I’m a trans woman - AMA

[Vastness]

Trans men are people born female who transition to male.
Trans women are people born male who transition to female.

Sorry, yes, I just misspoke - I meant to say trans women, in that context.

If they’ve had the surgery, why would you care?

Well... because I don't think that surgery as it currently exists is sufficient to overcome my innate heterosexual aversion to sexual interest in men, and not to say that trans women are men, just that the technology does not currently exist to make them women enough. This sounds kinda horrible and ableist to say phrased like that but I'm trying to just verbalize what I think are my own thoughts as best I can. I'll admit I struggled to answer this but mainly just because there's no way to say it without sounding kinda crude... but it isn't just about genitalia, I don't think - or maybe that's a rationalization, and I really am that basic an animal. I'm somewhat open to the idea (without actually conceding it, at this point) that I am, actually, just prejudiced in a way I don't want to really believe, and anything I might say about how there are certain "masculine" signifiers is really just a post-hoc justification to some kind of pre-rational instinctual aversion to sexual involvement with someone I perceive to have some unquantifiable disqualifying quantity of latent "masculine" traits...

But, that instinctual aversion is important, I think. Because sexuality itself isn't entirely quantifiable, it's based on instinct, nonverbal, pheromonal, and other assorted pre-rational potential compatibility metrics which of course are themselves not really always that reliable, but if this wasn't the case it would be possible to argue someone into or out of the sexuality that feels most "natural" to them, that they were born with, whether that be heterosexuality or homosexuality, and this obviously opens the doors to the validity of horrific shit like conversion therapy and such. It's perhaps arguable that innate sexuality contains within it a whole plethora of racist, ableist, prejudiced and generally fairly dark aspects of human psychology that fit into the "exclusion criteria" system which is mostly pre-rational and not consciously assessed by those who aren't being deliberately racist, ableist, or prejudiced in other areas... I'm not really entirely sure what to do with that insight, admittedly. Just that I think that it isn't really especially different from asking a cis homosexual man why they're not sexually interested in cis women, than it is asking a person who claims to be mostly sexually uninterested in trans people, why aren't they?

That would not be a guy

Sorry, again, let me clarify, at the point that I met them, they were presenting as male - they were considering transitioning, or perhaps it's better to say they were evaluating their gender identity in the somewhat utopian future I'm trying to use for this thought experiment. Although I do typically use the word "guy" as an neuter/non-gendered word quite often - I'm really not doing this on purpose, if there's a reason I shouldn't do that my apologies, I'm just being somewhat loose with the language I use and assuming my meanings can be inferred.

Would you date someone recovering from other social conditioning (e.g. atheists who grew up in ultrareligious environments or cult survivors or people from very different cultures to yours)?
Why would you care?

Well... I think it depends... there are some social conditionings I think that might have lingering impacts which could be just too off-putting, or too indicative of potential residually disordered thinking or tendencies that might cause problems later... I mean sure, I wouldn't necessarily rule out the vague examples you gave, I might rule out someone who used to belong to a cannibal cult that sacrificed children to the sun god, even if they were born into it, had little choice in the matter, and later realized the errors of their ways and escaped... I'm not saying they're less of a person or not worthy of love, I just don't think I personally am necessarily psychologically equipped to deal with that baggage. And I'm not baggage free either, obviously, or the easiest to love, maybe this is also somewhat ableist and prejudicial. But, there are reasons to care, in some cases, surely? I'm not sure this particular analogy works for the "why should anyone care about whether someone they're going to date is trans", question...

Do you think that someone born male or female can ever truly be the gender aligned with the opposite sex?

Heh... That's a loaded and unanswerable question... because at the risk of doing a Jordan Peterson, we first need to define what it means to "truly" be any gender, and what "gender" even is, anyway. (JP is a hateful hack obviously and I take no pleasure in invoking his particular brand of obfuscatory gibberish here, but that question needs to be much more clearly asked for the answer to have any meaning...)

I think that most preferences and aversions around trans people are due to cultural stigma and social conditioning

You may be correct about that... "most", for sure. But not all, I don't think, mainly because of the stuff I said earlier about sexuality itself surely having elements that are innate - unless you intend to argue to that even sexuality, or mass human trends of sexuality and gender expression are also "mostly" due to cultural stigma and social conditioning, which I think is surely a difficult argument to make...

I'll add that I really hope I haven't unintentionally said anything particularly offensive in my ramblings. I genuinely am interested in this topic and want to engage with it in good faith. I'm sure I do have biases though that might get in the way of that. I do regret bringing up the fucking shit about sports and Joe Roganisms earlier, sorry about that.

 

[Cream Gravy?]

^People are attracted to what they’re attracted to. There is no shame in it.

If you like women, or men, or anything in between, it is what it is. And that’s okay. There’s no need to over analyze it.

 

[Dr. John Thackery]

I do regret bringing up the fucking shit about sports and Joe Roganisms earlier, sorry about that.

Joe Rogan is deeply, deeply at war with his own rabid sexual attraction to trans women. and men too.

and his hatred of himself. he’s like the male equivalent of one of those housewives characters that destroys their looks with cosmetic surgery and steroids. the dude ugly as sin with the self mutilation he’s done to himself with chemicals at this point, just let it go, wear a shirt that fits properly. stop wearing high heels and just be yourself bro

 

[Vastness]

There’s no need to over analyze it.

I dunno, isn't there? I feel like it might be a cisheteronormative luxury to not need to overanalyze it. I mean, the need to analyze it emerges solely from the unfortunate existence of people with some weird problems with the idea that people should just be allowed to be who they are, and like who they like and all that. I do feel like the very nature of this thread invites a certain type of analysis.

I mean it's an entirely abstract analysis for me, I'm not looking to nor expecting to have my own preferences or thoughts about my own identity changed by anything I learn from this thread, but that luxury is also a cishetero-privilege, right? Because (I have to assume) that some people without that unearned privilege imposed by social norms do need to engage in a fair amount of self-analysis and consideration of their own thoughts and how many of their own thoughts are influenced by what other people have told them about themselves, versus what they really believe... I mean maybe this is just absolutely obvious to everyone else in the world and should go without saying. It should go without saying but personally I had to reason towards this realization.

Maybe I am just overthinking all this and misconstruing the purpose of this thread though.

But, there's another implied question in the second paragraph above for @arrall, and apologies if it's been asked and answered earlier, I did look but couldn't really see that it has been - did you find yourself with a kind of "internalized transphobia" earlier on in your life - and/or do you think you still have any? And - assuming that you have mostly moved past that (which it sounds like you have, correct me if I'm wrong) - can you identify any particular catalysts for that, whether random stuff you experienced, the influence of other people you met, or just a kinda inner process relating to your brain growing and maturing as you grew up?

 

[Cream Gravy?]

I dunno, isn't there? I feel like it might be a cisheteronormative luxury to not need to overanalyze it. I mean, the need to analyze it emerges solely from the unfortunate existence of people with some weird problems with the idea that people should just be allowed to be who they are, and like who they like and all that. I do feel like the very nature of this thread invites a certain type of analysis.

I mean it's an entirely abstract analysis for me, I'm not looking to nor expecting to have my own preferences or thoughts about my own identity changed by anything I learn from this thread, but that luxury is also a cishetero-privilege, right? Because (I have to assume) that some people without that unearned privilege imposed by social norms do need to engage in a fair amount of self-analysis and consideration of their own thoughts and how many of their own thoughts are influenced by what other people have told them about themselves, versus what they really believe... I mean maybe this is just absolutely obvious to everyone else in the world and should go without saying. It should go without saying but personally I had to reason towards this realization.

Maybe I am just overthinking all this and misconstruing the purpose of this thread though.

But, there's another implied question in the second paragraph above for @arrall, and apologies if it's been asked and answered earlier, I did look but couldn't really see that it has been - did you find yourself with a kind of "internalized transphobia" earlier on in your life - and/or do you think you still have any? And - assuming that you have mostly moved past that (which it sounds like you have, correct me if I'm wrong) - can you identify any particular catalysts for that, whether random stuff you experienced, the influence of other people you met, or just a kinda inner process relating to your brain growing and maturing as you grew up?

At the end of the day you want to fuck who you want to fuck and you shouldn’t have to feel guilty for NOT wanting to fuck anyone you’re not attracted to. Does that make more sense? If you don’t like dick, how could you want to fuck someone who has one?

If you don’t like MTF transgender people, you don’t like them. It doesn’t have to be some sort of guilt trip nor does anyone have to judge someone for not liking them.

I mean, I don’t like fat chicks (most guys don’t), should we all feel horribly guilty about it? I really don’t think so. And there are men out there that do like fat chicks so they can fill the gap. There’s someone for everyone right? No need to feel something for not feeling lust for every person on the planet.

But can everyone see why it’s so hard for ‘cis’ folks to grasp this? I think most of us don’t spend much time thinking about WHY we want to fuck someone and much more time just thinking about all the ways we WANT to fuck someone. See what I mean?

 

[Vastness]

Well yeah, most cis and most hetero people have never been made to feel ashamed of their sexuality or gender identity, that's why it's hard for them to grasp this for sure. That's what I thought I was saying also, in a more roundabout way maybe. I'm not saying I'm ashamed of anything either in that regard or that I think anyone else should be. But guilt and shame have some relevance in how social prejudices arise, I reckon... mostly through people projecting their own shame about themselves onto others I guess, case in point, Joe Rogan. So I think it's maybe important to think about them, from a distance - so that we can also think about how to make sure that other people and future generations are not afflicted by us unconsciously passing on "generational" stigma and shame about certain things without even realizing it.

I don't think I'm actually disagreeing with anything you're saying as far as what is or isn't worth being ashamed of... I just vaguely object to the idea that some things just aren't worth thinking about, coz, I mean, IMO that demonstrably just doesn't work, you just end up with "don't ask don't tell" type cultures where there are certain topics that no-one ever bothers to look at closely, and deep-seated cultural biases all tangled up in copious and unhealthy amounts of guilt and shame, that will inevitably disproportionately affect the individuals who actually want and need to talk about and analyze whatever shit it is, compared to the ones who just aren't that affected and don't need to think about it.

 

[Esperighanto]

Isn't the challenging part here about people trying to force others to accept and abide by their personal chosen beliefs? And the subsequent influence on the education system involving young impressionable minds who are particularly vulnerable to adopting beliefs which influence how they view themselves.

I really suspect that the personal freedom for an informed adult to exert control over their body's chemistry is what matters here.

In some countries certain groups are campaigning to force their personal gender-related beliefs on others by demanding that society abide by them. That includes imposing them on young impressionable children (eg at school) which could arguably be seen as indoctrination.

I can only speak from the perspective of where I grew up in New England, but people were always taught about this in exactly one way, and that's that sometimes adults find themselves marrying someone of the opposite gender, or maybe the same, but it doesn't matter because it's just a way that some people vary from others, the same as eye color or hair color or whatever.

Anyhow, I thought it interesting that arrall claims to be a woman, and at the same time feels comfortable with the fact that they have male genitals and do not wish to remove them. I have no beef with this (personally I’m attracted to anyone who has a pretty face and presents as feminine, call me a slut) but I don’t think this makes you a woman. I think this makes you a third gender as defined by other societies historically.

I think you're misconflating biological sex and gender here. Sex is your chromosomes, it's what you were born as, gender is performative, the way that men in some societies wear pants but in other societies (like in some parts of central Africa) go through scarification processes as a young teenager to indicate their manhood. Different cultures have variations in how gender is performed, yet biological sex is a consistent fact of biology. There is also the very rare incident of intersex folks, and there are something like ~40 different (also very rare) genetic disorders which can lead to people having super abnormal chromosomes, things like XXY instead of XY for example, but that's also certainly an edge case. I think that you're "I don't think this makes you a woman" thing I suspect is just founded upon that misconflation of gender and sex.

You sound like a biological male who doesn't want to have sex with other biological males and you're going out of your way to be nice about it. But you shouldn't have to do that. It's not transphobic to be heterosexual.

Yeah, the way that the labels homosexual and heterosexual are used is really interesting, because it really has more nuance than the current labels provide. A best friend of mine is exclusively into feminine folks, trans women and cis women and the occasionally femboy. I also have friends who are only into people who have penises, whether it's cis men or trans women or nonbinary folk or whatever the fuck. There isn't yet a well agreed-upon label for folks who have "genital preference" versus folks who have "preference of gender expression", if that makes sense, but yeah it's valid to have a preference towards whatever you have a preference towards. What would make somebody transphobic is if they harbor hatred towards trans people for being trans, not just having a preference with partners.

Just an observation - so you don't know any biological female athletes who'd be directly affected by competing with a biological male, nor do you know any mothers who'd rather their young daughter didn't have to share a changing room with a biological male, and your somewhat "woke" crowd haven't voiced any opinions that support respecting womens-only spaces/sports.

I should've known by your incoherent nonsensical "scientific" ramblings that you're also a TERF, confident ignorance in one topic seems to go hand-in-hand with confident ignorance in another topic.

I am being 100% Honest here with you & I ask my question & also make my statement in all good faith & BL knows me, I come across as "Rude" to say the least, I am BLUNT in what I say so people can't mistake what I am getting at. I NEVER intend to show Disrespect to people in what I say, I am English Working Class from a area famous for taking no shit in the way we speak so now that is clear folks..............

Owkay here goes.......

You say you are a Woman but you don't have a Cervix, if I took your DNA you would show as male, I am fully aware some people are born hermaphrodite which is a whole other thing but if you & I were both naked we would both have a penis, Prostate etc but Women don't have these things. How do you balance this in your mind?

I find "Trans" people to have a kind of Mental issue with their Ego & for some reason their perception of TRUTH has gone wrong, I don't look in the mirror any day & think I am a Dog, Cat, Lion, Zebra etc & I sure don't think I am Woman, as you said in a post "I will say that I never felt very masculine and had an inkling when I was younger (especially when I took psychedelics as a teenager) but didn't figure out what any of those feelings meant until adulthood." which to me is 100% PROJECTED EGO.

You must feel ok to wear a dress, make up, project yourself in Society as a Female / Woman, if this is right would you ever go to India, cover your body 100% each day in Human ash freshly collected from the open cremation ground & walk around naked for 8 years?
Would you ever sit naked, also covered in human ash upon a fresh corpse all night & do deep meditation upon who / what you actually are?

I know I already articulated it earlier on in this comment, but you're misconflating gender and sex. Biological sex is what's in your chromosomes, as you said "but you don't have a cervix", gender is a social construct (which varies between cultures, by the way) pertaining to how one performs gender. I would love to hear your takes on this, given the aforementioned information I just wrote out.

 

[mal3volent]

I really suspect that the personal freedom for an informed adult to exert control over their body's chemistry is what matters here.

I can only speak from the perspective of where I grew up in New England, but people were always taught about this in exactly one way, and that's that sometimes adults find themselves marrying someone of the opposite gender, or maybe the same, but it doesn't matter because it's just a way that some people vary from others, the same as eye color or hair color or whatever.

I think you're misconflating biological sex and gender here. Sex is your chromosomes, it's what you were born as, gender is performative, the way that men in some societies wear pants but in other societies (like in some parts of central Africa) go through scarification processes as a young teenager to indicate their manhood. Different cultures have variations in how gender is performed, yet biological sex is a consistent fact of biology. There is also the very rare incident of intersex folks, and there are something like ~40 different (also very rare) genetic disorders which can lead to people having super abnormal chromosomes, things like XXY instead of XY for example, but that's also certainly an edge case. I think that you're "I don't think this makes you a woman" thing I suspect is just founded upon that misconflation of gender and sex.

Yeah, the way that the labels homosexual and heterosexual are used is really interesting, because it really has more nuance than the current labels provide. A best friend of mine is exclusively into feminine folks, trans women and cis women and the occasionally femboy. I also have friends who are only into people who have penises, whether it's cis men or trans women or nonbinary folk or whatever the fuck. There isn't yet a well agreed-upon label for folks who have "genital preference" versus folks who have "preference of gender expression", if that makes sense, but yeah it's valid to have a preference towards whatever you have a preference towards. What would make somebody transphobic is if they harbor hatred towards trans people for being trans, not just having a preference with partners.

I should've known by your incoherent nonsensical "scientific" ramblings that you're also a TERF, confident ignorance in one topic seems to go hand-in-hand with confident ignorance in another topic.

I know I already articulated it earlier on in this comment, but you're misconflating gender and sex. Biological sex is what's in your chromosomes, as you said "but you don't have a cervix", gender is a social construct (which varies between cultures, by the way) pertaining to how one performs gender. I would love to hear your takes on this, given the aforementioned information I just wrote out.

It's interesting you take issue with all these takes but not with the OP's claim that taking hormones as a biological male can somehow make him closer to female. When you yourself admit sex is predetermined at birth and non changeable. It boggles my mind how one moment the "gender is a social construct" argument is made then next minute the same individual is arguing these arbitrary designations should take precedence over biological reality. Then to throw around silly terms like TERF , just displays how entrenched your biases are.

I think the terms heteroSEXual, homoSEXual, and biSEXual are all perfectly clear.

 

[mal3volent]

Trans men are people born female who transition to male.
Trans women are people born male who transition to female.
I’m not sure if you meant to say trans women or if you have issues with people who identify as male but were born female not immediately pumping themselves full of testosterone and going to play sports with biological males (many of them do, such as a trans man who used to be active on these forums a few years back)

Sex is your chromosomes, it's what you were born as,

 

[Cream Gravy?]

I think you're misconflating biological sex and gender here[…] I think that you're "I don't think this makes you a woman" thing I suspect is just founded upon that misconflation of gender and sex.

No I don’t believe I have those two things confused at all.

I mean people can call themselves whatever they like. But there will be disagreements as long as the terms are being redefined rather than created to express something new. And it is most definitely nonsensical to call yourself by the opposite sex as an expression of your gender identity.

If you identify as feminine in gender and want to have a non-masculine term for it, that’s logical. But the beef society at large has with mtf transgender people is that they are usurping a term that has a distinct definition. Same with ftm except men are not a historically marginalized group so I doubt many men feel threatened by that.

It’s just semantics yes. But once again, when you ask women, even the most politically correct types will say that they don’t feel someone is a woman if they still cling to the opposite genitalia. There isn’t anything wrong with opting out of reassignment surgery but it most definitely isn’t right to be taking away womanhood from women.

A lot of what is being defined as gender is being expressed as biological sex these days. As long as this continues, large portions of society will continue to not understand what exactly is being expressed.

I was more interested in hearing arrall’s reasoning here though, seeing as they made the thread and identify as feminine.

 

[Esperighanto]

No I don’t believe I have those two things confused at all.

I mean people can call themselves whatever they like. But there will be disagreements as long as the terms are being redefined rather than created to express something new. And it is most definitely nonsensical to call yourself by the opposite sex as an expression of your gender identity.

If you identify as feminine in gender and want to have a non-masculine term for it, that’s logical. But the beef society at large has with mtf transgender people is that they are usurping a term that has a distinct definition. Same with ftm except men are not a historically marginalized group so I doubt many men feel threatened by that.

It’s just semantics yes. But once again, when you ask women, even the most politically correct types will say that they don’t feel someone is a woman if they still cling to the opposite genitalia. There isn’t anything wrong with opting out of reassignment surgery but it most definitely isn’t right to be taking away womanhood from women.

A lot of what is being defined as gender is being expressed as biological sex these days. As long as this continues, large portions of society will continue to not understand what exactly is being expressed.

I was more interested in hearing arrall’s reasoning here though, seeing as they made the thread and identify as feminine.

You can continue to use the words gender and sex incorrectly all you want, but it won't change what the dictionary says it is buddy.

I think the terms heteroSEXual, homoSEXual, and biSEXual are all perfectly clear.

These are referring not to biological sex, but to sexuality as in attraction, not chromosomes.

It's interesting you take issue with all these takes but not with the OP's claim that taking hormones as a biological male can somehow make him closer to female. When you yourself admit sex is predetermined at birth and non changeable. It boggles my mind how one moment the "gender is a social construct" argument is made then next minute the same individual is arguing these arbitrary designations should take precedence over biological reality. Then to throw around silly terms like TERF , just displays how entrenched your biases are.

I partially disagree with OP's take that taking hormones as a biological male can make you closer to a female, it can induce things like a higher amount of subcutaneous fat which is often associated with biological females, shit like that, but in general I don't think there's "closer" or "further" from one biological sex to the next, outside of the insanely rare cases of intersex people like I mentioned earlier.

How did I argue that the social construct of gender takes precedence over the concept of biological sex? Both are relevant characteristics of somebody, and I'd suspect them to be meaningfully incomparable to one another. My reference to Allylbenzene as a TERF is as a result of his attempt to posture his transphobia as just being a "pro-women" stance, when in reality it's transphobia with a mask on, trying to appear virtuous.

 

[Cream Gravy?]

You can continue to use the words gender and sex incorrectly all you want, but it won't change what the dictionary says it is buddy.

Okay.

 

[Cheshire_Kat]

If this source is good for a definition...

Why is this one not acceptable?

Just curious ...

 

[Esperighanto]

If this source is good for a definition...

Why is this one not acceptable?

Just curious ...

Do you think that the word female refers strictly to biological sex, but not gender somehow? Since we're playing the "let's refer to the dictionary game", what about:

 

[Cheshire_Kat]

Do you think that the word female refers strictly to biological sex, but not gender somehow? Since we're playing the "let's refer to the dictionary game", what about:

I used the exact same source as you did, I did not switch to a different source to prove a point.

I am not actually arguing against what people feel and accept, nor trans people; merely that your example was a poorly thought through argument, considering the contradicting definitions .

What might you learn from this? Perhaps to check your references better if you wish to prove a point.

 

[Esperighanto]

I used the exact same source as you did, I did not switch to a different source to prove a point.

I am not actually arguing against what people feel and accept, nor trans people; merely that your example was a poorly thought through argument, considering the contradicting definitions .

What might you learn from this? Perhaps to check your references better if you wish to prove a point.

My reference initially states "an adult female person", your reference refers to the word "woman" as "an adult female person", and then I point out how "female" is defined as "having a gender identity that is the opposite of male", therefore showing the socially constructed nature of gender, via simple definitions in a dictionary that most anglophones agree is pretty reliable. I don't know what about this doesn't make sense to you, maybe I overlooked something, but to me it seems pretty simple.

Edit: I think that what's going on is that our fundamental beliefs are clashing over the fluidity of how these words get applied. Regardless, I think we've both made our points pretty fully, it seems.

 

[Cheshire_Kat]

You can believe and think any way you wish, please allow others the very same opportunity to believe what they want.
One simply cannot force another to believe what another believes.
I live in a community that accepts alternative gender assignments, but I cannot force anyone else to believe that. If I try and force them then I become the oppressor, and they the victim.

This sword cuts both ways

 

[Cheshire_Kat]

My reference initially states "an adult female person", your reference refers to the word "woman" as "an adult female person", and then I point out how "female" is defined as "having a gender identity that is the opposite of male", therefore showing the socially constructed nature of gender, via simple definitions in a dictionary that most anglophones agree is pretty reliable. I don't know what about this doesn't make sense to you, maybe I overlooked something, but to me it seems pretty simple.

Edit: I think that what's going on is that our fundamental beliefs are clashing over the fluidity of how these words get applied. Regardless, I think we've both made our points pretty fully, it seems.

Actually I think more closely in line with you than you might think, however I believe that everyone should be allowed to have free will and thought.

Make everyone your friend and change them with the way you treat them. My grandmother taught me that.

Smile and the world smiles with you. Frown and you'll stand alone.

If one's goal is to change hearts and minds, which do you think works better?

 

[Esperighanto]

Actually I think more closely in line with you, however I believe that everyone should be allowed to have free will and thought.

Make everyone your friend and change them with the way you treat them. My grandmother taught me that.

Smile and the world smiles with you. Frown and you'll stand alone.

If one's goal is to change hearts and minds, which do you think works better?

I agree with this fully, and I can certainly see how I came off as snarky/bitchy in my posts on this thread. I suppose I got a bit riled at peoples' hubris in thinking that language's fluidic nature is more rigid than it truly is, and I came off as a bitch as a result. Sorry about that.

 

[Cheshire_Kat]

Don't sweat it
You're OK in my book