Trans Behaviour

[kyril]

I think trans behavior is a complex matrix of nature and nurture. Even though we are programmed in our brain to act our gender, society brings us up in the other gender and we learn these behaviors and they can be hard to shake. I remember how ever since I was little I would sit down to pee and cross my legs in a very feminine way. However, society forced me to act male, and even now some of that still affects my behavoir. It was actually pretty recently that I learned not to hold in my tears when I wanted to cry, because since I was raised as a boy I was taught not to show my feelings. I think one big part of transition is to learn the things that we didn't get to learn in our childhood when it comes to behaving in our gender.

I guess what I was trying to say is there's a pretty firm limit on what society can do - this varies with the individual, of course, but in my case the answer was "not very much." I picked up male social conditioning cues, not female ones, despite everyone's best efforts. But male social conditioning cues can't fully override female hormone balances, so things like crying and sex drive and our experience of sexual attraction are going to vary with our hormonal sex rather than our brain sex.

On the high school dance thing, I actually had a ton of fun at them. It helped that my group of friends was the band nerd/drama geek/sciency types, and actually my close friends were a particular subset of that group that later would turn out to be overwhelmingly LGBT. So we never got into the whole heteronormative popularity contest thing, we just went and had fun and were ourselves, and nobody was going to say a damn thing to us given that our group included the class president (my best friend, a gay guy) and the head cheerleader (trans guy. Seriously. He was straight though, so he came out early on.)

[LordKAT]

I guess what I was trying to say is there's a pretty firm limit on what society can do - this varies with the individual, of course, but in my case the answer was "not very much." I picked up male social conditioning cues, not female ones, despite everyone's best efforts. But male social conditioning cues can't fully override female hormone balances, so things like crying and sex drive and our experience of sexual attraction are going to vary with our hormonal sex rather than our brain sex.

On the high school dance thing, I actually had a ton of fun at them. It helped that my group of friends was the band nerd/drama geek/sciency types, and actually my close friends were a particular subset of that group that later would turn out to be overwhelmingly LGBT. So we never got into the whole heteronormative popularity contest thing, we just went and had fun and were ourselves, and nobody was going to say a damn thing to us given that our group included the class president (my best friend, a gay guy) and the head cheerleader (trans guy. Seriously. He was straight though, so he came out early on.)

This leads me to see how different high school is from when I was there.  Vast difference that I would almost not believe you if I didn't often work in schools and often enough in a very large high school.

[Radar]

This leads me to see how different high school is from when I was there.Vast difference that I would almost not believe you if I didn't often work in schools and often enough in a very large high school.

So true. I'm happy (yet also jealous) that the younger guys grew up in a more tolerant, educated society- at least compared to what it used to be like.

[jimmymot]

It's the old nature versus nurture argument.  I believe in nature and nurture.

I think nurture is nature, as in we are subject to conditioning because of our nature. We are built to change and adapt to our environment to maximize survival and reproduction.

Gender identity reminds me a lot of homosexuality in this sense. It should technically be un-beneficial that gay people (and other animals) don't breed and yet it has always existed. In various cultures there have always been transgendered people. Why? The whole idea of genetics/natural-selection is that there must be some benefit or it would have been eliminated. I mention this because if you assume being trans-gender is a mechanism for some unknown purpose in evolution it really does make sense as a function; that if someones propensity is to act more like the opposite gender naturally then we of course would feel drawn to assimilate with them, and become that gender.

I know I can sometimes dismiss my gender issues too much by focusing on the problem of gender as a social construct. "Am I a really so petty that I'd f--k up my body so I can wear trousers and sit with my legs open?" but that's over simplifying. if women acted like men do, would we happily be women? I'm not so sure.

i know tom boys and butch lesbians who wouldn't want to be a man, but have masculine qualities. and of course the converse of feminine men. so we know that femininity and masculinity are not fixed by sex, because they have those mannerisms themselves. whats the difference between me and an extremely masculine lesbian who's happy as she is? that drive.

I think what is in us, is a genuine need to be the OTHER gender, not to be a collection of idiosyncrasies, and that desire subconsciously allows us to absorb some of those mannerisms automatically. think of body language just in general? we didn't sit in a classroom and learn it consciously. we just absorbed it via socialization.

the desire to be male is the end point, the mannerism is the means. humans are complicated with a lot of greyness, but ultimately if you obsess on that, on the means and not the point, you are bound to question what the hell is true. i think we assimilated from society aspects of the opposite gender role that we, for some reason, inherently gravitated towards. The hormones or surgery, the behaviors; they are only to help us be accepted as the gender we naturally feel we are. These things are the means, and that is why they are optional, yet for many, necessary to feel recognized as what they "already are".

[Devin87]

Funnily enough (I just made up that word-- funnily) I just got into an argument with my mom over my prom dress a few hours ago-- and my prom was over six years ago!  We've had my prom dress sitting in my cousin's closet since I was in high school and I haven't taken it out since and he cleaned out his closet and I was ready to throw it away and my mom freaked out.  Apparently I might need it at some point.  Yeah.  Right.     She won of course.  The dress is now hanging in her closet (it's Mother's Day.  I HAD to let her win).

[LordKAT]

That is rather funny. I never had a prom dress but maybe your mother hopes and hoards.

[jimmymot]

you could use it in a play, or to dress in drag (that's a mind <not allowed>!), or for a halloween costume, or for your kid to use if you ever have one, or to appease ball room dance loving burglars.

maaaannnnny uses.

[Farm Boy]

All good ideas.  I still have mine from 3 years ago and I've been trying to sell it... 

Do you have any female relatives who might want it?  Cousins, nieces?  Your mom might be more inclined to let it go if it went to someone in the family.

[jimmymot]

oh! oh! IVE GOT IT!

find a life size statue of a man and sew it on under the cover of darkness.

edgyyyy

[LordKAT]

oh! oh! IVE GOT IT!

find a life size statue of a man and sew it on under the cover of darkness.

edgyyyy

Great idea, lets just do that to a lot of statues anyway.

[jimmymot]

Great idea, lets just do that to a lot of statues anyway.

ROAD TRIP!

[M.Grimm]

Or, regarding unwanted prom dresses, donate it to something like the princess project or the glass slipper project (on their website they have a list of sister organizations in various states, too). Who can really argue with charity?

[jmaxley]

I don't even know what happened to my prom dresses.