Is transition necessary, why/why not?

[sad panda]

I'm afraid all this research is really in its infancy. (Though, yes, differences between homosexual and hetero brains have been found since 1991.) Another 20 years and we may start getting some answers as to what makes us as we are.

From my perspective, it proved the need for further research into the subject. That there is "something" there, but we don't yet know what it is, or how it works, or why. I never believe that a lack of information is positive. I'm an information junkie.

And I have no interest in "proving" transsexualism. That is kind of an absurd concept really. I exist, ergo transsexualism exists. The end. I just would like to understand it better.

Yeah, I just don't understand when people link that and say, look, it's proven!! I feel like, yeah, again, that just distracts from the fact that people deserve to be happy, however they choose, and not to have to explain it at all. I think that is what's most i portant. Why do people need to know why?

Not that it hurts, but it's definitely not the only reason to give trans people the freedom they deserve

[Ltl89]

Yeah, I just don't understand when people link that and say, look, it's proven!! I feel like, yeah, again, that just distracts from the fact that people deserve to be happy, however they choose, and not to have to explain it at all. I think that is what's most i portant. Why do people need to know why?

Not that it hurts, but it's definitely not the only reason to give trans people the freedom they deserve

I think most people feel they need to cling to it because otherwise they are forced to change by others.  For example, my mom was quite serious about me going to reparative therapy at a point to fix both my gender and sexuality "problems".  I even know someone in my personal life that had to do this for being trans.  It's the same thing with being gay.  People just are.  You can't program one to change even if there is no real answer out there, but without a medical reaons it can b seen as something that is correctable or a disorder of some sort.  Saying born this way allows to combat that stuff. 

And then there is the fact that for many of us in the lgbt community it feels like we were made this way.  Like we couldn't change it and we always just were.  I feel that way myself, though I will never claim to know why any of us happen to be trans.  It's pretty much the same thing with the rest of the lgbt community.  Who knows, but it shouldn't matter either way. 

[Edge]

I have a vested interest in knowing the cause of transsexualism because a) I'm a brain fanboy, b) I'm sick of people thinking I'm dumb enough to try to fit into an illogical, arbitrary stereotype, and c) I'm sick of the transphobic idea that we don't need to transition, will get better with some reparative therapy, and that we are wrong for feeling the way we do about our bodies.
Nothing is ever "proven" in science. That's not the way it works. We can, however, make inferences due to the knowledge we have so far. True, we need to do more studies, but the knowledge we've learned so far is still knowledge. It doesn't disappear just because we want more.

[Colleen♡Callie]

Regardless, at the end, it's still you. The essence of you as a person. Truthfully, it won't end the dysphoria, I don't believe. It may..impair it. But if you're too obsessed with having a female identical body, again, you'll never be happy no matterf who you are. You could be fricken Carmen Carerra like I said. And still feel incomplete. Because, in a way, if your goal is a seamless transition to the other sex, you always will be...no matter how passable, no matter how pretty, no matter how many pills, surgeries etc.

I think the only way for a trans person to be happy is to forget gender altogether. Find the spot that's most comfortable and then let it go. Be you. Be a person. Be Colleen. And look at your body and say...this is what you've got. Sure amake any upgrades you want if thats what you think you need but at the end accept and love it regardless because it's yours, and it's all you've got for this time around.

PM me if you wana talk and hang in there boo!

The forgetting and ignoring, that was my coping mechanism.   It doesn't stop the dysphoria.  It may work for you, and I hope it does, but it didn't for me. 

Also as I've said before, transitioning is a hope of finding peace and being happy for once.  Of being allowed to be Colleen, without being called out anytime I relax and stop trying to act male, because god forbid my natural mannerisms happen to more feminine than masculine, and the taboo that that is.  It is not an expectation to be identical to a ciswoman.  If I gave the impression I was saying that was the reason I was transitioning, then I'm sorry, that's not at all what I meant.

The reason I'm transitioning now at 30 and not sooner, despite knowing what I was by the time I was 10, is because all the other coping mechanisms I've employed all my life have failed.  This is my last option.  I genuinely like who I am.  Took years to build myself up and repair the damage done to reach that point of self-acceptance and love.  Didn't stop the pain and discomfort of not having your brain and body line up.  Transitioning brings the body closer to being inline with your identity, and for many, enough to trick the brain into feeling the body matches, thus greatly reducing or even, for some, getting rid of the dysphoria on a daily, constant basis.

That is all I hope for.  Relief, and peace and freedom.

I get the impression, and might be wrong, apologies I am, that you define dysphoria as a body image issue.  While that is a true and valid definition, it can be other things as well.  For me and others, it's the discomfort and pain of the brain expecting to feel one body, and getting the signals from another.  An amputee can learn to accept and love who they are now, missing limb and all, but doing so doesn't magically stop the phantom pains they experience.  Amplify that phantom pain to be your whole body and it can become unbearable.  It is a somatosensory issue as much, or more so than a visual issue.

[sad panda]

I think most people feel they need to cling to it because otherwise they are forced to change by others.  For example, my mom was quite serious about me going to reparative therapy at a point to fix both my gender and sexuality "problems".  I even know someone in my personal life that had to do this for being trans.  It's the same thing with being gay.  People just are.  You can't program one to change even if there is no real answer out there, but without a medical reaons it can b seen as something that is correctable or a disorder of some sort.  Saying born this way allows to combat that stuff. 

And then there is the fact that for many of us in the lgbt community it feels like we were made this way.  Like we couldn't change it and we always just were.  I feel that way myself, though I will never claim to know why any of us happen to be trans.  It's pretty much the same thing with the rest of the lgbt community.  Who knows, but it shouldn't matter either way.

Just saying.. reparative therapy is... dumb. It has no merit if it doesn't make the patient happier, and it never did. So combatting that with born this way is giving legitimacy to an attack that shouldn't have happened in the first place. People who say people shouldn't have the right to transition are bigots, and they deserve to be treated like bigots. Don't accept the burden of defending yourself from that. Everybody owns their body and deserves to do what they want with it. Everyone deserves to be themselves and express their personality and to have access to equal opportunities to do that. Trans people are valid because they are. Because they deserve to be happy and to do what makes them happy, and if you make it so they need to have a medical condition to deserve it, you are just throwing people with no medical condition, who are still unhappy, under the bus. When the whole time, nobody even knows pretty much anything about the underlying biology in the first place, and nobody even knows that they have a medical condition. it just.. doesn't matter, and it's actually a really problematic and irresponsible assumption for a lot of social groups.

(I am not ranting at you btw... just trying to put how i feel out there... this topic makes me kinda upset cuz i just get so frustrated by prejudiced people... ugh)

[Nero]

Yeahh, I think we're getting too hung up on the cause. Regardless, it's something that takes place within your head right? Maybe physical maybe mental. Who cares. The cause doesnt matter i shoulda left that out, i was trying to avoid people bringing up to say "well this meaans blah bla" by saying it first.

It's the thoughts and feelings that are distressing, in whatever case. That and how to deal with them is what needs to be addressed.

Sorry for derailing. 

As to the OP, for me it's a physical thing. And while I would be happier in a world without gender roles, I'm pretty sure I'd still be unhappy in the body I had before. It's weird for me, because I really don't care much about not having certain genitals. It's the secondary characteristics that bothered me. Now that my chest is flat as a pancake and I have beard growth - I just feel a lot more comfortable.

I can't really think of a more comfortable physical state for me to achieve (besides being forever young and immortal  ). I don't think changing my genitals would do anything for me. While I probably would have preferred to be a cis male with all the works at birth - I don't care about having a penis now that I've had a vagina. 

Anyway, I'm not much of a fan of either gender role. I'd rather be seen as male. But that's not perfect either. If I could pick the gender role for me, it'd be a mix. And there probably are people feeling pressured to transition because gender roles are so stifling. I'dve changed my body regardless however. I'm so much more comfortable. Showering isn't the hell it used to be. (seriously, it was like climbing Mt. Everest every time before).

[Ltl89]

Just saying.. reparative therapy is... dumb. It has no merit if it doesn't make the patient happier, and it never did. So combatting that with born this way is giving legitimacy to an attack that shouldn't have happened in the first place. People who say people shouldn't have the right to transition are bigots, and they deserve to be treated like bigots. Don't accept the burden of defending yourself from that. Everybody owns their body and deserves to do what they want with it. Everyone deserves to be themselves and express their personality and to have access to equal opportunities to do that. Trans people are valid because they are. Because they deserve to be happy and to do what makes them happy, and if you make it so they need to have a medical condition to deserve it, you are just throwing people with no medical condition, who are still unhappy, under the bus. When the whole time, nobody even knows pretty much anything about the underlying biology in the first place, and nobody even knows that they have a medical condition. it just.. doesn't matter, and it's actually a really problematic and irresponsible assumption for a lot of social groups.

(I am not ranting at you btw... just trying to put how i feel out there... this topic makes me kinda upset cuz i just get so frustrated by prejudiced people... ugh)

Agreed.  I don't think there is a need to defend it like that.  I couldn't care less if someone was born gay, became gay or chose to be gay.  All of them are valid.  Same thing with trans.  It's just that people are going to use born this way to say it's a natural thing and thus there is no need to correct.  Sadly, I think it makes it harder to help non-binaries and those who are outside of the general trans narrative for this reason.  Really my own philosophy on life is to "do as thou wilt".  I interpret it differently than it was meant, but the idea of follow your own heart is all that really matters.  As for bigotry, I'm sad exists as well, but it always will.  Really everyone should just be themselves and follow their heart, but people love to control others.  There is no right way to be a man or woman though people will always attempt to dictate other people's lives.

That being said, I really do encourage research and mental health professionals to find out potential causes in the future.  Maybe it's more diverse and differs person to person.  Really, there is no sure thing.  While I felt this since I was young, maybe my messed up childhood was part of the problem.  Maybe I could have been a normal "boy" if things went differently.  Maybe I was born this way?  I really don't know.  I just know who I am even though I'm plagued by the why.  I doubt there will ever be much of an answer though and that's okay. 

[jussmoi4nao]

I just...I actually never hated my body as a guy. Quite honestly I liked it a good bit tbh. I was never dysphoric about what I have or didn't have. I feel like my desire to be female, tho always there, really reared it's head over feeling like gender roles I felt like I could never live up to. I dunno, it's complicated.

[Edge]

Just because you don't have body dysphoria does not mean others don't. Telling us that we'll "never be happy" and confusing it with body dysmorphia is pretty insulting.
Also, just because some of you don't care about knowledge and learning, does not mean others don't. Some of us like knowledge and learning.

[Colleen♡Callie]

I don't think either were meant to be insulting Edge.

It is quite possible that there was a misunderstanding about how varied dysphoria can get, and by this discussion a better understanding of all it can entail has been achieved.  We all tend to define the world by how we experience it first, and require others to point out and show us how their experiences differ for us to expand our understanding of it.  As such I don't think any insult was meant, or intended, and the misunderstanding has been resolved.  There is no cause to get defensive.

[Inanna]

If genders weren't so distinguished from one another would transition be necessary? I'm sure thered be discomfort over feeling like we should be the opposite sex, but given the fact we can never have the internal plumbing of a biological female (or dude parts for FtMs), we could find coping mechanisms...and wouldn't that be preferable?

The way I see it, transition shouldn't be necessary, should it? I mean, yeah, it should be something we can do if we want to...but it shouldn't be something we have to feel is so necessary. And it shouldn't be so major.

I get where you're coming from, but...

Because we can't transition 100% to a biological sex doesn't take away that we can transition ~50% to a biological sex, and that's way more than a century ago.  If I was the last person on earth, I'd gladly take my 50% (hormones' cellular effects, breasts, vagina-shaped organ that feels and mostly functions like one).

If gender roles were non-existent and there weren't even words for "man" and "woman", I feel like I'd still prefer having soft skin, fun mounds on my chest and inward genitals.  

[Nero]

I just...I actually never hated my body as a guy. Quite honestly I liked it a good bit tbh. I was never dysphoric about what I have or didn't have. I feel like my desire to be female, tho always there, really reared it's head over feeling like gender roles I felt like I could never live up to. I dunno, it's complicated.

I guess I had a love/hate relationship with it. My body. The dysphoria never went away but everyone kept liking me for my looks. (Mostly face and tits - as the rest of me really wasn't very feminine.) I realized I was a guy way before I knew about transition. In the end, it was the physical stuff that drove me to it. I suppose people just have different triggers.

What was it about gender roles you felt you couldn't live up to?

[Inanna]

But if you're too obsessed with having a female identical body, again, you'll never be happy no matterf who you are. You could be fricken Carmen Carerra like I said. And still feel incomplete. Because, in a way, if your goal is a seamless transition to the other sex, you always will be...no matter how passable, no matter how pretty, no matter how many pills, surgeries etc.

Maybe it's unhealthy, but I embraced the desire to be fully biologically the right sex, and it drove me into biology and biotechnology.  I may not be completely content in the meantime, but if there's even a chance I can help the next generation of trans people, I'm content with my discontent.  That's well worth the sacrifice.

[Miss_Bungle1991]

What was it about gender roles you felt you couldn't live up to?

I know this wasn't directed at me, but I wanted to chime in here.

The main thing that annoyed me, screwed with my head, etc, was this whole friggin macho/Jock thing that my dad always tried to impose on me. Hell, if I had been a genetic male, I never could have lived up to that because it just wasn't me. I absolutely hated sports because that ultra competitive vibe that sucks people in totally destroyed what was supposed to be a fun kind of activity. I just didn't get it. Plus, that whole macho thing was just...ugh.

Sure, I've seen the same things with women (not macho, of course, just the other side of the same coin.)

But the combo of the crap that my dad was throwing at me, the gender dysphoria, the crap from my peers, it just made my life totally suck. (Expect for when I was alone in my room with my stereo.)

[Nero]

But if you're too obsessed with having a female identical body, again, you'll never be happy no matterf who you are. You could be fricken Carmen Carerra like I said. And still feel incomplete. Because, in a way, if your goal is a seamless transition to the other sex, you always will be...no matter how passable, no matter how pretty, no matter how many pills, surgeries etc.

Maybe it's unhealthy, but I embraced the desire to be fully biologically the right sex, and it drove me into biology and biotechnology.  I may not be completely content in the meantime, but if there's even a chance I can help the next generation of trans people, I'm content with my discontent.  That's well worth the sacrifice.

That's an interesting difference. I never really thought about it before. Because I had some pretty bad dysphoria. It doesn't really extend much to biology though. I'm pretty content with just having the secondary sex characteristics changed. I have some slight genital/sexual dysphoria and some regret at not being able to father a child. But nothing to write home about. I guess I'm lucky in a way.

[Inanna]

That's an interesting difference. I never really thought about it before. Because I had some pretty bad dysphoria. It doesn't really extend much to biology though. I'm pretty content with just having the secondary sex characteristics changed. I have some slight genital/sexual dysphoria and some regret at not being able to father a child. But nothing to write home about. I guess I'm lucky in a way.

Perhaps if I had started HRT before male puberty, secondary sex characteristics would've been enough to be content.  But T is such a powerful hormone compared to E.

[Nero]

That's an interesting difference. I never really thought about it before. Because I had some pretty bad dysphoria. It doesn't really extend much to biology though. I'm pretty content with just having the secondary sex characteristics changed. I have some slight genital/sexual dysphoria and some regret at not being able to father a child. But nothing to write home about. I guess I'm lucky in a way.

Perhaps if I had started HRT before male puberty, secondary sex characteristics would've been enough to be content.  But T is such a powerful hormone compared to E.

True. You mean because you were already changed so much by T?

[jussmoi4nao]

I guess I had a love/hate relationship with it. My body. The dysphoria never went away but everyone kept liking me for my looks. (Mostly face and tits - as the rest of me really wasn't very feminine.) I realized I was a guy way before I knew about transition. In the end, it was the physical stuff that drove me to it. I suppose people just have different triggers.

What was it about gender roles you felt you couldn't live up to?

Just everything. It's not like I didn't *want* to be female, regardless, because i did. It's more that I just didn't hate being male, per se, except when gender roles came into play. For instance...I had to sign up for selective service when I got a drivers permit and it made me feel like absolute crap. 10 days later I was back on hormones. It triggered me into dysphoria because I couldn't handle a traditionally 'manly' gender role that was being forced on me, even though id been employing coping mechanisms and finding peace in my body.

I guess it's true that dysphoria isdifferent for everyon

I was simply sharing my opinion. It's not like I'm not transitioning or I'm talking from the outside. Y'all (not yoy, FA, the others) could have shared your points of view without jumping down my throat like always cuz I wa trying really hard this time.

[BunnyBee]

I see people telling people they are delusional about this thing or that, but really it is probably just that we all aren't exactly the same, or in some cases even very similar.

I agree with Sarah, the physical transition is not only about how your body is shaped, it's everything--down to the chemicals.  That is what has eased dysphoria for me.  I mean I noticed it almost immediately after starting HRT, before any physical effects had happened, that my mind felt better.  I know that isn't everybody's experience, but it was definitely mine.

Looking like I do now also has allowed me to act like myself and insert myself into certain social roles without raising eyebrows, and that is a bonus, but not why I did it.  Same with being able to wear makeup and wear styles I love and look pretty, those things don't really do anything for my dysphoria per se, but they are super fun, and a really great cherry on top.  I am pretty feminine, but if I wasn't, I think I would still need to be a woman, for whatever reason.  Biological or otherwise.

[Nero]

I guess I had a love/hate relationship with it. My body. The dysphoria never went away but everyone kept liking me for my looks. (Mostly face and tits - as the rest of me really wasn't very feminine.) I realized I was a guy way before I knew about transition. In the end, it was the physical stuff that drove me to it. I suppose people just have different triggers.

What was it about gender roles you felt you couldn't live up to?

Just everything. It's not like I didn't *want* to be female, regardless, because i did. It's more that I just didn't hate being male, per se, except when gender roles came into play. For instance...I had to sign up for selective service when I got a drivers permit and it made me feel like absolute crap. 10 days later I was back on hormones. It triggered me into dysphoria because I couldn't handle a traditionally 'manly' gender role that was being forced on me, even though id been employing coping mechanisms and finding peace in my body.

I guess it's true that dysphoria isdifferent for everyon

Wow, thinking of you signing up for selective service doesn't even compute. I can see where that would be troubling. The male gender role is so stifling. There's definitely some good to the female gender role despite it being a 'lower status'. The ability to be weak or need help, show emotion. Not have to be strong when you're not, etc. The male gender role doesn't leave a lot in the way of being a human being behaviorally. And just being female has advantages - people are more likely to trust you, help you, give you a ride if you need one. People are so much less likely to aid a man. (probably why 99% of the people holding signs on the street for food are male, at least in my city)

For me, the worst part of being female is the youth and beauty stuff. Being judged first and foremost on that. It's like men are expected to be perfect, less than human robots behaviorally. And women physically. I wish we could just all be seen as full human beings.