Top 10 Myths about transgender girls/boys

[Danacee]

Top top myth of all time;

We are sooo brave for transitioning. Because god knows we had it so good beforehand.

Before I transitioned, thats when I was brave. Thats when I had to work up the guts to go outside and face the world, to keep up an act as a male, and to ignore the nasty stares from those who were not buying it. After I transitioned, thats when life became easy and I didnt have to second guess every action beforehand and/or take deep breaths to work up the nerve.

[Sandy]

Top top myth of all time;
Before I transitioned, thats when I was brave. Thats when I had to work up the guts to go outside and face the world, to keep up an act as a male, and to ignore the nasty stares from those who were not buying it. After I transitioned, thats when life became easy and I didnt have to second guess every action beforehand and/or take deep breaths to work up the nerve.

Amen sister!

-Sandy

[FairyGirl]

hmm I didn't see this one mentioned yet (sorry if it was), but to me the biggest myth of all is that we choose to be this way, that it is nothing more than a lifestyle choice and we can just as easily choose to be "normal". Related to this is the myth that says we can be "cured" by religious intervention.

[Deanna_Renee]

How about this one...

Myth: We were 'recruited' by other gays and/or TGs.

Thanks to the teabaggers and Sarah Palin

[LordKAT]

My fave myth is , if you come out, then anyone who has ever or will ever exist had the right to openly discuss and question your body and mind and medical history/opinions with all your friends , co workers, family and the odd guy walking down the sidewalk on a tricycle collecting cans.

[Arch]

hmm I didn't see this one mentioned yet (sorry if it was), but to me the biggest myth of all is that we choose to be this way, that it is nothing more than a lifestyle choice and we can just as easily choose to be "normal".

Boy, every time I see the word "normal" in association with trans anything, I have to laugh. My therapist says I'm normal--a normal transsexual. I'm still struggling not to think of myself as a hideous perverted freak (for being a gay trans man, not for all of that other perverted freakish stuff I do ) that, to me, the concept of a normal transsexual is a bit like a normal freak. Yeah, no such thing. Sigh. I guess it will take time before I think the way he does about being trans.

The funny thing is that I think I'm a freak, but I don't think other trans people are freaks just because they're trans. Yeah, I'm obviously special.

[LordKAT]

Yep Arch, you're special. We all are.

[Naturally Blonde]

Top top myth of all time;

We are sooo brave for transitioning. Because god knows we had it so good beforehand.

Before I transitioned, thats when I was brave. Thats when I had to work up the guts to go outside and face the world, to keep up an act as a male, and to ignore the nasty stares from those who were not buying it. After I transitioned, thats when life became easy and I didnt have to second guess every action beforehand and/or take deep breaths to work up the nerve.

I totally agree with you Danacee. I got that 'your so brave' line from someone the other day. My experiences mirror your own and the male persona was the hardest thing for me to try and portray and impliment.

[Deanna_Renee]

Myth: Prayer and finding the right scripture will cure you. You are only sinning or possessed by the devil (or something like that).

[Frances]

That we are porn objects who only exist to satisfy male sexuality.

Men either treat me like kryptonite or pull out a list of demands and requirements that I am supposed to fulfill, no questions asked. And sex is a given for them. If they are excited, it means that I must be excited too.

[VTkelly]

hmm I didn't see this one mentioned yet (sorry if it was), but to me the biggest myth of all is that we choose to be this way, that it is nothing more than a lifestyle choice and we can just as easily choose to be "normal". Related to this is the myth that says we can be "cured" by religious intervention.

Amen, FairyGirl.  A couple of decades of trying to be what others expected me to be, 10,000 purges, countless hours of therapy, and resenting everything that forced me into the 'male' box, before saying "I'll risk it all to be who I am for the rest of my life"

Oh, and as Calpernia smugly states, "No, it's not ok to ask me what my name used to be."

[Firelight]

The two top ones I know of are:

-->-bleeped-<-s change sex because they're confused gay people.

and

-You are male before SRS, and female afterward. (Speaking in terms of MTF, that is.)

[Deanna_Renee]

-You are male before SRS, and female afterward. (Speaking in terms of MTF, that is.)

Actually, I thought it was more that you are male before SRS and still male after (though conspiring to make other straight guys into gays by having sex with you).

[Firelight]

True. It's one of both of those.

[Just Kate]

My top myth is that "All transpeople think the same way and believe the same things about their condition" Honestly you only have to read some of the, at times almost violent discussions on here to realise that we have many very different approaches and takes on this.

My second top myth is that "being trans is a single medical condition with a single cause, and a single one size fits all approach to treatment." That's about as stupid as thinking that every single cancer sufferer should take the same drug. We aren't all the same, we may have similar symptoms, but I'll bet almost anything that in the future when the whole thing is better understood it will be realised that being transgender can be caused by a number of different things, and in some case several of them working together.

QFT  (I agree totally)

[PanoramaIsland]

That we are porn objects who only exist to satisfy male sexuality.

Men either treat me like kryptonite or pull out a list of demands and requirements that I am supposed to fulfill, no questions asked. And sex is a given for them. If they are excited, it means that I must be excited too.

This is a particularly frustrating one for me. Patriarchal othering ends up shaping the image of trans people to the point that we become viewed purely as exotic sexual commodities - and this makes transmen almost entirely invisible, of course, because most men are straight and do not hold much of any interest in transmen, sexual or otherwise.

[Arch]

Myth: All transsexuals want genital surgery.

Recent definitional myth: Transgender people identify as the sex opposite to their birth sex.

[lilacwoman]

myth: a transsexual is still a transsexual if he keeps his penis.

[kyril]

hm, lilacwoman, I wonder what you think of FTMs then...

[Pippa]

Not all transexual people want lower body surgery.   They are happy to live as a woman without it.  This can be for many reasons, some medical.   It is a pretty wide assertion to say someone is not a transexual because they have not had their bits removed.   I am pre op but I am a transexual