Quote from: Sebby Michelango on June 11, 2016, 05:46:42 AM
I thought trans women wanted to prove the world that they are women, not men. They do transistion for a reason, either socially or medical. So why do you want to prove you're a man, ladies? I always believed trans women are women who wants to live as women, even though they aren't cis. Maybe I have missed something.
You missed the 1950s, 1960s, and maybe the 1970s, I suspect. I'm 62 years old. In the 1950s, a child that expressed a preference for being the opposite gender was just engaging in inappropriate behavior, readily corrected with corporial punishment and prayer. ("And what did you pray for?" "I prayed God would make me a girl." "That's sinful!" *WHACK*)
In the 1960s, some treatments were available, which are now banned as torture in many places. My parents (I had no say) were offered electroconvulsive and aversion therapy to correct my behavior. Mom turned that down, thank goodness. Instead, for my issues, including delayed onset of puberty, I was given "vitamins so you'll grow up right". Vitamin T helped change me from an effeminate A student to a hairy, angry D student, so progress...
Halting puberty and offering the child the opportunity to live as their desired gender was simply not available. Instead, we had society and authority figures who firmly believe that what's between your legs defines you entirely, and taught that any deviation from this was perversion, sinful, and a mental illness.
So, trying to live as a woman was not exactly an opportunity we had. We were conditioned and trained to hide our 'sinful desires' and 'mental illness', trying our damndest to pass as cismen as a matter of simple survival. We often joined the military, or engaged in high risk manly man activities to try and have our Man Credentials, in case we were ever questioned.
Yes, we have serious levels of self-doubt, up to self-loathing, while repressing our true nature. BTW, this is the core of my gender dysphoria. Trying to get our Manly Man Credentials was a way to try and prove to ourselves that we were real cismen, not just some mentally ill freak trying to hide and pass as cismen.
Of course, if we do this long enough, over the decades we can develop other problems, including depression and anxiety. That can lead to things like suicide attempts, and self-medication from substance abuse. Some of us who lived through this era have been lucky enough to get help and find a real solution.
