mentally " male" or mentally " female "

[Violet Bloom]

Fun fact:  Reading this thread while you're still trying to sort everything out in your head is a terrible idea.  Yay, downward spiral of self-doubt!

Queue upward spiral of self-affirmation!

A question for our Aussie friends - Do these downward and upward spirals spin the opposite direction in the southern hemisphere?

[suzifrommd]

See, we're calling on the world to behave a certain way. We ask them to pronoun us as female, treat us and regard us the way any female would expect to be treated and regarded.

I wonder, sometimes, if people's cooperation (such as it is) comes from the "trapped" metaphor. They hear stories of women trapped in men's bodies. The thought of being trapped scares people, so when we describe our dysphoria in that way, they respond by (as they see it) helping us out of our trap.

Would people be just as cooperative if the public metaphor changes? If transgendered stories proliferate of people who don't feel trapped in the wrong body, MtF's who never felt female at all, just an intense sense they would present more naturally in a female body?

Don't know the answer to these questions, but they do make me think.