't just blocked your ass and moved on is because I know you are generally a good faith poster from experience... Not the rest? Are you fucking serious? Please, try not to be this way. This is embarrassing.
I believe they are trans and that they are the gender they say they are (or have no gender), and I believe they can be fluid or not or anywhere between. Why the hell you think otherwise is your own evidently terrible reading comprehension.
I don't believe they are correct if they say they were made trans by external forces. That is IT. I said I don't necessarily believe very aspect of their narrative about how they became trans because people generally aren't that self aware. I had a conversation with a trans person in this very thread where they said they believed they were made trans and by the end of it they realized they were wrong. And I didn't at any point tell them that their gender was wrong or that they weren't trans, because I would never do that.
This is the last time I'm going to bother with you: Quote two statements I made that contradict, not via your own special interpretation but statements I have made and will defend, or kindly leave me alone. Stop being a fucking troll.
Edit: fwiw my app doesn't show display names or I would have probably assumed you were trans. Sorry about thinking you were cis. Sorry if this gives you dysphoria when you see my username in the future. Feel absolutely more than free to just block me to prevent that. If you come back with the same tired shit I will be blocking you after this. Oh, and feel free to block @june@hexbear.net as well as I might start using that soon.
I don't know what part of this youis being misunderstood so I'm trying to simplify and make clear.
People with NO gender are not the same as people who are genderfluid or non-binary or binary.
If your position is that gender is biologically intrinsic, you are absolutely excluding people with the absence of gender.
If you still believe those people are trans, but do not believe their interpretation is correct, then you do not believe their stated lack of gender.
These are roughly the things I'm trying to get across here. This is where the contradiction I am raising lies.
Ah. So you're misunderstanding what I mean by it being biological in nature. It being biological doesn't mean that there are only two or anything like that. Gender, physical sex, and sexuality, (and probably damn near everything that goes in to who a person is) is on a multiaxal spectrum and people inhabit different areas of this. Those different areas appear to be determined by processes during fetal development. You can be born without sexuality but it is also biological in nature. Does this clarify the confusion here?
This chart concerns me. Are you saying that "being masculine" and "being feminine" are biological? Not just gender? Can you define "being masculine" and "being feminine" without being gender-essentialist?
I'm veering off a bit, because we weren't talking about masculinity or femininity at all a moment ago, but these are 100% socially created things and to argue about them from a biological perspective requires being a gender-essentialist.
If not, I would err away from "masculine" and "feminine" as descriptors of gender itself.
Ugh. Seriously? It's just a chart attempting to simplify people's gender identity and I even said I see it as more 3D and complex than it is. I'm not going to discuss the merits of the chart. I deleted the whole part about the stupid chart because it doesn't matter and I don't care to defend it.
This conversation is over. You pivoted because you know your baseless accusations have been disproven. In the future, try not to be such an annoying asshole when you simply don't understand someone else's viewpoint. Goodbye.
I veered off because it seems like a bigger issue, I was gonna come back around. It's a conversation it's how conversation usually tends to work when it's just two people talking to one another rather than reddit culture debate bro shit or the soapboxing people do where they talk past someone to the audience instead of to the person they're actually responding to.
Are people born inherently feminine or masculine or not ? It being 3d doesn't seem to matter here but rather that feminine and masculine being a component of gender at all forces me to ask the question. Either the answer is yes which is all kinds of fucked up, or the answer is no and we've found a component of gender that you agree is socially created.
We're talking about an imagined person whose internality we have access to. If you acknowledge that, within the assumptions of your own ideology, there could be people that are "likely not trans", that means essentially that there is an array of different possible stipulated people and some of them are trans, but most of them aren't. Another way to put it is that, if you said you were "80% sure" that someone wasn't trans that means, depending on certain unknown variables that actually determine the truth of that guess, there are 20 possible worlds where they are trans and 80 where they aren't.
All this to say, based on what you expressed ideologically originally and even in your refutation, it is consistent to stipulate a self-identified trans person who you identify as not trans, even if you would never tell a person that in real life (out of respect, because it involves information you can't access, etc.). Does that make sense? I feel like I got a little bogged down in adjectives, but I felt obliged to explain myself further given the "Excuse you".
The judgement of whether or not someone is trans is if they say they are. I frankly don't understand what I said that makes you think I think it is acceptable for anyone to dictate someone's gender or whether or not they are really trans, but I absolutely don't believe that. I edited my original comment with a clarification.
The story sounds inauthentic to the trans experience and I think they made it up. I don't think the OP isn't trans, I think their made up story doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
The leading theory for what causes people to be trans (or gay for that matter) is hormonal fluctuations at critical points of fetal development. So we are born this way. People can be gender fluid as well, and they may have a different relationship with their gender(s) than I since I am not.
The evidence for this is really poor, the entire field of the hormonal theory of sexuality (and gender) is garbage
There's lots of good literature on transmedicalism
Anyway someone who subscribed to that theory would say that a micropenis would be consistent with low fetal testerone and this story would be readily believable by them - far more than a trans woman who was born with a macropenis.
No someone wouldn't, because a core tenet of that theory is the critical points part, there is a separate point that influenced genital development and a separate point that influenced mental gender development.
I see. I neglected an interpretation and it was important. So if someone says, for example and not necessarily making assertions about the OOP, that "I'm trans because I was born with a micropenis and that fuckin' sucks," your internal response would be "This person is trans, but doesn't understand why they are trans." [Or that it is likely that they don't understand, and see what I said before about this implying it is true of some hypothetical people]
Is that a more fair representation of your view?
(I put this under the wrong comment at first somehow, but also I was partly using information from that one)
Yes, exactly.
The word "likely" is just me acknowledging the potential for this view of trans people as being born trans, which is based on research, could change as more research is done.