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.

  • felsiq@piefed.zipEnglish
    1·
    9 hours ago

    But my experience with being cisgendered is one of feeling like my spirit would belong wherever it was born to. I identify as a man and would feel out of place in a woman’s body, but if I had been born into a woman’s body I would feel out of place in a man’s. That’s my mental picture of what being cisgendered is.

    This is something I struggled with as well, but the more I look into it the more convinced I am that (at least for me personally) feeling this way is simply an indication that I’m agender and just lacking any meaningful dysphoria or reason to act on it.
    The way I understand it now is that truly cisgender people actually identify with their assigned gender in a way that I can’t really relate to, but that I see trans people describe as gender euphoria. My own experience is very much what you described, where I identify as male simply because that’s what I was assigned and it doesn’t (really) bother me, and it’s helped me conceptualize dysphoria a lot better to understand that my disconnect isn’t with “wrong gender” but simply with “gender” at all.

    I’m not saying the only reason you could struggle to relate the same way I do is not being cis, but maybe you’d benefit the way I did from reading about being agender?