Politeness norms seem to keep a lot of folks from discussing or asking their trans friends questions they have, I figured at the very least I could help try to fill the gap. Lemmy has a decent trans population who might be able to provide their perspectives, as well.
Mostly I’m interested in what people are holding back.
The questions I’ve been asked IRL:
- why / how did you pick your name?
- how long have you known?
- how long before you are done transitioning?
- how long do you have to be on HRT?
- is transgender like being transracial?
- what do the surgeries involve?
For the most part, though, I get silence - people don’t want to talk about it, or are afraid to. A lot of times the anxiety is in not knowing how to behave or what would be offensive or not. Some people have been relieved when they learned all they needed to do is see me as my gender, since that became very simple and easy for them.
If there are trans people you know IRL, do you feel you can talk to them about it? Not everyone is as open about it as I am, and questions can be feel rude, so I understand why people would feel hesitant to talk to me, but even when I open the door, people rarely take the opportunity.
What I was getting at with saying I wouldn’t be comfortable switching now, but I would have been fine born into it is there there’s a shock that would come with a change from what you’ve lived, and that being cisgendered wouldn’t negate that shock, it would be miserable, but I don’t feel an attachment in the sense that I feel glad I was born a man. That’s what I meant when saying if I had been born a woman I wouldn’t be happy with the idea of changing to be a man.
This is what I was trying to get at with the difference between suppression and accommodation, and gender-affirming care being accommodation. But I don’t think it’s fair to reduce all mental illnesses to being not biological and being “solved with therapy or anti-depressants”, I think that is part of the stigma against them. Some of them should be accommodated and not suppressed. Physical treatments are often more helpful than those things, different illnesses need to be addressed in different ways, not treated as a generic umbrella for characteristics society doesn’t approve of.
Sorry for not addressing all of it but I’m skeptical that you read what I wrote there because I explicitly spoke in favor of gender-affirming care as the treatment and your response reads to me like I was arguing against it.
David Reimer was forcefully transitioned as a child, when he was young enough to not remember. It created a lifetime of dysphoria for him, and he transitioned back to his birth gender as soon as he understood what had happened to him, and was able to.
It sounds like for you to understand the existence of trans people you probably first need to accept that other people experience gender and sexuality differently than the way you do
Before I do that though, I’m commenting a follow-up to ask you to elaborate on if there’s something specific I can introspect on. I’ll read and think over the next few days.
One last edit:
Logging off is because I know this is an issue I have. Right now I don’t have much to be proud of other than my character, so in a moment I’m bad at listening and taking in criticisms that might suggest bigotry, because it feels like an attack on my identity. I’m aware that in reality I should be listening and not fighting, it just takes me an unreasonable amount of time and I act like a jackass until I’ve processed. Hence, logging out to introspect. Better late than never.
I’ll introspect on that. It generally takes me time to digest. I’m embarrassed here. But I do agree that gender-affirming care is the correct treatment. I read your response like I was not explicit about being in favor of it.
I think I should log off and mull on it because right now I’m just being an asshole. I’m a very slow learner and it generally takes a few days after I argue vehemently against something for it to sink in that I was wrong. I interpreted the first response like you thought I was arguing it should be addressed in a way other than gender-affirming care and responded like that was an attack, which is really shitty of me and pretty embarrassing.