different approaches and explanations of transgender

[BunnyBee]

While I agree with the op quite a lot, especially in the sense that I do consider myself to simply be a woman born into a difficult situation that I am trying to correct.   However, I don't think fixing this issue is exactly like having heart surgery.   Being trans carries more weight than "heart patient," it informs too much of our past, too much of what we carry with us and defines too much of who we are and will become because of going through this experience.

It is more like being blind, or ADHD, or those kinds of things you can be born with.  Not that it is necessarily a disability like those examples, but that having this condition is worthy of an adjective, especially (only?) when it's relevant to the conversation.  When you think of adjectives you use with people (e.g., rich, asian, blind, middle-class, 26 year old, happy, etc.) you see words that give you information about what to expect from a person before you ever meet them, and the better ones give you an idea of the kinds of experiences they may have had in the past and how those things may have shaped them and their worldwiew .

To me, "trans" is a perfectly acceptable adjective.  Woman is the noun, it is who I am, and there are a ton of adjectives you can use with me, trans is one of them.  I don't love the term, etymologically, or even how it sounds, so I would be open to a new one if you can think of a good one that you can get to catch on.  Let me also say that I don't love the social dynamic that comes with people knowing this about me, so it's not an adjective I use with myself except for here and a few other places where I feel it is appropriate.

I dislike the term transgender (for myself) because, first of all, people use it as a noun a lot, you see people say "I am transgender," you will never see me say that.  Being trans is not my identity, my identity is FEMALE, period.  Also transgender is also such a misnomer for my personal situation—I am not transitioning my gender, my gender just is whatever, I am transitioning my sex and the role in which I am living.

[vegie271]

problem is when you go out and see people. people who have seen you before will know that something has changed. they will want to ask questions at some point.
it's not something that is avoidable unless you plan on moving town.
The thing is, I accept myself as I am, that much is true. and I don't really care to convince anybody. but I do care about the relationships I have with the people around me.
people will have issues, that much is a given. the way I have approached this is to help other people to understand. many men will see it as a betrayal, and other men will be confused and some women will also see it as odd.
people who see a man suddenly become a woman, will struggle with it. but people who realise that somebody they thought of s one way is actually another way, it's a difference in perspective and more likely to gain acceptance among those I care about.

in actuality, the changes I want in my life are for me. they aren't to effect how others see me.  I don't plan to change my hobbies or the clothes i normally wear. not as a habit anyhow.  but there will be differences and I think that by helping people to feel comfortable with what they are presented with, it will help my social circles to remain largely intact.

Actually I did transition in a small town of 105 people and they accepted me fine, it was when I openly moved to a larger city of about 800,000 that I had hate crimes commited against me.

I will be moving to another city of closer to a million and I am planning on being totally stealth there

This is something I can accomplish as I have a very good appearance , I do like the female presentation

[Lesley_Roberta]

I consider myself quite the word smith.

I also long for a better word, a less baggage word.

It eludes me though.

[BunnyBee]

I consider myself quite the word smith.

I also long for a better word, a less baggage word.

It eludes me though.

I wish for the same

[Yuki-jker86]

What you are describing is more something that would happen if you transition. If you don't visibly change, most people will not ever, ever, ever see you as a woman. Even when you transition hormonally, they still might not. But I am pretty sure unless you have the most progressive friends in the world that just telling them won't change much if you have no plans to transition. They will think it's a phase or that you are not really serious. The one thing I hear over and over again about transsexuals from people is the say "it must be true of you would go thru all of that. it's so courageous." They are talking about transitioning and surgery.

This is especially true if you don't plan on changing a single thing. I think people will be fine and completely okay with what you tell them because you are not taking any steps. it's taking hormones and visibly changing that causes problmes. Not the coming out in and of itself.

I feel like you're not hearing me.
I'm talking about perspective and terminology.
it's not a question of *if I will transition* it's a question of how to view the process of changing one's body to reflect the opposite of what has been presented up until now. many people see it as a change of one's sex. I'm viewing it as a correction of one's body; the sex was never a problem just the way the body has built itself.  That is what I am saying.
whether that is correct or not...  seems to be a bit of debate to be had.

@carrie_liz, yes this is something i have been reading about. unfortunately it's not always as simple as xx or xy.  we have occurrences of xxy or xyy etc. I'm not sure exactly how much research has been done into this but some of the studies I have seen are inconclusive. it seems that sexual selections is about more than simple xx or xy.

[Yuki-jker86]

Actually I did transition in a small town of 105 people and they accepted me fine, it was when I openly moved to a larger city of about 800,000 that I had hate crimes commited against me.

I will be moving to another city of closer to a million and I am planning on being totally stealth there

This is something I can accomplish as I have a very good appearance , I do like the female presentation

that's awesome
I hope I have a similar experience.

@Jen you bring up some great points! yes there is a necessity to have some way to explain to people that we don't have the same life experience as others of our gender/sex.  Well I have already had my own share of troubles with having to explain about things to people. I've had a lot of trouble being discriminated against in the past due to my dyslexia. people assume that I can't spell or that I can't read or numerous other things but when it comes to the things I actually have difficulty with, they behave as if I'm lying.
I have hunted for a different term to use so people don't make these assumptions. it's tough.
I feel that when it comes to trans, it's gonna be a similar issue. people will make assumptions. I don't want people to make assumptions about me so I don't want to give them that opportunity. I don't want people to look at me and think "that girl was/is a dude". which is why I want to flip it. in other words I want people to not think of me as the guy they met who decided to become a girl. I will try to ensure they think of me as the girl they met and thought was a guy for a long time.

I want to be more sympathetic to the gender spectrum so I apologise for the binary nature of how I am approaching this. In a sense it is binary, a stick with two ends and people at varying points along the stick or floating off the stick entirely. I personally feel my approach is ok but as others don't feel it is ok, I need to ask you to forgive me ^_^;

I think about this at the moment... in the sitcom "how I met your mother" the character Robin was brought up by her father as a boy, he always wanted a boy and couldn't accept that she was a girl. in a sense, she spent her childhood without being able to experience the things girls would normally experience. it's not quite the same but I think we can draw some parallels?

[BunnyBee]

You're describing the advantages of stealth and the disadvantages of disclosure.  It's a personal choice really, and for most it is an evolving one.  However you feel today is very likely to be different from how you feel 5 years from now, which will be different from how you feel 15 years from then.

Anyway, a lot of people do a sort of hybrid and sort of pick and choose who they tell, because there really are rare people that get it and don't treat you differently once they know and it's nice to be able to be somewhat open with things with some people.  Bottling it all up all the time can be hard.  But then you get hurt once and it's back to not saying anything.  There are little tricks of semantics you can play to describe your past in a way that doesn't give it away without technically lying.  I find this helps a little sometimes.  It sounds like what you are doing here.  There is nothing wrong with it.  Just be prepared for things to evolve with how you handle things in time.  Or not, some people never do say anything, leave behind ALL of their past, and create a wholly new life forevs.

[Joanna Dark]

I feel like you're not hearing me.
I'm talking about perspective and terminology.
it's not a question of *if I will transition* it's a question of how to view the process of changing one's body to reflect the opposite of what has been presented up until now. many people see it as a change of one's sex. I'm viewing it as a correction of one's body; the sex was never a problem just the way the body has built itself.  That is what I am saying.
whether that is correct or not...  seems to be a bit of debate to be had.

I was under the impression that you don't want to ever transition. That's why I thought what I thought. If I was wrong, that changes everything. What I was saying is People are just not going to accept a male bodied person who wears male clothes and enjoys being male, as a female. I'm confused again. Are you planning on transition? Words do matter. We catergorize things to bring order into the world and so people can see and celebrate both our differences and similarities.

I'm confused as to what you are trying to accomlish because it sounds like you are going to tell all your friends that you are in fact female but have no plans to transition or present as such. Nothing wrong with that. But I think that will be hard.

I apologize if I misread you or have offended you. Not my intention. Perhaps you should see a gender therapist. The good people of this forum can only offer so much help.

[Nicolette]

I was under the impression that you don't want to ever transition.

Alas, this is the whole point of this exercise. It is to twist the definition of transition out of existence. It is a game of semantics, to give trangenderism a whole more 'palatable' veneer to be served up to friends, family and acquaintances. It all practicability, we're still discussing a bog standard vanilla transition. You still end up at point B with all the same ramifications that may ensue. In fact, many who have already been through the whole process may take umbrage with this approach.

[Yuki-jker86]

I disagree and because of a very good reason.
many trans women will say that they have always felt like a woman/girl inside. the real question is, what determines if we are man or woman?  (i'm just saying from my perspective i think it apply to trans men as well )
is it what a doctor says as we come out of our mother? or is it something else.
to me, the whole concept of transitioning suggests that we were that sex from the moment the doctor uttered the words 'boy' or 'girl'.
is that how people see it here?
that you were unconditionally the sex that the doctor labelled you?  because if so, then transitioning is definitely the right term. if however, you feel that the doctor was wrong, then there is no 'transition' to be done. there is only medical correction of a long lasting deformity. 
I'm not trying to wipe the term out of existence. but I think for many people who feel they ere that other sex to start off with and just got a really big mistake handed to them, why should they have to accept a term that tells them the doctor was right?
I don't believe it is just semantics. I believe it is as big a part of our identity as what we say about ourselves now.
what we say about our past selves wil lalso have a big bearing on who we are.
saying "I was a boy, but now I'm a girl" is different from saying "I was labelled a boy and looked like a boy, but I was really always a girl".

[Yuki-jker86]

I'm confused again. Are you planning on transition?

nope! 

because, let me be very careful how I say this. If I were to transition, I would be changing my sex from what it is to the opposite.
so, if I am to say here right now, that I am a woman (with the appearance and body of a man), then if I transition, then I will become a man.
if the determination of our sex is defined by our body then *what we feel like* is wrong. the correct course of action would be psychotherapy to correct these faulty thoughts and feelings. I feel that the term trans and transitioning is a betrayal in that sense.

if we continue to label and be labelled as people who are mentally/emotionally broken, what does that achieve for each of us? surely it is our desire to emphasise that it is the body that is wrong, not the mind heart and soul?

so, no, I will never transition, I may opt for SRS and I plan to start HRT but I will never transition.  it would be a betrayal of who I am.

[Renee]

The doctor is declaring your physical sex at the time of birth, which usually can be determined by what sort of genitals you have in the vast majority of cases. Most transpeople have the proper karyotype for their birth sex and to try and tell people that is wrong isn't going to get you far with most. Its better to gain acceptance through reasonable explanations than to try and tell them things that fly in the face of their own reasoning and their lifetime of observation, not to mention general medical knowledge of what sex is.

To me, that like telling someone that the color they are seeing isn't really blue, but pink, and that they just aren't seeing things as they should be. you will likely end up with more opposition than agreement and that's not going to foster acceptance at all.

There is nothing wrong with the term transitioning and honestly, it is what it is. Especially if one has had any sort of successful male life beforehand, had children, etc. despite the feelings of being wrong bodied.

If you want to keep some of the stigma of "mental illness" out of it, then be reasonable with people, explain it with ideas that they can actually understand and doesn't fly in the face of common reason. you will get much further with them as far as acceptance goes.

[Lesley_Roberta]

Semantics battles are often a never won fight

Here is a question.

You say you 'feel' like a girl, regardless of the body you are in. How do you know what a girl 'feels' like?

What is it to 'feel' like a girl?

If you have always 'felt' like a girl, how do you actually know that is how a girl 'feels'?

Have you eve 'felt' like a boy, and thus can know the difference?

What does it 'feel' like to be a boy though?

How do you know that is how boys 'feel'?

I have spent a life time surrounded by males and females, and yet, how do I actually know what the boys and the girls are 'feeling'?

They can describe their feelings, but, that's like describing something that has to actually be felt. Feelings are not a sound, and not a sight, so describing them with words we hear or things we see, might have no point.

One day, I realized, I don't have a male and a female in my mind, it's just me in there, and part of me was merely a confused portion of me trying to be something I wasn't all based on observations, perceptions and stuff I was told. In truth, I have never felt any other way, and I choose to call that female, because that is how I feel.

During sex, my body's sex organs operate in the fashion they must. They are what they are. And if I get the operation, well they will look different, but they will have remained attached to me all the time during the procedures I have watched. They will have been modified, but, the parts, they are always mine. In the end they will still be mine. And after some recovery, they will likely feel the same way if I indulge them. They will function slightly differently of course. There won't be any cliche male finishing though, as some parts are ditched in the process. The on button remains though.

Telling me I am still a male even after an operation, is really just a reflection of an attitude that some in society require. We have people in society though that demand and believe in a wide range of things, and some of it absolutely idiotic, some merely unprovable and some just due to being plain stubborn.

I am not the planet I live on, the country I live in, house I live in, I am not the car I drive in and I am not the body my mind sits in.
I am a person, I call myself Lesley so that you can distinguish me from a person standing next to me in a conversation.
I am not a letter on a credit card, nor a code on a birth certificate.
I am not a lot of things society forces on me without my permission.

I know who I am.
I don't know why I am, but I at least know who I am.

[Yuki-jker86]

Here is a question.

You say you 'feel' like a girl, regardless of the body you are in. How do you know what a girl 'feels' like?

What is it to 'feel' like a girl?

If you have always 'felt' like a girl, how do you actually know that is how a girl 'feels'?

Have you eve 'felt' like a boy, and thus can know the difference?

What does it 'feel' like to be a boy though?

How do you know that is how boys 'feel'?

You're absolutely right, I don't know how it feels to be boy or girl, I only know how it feels to be me.

I guess what I am driving at is this; people who are aware of me as I am now and will see me change, those people will hold an opinion of me. they will consider me to be a man. they will think of me as a man who betrayed the notion of 'manhood'. I don't want that.
my own opinion of myself is more important. I don't want to think of myself as a man who betrayed his gender and defected. If I were to 'accept' that i was always meant to be a man and that I am defective, how does that effect my self esteem? we make our lives what they are. we own our world view. do I believe that my body is defective or that my personality is defective? I don't believe that various science studies has the right to tell me about my identity and which part of me is wrong.
If I allow myself to be labelled as somebody who has a mind that is abnormal, then I may as well not be alive. I may as well curl up in a ball and just waste away.

the way I see it, my feelings and emotions tell me how I want to be. If I want to be a way that is female, then I am female. genetics etc, are not clear cut and scientists are always learning more about genetic variance. a lot of the tests that were carried out to try and explain '->-bleeped-<-' are incomplete. one test included a group of cis men and a group of trans women, that was it. what about the group of cis women? how can they possibly do a proper study if they only compare trans women to cis men? that is prejudicial from the get go.
people assume that sex is determined by xx or xy.  evidently it's not that simple. I don't see why we ought to be forced to conform to this archaic concept?
in my view labelling a person as trans is only one step beyond the binary male female system.

edit:
just linking to this article as one example of how things are not so simple. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgen_insensitivity_syndrome

[StellaB]

I'm okay with there being different approaches and explanations about being trans. I mean, it's not like there's a One True Way or a Major Path that anyone has to follow. We are all individuals..

We all have that opportunity to define what it is to be trans for ourselves and often that can be the determining factor. Sure there can be a lot of stigma connected with the word trans but stigma is only important for people who can't get past the labels and their own preconceived notions and assumptions.

Me? I'm cool with being trans, I'm still female and the trans part qualifies how and why I'm female. You can explain it however which way you like but I feel what you have to bear in mind is that people generally will hear what they want to hear and the rest won't register. However after many years of explaining I've quit explaining, I just am, and I've discovered it doesn't make that much difference.

[Yuki-jker86]

Me? I'm cool with being trans, I'm still female and the trans part qualifies how and why I'm female. You can explain it however which way you like but I feel what you have to bear in mind is that people generally will hear what they want to hear and the rest won't register. However after many years of explaining I've quit explaining, I just am, and I've discovered it doesn't make that much difference.

yeah good point.
people hear what they wanna hear.

I think this is more about my own perception of myself rather than anybody else.

[aleon515]

I tend to think of it slightly differently 'cause of what I know about the science behind it.
Basically,
I was a male embryo. Genetics were male, so I should have been.
But something went wrong in utero, and I was flooded with female hormones - leading in turn to a female mind and sense of existence.
The mind being the ruler of the body, I am thus compelled to make things right - not by changing my Self, but by changing my Shell. This is the only way in our broken world I can truly be complete.

Of course if the mind is the ruler of the body you could look at it this way: You were (since I am male it wouldn't apply) supposed to be female hormone bath, so obviously there was an error about which embryo you got. (Funny thing though re: embryos is that all embryos start out female. They switch on to male at a certain point in development-- why males have nipples, the hormone isn't turned on yet-- so all males are FTM, you just should not have done the first transition.


--Jay

[Carrie Liz]

Of course if the mind is the ruler of the body you could look at it this way: You were (since I am male it wouldn't apply) supposed to be female hormone bath, so obviously there was an error about which embryo you got. (Funny thing though re: embryos is that all embryos start out female. They switch on to male at a certain point in development-- why males have nipples, the hormone isn't turned on yet-- so all males are FTM, you just should not have done the first transition.


--Jay

I actually spent a lot of time in high school thinking this exact same thing... feeling like my biology and pre-natal hormones had poisoned me and turned me into someone that I'm not, and that I was just wishing that I could go back to the "default" state of human existence.

[Nicolette]

yeah good point.
people hear what they wanna hear.

I think this is more about my own perception of myself rather than anybody else.

Having your own personal perception is fine. If you're going to physically metamorphose then some explanation may be needed. How will a doctor know what treatment to provide you if you supply them some obfuscated or very personal explanation of your condition? Ultimately, they will have to categorise you as trans* before they can legally proceed. Convincing family and acquaintances that you are not actually 'trans', in the face of all physical evidence, will prove extremely difficult.

[annawilliams]

I just created this account to engage in this very discussion with everyone in the trans community. With that said, I would like to make a quick and well-meaningful introduction by saying hello to everyone of all gender-identities.

I also want to apologize in advance for skimming through and not reading every single post thoroughly in this thread before making this lengthy post; but I sympathize completely to the original posters feelings. I just don't agree that some of these approaches and terms accurately portray the very circumstance I share with all of you. I really think a lot of this should be some-how amended.

Some of the popular terms we use make themselves available to consequently dehumanize, trivialize, and restrict our gender-identities. A lot of these words are also incredibly sensationalized and deeply stigmatized.

Maybe it's just me, but even after all the progression in the media towards accurately portraying the trans community, I really do get the impression that a lot of the terms we use to identify our circumstances, have became virtually synonymous to the concept of 'a man who want to be a woman' or 'woman who changed into a man' to our general population.

I have a problem with any term that either implies this or has this connotation. The notion it-self inherently invalidates those of us with binary-identities, while disrespectfully erasing those of us with non-binary identities. However, I want to point out that the labels used by the medical community are the most problematic. 'gender identity disorder' or 'gender dysphoria' are words that blatantly work against our sense of self.

Are we as persons not aware that we are our minds and that is what defines who we are individually? Do we as persons not consider our bodies as nothing more than our most personalized possession? These labels created by the cis-centic medical community do not follow this concept at all. Instead they objectify and de-personify us by worshiping our bodily possessions.

The medical community understands that just because someone is born with ambiguous genitals, their sense of being male or female isn't subject to their bodies; they are even aware that their gender-identities could fall anywhere between genders; Why the hell does this concept suddenly change when it comes to our circumstances???

The gender identities of those born with ambiguous genitals aren't any more 'out of place' than ours. I think we need terminology that strenuously reflect the issue of our bodies not aligning to our birth-given identities, as opposed to the issue of our identities not aligning to our birth given bodies the way gender dysphoria and gender identity disorder implies.

I really think these inherit implications and connotations of some of these popular terms may be the root of the social-political problems concerning trans people today.

* Edited to deblockify the text, isn't it much easier to read and understand now?