A very important blog EVERYONE must read

[Alessandro]

And if one trans person got his transition delayed to better examine his motives, while one "cis" person by doing the same thing didn't have her life ruined, that's all good in my opinion.

I think whether someone's life would be 'ruined' is highly variable by their situation.  I think the strength of regrets will be variable by why the cis person thought they wanted to transition in the first place, the level of support (or not) they had been given, their geographical location, demographic... etc. etc.  "Ruined" seems excessively dramatic to me.

I think one of the critical differences is that the dysphoria in these special cases often does not begin until their teens, and many of these people start by being deeply dissatisfied with themselves and only later come to conclude that changing their gender will help them. This is why, I think, that the "yaoi fan" aspect is so important, even though it narrows down the group to whom I'm speaking -- because these are generally people to whom the idea of transition (or of having a brain/body gender discrepancy) had never occurred prior to reading this sort of fiction.

Just been looking through this interesting thread again and this comment here has really made me think.  I didn't have dysphoria until my teens and I have always had low self esteem.  I was also a yaoi fan when I was younger.  Is this is what has made me feel trans?  I'm not sure any more.  All the sexual relationships I have had as a woman have made me feel uncomfortable and I didn't really get properly interested in men until around my late teens.  I was always very uncomfortable with having a female body though - I remember wanting a hysterectomy since I was a little kid and found out I could potentially have kids.  But after sex with a guy I had this deep feeling that everything was wrong and I didn't really know why.  I was quite happy to read gay porn, but straight stuff made me uncomfortable because I never could identify with the woman involved.  Now I am living as a gay man I am far happier in a sexual context but I have to be very sure now that a partner is respecting me as male and I will always hide girl parts.  I'm just blabbing all this out because you've made me consider - which is a very good thing by the way.  I don't think anything is going to make me want to grow old as a woman though, not now I am aware there is an alternative.

[Bluetraveler]

Just been looking through this interesting thread again and this comment here has really made me think.  I didn't have dysphoria until my teens and I have always had low self esteem.  I was also a yaoi fan when I was younger.  Is this is what has made me feel trans?  I'm not sure any more.  All the sexual relationships I have had as a woman have made me feel uncomfortable and I didn't really get properly interested in men until around my late teens.  I was always very uncomfortable with having a female body though - I remember wanting a hysterectomy since I was a little kid and found out I could potentially have kids.  But after sex with a guy I had this deep feeling that everything was wrong and I didn't really know why.  I was quite happy to read gay porn, but straight stuff made me uncomfortable because I never could identify with the woman involved.  Now I am living as a gay man I am far happier in a sexual context but I have to be very sure now that a partner is respecting me as male and I will always hide girl parts.  I'm just blabbing all this out because you've made me consider - which is a very good thing by the way.  I don't think anything is going to make me want to grow old as a woman though, not now I am aware there is an alternative.

I've bolded those lines because well, they apply or applied to me too.
When I was 3 and understood female had babymaking internal organs, I wanted them out of me too! I didn't want to have children, nor do I desire to have them now, and the notion of being born to generate someone else was deeply unsettling for me as a child, as if I wasn't good enough as I was and didn't have enough dignity in myself. I too am attracted to men only, and not to girly men (there's not much we have in common lol) but I have always hated "chivalry" and all the myriad ways men can make a female feel like a "girl" and not an equal (that's what I really want). For this reason I could never identify with male/female relationship and the only female I felt akin to in this sense was the crossdresser royal guard Lady Oscar from the old anime "The rose of Versailles" (ahem  ). So I'm hoping to find, in the future, someone who could treat me like an equal and who doesn't mind being a "switch" with a woman  . I also was enormously distressed by the image of the woman as a slut an I can understand why some girls like to fantasize with yaoi (though I never liked them), because there's no negative connotation if a boy is being "slutty" or flirty, nor is he a filthy  slut if he shows his body provocatively...and so on.

[Devyn]

I also was enormously distressed by the image of the woman as a slut an I can understand why some girls like to fantasize with yaoi (though I never liked them), because there's no negative connotation if a boy is being "slutty" or flirty, nor is he a filthy  slut if he shows his body provocatively...and so on.

Honestly, with the people I hang around, there are words like that: manwhore, manslut, player... And for guys, these names can be just as bad as the female versions. If a guy show off his body provocatively, he'll either be called a douche for showing off or a whore. I think it really depends on where you live, but that's how it is where I live. The guys get it just as bad as the girls here.

[Miniar]

Equality's gotten a bit further along in Iceland than in the states I think.
I can't say with certainty of course, as I don't live there, but from where I'm sitting... our girls got it a bit better.

I was raised by awesome folks too.

I could be myself. I could do whatever I so chose.
I was a little pressured to go to Uni and get a proper degree. I was offered "law" and "medicine" and so on.
I was encouraged in my art pursuits and musical desires.
I was raised with all doors open to me.
I had boyfriends. I had girlfriends. I got married and had a daughter.
I had respect and stuff...

and it was never "right".
A lot of it felt like compensating.
I was never into "yaoi", heck, I'm not really big on gay porn at all.

*shrug*

I'm a bloke, that's all.

[insideontheoutside]

Why are we delayed or denied our medically necessary care because a tiny handful of cis people could get hurt?

Another viewpoint that assumes "we" is a whole group of people who are the same. I never once honestly felt I needed medical care. There's a wide variety when it comes to people who get the trans label (for me I never identified as trans - that was a label the psychologists put on me). Yet still, here I am, a guy.

I don't believe that everyone that's in that particular fandom needs medical care either (the percentage might be very, very small). After reading through it more and the responses of the author it seems other factors besides transsexualism are involved (role play, poor self esteem/body dysphoria from other causes, etc.)

I get that there are people, such as yourself, that feel medical intervention and care was necessary just to live, but that definitely doesn't apply to everyone. 

[Xren]

Okay, my two cents on the whole yaoi-bishounen issue which may or may not be necessary or appreciated.  My mouth filter is spastic as usual.

I like yaoi and the whole aesthetic surrounding it.  I also have a very real case of gender dysphoria, body-part mismatch and all that jazz.  I'm not transitioning because I'm into yaoi--on the contrary, I'm into yaoi because I'm transitioning, among other reasons.  I don't think it's so horribly unrealistic or implausible, and not even close to insulting/derogatory or objectifying of gay or bisexual men.  In fact, I find a lot of it rather personally liberating.  The messages I get out of it are not only "it's okay to be attracted to other guys," but also "it's okay to have a non-standard masculinity" and "you don't have to sacrifice your aesthetics to fit an identity tag."

I had definite inklings all my life that I wasn't cut out for typical femaleness, socially or physically.  For this reason, I'd always been drawn to stories and portrayals of gender-atypical characters, like the stage version of Peter Pan (with Mary Martin in the title role) and a character named Tomoe in the Usagi Yojimbo comics, who is a warrior-errant in a universe where women aren't allowed to pursue martial professions.  I'd always preferred to have an androgynous appearance, some of my first infatuations were towards androgynous people, and by the time I stumbled across some drawing of two male videogame characters kissing I'd already had strong inklings that my body issues couldn't be reconciled by clothing, appearance or weight changes.

The relation between said media and my own gender dysphoria was rather complicated.  On one hand, it helped me give a name and definition to something which had previously been impossible for me to put into words.  On the other hand, it delayed my coming-out for a considerable time; I feared that I wouldn't be taken seriously, or that I would be shot down as delusional or brainwashed, which at one point I was.  (EDIT: Shot down, I mean.  I was never delusional or brainwashed.)

But here I am, transitioning AND into yaoi.  The only thing I regret is that I bowed to prejudice for as long as I did, instead of being myself.

I read some posts on the blog, and I found it troublesome.  Is this somehow supposed to be helpful, or is it Dirt in shinier wrapping paper?

[Sho]

Radar, thank you for your input. The last thing I want to do is to make FtMs question their gender or orientation -- like I said, transgendered folks receive way too much flak in society today and I would hate to add to any of that. I'm trying to draw a dividing line between those who are legit FtM (and will feel happier and "more themselves" in transition) and those who are struggling with other identity issues and misreading themselves (who will almost certainly become unhappier during the course of transition). Also a lot of the people I'm directing the blog at are extremely young anyway, so can't be "delaying" anything as they're still in their teens and not legally allowed to transition.

That's why I suggest things like "reading gay romance gives them the idea they should be a man" and "dysphoria did not set in until their teens" as a way of differentiating -- though of course as Alessandro pointed out, you can meet these qualifiers and still be trans. He brings up a good point though -- if you're far happier during/after transition, I think this is a good sign you're probably meant to be trans 

As Bluetraveler observed too, I think the major draw of yaoi (over and above normal romances) is A: the supposed "equality" that comes from a same-sex relationship, and B: the lack of a female character to compare yourself to. Often the female characters in romantic stories reinforce a lot of outdated stereotypes about women and leave many readers thinking or "Are women really like that? I'm nothing like her." And I really don't hate yaoi -- I'm majorly fond of seeing egalitarian relationships between two androgynous people and wish that sort of thing would get more exposure in the media.

The sort of phenomenon I'm talking about in the blog is rather closely tied to yaoi though, mostly because it tends to foster an appreciation for androgyny (like Xren is describing.) That makes 100% sense to me and in fact I find it a good thing -- teens are romanticizing equal and/or same-sex relationships (yes!), learning they can dress, act and live in ways unconstrained by gender roles (yes!), and can establish their own androgynous beauty standards and reject society's (yes!) These are wonderful things. My primary point of confusion, though, is that some of these teens seem to think that only men can be androgynous. I really get that vibe from most modern media, anime/manga not excluded, and it puzzles me terribly. In other words...the point of the blog is to let girls know that they can do all these things and not feel somehow obligated to transition in the process.

And Xren, I would appreciate it if you don't mind pointing out the offensive parts -- I mainly posted this trying to get input from FtMs so it would be helpful.

[meh]

I read some posts on the blog, and I found it troublesome.  Is this somehow supposed to be helpful, or is it Dirt in shinier wrapping paper?

I think it may be one of the readers/followers of dirt's blog. They were just mentioning this very topic in the comments on her site.

[Sho]

I think it may be one of the readers/followers of dirt's blog. They were just mentioning this very topic in the comments on her site.

I'm the author of the Tomboy Revolution blog and have absolutely no affiliation with Dirt; I find her vitriol disturbing and disagree with nearly everything she says. Just putting that out there. I hadn't even heard of her before having my blog compared to hers 

[SnailPace]

Don't worry Sho, you aren't transphobic and we know that.

I think that the message of gender equality (whether it refers to androgyny or anything else) is a good one.

However, I think that "Type Six" ("The Male Inside" type, as described on your "I want to be a boy!" page) is pretty much describing an FtM. Even if they discover that they are Trans through yaoi or gay porn, that not an invalidation.  I think you might want to reread that section.

Or could you explain the difference between an FtM transgendered person and a "Male Inside"?

[Alessandro]

I think some of the bickering on this thread has gotten a bit defensive and silly now. 

Everyone here is/isn't transitioning for a reason that is/was clear to them.  I think with threads like this there is a danger of over analysing things - I know it is important to analyse a huge decision like transitioning but once you have made a decision and are comfortable with that decision it's time to let it go and get on with your life. 

I was reminded this morning about why I'm transitioning - because I am not comfortable being seen as female.  Once I came to the understanding that I am not female, it became hard to be seen as one by the general public.  It doesn't matter especially how I came to that conclusion, or even to some extent, why I did.  It matters that now I know who I am and where I want to be.  I'm not questioning that anymore.

There is a danger of over-using support forums/the internet in general to seek validation/seek someone who feels like you/is like you.  It gets addictive and I truly believe I have been overdoing it.  What matters is how you and the people around you feel.  I know that right now transitioning is for me.  I don't know if I'll be on T for the rest of my life/what surgeries I'll have but now I've got Mr on my I.Ds it's staying for life. 

In conclusion my advice to you guys is to just be yourselves and live your lives.  If it's a mistake then it's a mistake and you'll learn from it.  Bluetraveller seems to have - but her mistake is then going around preaching about it.  Other people's lives and decisions are not her responsibility (neither are they Sho's - despite the very informative and mostly impartial information) and they are certainly not Dirt's.

Just...let it go peeps   

[shiinee]

Alessandro, I agree with a lot of your thoughts and yet I am still one of those troubled by the tomboy blog, and I feel for the others here who are too.

I think some of the bickering on this thread has gotten a bit defensive and silly now. 
Everyone here is/isn't transitioning for a reason that is/was clear to them.

This, I think, is the main flaw in your post... yes, there is definitely defensiveness going back and forth.  But I think it's perfectly reasonable on the part of all the folks who feel that their identities, feelings, and dreams need to be defended.  I disagree completely that everyone here has made a rational choice about whether to transition or not; some are still choosing, some keep second-guessing their decision, and there are a lot of us who have a sense of who we are and what we want but haven't developed certainty and strength in our identities. 

I'd place myself in the latter group; I know myself and what I should be, but I am still very vulnerable to an attack on that sense of self.  Especially in this case, I feel betrayed and undermined in having a specific gendered/cultural ideal that matches my own turned against me.  Before I started to look outside American culture, I only knew that I did not want to be a woman or a masculine man, and I could not put my finger on exactly what I did want.  I made several suicide attempts because I thought I should not exist on account of a cultural role for my gender not existing.  Finding a different set of cultural ideals in anime and the yaoi aesthetic helped me believe in my own identity as a plausible self-concept.  The perspective that these ideals may have perverted my identity is incredibly painful, because they are really my main external framework for acceptance within any culture at all. 

There is a danger of over-using support forums/the internet in general to seek validation/seek someone who feels like you/is like you.  It gets addictive and I truly believe I have been overdoing it.  What matters is how you and the people around you feel. 

I agree that it's unwise to focus too much on building up one's personal identity through a support forum like this one, when each of us really needs to be secure in zirself.  But I also think that a lot of people turn to online groups when they don't quite know how they feel, or are rejected by those close to them and feel terribly lonely.  For some of us, it is the only source of validation available in an apparent worldwide conspiracy to invalidate us as people.  I know that some are constantly on the verge of (or already in) an emotional crisis, and the risk of denying ourselves that validation becomes greater than the risk of depending on it. 

That I think is the essential concept of a "safe space" for a marginalized group: that we will be welcomed as the people we are, and that external threats to our identities (no matter how insignificant the threat might be) will never be allowed into our shelter.  It is kind of a magical unicorn dreamland in principle, because the world is the way it is and we all need to learn to live with those threats at some point.  But safe spaces still need to exist in order to provide us with the support we need to build ourselves up and face the world as it is.

I think for many in this thread, the sense of a safe space has been broken by a perceived threat, even if it was never intended that way and we all understand that it wasn't.  I definitely feel that way myself; since reading the blog referenced in the first post I have been uncomfortable, even though I recognize that there is nothing wrong with it in principle.  Sho, I respect the honest and thorough presentation of your views, but it becomes a problem once it is posted in a forum for self-identified FtMs, under the heading "everyone must read."  It is absolutely not okay for someone to come into my safe space to demand that I reconsider my identity, when I am here because it is already endangered.   

(blah)

Let me add my support to everything Kvall has posted.  Bluetraveler, you are visiting in a safe space for transgender people and calling our identities into question; that's a psychological attack no matter how you intended it.  I don't think there is an inherent problem with your perspective, but in this context it is rightly drawing discomfort and resentment.  The attitude of "Look, I'm not saying you're wrong about yourself but you should really consider this" is something we face constantly in our personal lives and we have heard it enough that the lack of acceptance has built up to an intolerable level.  Bringing this same stance of doubt and rejection disguised as concern into our space is inappropriate. 

[Alessandro]

Thankyou for your input shiinee. 

I am not disagreeing with you.  I just think that you shouldn't have to/don't really need to defend your identity.  You know who you are.  Pretty much the point I was making was that it was unfair for others to come here and preach their views.  Sho is pretty much an innocent in this - it's Bluetraveller doing much of the preaching just using Sho's blog to do it.  You don't need to reconsider your identity.  That's what I was trying to say. 

Susan's is a great little community and I'm not denying that.  But remember that you don't need validation from other people.  You and your gender therapist will work it out between you.  It's nice to know that there is a community now and that this community have a voice.  Susan's helped me find comfort in being trans.  Yet out there on the internet/in real life are always going to be people who question/disagree with us as well.  My only qualm is that people can be too swayed by other people's opinions/trying to find a sense of self by searching these agree-ers/disagree-ers out on the internet.  I've fallen victim to it recently. 

The attitude of "Look, I'm not saying you're wrong about yourself but you should really consider this" is something we face constantly in our personal lives and we have heard it enough that the lack of acceptance has built up to an intolerable level.  Bringing this same stance of doubt and rejection disguised as concern into our space is inappropriate. 

I agree 100%.  Susan's is not the place for this.  We'll make up our own minds.

[GnomeKid]

Well, people transition for different reasons, obviously the most common one is being TS, but i have known people to transition for money or status, or some fetish.. however they typically dont find it to their liking later.  Heh, my therapist said, "well, if you transition and you really aren't TS, you will be when your done."

Exactly

+1 [or i suppose 2?  ]
=] i like that.