Quote from: Abbyxo on May 05, 2014, 09:07:55 AM
And then there's society again. Being what appears to be a pretty girl in this society. I feel like a liar. So inauthentic and fake. I feel obbligated to every come on, every smile,every wink, every stare. I'm fooling them into believing I'm something I'm not. But in another society none of that would matter, right? I might not have to transition in the first place, and even if I did I wouldn't have to feel fake.

I'm just throwing this out there, but perhaps society has made us too concerned about the divide between artificial and natural.  To me, this is just as harmful as the gender binary ever has been.  We are more defined in the first 10 seconds of life (race, sex, genetic gifts, place of birth, parents, etc.) than everything combined we do in life thereafter.

I'm starting to care less about the dichotomy between fake and real.  Isn't the mind everything?

This has been a very interesting thread to watch. Thanks for posting it Abby. It seems to be nearing the end, but I figured I might as well give my two cents anyways.

For myself I feel that my physical dysphoria is somehow innate, but greatly exacerbated by gender roles and expectations. I see gender identity as innate, but much more amorphous than some solid male or female. I think that it is something that makes you lean more to one direction or another for what social gender cues you absorb. If its not set from birth it probably becomes fairly close to set within the first few years of life. Because of this there are probably a number of trans people who wouldn't need to transition if there was no gender binary, but some still would.

In my case I have to physically transition. I passed 100% even before starting hormones. In fact in middle and high school I had to work to be seen as male. I grew breasts so had to wear a binder. I mastered wearing baggy clothes and layers to hide my body shape and kept my hair buzzed. I even had to try to lower my voice because it never dropped.  For me social transitioning was stopping all that and putting on tighter fitting clothes. Yet social wasn't enough. I still needed to start hrt and I need gcs surgery. I can still remember when I was 4 years old and my testicles dropped. It freaked me out so much that I still haven't forgotten because it felt so wrong for them to be there. I was convinced something was wrong with me. I have to ignore the urge I've had since childhood to castrate myself everyday. I regularly have the sensation of a phantom vagina and can sometimes forget what is really there until something reminds me.  All the other things I dislike about my body I feel are caused by societal rules for beauty, but I can't believe that my genital dysphoria since early childhood is caused by social causes only.

Also I don't view myself as a woman in a man's body. I feel I have a horrible birth defect between my legs because that has always been the only thing that genders me as male. Now that I'm at the end of this I guess you could argue that my dysphoria is caused by society saying boys have penises and girls have vaginas. That still wouldn't explain why I have never felt male though.

Quote from: Declan. on May 05, 2014, 03:00:50 PM
I didn't say they should be forced to find their place in the binary or change their body. I'm fine with a world where people who don't feel the need to transition don't, and the people who do need to transition go through with it. I'm not fine with a world where the people who do need to transition aren't legally allowed to because of misguided activists. The only reason we're allowed to transition is because transition is the only way to treat most of us. If the trend of "we only need to transition because of gender roles" persists, it's a very real possibility that we will no longer be allowed to transition.

It's not the only explanation that makes sense. It doesn't explain the phantom feeling of genitalia that isn't there, or feeling your chest and feeling something different from what your brain is telling you should be there. For some, that's a reality. I never felt like I didn't "fit" with other males. I never felt like I didn't "fit" with females, either. Just about all of New England is progressive, but I live in a pocket where gender roles are not at all a part of society and not forced on anyone. If you were blind and everyone sounded the same, you would not be able to tell male from female here. Even though there are a few people who do fit the "typical" gender roles found in other parts of the country, the majority don't.

I don't feel like my body is the wrong sex. My body is deformed, not "the wrong sex." Even if gender roles were eradicated, most men will still be born with male bodies, and most females will still be born with female bodies.

The point is, why do you need to transition socially when you have a body problem?

Why is your name declan and not your female name? Why do you call yourself male?

Cuz it's not just about your body. It's not just about the feeling of your brain vs your anatomy. It is turned into something social by society saying you have to be something socially if you want to look a certain way. What if someone had body sysphoria but became super socially dysphoric being forced into a male social role in transition? It shouldn't be a package deal but it is, and just cuz you are okay with that doesn't make it right. Everyone should get the treatment they need, not the treatment they are told they would need if they were depressed in the correct way.

Quote from: sad panda on May 05, 2014, 08:45:06 PM
The point is, why do you need to transition socially when you have a body problem?

Why is your name declan and not your female name? Why do you call yourself male?
Because that is what HE prefers.

and just cuz you are okay with that doesn't make it right.
To you it might not, but to him it is. Quit telling people they are not right to feel what they do.

If this is going to be a free for all this topic will be locked. 

I'm sorry Jessica but you didn't understand what I said at all.... :/

I know that's what he prefers. Point is even if he didn't, society would force him to in order to change his body. And that is NOT right. It is not.

Quote from: sad panda on May 05, 2014, 08:53:18 PM
I know that's what he prefers. Point is even if he didn't, society would force him to in order to change his body. And that is NOT right. It is not.

Society can only force you to do something if you let them. Society and others opinions had no bearing or deciding factor in my transition. I did it for me and how I wanted to. No one coerced or had any input into it. I think that is the big sticking point here. Side A-Says society influenced or decided for us. Maybe those people did get guided into it. Side B- Says society and its rules and stereotypes did not have any bearing in their decisions. We all have to agree that we all have opinions, but neither is going to be proven right because it cant be proven.

Quote from: Jessica Merriman on May 05, 2014, 08:59:09 PM
Society can only force you to do something if you let them. Society and others opinions had no bearing or deciding factor in my transition. I did it for me and how I wanted to. No one coerced or had any input into it. I think that is the big sticking point here. Side A-Says society influenced or decided for us. Maybe those people did get guided into it. Side B- Says society and its rules and stereotypes did not have any bearing in their decisions. We all have to agree that we all have opinions, but neither is going to be proven right because it cant be proven.

T is a controlled substance, you cannot get a script without proof that you need it and that means going thru a social transition. There is no legal way to change your body to fix body dysphoria without also going thru a social transition. Same to get surgeries. So yeah society pretty blatantly forces that. It tells trans people they are invalid unless they want the whole package, and that comes from our view of what a man or woman is supposed to be.

Quote from: sad panda on May 05, 2014, 09:04:49 PM
T is a controlled substance, you cannot get a script without proof that you need it and that means going thru a social transition. There is no legal way to change your body to fix body dysphoria without also going thru a social transition. Same to get surgeries. So yeah society pretty blatantly forces that. It tells trans people they are invalid unless they want the whole package, and that comes from our view of what a man or woman is supposed to be.

Nitro tabs are a controlled substance also, but society doesn't make me not want it if I am having a massive coronary! I still have to prove with EKGs and labs I am having one. Dysphoria is the same way. You have to prove you need it.

I certainly didn't need society to tell me I needed to transition fully and end up with the whole shebang.  My own brain said so.  I originally tried to buck the whole binary thing, avoid transitioning socially and just maybe do my own thing, but it seems I won't likely be satisfied until my body matches what my brain thinks it should be like.  Besides, trying to act and dress like a guy caused me pain and grief to the point of almost killing myself.  Or like my therapist said, "Severe gender dysphoria".   For me it was literally life or death, for others it is clearly not.  There seeem to be degrees of masculinization/feminization of the brain at play here.

Quote from: Jessica Merriman on May 05, 2014, 09:07:40 PM
Nitro tabs are a controlled substance also, but society doesn't make me not want it if I am having a massive coronary! I still have to prove with EKGs and labs I am having one. Dysphoria is the same way. You have to prove you need it.

I'm sorry I don't mean to be rude I just really don't feel like we are on the same page here D:

What I am saying is you shouldn't have to prove anything, and the proof should be that you are depressed and psychologically disturbed by being unable to change your body, not that you have to want to live as a man.

For example... I am a boy, that is how I identify and nobody can take that from me. I have long hair, i wear girl's clothes, I have a body and face that looks female to everyone. People tell me that i can't or shouldn't be like that and also call myself a boy, and that is wrong of them. Nobody should be able to tell me that i have to look like a boy to identify as one, and the same goes for if i only wanted to change my body and not my identity. Does that make more sense? :S

Ok, I'm curious as to what you would say I should do. My female body has always felt wrong. Not because of gender roles but because it just felt wrong. I'm thinking back to when I was about 4. I didn't understand why I was so much shorter than all the boys. And when the boys decided to have a peeing contest, I couldn't do it. I was doing everything they did and not feeling judged for it, so it wasn't that I wanted to do what they did. I hate my breasts. I have the fact my muscle mass doesn't match how I feel. I feel like I should have more hair. So physically, my body doesn't fit me. No, using medical science to make changes won't solve everything but it will get me a lot closer to how I feel inside.

As far as gender. I have never identified as female. I'm sure some of this has to do with how I feel about my body and some probably does have to do with gender roles. I'd been identifying as pangender for quite some time. I have also identified as genderfluid. That still works. As a child, I consistently identified as "tomboy" and that truly felt right. There have been cultures that have identified up to 4 genders. Who knows, there may have been cultures that had more.

Recently, I've been calling myself male. I will admit, some of this is me more strongly stating (through gender preference) that I am not female. And I'm going to enjoy that because it's the first time I've truly gotten to do that out loud. Legally, I am choosing to change my gender to male because the options are male or female and I do not feel like a female. I have no plans of living in stealth. I will be open about my transgender journey and I feel this is my chance to make a statement. I spent my first 4 decades with a female body and gender designation, living largely in the male gender role. No one who knows me well has been surprised by my transition. I will now spend time living with a male body (eventually) and a legal male gender designation but I'm not going to hide any "girly" traits I have. And I live in a small town and work with the public so there is no hiding. All sorts of people are going to have to deal with my transition and how I am after I'm legally/physically male.

So would you have me not transition? And what would you have me not transition. My body? My legal gender? If you say change nothing, is that going to help our society move forward to a less binary place?

Its just that  non binary people who dont want the whole package will always have to deal with society one way or another...

you will always have to  be either male or female in your passport etc even if you dont feel like that

etc etc Im not going to analyze everything but you get the point...

for me its not that society forces anything, its that Im not able to feel free enough because everything is build up upon the gender binary...

@christopher thats a decision only you can make
change things that make you feel uncomfortable and sad dont try to fit into a role just because that role is there, be who you want to be

I am trying to understand this and all I keep coming up with is more of an anger at the process involved in transition or being forced to accept a certain gender.

Transition, like it or not, is a medical procedure that has protocols for medical professionals to follow. Society is not to blame for that. What I am gathering is some of you think the protocols and gatekeeping are societies way to control or punish trans people. I don't see it that way as a retired medical professional. I see severe complications to one's mind and body if adequate controls are not kept on this procedure. Society doesn't dictate that, the health services do. I am with Jill in the way no one had any influence in my decision at all. When I recognized the symptoms I knew I would have to go through stringent controls. I accepted that as looking out for my whole well being and not societal control. No one on this Earth makes me do anything I don't want to and I am like I am because I want to be. I want to be feminine and dress accordingly because I want it, not because someone forced me to.

Quote from: FalseHybridPrincess on May 05, 2014, 09:24:05 PM

@christopher thats a decision only you can make
change things that make you feel uncomfortable and sad dont try to fit into a role just because that role is there, be who you want to be

Oh yes, I know that And I'm pretty clear on my path. I'm just trying to understand the point sad panda and abby are making. I'm curious as to what their take is.

The worst thing in the world is an echo chamber, where everybody in the room agrees with each other.  We all tend to lean into our biases, and without dissent pulling in the other direction we'll veer off the road and into the ditch, and then through the field and then right off the cliff and into oblivion.  Such things create polarization, which creates tribalism, which creates homogenization within the tribes, which then ultimately creates outright war between all the tribes.  The internet has made it very easy to curate your own echo chamber, and many people do just that, because we are hardwired for tribalism, it's in our genes.  It is, to me, the most threatening thing about these internets, because when you are old as me, it's easy to see how much more polarized society is now, compared to how it used to be.

So, while it has been a little heated, and at times has made me feel emotions I'd rather not feel, I am thankful for this thread.   Many very good writers and thinkers contributing, and a very heady topic, created by a 19 year old, and that's pretty cool!  If nothing else I feel threads like this keep me on the road and not off-track coming to weird conclusions that fit, not reality, but only my own limited worldview.  I don't feel like many people have given an inch in this discussion, and it's path has become a big circle, but just knowing there are smart people out there that see things differently than we do is enough to keep us all grounded.  And knowing we could face pushback for expressing our viewpoints on these sorts of topics is enough to keep us from forging forward with expressing new opinions that press the limits of reality even further.  And I think that is a good thing.  A gift really.

It has been kept relatively civil up till now, and I hope it stays that way, because that is the key to keeping dialogs open going forward, even in future threads, and people honest with their feelings.

I'm in agreement with quite a lot of the things being said.  Non-binaries shouldn't have to do anything they want.  No one should have to transition.  No one should have to do something they want.  That's all fine with me and I try to carry those beliefs onto the forum and see many others do the same. However, don't think binaries should be blamed as people when we are only doing what we need to be happy.  And the thing is, many people have been supportive of all, so I feel a lot of statements are misdirected and unfair.  To be honest, that hurts cause some of us tried to befriend you all and support your decisions. Maybe the system is skewed, but remember individual people aren't the system.  We can only do what we can.  I try to do that on my own part and not force the binary narative on anyone and try to support those for different backgrounds, but I can't and won't sacrifice my transition because someone else doesn't want me to.  No one has the right to tell me what to do with my body and no one has the right to tell you want to do with yours. This feels like a blame game that is unfair in it's core.

Everyone should do what's best for themselves and no one should be pressured.  Do what's best for themselves.  I realize all of that is easier said than done, but if there is a way to make it easier I'm all for it.  Look, don't we all feel pain.  Don't we all feel misery?  Maybe not, but I do.  All of us should be allowed to be ourselves to get passed this.  I don't want to take that from you, and I'd hope you wouldn't take that from me.  Again, I realize this is all easier said than done, but let's care about each other and not make this into a battle against each other.  why can't we all support each others quest for happiness?  I realize society makes these things hard, but they make it hard for all of us.  We are all fighting the same battle, just in different ways. 

I guess simply put, can't we all support each other and get along.  I may be a simpleton  who feels too much but I do want everyone to find happiness through their own individual path and hope everyone here would hope the same for me. 

Abby, you don't have to transition if you don't want to.  Do what's best for you as a person, which only you can know for yourself.  Seriously, I know you may think many bad things about me, but I do care and hope you find what you want out of this life.  Believe me, you don't want to suffer with all of this longer than you should. Be you and follow your own path.  You don't have to do anything you don't want to do.  And I'd say the same thing to Panda.  Good luck with everything to the both of you and I hope it works out, whatever it is. 

Quote from: christopher on May 05, 2014, 09:22:22 PM
Ok, I'm curious as to what you would say I should do. My female body has always felt wrong. Not because of gender roles but because it just felt wrong. I'm thinking back to when I was about 4. I didn't understand why I was so much shorter than all the boys. And when the boys decided to have a peeing contest, I couldn't do it. I was doing everything they did and not feeling judged for it, so it wasn't that I wanted to do what they did. I hate my breasts. I have the fact my muscle mass doesn't match how I feel. I feel like I should have more hair. So physically, my body doesn't fit me. No, using medical science to make changes won't solve everything but it will get me a lot closer to how I feel inside.

As far as gender. I have never identified as female. I'm sure some of this has to do with how I feel about my body and some probably does have to do with gender roles. I'd been identifying as pangender for quite some time. I have also identified as genderfluid. That still works. As a child, I consistently identified as "tomboy" and that truly felt right. There have been cultures that have identified up to 4 genders. Who knows, there may have been cultures that had more.

Recently, I've been calling myself male. I will admit, some of this is me more strongly stating (through gender preference) that I am not female. And I'm going to enjoy that because it's the first time I've truly gotten to do that out loud. Legally, I am choosing to change my gender to male because the options are male or female and I do not feel like a female. I have no plans of living in stealth. I will be open about my transgender journey and I feel this is my chance to make a statement. I spent my first 4 decades with a female body and gender designation, living largely in the male gender role. No one who knows me well has been surprised by my transition. I will now spend time living with a male body (eventually) and a legal male gender designation but I'm not going to hide any "girly" traits I have. And I live in a small town and work with the public so there is no hiding. All sorts of people are going to have to deal with my transition and how I am after I'm legally/physically male.

So would you have me not transition? And what would you have me not transition. My body? My legal gender? If you say change nothing, is that going to help our society move forward to a less binary place?

Well, personally, I think you should change everything you want and only what you want. You also shouldn't be made to change things you don't want... and that can happen in a lot of ways. Thru explicit or imagined pressure from other people, thru legal or medical standards that you are forced to comply with but don't fit you, or thru judgments you make about yourself because of internalized gender roles. It is really awesome when you can have the transition that gives you everything you want. But, not everybody can, because not every transition, or every personal change, is considered legitimate by our society. Our views of gender force people into boxes, even force people to put themselves in a box, like how you have to become legally male even though you are polygender. And I think as you socialize more as a male, you may find other ways in which the binary tries to force you to give up your own ideas and assimilate. It is inescapable in the current world, anywhere. It is inescapable even just cuz those standards exist and you are aware of them, which can change how you feel about yourself even just a little bit.

Again, it's great for the people it works for.. but it only works for some people, and it is very harmful to others. It's just like how women are beaten with messages to be thin and pretty. Some women manage to still have self confidence, but there is still a serious effect in that many women internalize those ideas and become depressive, disordered or suicidal when they wouldn't be otherwise. It's just irresponsible for people to say, it works for me, so we don't need to change it, it's not wrong. You know?

And to make this productive, what can we all do to simultaneously support one another? How can we turn this into something productive where I can support you, you can support me and the world can support all of us? I'm up for solutions that allow this and sure all of us are too.  I realize the system is part of the problem, so how do we change the system and be able to support each other? 

We can start by not discounting personal success stories no matter how the person achieved the goal or what guided them to it. Personal opinions are fine until they lead to blanket statements concerning everyone in a certain group. If one group has success don't say it was because they were pressured or assimilated due to interests of others instead of their informed opinion. That is a start.

Quote from: Jessica Merriman on May 05, 2014, 10:04:15 PM
We can start by not discounting personal success stories no matter how the person achieved the goal or what guided them to it. Personal opinions are fine until they lead to blanket statements concerning everyone in a certain group. If one group has success don't say it was because they were pressured or assimilated due to interests of others instead of their informed opinion. That is a start.

I think that's a start here, and that's what I'm hoping for how we view and treat one another, but I don't think that addresses systematic issues for non-binaries.  I think rather than us turn against each other, we can turn to each other and maybe find solutions together.  I may be hard headed and have binary-privledge, but I have a heart and do care about people hoping that it will be possible for them to attain their dreams.  I just don't know what I can personally do or how we can take on the system as we are being called to do.