I am still very early in this whole process, and there is still a lot of self doubt, so I am reading a lot of literature on “Am I trans” and dysphoria.
One concept that people often like to propose in these ressources is the button that makes you the opposite gender, and, crucially, also makes everyone else believe that you have been that way forever.
I don’t really like this, because my time as a boy/man is part of who I am. I would not be me without it, and despite all of the problems I had and have due to my gender, it is still part of who I am. I fought through all of this and worked to find out who I want to be by myself. I wouldn’t wanna be cis, and I also don’t want to cease being the me born out of this struggle.
I think that question is more designed to cut through internalized transphobia. Our culture is still extremely transphobic, so I think it still has value. It doesn’t really seem to apply to you, which is fine, but I also don’t think anyone asking that question would hear your response of “well I want to be trans without erasing my own identity and past” and conclude that you are cis.
Replying again because I remembered a thought-
A sort of version of this question I’ve seen, that for me was a loooottt more helpful, but is more kinda aimed at sussing out if you’re nonbinary vs male/female, was:
If you had been born as the opposite sex, would you have felt the need to physically transition?
And like. No? If I’d been born with a penis I think my main body dysphoria would’ve been over the fact that (based on my family) I would’ve been circumcised. The only physical change I would’ve done would be foreskin restoration, lol (also I’d work way harder at taking care of my butthole and not having hemorrhoids, since I wouldn’t have the easier bottoming option I have now). Other than that I believe I’d just be a queer sometimes femme sometimes masc guy, I doubt I’d identify as any kind of trans.
But as is I was born into my body and have experienced decades of dysphoria and have been various states of egg for most of that time. I’m not a woman but living as a girl and then a woman has shaped so much of who I am, that to remove that, would fundamentally change me.
If there was a magical get a full sized uncut penis button I think I would probably (but like, I’m not even certain of that) press it?
But I’m not interested in any button that undoes my life. Because then I’m not me. And that line of thinking is confusing and gives me existential dread. No thanks.
I kind of relate to that. I also feel bad about myself whenever I think that I’m trans because it feels like I’m betraying my gender at birth. I’m in a male dominated field and part of my motivation to do well is because it feels like a ‘fuck you’ to the men that tried to undermine me. If I were to transition I would lose that motivation and part of my self worth in some way. So I feel like I need to choose between experiencing gender dysphoria and losing my self worth. Hard choice. I’m trying to change that situation slowly though.
This reminds me of a program I heard on Radiolab about the first “female” gondolier in Venice (a 900 year old tradition of men only) whose egg cracked after shattering the glass ceiling. He discusses the conflict between his pride and defiance to even attempt this and his newly recognized identity as another man.
It’s a good listen (or read, if you prefer to read the transcript)
I would like a gender button, because ideally I would just switch genders at will. That would be dope as hell
I feel this super fucking hard. Wanting to feminize my body is not the same as me wanting to be a cis woman. Like, NOT AT ALL. I do not want to be cis, that is completely irrelevant to my transition process. There’s cis women that look more masculine than pre transition me (which, btw, is completely ok, no shade here), the entire idea of linking transition progress to being more cis like is transphobic, mysogynist bs. I do not even care about passing anymore, i’m fine when people can’t tell if i’m a boy or a girl, it’s actually hillarious that some of the cissies break so easily that they need to know this. That i keep transitioning further is (apart from one procedure i have deeply personal and to a straight guy forever inscrutable reasons for), more of a quality of life update at this point, because HRT is fucking magic and has done things unimaginable to me, in spite of not making me the tiniest bit more cis. If i keep getting blasted with lasers on top of that is now a question of how often i need to shave and how much concealer i need to put on, no longer one of stalling the body horror that sprouted from my upper lip. None of that has anything to do with being cis, either. I could press the button and always have been a cis woman that is able to grow a beard that connects, something which i have never been capable off in this life. That’s a thing. That’s actually something some cis women have to put up with, i have cis friends who went through as much laser hair removal as me. The button does fucking nothing but giving you menstrual cramps, uncontrolled hormone levels and the risk to get preggers when your goth GF cums inside of you. As hot as my goth gal pal is, neither of us is fit to raise a baby, i’m sorry but that’s how it is. And let’s not even begin on the binary nonsense that is “the opposite gender” that has been sneaked into the wording of the question as the rotten cherry on top. My gender is and actually always has been something like “transbian mailbomber witch”, what is the opposite to that? Jordan fucking Peterson on dubious testosterone supplements? A gay frog? A new type of male somebody on 4chan just made up? Who fucking knows?
And yes, i feel you on my past being part of who i am. Surviving when people tried to break me and shoehorn me into the boy role, finding my gender nonconforming niches to weather the storm until my egg was ready to crack, going through the questioning process and understanding gender in ways that just aren’t accessible to cis people, living my wild and wonderful and weird experiences as a nonbinary transfem lesbian are what has made me the communist monster woman i am today and i’m fucking proud of all of that. It wasn’t the happiest life, but it’s mine and if i’m being honest, it’s cool af.
The button test conflates basic comfort and survival needs like not wanting to feel dysphoria or not being exposed to transphobic hate crimes with the asinine, unattainable and actually undesirable idea of wanting to be cis. It is the pure distillate of the conditions under which gatekeepers struggle to reconcile the clinical reality of us existing and sitting in their practice with their need to keep believing in the actual existence of two neatly seperated boxes named MAN and WOMAN. Fuck. That. Noise. Gender is made up nonsense, even biological sex is just the reification of a loose cluster of optional characteristics, we are just blessed by the accident of our birth as trans people to realize that and be free to live the way we want to.
Let me tell you something: If i could choose between two buttons, one that instantly transforms my body into the likeness of Tailor Swift and one that instantly makes all transphobes shit themselves to death in agony, i’d immediately opt to live in a world with still just one Tailor Swift, but zero J.K. Rowlings.
based materialist transition does not acknowledge liberal fantasists’ tautological propositions
seriously tho i couldn’t be prouder of a long-time user discovering yourself. you’re straight up my idol for actually going to central asia and you’ve gone even further and made me question my own gender expression
spoiler
sorry if this is weird but i just realized you made those central asian posts and i’d love to hear more from someone who’s actually been there. it’s just a dream to me here on the wrong continent. but i read about the MELONS and i can’t escape it
Oh thank you, that is very kind. I didn’t expect to be recognized as a longtime user. I don’t post much.
You can DM me for questions, if you want. Central asia does not only have melons, it also has giant lenin statues overlooking love themed (red hearts etc.) parks/wedding venues.
It’s a common feeling for a lot of us, some others wish they could have been born cis. Both are valid and have their reasons, both are beautiful. You don’t have to be or think a certain way for you to be valid. If you wanna be a girl just go be a girl, you don’t need to justify anything to anyone. If you want to explore these questions, do it for your own understanding of yourself.
I wish I had a slider where I can just change my gender from one side to the other, or somewhere in-between, through nano-machines that can rapidly disassemble and rebuild my anatomy.
turning a big dial taht says “Gender” on it and constantly looking inward to myself for approval like a contestant on Dr. Phil
And like… You could do it arbitrarily, you didn’t do it once.
(I’m not trans myself so I have an outside perspective)
I remember watching a video that basically said that gender essentialism (“born trans”) is something you tell conservatives to accept you. The radical stance on the other side is “gender isn’t something you are but something you do” if that makes sense. So in your case, you did a lot of male and now you want to do female. There is nothing wrong with that. You don’t have to say that your former life was a lie nor that it defines what you are.
This isn’t against people who say they felt it since they were little. So they did the other gender without showing.
I hope that makes sense. It’s my outside perspective and I’m willing to learn. I can look up the video if you ask me to.
Edit: I took the time to rewatch the video and it is worth it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4r0CoXsGmk
The radical stance on the other side is “gender isn’t something you are but something you do” if that makes sense.
This isn’t “radical”, it’s literally just an attempt to uphold the status quo by reinforcing gender norms as fixed things.
What is a gay femboy doing? Is he doing the female gender? In all ways in every aspect of his life he is behaving withing feminine norms, and having sex with men. All aspects of his behaviour, of his everyday life, are indistinguishable to others as the same actions that a transwoman might perform.
Is he doing female gender? No he’s not. He’s just being outside of typical social norms.
Gender is not defined by behaviour.
A woman can be a bodybuilder, that dresses masc, that behaves masc, and still be a woman. She’s not “being a man”.
The premise of gender being defined by behaviour is just a conservative attempt to reinforce social norms that they wish to uphold because they’re trying to preserve patriarchy and various other social pillars they view as essential to preserving the existing hierarchies of power.
Gender is not something you do. Gender is something you simply are, and it is incongruence with what you actually are and what you’re socially perceived as that produces feelings of discomfort. Which is precisely why acceptance is absolutely crucial to positive feelings, and why suicide and depression rates in trans teens pre-op and pre-hormones that have a fully accepting social and familial network (basically their whole lives) drop to essentially near cis levels. The social factor is extremely significant.
