I'm not asking this question to offend or anger anyone. I am just curious.
I recently saw a video on youtube where a gay person asked the gay community if they would choose to be straight if they had a choice. Say there was some kind of safe, free, perminant way to turn straight, would you? Because being gay isn't a choice, but if you had a choice now what would you choose?
That guy got me thinking.
If there was a way to not be trans anymore would you take it?
Say it was simple and painless and then you were changed forever, even if you've already started medical transition and are on T. If you could change your brain to be happy with the female body you were born with and no longer have a male brain or desire to have a male body and change your body. If you could just live as a women and be happy that way, would you?
My answer.
I feel that the answer for myself is yes, i would if i could. Because being trans has brought me so much discrimination and it makes my life so difficult. It would be easier for me to just think and feel as a female and not be a trans guy anymore. Although it would be rather crazy to suddenly start being a women, i think it would be nice to not have to worry about trans issues and be more accepted by society.
I appologise if my question or answer offends anymone. Everyone is different and that is why i would like to know your oppinion to educate myself and maybe change or support my own feelings about what i would choose. I feel like it's wrong to say i would be a cis-gender women. But honestly, i think i would.
No. I love being trans. It's hard as hell but I've gain so much insight through this experience. I never believed in God until I decided to transition. Each day my faith grows. Being trans is my cross that I have to carry. Having a cross to carry is a gift.
No offense taken... but I would say no.
I've been lucky enough to grow up in a liberal hippie town where pretty much anything goes, and have lots of great supportive friends, so I really don't see it as something that needs to be "cured". Maybe 5 years ago I would have jumped at the chance, but now, being trans/ androgyne is so much of who I am, that I couldn't imagine not being trans. If I was suddenly a normal female (whatever that means...) I wouldn't know what to do.
I think eventually it just becomes a part of your identity, whether you want it to be or not. I'll take being a quirky confusing dude over conforming any day.
I think carrying a cross is a burden.
In some ways the question is a tricky one because how could you not take it if you knew you would be happy? It would seem illogical not too.
But for me, being transgendered is such a powerful force that has shaped who I am. I would not be me without it. I would be someone else, a guy called nicholas. I also don't believe a happy life is definitly a good life. I think a good life is a life full of happyness and sadness and trials and success and failures etc...Definitly my life is very full as a trans person.
Yes.
(Oh and no for the gay thing, I like being gay.)
No. Definitely no, though I can't fully explain why. Mainly because I completely agree with Nicky that I'd simply be a completely different person. I sometimes wish things were "simpler" for lack of a better word, but I know if I was a "normal girl", satisfied with my body and gender, I wouldn't be me.
I would definitely take it.
I would still be myself. My past, my struggle and the things that have shaped me as a person will remain, but my body now finally be right for the rest of my life.
Quote from: Gizzy on April 14, 2010, 09:37:50 PM
I would definitely take it.
I would still be myself. My past, my struggle and the things that have shaped me as a person will remain, but my body now finally be right for the rest of my life.
Ah, see if I could press the magic button and be a bio-male, I definitely would. I was answering the question of if your gender identity could be made to match your body, which I wouldn't want.
Ah yeah, I didn't read the entire post.
In which case, no. I couldn't even imagine it.
Quote from: Trey on April 14, 2010, 09:14:25 PM
[/b]If there was a way to not be trans anymore would you take it?[/b]
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Ah, the age old question. Would you take the magic pill?
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Being trans has meant living with a lot of pain and discomfort. It hasn't been fun...it's generally been hell. (Society makes it far worse than it has to be though.)
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Having said that, you can't really separate who I am from being trans. I just wouldn't be the same person. I wouldn't be me...I'd be someone else.
.
So I guess it all comes down to this: Do you value who you are more? Or do you value peace and comfort more?
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If you could ask someone to wipe your memories, change your feelings and emotions, change your identity, change your self image, change your foundational preferences, change your well...just about everything...change absolutely everything about the core of what makes you who you are....would you?
To me that sounds too much like putting someone else in my body. Giving my life away to a complete stranger. I'd rather be me...no matter how painful that has been. At least for me...deep down inside...I like who I am. Now I'm just working on repairing, and making the rest something that I can like too.
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Now...if the question were the
other way around (changing the body)? No question that would be yes. ;D
If I had the choice... I don't know what I would do. Appart of me loves who I am and appart of me absolutly hates everything about it. It's just so difficult. I think that's why I'm still struggling on what I'm going to do.
The pill would let me not be trans...but would make my brain female?
No, sorry, can't do it. If I were a girl, I wouldn't be me. It would basically be suicide - killing myself and bringing some heretofore-nonexistent girl into being at the age of 27.
I don't think I would be the same person anymore, it would be like it's someone else in my body. Changing how my brain works, it's like it would be "killing" me in some way. I don't enjoy the hardship of growing up TG/TS, I would want to be biologically female of course, but I would never change who I am inside. I'm lucky enough that the people in my life are accepting though, it's mostly myself that beat myself up over who I am.
With that said... I think all the things I've had to go through (not just the trans stuff) have made me a better person. I'm very compassionate and accepting of others, no matter who they are. I understand what it's like to be different, to feel alone, lost, and scared. I'm very easy-going, and I never get mad or angry, it never helps anything, treating people with kindness is always better. Some people just think I just let people walk all over me, I'd respectfully disagree though :P
Here's two sayings that I tend to live by ;)
You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar
Before you judge someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes
Sorry for kinda going off-topic for part of my post :laugh:
It's been asked many times before.
Anyway, the thought makes me uneasy. I would no longer be me. But I do not like the anger and depression and trepidation that comes with being TS. I don't like being such a burden on others like this either.
Would probably rather magically change my body into a bio-male's and keep my mind. Although it depresses me that certain permanent markers of femininity I cannot change.
I'd like to change the body and keep the mind instead :)
If I didn't have that option? No, I'd stay as I am (as in, change the body as much as current medical technology will allow).
I haven't faced a lot of discrimination as a man. I honestly faced more pretending to be female.
I'm too hard wired, my gender identity has influenced every other aspect of my thinking :laugh: I wouldn't know what the hell to do with myself if it changed!
No.
I have found why my friends are so accepting of me and that is because, even though I am a transgender, I will not be changing my personality. If I never wanted to change I would not have felt uncomfortable in school. If I had not felt uncomfortable in school I never would have met my best friend.
No.
My body is just a shell, my mind makes me who i am.
I wouldn't change my mind to fit my body because then i just wouldn't be me anymore.
For the sake of society I would say no.
Peter was an evil sh** always looking for a hustle, while hideing behind a mask of decency.
Also the magic pill might make me feel like a man but would it also teach me to like the things other men like? I doubt it.
I would find myself miserable soon enough even if cured, I would still be ostracized due to being wierd.
Such a treatment wouldn't wipe the memory of being trans and the people in the trans comunity I call friends.
So far my world is treating me pretty decently now that I am out. My friends who left me years ago have all come back and they like me again! Same with family. Transition has really fixed this messed up soul, so why mess with success.
So NO I would not want to take that cure.
(Are we talking a constant daily drug therapy or a magic bullet? Cause that would affect the answers you are getting.)
Only if I could have been born male in the first place, then yes.
If I were born female and non-trans, I suppose. But I was never a girl.
OTOH a lot of straight-laced people have opened their minds about trans-people after I came out, so who knows.
Jay
If I could take a pill to make me a bio-male, yes.
If I could take a pill to make me a cisgender female, then no.
I would NEVER choose to be female...cause obviously I'm male, and would never want to be female. I would choose to zap my body into being fully male and be happy with it, but never zap my brain to be female. I don't like being trans, but it's not a choice, and I'd rather fight to be the man I know I am than live unhappily in a gender that isn't me.
Quote from: Carson on April 15, 2010, 08:59:02 AM
If I could take a pill to make me a bio-male, yes.
If I could take a pill to make me a cisgender female, then no.
THIS
I would much rather change my body than change my personality.
Quote from: Greg on April 15, 2010, 11:20:07 AM
I would much rather change my body than change my personality.
Agreed.
If I could take a magic pill that caused my brain to match my body... If I would become a comfortable, well-adjusted female with a great female body...
My answer is yes, I would do it.
Here's why.
As a transguy, my mind doesn't match my body. I do a lot of thinking about my situation, and I still don't know if it's my mind that is wrong or my body that is wrong. One of them doesn't match the other, and unfortunately for my body I think with my mind, and my mind has decided that it is right and my body is wrong. But if I could take a pill that would match my mind to my body, that would fix everything.
Being trans isn't a part of my personality. It doesn't matter if I'm a cisgirl, cisguy, transguy, or transgirl. However I am, I am still me. The only difference is that as a cisgirl or cisguy I would be satisfied with my body and my mind.
You are all forgetting that even though you don't want to be stuck in the body you were born with, if you were no longer trans you would be happy. Think about it. I don't want to be a girl, but if I took that pill and my mind was changed, I wouldn't be an unhappy girl. Memories of being an unhappy, dysphoric transguy would just be that: memories. Just like memories of being depressed after breaking up with someone I loved. I don't feel that way anymore! I'm happy without him.
I know I'm going to get a lot of ->-bleeped-<- for this, but this is just what makes sense to me. Being trans is a source of so much pain, so much discrimination, so much conflict. Transition is treatment for gender dysphoria. Having your mind and body suddenly magically match up would be a cure.
Quote from: LucienOctopus on April 15, 2010, 01:18:07 PMYou are all forgetting that even though you don't want to be stuck in the body you were born with, if you were no longer trans you would be happy.
I think the main reason a lot of us are saying that we wouldn't change our minds is that then we would no longer be US. Changing your brain changes who you are. Maybe you wouldn't have to deal with the dysphoria or pain that comes with being trans, but you would not be the same person even if you don't define yourself as trans.
I would choose to be cisgender in a heartbeat. But I would never give up being gay.
However, to be happy as a female? Uh, no. I'm male.
Lucien - are you saying you think you would still be you, if you were a girl? Because I wouldn't.
I wouldn't dispute that the person who would now be inhabiting my body might be fairly happy. But she wouldn't be me. I am a guy. That's an inextricable, essential part of my identity. My body is not, being trans is not, but being male is. So is being gay. If you made me a straight woman, you wouldn't just be curing the trans, you'd be curing the gay - and you already know how unpopular that is.
Somehow I initially took this question to be asking something a little different from the standard one.
If it was simply a matter of being comfortable with the frame I was born into, then that's fine. Technically I've already done that; the feminine mind and masculine body that had been fighting for years seem to have signed a peace treaty. Don't ask me how. ^_^
As this question is normally asked, "Would you do this if it changed your mind to fit entirely with your body?" i.e. erasure and replacement of non-cisgender feelings and attitudes, I'd call that suicide. Androgynous though I may be, I don't have enough masculine characteristics in my mind to make a working personality, so "I" would basically cease to exist. I wouldn't have taken that deal even when I was in seemingly perpetual self-conflict.
I can't change my gender or my sexuality with or without a pill. Both evolve as I grow, but I'm not going to take a pill to be someone else's idea of "normal."
Magic pill to make my mind female? No thank you! Me as I know it would cease to exist. I've always been a slightly androgynous gay male at heart. Nothing could ever make me content with being female without destroying that big part of my personality, of who I am.
...I think I must be in the minority here though, because I wouldn't take a magic pill that would make me a cismale either (though I wouldn't mind being able to have certain... key pieces of equipment :P). As much as I identify as male, I also identify as trans. I'm proud to be trans. It's a part of me. And without that, I would be nearly as much 'not me' as I would be if I went the magically female route.
Being FtM is, for me at least, a chance to grow as a person in a way few people get to do. To really force myself to examine who and what I am and who I want to be. And without transition as part of my life, I wouldn't be who I am, much less who I want to be.
...But maybe I'm just odd... ::)
Oh hell no. In fact I damn near freaked out just at the thought of being put on E to cure my body hair - my first thought was "I'm not gonna lose some/most of my technical knowledge, am I?"
'Cause like it or not, being able to mess about with technology (for me it's computers) is more of a male thing (every tech course I've been on, I was the only "girl" there). That's a gift that I've been blessed with. To take that pill would mean losing that ability? I'd rather die. Seriously.
That's not the only reason of course, but it's part of who I am. I like who I am. It's my body with the problem, not me.
It depends on what the pill would do exactly. Would it leave me as I am, but take away all dysphoria? Or would it totally change me into a girl? Naturally, I'd reject that second option entirely, but the first? Hmm...
I think it would be wonderful to not have to deal with the days and nights when it's constantly, just, THERE. I would be able to concentrate better, be more outgoing, etc. etc. Then again I would be a lot less introspective. This has forced me to think more deeply about myself and what I really want out of life than anything else ever has. It has also opened me up to new ways of thinking about things that I could have lived my life totally oblivious to. Plus all the lovely people at Susans. ;D So, would I do it? I'd (still) be odd as anything, don't get me wrong, but actually, if I could (but retaining my memories up to now!), I... actually might? :S
This may be because I'm androgyne and don't get such gendered behaviour like most of you do. I can understand that it wouldn't work for a lot of binary people.
Quote from: Minkle on April 15, 2010, 06:13:44 AM
No.
My body is just a shell, my mind makes me who i am.
I wouldn't change my mind to fit my body because then i just wouldn't be me anymore.
Well said, I agree with this.
"Absolutely Not". In other words I'm not going to change my personality, me or my brain. So in other words I will never take a pill to change my mind.
In fact the thought of being a male, even thinking about what I once used to have makes me feel extremely nauseous. I will never ever regret what I have done.
However, I do not "desire to be women" why? Because, I am a woman, in addition if genetic engineering becomes available that allows one to change their chromosomes from XY to XX safely. I would do it within a heartbeat and with no hesitation whatsoever. In other words I would take this magic pill that will allow me to do this.
If future medical technology were available that would allow me to have the normal reproductive organs of a female. I would again do so within a heartbeat and with no hesitation provided that it was safe to do so. In other words I would take this magic pill that will allow me to do this.
Does one get the drift that I am a female and that I would never ever change that?
Kindest regards
Sarah B
Quote from: Sarah B on April 15, 2010, 11:41:15 PMIn fact the thought of being a male, even thinking about what I once used to have makes me feel extremely nauseous. I will never ever regret what I have done.
Yes, that. The thought of being a female makes me nauseous. Of doing what a female does and really, thought of my body as it is makes me nauseous presently.
I don't think I can imagine being 100% female and okay with it. Because it doesn't happen.
I see other girls have posted so I will as well. Not that's ever stopped me ::)
It's one of those Catch-22 questions, what changes the body or the brain? What is normal? I think as a community we have problems with that word or concept. Yes I would love to be a complete normal female. I can't see myself ever being a complete normal male. Maybe it is the brain rather than the body, and destroying my gender identity in my brain destroys everything I am. I am me because of what I have been through. I would just be a brainwashed person. Would I like to be 'normal'? I am.
I think also that is why we try so hard to change or physical identity. We try to match our bodies to our brain-identity. None of us seem happy to say- I'm a girl who looks like a guy, or I'm a guy who looks like a girl. So the magic pill would have to affect our thought process, and I'm not into that at all.
Nice topic BTW and not in the least offensive.
JMO
Cindy
nah.
I think people would rather not being trans by being born into the right gender, rather than accepting them being the other gender.
How can you expect someone who hates their body to say they wish they would like it? they would say they wish they would change it o_o
Quote from: Carson on April 15, 2010, 08:59:02 AM
If I could take a pill to make me a bio-male, yes.
If I could take a pill to make me a cisgender female, then no.
This. The thought of being female freaks me out.
This is a difficult one to answer, because it depends.
If this were something I could have done when I was 4 years old, knowing it would save me from a few decades of confusion, misery and pain? Then, yes, I think I would.
But if it were something I could do now? NO. Absolutely not. And that is because I have already gone through those decades of confusion, misery and pain, and to suddenly change the wiring of my brain to be "female" would spit in the face of what I've gone through. It would be disrespectful of that struggle.
Ideally, my body would be changed to male, to fit the mind that currently resides within it. But since I'm on the path to do that, at least within the parameters of what medical science can provide, I'm happy.
I should note, that if I were answering this question about sexual orientation, being gay--no, under no circumstances would I change that at any age. The only reason I even entertained the idea for being trans is due what I recall; coping with it fairly well until puberty, when my life was ruined by gaining a body that could never pass as "male" again. Decades of feeling hopeless, pushing everyone away, just waiting to die, until I finally learned the truth that there was hope even for me. I would never wish that on another person.
If somehow I could magically be completely happy and content being a girl, yes I would do it. I've always hoped that 'one day' I'd be content as a girl, because I really do not like the feelings of hating my body. I really want to feel 'right' in my skin, so if somehow female felt right, I'd take it!
That said, I'd much rather go back and magically be born a boy, since that's what I know would feel right for me, but either way if both body and mind matched, that would be awesome! I feel like either way I'd still be me, I'd just be a more content me.
I've been wanting to reply to this thread but I honestly don't know how to answer.
Being trans has affected every part of my life, if that wasn't there, I can't imagine how many things would be different...it's like a butterfly effect.
The first thing that pops in to my head is "eeuugh no I wouldn't want to be a girl and think like a girl!" - but this thought obviously comes from the fact that right now, I'm not a girl.
If I never had the dysphoria to begin with, I'd have just grown up as a normal girl and the thought wouldn't have crossed my mind. This would have made me a completely different person and taken my life in a totally different direction. (albeit probably a better direction without the trans crap holding me back and stopping me from taking certain opportunities)
I still don't know how to answer even with this attempted logical breakdown :P
Um. No.
Why?
Because assuming this was possiable, I'd still have the memories. I'd REMEMBER being a boy living as a girl.
Knowing that would really ->-bleeped-<- with the head.
Quote from: Adio on April 15, 2010, 05:32:10 PM
I can't change my gender or my sexuality with or without a pill. Both evolve as I grow, but I'm not going to take a pill to be someone else's idea of "normal."
This. Definately this.
I read the answers and thought about it hard but for me being trans is a part of a life journey. Of course I would love to have the easy option, sometimes I just wish for it like crazy. Why can't I go back to how I felt as a teenager, before the gender dysphoria set in? Thing is with that, I would still end up here. I think NOT being a cisgender female makes me me. But if I could be a cisgendered male I would be happy not to have the dysphoria but still wouldn't quite be me. Being trans has opened my mind, matured me in the space of a few years and given me the ability to see into people. If I wasn't trans I would be just living everyone else's definition of 'normal' and would never have had this personal growth. I don't think being 'normal' is worth that.
as much as it sucks sometimes i can't imagine myself any differently than i am now. its a part of me, who i am :)
I would want to stay the way I am. I would have rather been born biologically male but I wasn't. I feel by changing my brain in any way I would be changing me. That is something I would never be willing to do.
As much as being trans annoys me at times.
I'd say no,
If i wasnt trans i wouldnt know half the people who're my best friends.
Also, i was one uuugly woman :P lol
If there was a pill to make my body completely male and there was evidence it worked it be swallowing that pill before the question was finished- no matter the risks or pain. Would I take a pill to make my mind female? No. I'm male and I don't like the thought of being female.
I'm sure if you asked most non-trans men if they'd want to be female or non-trans women if they'd want to be male they'd say no too. There might be interest in living like the other for a day, week or month. But permanently? I doubt it.
Yes, being trans is painful and difficult but that can't be helped. Even if you weren't trans that doesn't mean you're life would be wonderful with less problems or suffering. Remember, the majority of depressed people aren't trans.