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butterflydreams

Why can't the boy who plays with his sisters dolls, and wears her clothes identifying as a girl instead of a boy just be 'that kind of boy?' Why do we need the label and to insert medicine and science into making him 'more like a girl.' His comfort, or our own? We tend to label things by how they appear don't we? So isn't telling boys who live as girls they're not boys but a transsexual-girl more about our inability to accept more than one kind of boy?

If he wants to be "that kind of boy" then I say let him. There's nothing wrong with that at all. But sometimes it's more than that. He doesn't want to be a boy. It's incongruous. It's limiting. It's suffocating. Everyone in the world accepting him as "that kind of boy" isn't going to help.

And I mean, there are cross-dressers. They're kind of like "that kind of boy" you describe. Many could transition if they wanted to, but they don't, because...? Because dressing like a girl, and being trans aren't necessarily the same thing.

If an adult wants to go through gender-reassignment, more power to them. I'd never say they can't or shouldn't. I just worry we're pushing XX and XY's into transsexualism more for our own comfort than their's.

Hehe, who's pushing? :P

Everything external seems to be telling me 'no' but somehow I shed it all like water off a duck and keep pushing forward anyway. I've never been this resilient about anything in my whole life. My little inner core just keeps on pushing forward.

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Wish things like this didn't get labelled. President Rooselveldt was dressed like a girl in dresses until about age 5. Can google pictures of it. Yet no one calls him trans or says he musta had gender dysphoria because he dressed like a girl. When did we as a society decide that there's only one sort of boy or girl and anyone who deviates from that must be something other than "boy" or "girl?" When did we start labelling such people as transsexual/gender or as having a disorder called (most recently) gender dysphoria?

If you were successfully born at all you're exactly as your genetics say you're supposed to be. If your chromosomes identify you as male, female, of one of the other 4 possibilities I wont try and remember, you're that. Can make a choice to live however you like and call yourself whatever you want, but when medicine and mental health starts coming up with new words and things to label people with things have gotten out of hand. Why can't the boy who plays with his sisters dolls, and wears her clothes identifying as a girl instead of a boy just be 'that kind of boy?' Why do we need the label and to insert medicine and science into making him 'more like a girl.' His comfort, or our own? We tend to label things by how they appear don't we? So isn't telling boys who live as girls they're not boys but a transsexual-girl more about our inability to accept more than one kind of boy?

If an adult wants to go through gender-reassignment, more power to them. I'd never say they can't or shouldn't. I just worry we're pushing XX and XY's into transsexualism more for our own comfort than their's. We may have gotten better about homosexuality, but as with bigotry for ethnicity there's still massive prejudice in every society. Yet when we see a man and woman we have no problems with it. So wouldn't any insistence by people or groups into perpetuating transsexualism as literally changing your sex so same-sex sex became opposite-sex sex be more about eliminating homosexuality? Or at least hiding it?

Okay, so rather than go on and on with a huge rebuttal, I'll just make five short points:

1) There isn't a single recorded case in free countries in which an actually cis person is coerced into transgenderism. By contrast, every trans person is coerced into cisgenderism. So much that many never transition despite wanting to, and most transition later than they would like to or discover their gender later than would have been ideal for them. Society wants you to be cis.

2) It makes no sense that transgenderism is not a conspiracy to make the gays straight by changing their sexes (in the West - in Iran, yes, that's a thing, and it's a terrible human rights violation). Transgenderism is FAR more socially unacceptable than homosexuality in the West. It's also FAR more unacceptable than acting gender-nonconformist, crossdressing, drag performance, tomboyishness, etc. Society wants you to be cis.

3) If that rhetorical "when did society" is actually an honest question, the answer is, in America, during the 60s with transsexual/transgender and "gender identity disorder" as a clinical diagnosis in 1980. It's now called "gender dysphoria" and is used to get insurance to help with medical treatment that is never forced upon a patient - rather, the patient usually has to fight for it. A lot. Because society wants you to be cis.

4) Little boys wore dresses in the early 20th Century if their parents could afford it. That was just the style for babies and toddlers regardless of gender. Both Roosevelts did, just like all the other boys born about the same time.

5) Labels are great. See your thread on the topic for my input on that subject.

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Wish things like this didn't get labelled. President Rooselveldt was dressed like a girl in dresses until about age 5. Can google pictures of it. Yet no one calls him trans or says he musta had gender dysphoria because he dressed like a girl. When did we as a society decide that there's only one sort of boy or girl and anyone who deviates from that must be something other than "boy" or "girl?" When did we start labelling such people as transsexual/gender or as having a disorder called (most recently) gender dysphoria?

If you were successfully born at all you're exactly as your genetics say you're supposed to be. If your chromosomes identify you as male, female, of one of the other 4 possibilities I wont try and remember, you're that. Can make a choice to live however you like and call yourself whatever you want, but when medicine and mental health starts coming up with new words and things to label people with things have gotten out of hand. Why can't the boy who plays with his sisters dolls, and wears her clothes identifying as a girl instead of a boy just be 'that kind of boy?' Why do we need the label and to insert medicine and science into making him 'more like a girl.' His comfort, or our own? We tend to label things by how they appear don't we? So isn't telling boys who live as girls they're not boys but a transsexual-girl more about our inability to accept more than one kind of boy?

If an adult wants to go through gender-reassignment, more power to them. I'd never say they can't or shouldn't. I just worry we're pushing XX and XY's into transsexualism more for our own comfort than their's. We may have gotten better about homosexuality, but as with bigotry for ethnicity there's still massive prejudice in every society. Yet when we see a man and woman we have no problems with it. So wouldn't any insistence by people or groups into perpetuating transsexualism as literally changing your sex so same-sex sex became opposite-sex sex be more about eliminating homosexuality? Or at least hiding it?

Okay, so rather than go on and on with a huge rebuttal, I'll just make five short points:

1) There isn't a single recorded case in free countries in which an actually cis person is coerced into transgenderism. By contrast, every trans person is coerced into cisgenderism. So much that many never transition despite wanting to, and most transition later than they would like to or discover their gender later than would have been ideal for them. Society wants you to be cis.

2) It makes no sense that transgenderism is not a conspiracy to make the gays straight by changing their sexes (in the West - in Iran, yes, that's a thing, and it's a terrible human rights violation). Transgenderism is FAR more socially unacceptable than homosexuality in the West. It's also FAR more unacceptable than acting gender-nonconformist, crossdressing, drag performance, tomboyishness, etc. Society wants you to be cis.

3) If that rhetorical "when did society" is actually an honest question, the answer is, in America, during the 60s with transsexual/transgender and "gender identity disorder" as a clinical diagnosis in 1980. It's now called "gender dysphoria" and is used to get insurance to help with medical treatment that is never forced upon a patient - rather, the patient usually has to fight for it. A lot. Because society wants you to be cis.

4) Little boys wore dresses in the early 20th Century if their parents could afford it. That was just the style for babies and toddlers regardless of gender. Both Roosevelts did, just like all the other boys born about the same time.

5) Labels are great. See your thread on the topic for my input on that subject.

While I disagree with much of this, I love people who can debate and argue without making things personal. :) Think we learn best when our beliefs get challenged. Occasionally I update or change my posiiton based on other's differing ideas. Find that invaluable.
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Why can't the boy who plays with his sisters dolls, and wears her clothes identifying as a girl instead of a boy just be 'that kind of boy?' Why do we need the label and to insert medicine and science into making him 'more like a girl.' His comfort, or our own?

I understand what you're talking about, and it's good to ask these questions. But it's about her comfort. She's the one who ends up choosing to undergo the medical procedures. From what I understand, almost everything in the process is self-motivated. It definitely isn't about other people's comfort, since the majority of people in (Western) society are still quite uncomfortable around trans people. Society opposes transitions and tries to suppress them; it doesn't pressure people into them.

[Note: I don't know a lot about the process of transitioning besides the basics, so I avoided talking about it much. If I was incorrect in any of the stuff I did say, please correct me and I'll rectify the problem as soon as possible.]

As for the "that kind of boy"... It should be her choice how she is labeled. To explain it briefly, some people experience disphoria/pain/discomfort when referred to as a "boy" or when generalized as a boy. So in that situation, changing terminology would actually do more harm. It's best to just use the labels people choose for themselves.

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Why can't the boy who plays with his sisters dolls, and wears her clothes identifying as a girl instead of a boy just be 'that kind of boy?' Why do we need the label and to insert medicine and science into making him 'more like a girl.' His comfort, or our own?

I understand what you're talking about, and it's good to ask these questions. But it's about her comfort. She's the one who ends up choosing to undergo the medical procedures. From what I understand, almost everything in the process is self-motivated. It definitely isn't about other people's comfort, since the majority of people in (Western) society are still quite uncomfortable around trans people. Society opposes transitions and tries to suppress them; it doesn't pressure people into them.

[Note: I don't know a lot about the process of transitioning besides the basics, so I avoided talking about it much. If I was incorrect in any of the stuff I did say, please correct me and I'll rectify the problem as soon as possible.]

As for the "that kind of boy"... It should be her choice how she is labeled. To explain it briefly, some people experience disphoria/pain/discomfort when referred to as a "boy" or when generalized as a boy. So in that situation, changing terminology would actually do more harm. It's best to just use the labels people choose for themselves.

An individual's own comfort comes largely from being accepted by others. Thus, a boy who acts and/or behaves like the usual idea of a girl instead of a boy may be stigmatized and persecuted by parents, siblings, friends, teachers, etc. Then when they hear about transgenderism and GRS they may seek that out to be better accepted by becomming more like everyone else's ideas about sex and gender. No one wants to be ostracized or made into a social paraiah. We're primates and primates are social group-preferring animals. When someone doesn't feel welcomed by society they'll seek that welcoming. And my concern is some are going that route when in cultures that accepted more thn two sexes and genders (Native Nations' two-spirit people for example) they wouldn't have felt the need to.

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HypocryteHater

My dysphoria is about being trapped in a body, regardless of the details like gender, age, body type etc. I think that my body is nothing but a life support system for my brain since the latter can't use a keyboard or take a bus, read books, move chess pieces etc. So the body serves the mind, ideally like a machine that works properly and doesn't cause any disruptions. But I don't derive any pleasure from the body and sometimes I'm pissed off by its clumsiness and wish I could leave it deliberately, if even for an hour a day or so.

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Why can't the boy who plays with his sisters dolls, and wears her clothes identifying as a girl instead of a boy just be 'that kind of boy?' Why do we need the label and to insert medicine and science into making him 'more like a girl.' His comfort, or our own?

I understand what you're talking about, and it's good to ask these questions. But it's about her comfort. She's the one who ends up choosing to undergo the medical procedures. From what I understand, almost everything in the process is self-motivated. It definitely isn't about other people's comfort, since the majority of people in (Western) society are still quite uncomfortable around trans people. Society opposes transitions and tries to suppress them; it doesn't pressure people into them.

[Note: I don't know a lot about the process of transitioning besides the basics, so I avoided talking about it much. If I was incorrect in any of the stuff I did say, please correct me and I'll rectify the problem as soon as possible.]

As for the "that kind of boy"... It should be her choice how she is labeled. To explain it briefly, some people experience disphoria/pain/discomfort when referred to as a "boy" or when generalized as a boy. So in that situation, changing terminology would actually do more harm. It's best to just use the labels people choose for themselves.

An individual's own comfort comes largely from being accepted by others. Thus, a boy who acts and/or behaves like the usual idea of a girl instead of a boy may be stigmatized and persecuted by parents, siblings, friends, teachers, etc. Then when they hear about transgenderism and GRS they may seek that out to be better accepted by becomming more like everyone else's ideas about sex and gender. No one wants to be ostracized or made into a social paraiah. We're primates and primates are social group-preferring animals. When someone doesn't feel welcomed by society they'll seek that welcoming. And my concern is some are going that route when in cultures that accepted more thn two sexes and genders (Native Nations' two-spirit people for example) they wouldn't have felt the need to.

Okay, so first of all, I think you're confused as to what "transgender" actually means. For example, a trans woman (born with a penis, identifies as a woman) could be into football and trucks and barbecue and still be a woman. It's not about hobbies/behaviors ("gender expression", which varies by what a given culture considers "masculine" or "feminine") but rather about a deep, innate feeling that they're not "supposed to" be the sex their body was born as ("gender identity").

The majority of trans people I've known say they would still transition regardless of other people. Keep in mind that "transition" doesn't necessarily involve HRT, SRS, &c.; it depends entirely on what each individual is comfortable with. Some people would want HRT but not SRS, somebody might want top surgery while another person doesn't, and so on.

And you know what else? Transitioning tends to reduce acceptance by others, not increase it. A guy who likes wearing dresses and knitting is more socially acceptable than a "man" transitioning to be seen as a woman.

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Why can't the boy who plays with his sisters dolls, and wears her clothes identifying as a girl instead of a boy just be 'that kind of boy?' Why do we need the label and to insert medicine and science into making him 'more like a girl.' His comfort, or our own?

I understand what you're talking about, and it's good to ask these questions. But it's about her comfort. She's the one who ends up choosing to undergo the medical procedures. From what I understand, almost everything in the process is self-motivated. It definitely isn't about other people's comfort, since the majority of people in (Western) society are still quite uncomfortable around trans people. Society opposes transitions and tries to suppress them; it doesn't pressure people into them.

[Note: I don't know a lot about the process of transitioning besides the basics, so I avoided talking about it much. If I was incorrect in any of the stuff I did say, please correct me and I'll rectify the problem as soon as possible.]

As for the "that kind of boy"... It should be her choice how she is labeled. To explain it briefly, some people experience disphoria/pain/discomfort when referred to as a "boy" or when generalized as a boy. So in that situation, changing terminology would actually do more harm. It's best to just use the labels people choose for themselves.

An individual's own comfort comes largely from being accepted by others. Thus, a boy who acts and/or behaves like the usual idea of a girl instead of a boy may be stigmatized and persecuted by parents, siblings, friends, teachers, etc. Then when they hear about transgenderism and GRS they may seek that out to be better accepted by becomming more like everyone else's ideas about sex and gender. No one wants to be ostracized or made into a social paraiah. We're primates and primates are social group-preferring animals. When someone doesn't feel welcomed by society they'll seek that welcoming. And my concern is some are going that route when in cultures that accepted more thn two sexes and genders (Native Nations' two-spirit people for example) they wouldn't have felt the need to.
Okay, so first of all, I think you're confused as to what "transgender" actually means. For example, a trans woman (born with a penis, identifies as a woman) could be into football and trucks and barbecue and still be a woman. It's not about hobbies/behaviors ("gender expression", which varies by what a given culture considers "masculine" or "feminine") but rather about a deep, innate feeling that they're not "supposed to" be the sex their body was born as ("gender identity").

The majority of trans people I've known say they would still transition regardless of other people. Keep in mind that "transition" doesn't necessarily involve HRT, SRS, &c.; it depends entirely on what each individual is comfortable with. Some people would want HRT but not SRS, somebody might want top surgery while another person doesn't, and so on.

And you know what else? Transitioning tends to reduce acceptance by others, not increase it. A guy who likes wearing dresses and knitting is more socially acceptable than a "man" transitioning to be seen as a woman.

I don't believe I'm confused by it. I think instead my idea of male, female, or the other possibilities is just simpler than those who would say we can medically or surgically change our sex.

Sex to me is whatever our chromosomes say we are. We may identify our gender as something other than our sex, but when someone id's as transsexual I think what they mean is transgender, unless they're actually intersexed or hermaphroditic. But if your chromosomes are either XX or XY you're either 'male' or 'female.' Can CALL yourself whatever you wish, but there is a hard and fast biological reality too.

That said, there' is credence to how some describe their sex as being "assigned" at birth. In western cultures we very much do that on a regular basic. In Eastern cultures though intersexed newborns are usually left as-is. Male circumcision occasionally results in sex-selection from botched procedures where a boy is damage so severely the doctors and/or parents may decide selecting them to be female is what's best. But except for these few instances, my impression of most transsexuals is they're XX and XY and choosing to identify as trans with or without the HRT or GRS to better fit how they FEEL. Not how they ARE.

Nothing wrong making your body more like how you feel. No different to me than getting a tattoo or piercing. My sole concern lies in how for some at least there's the thing about how they grew up where their behaviour didn't conform to societies stereotypes about boys and girls with no other possibilities, or tolerance for variation. So instead of simply accepting themselves as boys who identify as girls and wish to live THEIR lives that way, or vice-versa, they identify as something other than boys and girls despite their chromosomes confirming that that's what they are.

I'm extremely effeminate. But that was fine growing up and I was never made to feel like I had to 'become more like a real girl' to be accepted. I'm just the kind of guy who has very feminine personality traits. But I don't id as 'trans.' I'm a guy, period. But as a mark of my feininity I do worry about those who might be just like me but didn't have the fortune to grow up and be accepted as-is.

If as an adult, someone wants to id as trans more power to them. But it shouldn't be something anyone gets pressured to undertake or become. Like this 14yo male in "I am Jazz" on TLC now. Though his family seems very supportive of their son wishing to id as a girl he's said he wants to keep his penis and is attracted to other boys. To me that's just "gay and feminine." So I can't help but wonder if his parents ever gave him that acceptance as simply a gay son who's very effeminate. Is their acceptance dependent upon his being "transsexual?" Would they not have accepted him as a gay boy with a gender of something female-oriented? Those are my questions and concerns about this.

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I don't want to get involved in this conversation at all but I just want to say that it makes me incredibly upset.

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Calligraphette_Coe

While I disagree with much of this, I love people who can debate and argue without making things personal. :) Think we learn best when our beliefs get challenged. Occasionally I update or change my posiiton based on other's differing ideas. Find that invaluable.

But the trouble with applying that paradigm to *this* topic is that it is, by its very nature, HYPERpersonal for some of us. Imagine being physically abused because of how you looked and nobody would help you because they took a vote and they didn't like your kind. How can you debate that, and what could you learn other than that people can be real slaves to their superiority complexes and how that buys them a pass to be mean and sociopathic.

Sometimes a debate on dysphoria is like reaching into an open wound. Or like being on a ER table in tremendous pain while two doctors discuss your case with detachment, and the best possible way to sew you back up. For them, it's fine. For you? Not so much.

Sometimes these topics need a great bedside manner, and not so much The Devil vs Daniel Webster mythological debate. Some 'debates' are just too sensitive to allow for a Devil's Advocate free rein-- the cost is just too .... devilish... for the people who fall most under the shadow.

And it could be that you'll come away from this 'debate' with a new perspective about what it feels like to *really* hurt inside enough to want to eat a bullet and take a dirt nap. That even though this state of mind holds no shadows for you, you'll see that we come by this with a world of honesty and a frustration that can't be quenched simply by the memetic engineering of society.

In some ways, it could be like an NDE, near death experience. I've had both, and I make it a habit to NEVER debate with someone about them. Theirs is theirs, mine is mine, and really? Is there any *right* way to have one?

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Okay, so first of all, I think you're confused as to what "transgender" actually means. For example, a trans woman (born with a penis, identifies as a woman) could be into football and trucks and barbecue and still be a woman. It's not about hobbies/behaviors ("gender expression", which varies by what a given culture considers "masculine" or "feminine") but rather about a deep, innate feeling that they're not "supposed to" be the sex their body was born as ("gender identity").

The majority of trans people I've known say they would still transition regardless of other people. Keep in mind that "transition" doesn't necessarily involve HRT, SRS, &c.; it depends entirely on what each individual is comfortable with. Some people would want HRT but not SRS, somebody might want top surgery while another person doesn't, and so on.

And you know what else? Transitioning tends to reduce acceptance by others, not increase it. A guy who likes wearing dresses and knitting is more socially acceptable than a "man" transitioning to be seen as a woman.

I don't believe I'm confused by it. I think instead my idea of male, female, or the other possibilities is just simpler than those who would say we can medically or surgically change our sex.

Sex to me is whatever our chromosomes say we are. We may identify our gender as something other than our sex, but when someone id's as transsexual I think what they mean is transgender, unless they're actually intersexed or hermaphroditic. But if your chromosomes are either XX or XY you're either 'male' or 'female.' Can CALL yourself whatever you wish, but there is a hard and fast biological reality too.

I'm not sure what you think the difference between "transsexual" and "transgender" is... "Transsexual" is an older word that's largely been phased out and replaced by "transgender." "Transgender" is used to mean roughly the same thing that "transsexual" used to (for simplicity's sake I'm not going further into that right now).

Anyway, if you'd like I can go dig up my lengthy post from another forum explaining mammalian sexual differentiation. It's not nearly as "hard and fast" as you might think. And that's just the genitalia, not the brain, which is where the actual person is.

That said, there' is credence to how some describe their sex as being "assigned" at birth. In western cultures we very much do that on a regular basis. In Eastern cultures though intersexed newborns are usually left as-is. Male circumcision occasionally results in sex-selection from botched procedures where a boy is damage so severely the doctors and/or parents may decide selecting them to be female is what's best. But except for these few instances, my impression of most transsexuals is they're XX and XY and choosing to identify as trans with or without the HRT or GRS to better fit how they FEEL. Not how they ARE.

Okay, slow down. Nobody "chooses" to be transgender. It's just something that happens in the brain due to some complicated combination of hormones, epigenetics, and weird luck that we don't entirely understand yet. Like how people are born bisexual or autistic or left-handed or whatever else.

Secondly, in my opinion, how somebody "feels" is (usually) "how they are." The actual person is in the brain, which is hella complicated and neither hard nor fast. The body comes second to the mind. A body may have male or female genitalia, but the physical differences between male and female bodies are pretty small and are largely dependent on hormones and epigenetics, not genes themselves, so why should sex chromosomes or genitalia trump the mind's identity?

Nothing wrong making your body more like how you feel. No different to me than getting a tattoo or piercing. My sole concern lies in how for some at least there's the thing about how they grew up where their behaviour didn't conform to society's stereotypes about boys and girls with no other possibilities, or tolerance for variation. So instead of simply accepting themselves as boys who identify as girls and wish to live THEIR lives that way, or vice-versa, they identify as something other than boys and girls despite their chromosomes confirming that that's what they are.

I have literally no idea what you're saying here. Gender identity doesn't have to do with how somebody was raised. Nobody gets pressured into being transgender. Everybody gets pressured into being cisgender, but that doesn't work because transgenderism is a neurological reality. As for chromosomes, maybe I do need to give that biology lesson. Just as a brief example, there are cisgender men with XX sex chromosomes who are born with penises and grow up male. You can't just simplify a person's identity down to chromosomes when chromosomes aren't even as black and white as you seem to think.

I'm extremely effeminate. But that was fine growing up and I was never made to feel like I had to 'become more like a real girl' to be accepted. I'm just the kind of guy who has very feminine personality traits. But I don't ID as 'trans.' I'm a guy, period. But as a mark of my femininity I do worry about those who might be just like me but didn't have the fortune to grow up and be accepted as-is.

Okay, so you're cis. Good for you. You know why you were never made to feel that you had to become a girl to be effeminate? Because (as several people have tried to explain) nobody pressures people into being transgender.

Please refer back to my explanation that "masculine" and "feminine" traits have nothing to do with being transgender. There are trans girls who are tomboyish or butch. There are trans guys who are effeminate. There are also cis girls who are tomboyish or butch and cis guys who are effeminate. That has nothing to do with whether somebody feels like a man or like a woman, it just describes their mannerisms.

If as an adult, someone wants to id as trans more power to them. But it shouldn't be something anyone gets pressured to undertake or become.

I feel like I'm beating a dead horse. NOBODY IS PRESSURED INTO BECOMING TRANS. It does not happen.

Like this 14yo [AMAB kid] in "I am Jazz" on TLC now. Though her family seems very supportive of their child identifying as a girl, she's said she wants to keep her penis and is attracted to boys. To me that's just "gay and feminine." So I can't help but wonder if her parents ever gave her that acceptance as simply a gay son who's very effeminate. Is their acceptance dependent upon her being "transsexual?" Would they not have accepted her as a gay boy with a gender of something female-oriented? Those are my questions and concerns about this.

(I changed the nouns and pronouns to be feminine. I've never heard of this kid, but I looked her up and she identifies as a girl, so using masculine pronouns is extremely rude.)

To you. Applying the rumored human ability known as "empathy," you may find that this person is not you and has different feelings and experiences from yours. You're not in their heads, so if they tell you something about their own feelings and experiences, you have to take their word for it.

Jazz Jennings is a pansexual girl (according to a YouTube Q&A she posted), although if she did only like boys she would be a straight girl. She's not an effeminate gay boy. How do I know? She said so, and because she's the only person in her head experiencing her life, she's the sole authority on it. She may happen to have a penis, but that's not really our business and has no bearing on whether or not we should treat her as a girl.

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I don't want to get involved in this conversation at all but I just want to say that it makes me incredibly upset.

I sincerely apologize if it upset you. Was by no means my intent.

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Okay, so first of all, I think you're confused as to what "transgender" actually means. For example, a trans woman (born with a penis, identifies as a woman) could be into football and trucks and barbecue and still be a woman. It's not about hobbies/behaviors ("gender expression", which varies by what a given culture considers "masculine" or "feminine") but rather about a deep, innate feeling that they're not "supposed to" be the sex their body was born as ("gender identity").

The majority of trans people I've known say they would still transition regardless of other people. Keep in mind that "transition" doesn't necessarily involve HRT, SRS, &c.; it depends entirely on what each individual is comfortable with. Some people would want HRT but not SRS, somebody might want top surgery while another person doesn't, and so on.

And you know what else? Transitioning tends to reduce acceptance by others, not increase it. A guy who likes wearing dresses and knitting is more socially acceptable than a "man" transitioning to be seen as a woman.

I don't believe I'm confused by it. I think instead my idea of male, female, or the other possibilities is just simpler than those who would say we can medically or surgically change our sex.

Sex to me is whatever our chromosomes say we are. We may identify our gender as something other than our sex, but when someone id's as transsexual I think what they mean is transgender, unless they're actually intersexed or hermaphroditic. But if your chromosomes are either XX or XY you're either 'male' or 'female.' Can CALL yourself whatever you wish, but there is a hard and fast biological reality too.

I'm not sure what you think the difference between "transsexual" and "transgender" is... "Transsexual" is an older word that's largely been phased out and replaced by "transgender." "Transgender" is used to mean roughly the same thing that "transsexual" used to (for simplicity's sake I'm not going further into that right now).

Anyway, if you'd like I can go dig up my lengthy post from another forum explaining mammalian sexual differentiation. It's not nearly as "hard and fast" as you might think. And that's just the genitalia, not the brain, which is where the actual person is.

That said, there' is credence to how some describe their sex as being "assigned" at birth. In western cultures we very much do that on a regular basis. In Eastern cultures though intersexed newborns are usually left as-is. Male circumcision occasionally results in sex-selection from botched procedures where a boy is damage so severely the doctors and/or parents may decide selecting them to be female is what's best. But except for these few instances, my impression of most transsexuals is they're XX and XY and choosing to identify as trans with or without the HRT or GRS to better fit how they FEEL. Not how they ARE.

Okay, slow down. Nobody "chooses" to be transgender. It's just something that happens in the brain due to some complicated combination of hormones, epigenetics, and weird luck that we don't entirely understand yet. Like how people are born bisexual or autistic or left-handed or whatever else.

Secondly, in my opinion, how somebody "feels" is (usually) "how they are." The actual person is in the brain, which is hella complicated and neither hard nor fast. The body comes second to the mind. A body may have male or female genitalia, but the physical differences between male and female bodies are pretty small and are largely dependent on hormones and epigenetics, not genes themselves, so why should sex chromosomes or genitalia trump the mind's identity?

Nothing wrong making your body more like how you feel. No different to me than getting a tattoo or piercing. My sole concern lies in how for some at least there's the thing about how they grew up where their behaviour didn't conform to society's stereotypes about boys and girls with no other possibilities, or tolerance for variation. So instead of simply accepting themselves as boys who identify as girls and wish to live THEIR lives that way, or vice-versa, they identify as something other than boys and girls despite their chromosomes confirming that that's what they are.

I have literally no idea what you're saying here. Gender identity doesn't have to do with how somebody was raised. Nobody gets pressured into being transgender. Everybody gets pressured into being cisgender, but that doesn't work because transgenderism is a neurological reality. As for chromosomes, maybe I do need to give that biology lesson. Just as a brief example, there are cisgender men with XX sex chromosomes who are born with penises and grow up male. You can't just simplify a person's identity down to chromosomes when chromosomes aren't even as black and white as you seem to think.

I'm extremely effeminate. But that was fine growing up and I was never made to feel like I had to 'become more like a real girl' to be accepted. I'm just the kind of guy who has very feminine personality traits. But I don't ID as 'trans.' I'm a guy, period. But as a mark of my femininity I do worry about those who might be just like me but didn't have the fortune to grow up and be accepted as-is.

Okay, so you're cis. Good for you. You know why you were never made to feel that you had to become a girl to be effeminate? Because (as several people have tried to explain) nobody pressures people into being transgender.

Please refer back to my explanation that "masculine" and "feminine" traits have nothing to do with being transgender. There are trans girls who are tomboyish or butch. There are trans guys who are effeminate. There are also cis girls who are tomboyish or butch and cis guys who are effeminate. That has nothing to do with whether somebody feels like a man or like a woman, it just describes their mannerisms.

If as an adult, someone wants to id as trans more power to them. But it shouldn't be something anyone gets pressured to undertake or become.

I feel like I'm beating a dead horse. NOBODY IS PRESSURED INTO BECOMING TRANS. It does not happen.

Like this 14yo [AMAB kid] in "I am Jazz" on TLC now. Though her family seems very supportive of their child identifying as a girl, she's said she wants to keep her penis and is attracted to boys. To me that's just "gay and feminine." So I can't help but wonder if her parents ever gave her that acceptance as simply a gay son who's very effeminate. Is their acceptance dependent upon her being "transsexual?" Would they not have accepted her as a gay boy with a gender of something female-oriented? Those are my questions and concerns about this.

(I changed the nouns and pronouns to be feminine. I've never heard of this kid, but I looked her up and she identifies as a girl, so using masculine pronouns is extremely rude.)

To you. Applying the rumored human ability known as "empathy," you may find that this person is not you and has different feelings and experiences from yours. You're not in their heads, so if they tell you something about their own feelings and experiences, you have to take their word for it.

Jazz Jennings is a pansexual girl (according to a YouTube Q&A she posted), although if she did only like boys she would be a straight girl. She's not an effeminate gay boy. How do I know? She said so, and because she's the only person in her head experiencing her life, she's the sole authority on it. She may happen to have a penis, but that's not really our business and has no bearing on whether or not we should treat her as a girl.

"And that's just the genitalia, not the brain, which is where the actual person is."

That had my eyebrows raise sincerely impressed. Not the genital part but the brain being where the person is. I never considered that. Least not in this sense. Lemme chew that over a bit.

About time someone gave me something new. :)

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Googling some info on chromosomes I find this,

http://www.isna.org/faq/y_chromosome

"Does having a Y chromosome make someone a man?

A lot of unintended harm happens when people assume a Y chromosome makes a person a boy or a man and the lack of a Y chromosome makes a person a girl or a woman...

...So it is simply incorrect to think that you can tell a persons sex just looking at whether he or she has a Y chromosome."

lotta genetic 'filler' in-between so I pasted just the highlight. :)

Though about intersex people, it applies here and has corrected my misunderstanding of things.

As to, we our our brains, I've long made that case as well, I just never linked it to a trans-discussion. We can lose our limbs, transfuse our blood, replace our organs all without effecting the 'us' in our brains that make us individuals.

Because of how genetics plays such a massive role in determining our brains makeup, and since chromosomes don't entirely determine biological sex (as I know now, as of a few moments ago) I see that the transgender person may well be right when they report having always felt like the other sex than everything else would indicate them to be.

As a person who has it so rarely, I actually love the taste of crow and have no problem eating it and admitting when I'm wrong. I was wrong in this. And if only because my ignorance appears to have caused some distress I profusely apologise. The last thing in the world I ever wanna do is hurt someone's feelings. I'm really really sorry that I did. I didn't understand. And was going off outdated knowledge.

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pitchblackonyx

ok so here's soemthign for you. we have a hypothetical person we'll call Unlucky. Unulcky is kidnapped and taken to russia and the nasty kinappy people chop off Unlucky's little finger and send it to india. where is Unluck?

now the nastyy people chop off Unluky's arm and send it to turkmenitstan. how many people is Unlucky and where are they now?

now the nasty peopl remove both of Unluckly's legs and send one to libya and hte other to borneo. now how many poeple and where?

now they remove Uluckyt's genetilia and send it to hawaii. now how many peopla dn wehre?

personally i think that througout this orrific ordeal Unlucy is only one person who is still in rusia.

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pitchblackonyx

ah sorry, just saw your second post just before mine.

since youre interested in reading up on these things thouh. here's some stuff on difrences in brain structures iin transgenered people

New Scientist article
Journal of Psychiatric Research article
Cerebral Cortex article
European Journal of Endocrinology article
National Center for Biotechnology Information paper
The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism article

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butterflydreams

I'm extremely effeminate. But that was fine growing up and I was never made to feel like I had to 'become more like a real girl' to be accepted. I'm just the kind of guy who has very feminine personality traits. But I don't id as 'trans.' I'm a guy, period. But as a mark of my feininity I do worry about those who might be just like me but didn't have the fortune to grow up and be accepted as-is.

Which is 100% ok. You can be as effeminate of a guy as you want, and that's no one's business but your own. You don't feel like you have to 'become more like a real girl' which is fine too. You do you.

Me? I'm not really that effeminate. Not over-the-top or obviously so anyway. But I'm not a guy. Sometimes when I'm discussing things with my therapist, she might say something seemingly simple like, "so as a woman you feel more free and relaxed than when you're a man?" And I have to be completely honest, that little bit, "when you're a man" makes my skin crawl. It shouldn't! Right? I mean, I am a man? Aren't I? Chromosomes probably say so. Genitalia says so. Why does that hurt so much? That's the rub I think. Saying "I'm a woman" feels "wrong" on a surface level. I don't look like any woman I've ever seen, but I can fix that. But saying "I'm a man" cuts extremely deep. Oh, I've got the hardware, but the software doesn't know what to do with it. The drivers are flakey. Changing up the software would fundamentally change who I am, and I'm not comfortable with that. Even if it were possible (which I don't think it is).

If as an adult, someone wants to id as trans more power to them. But it shouldn't be something anyone gets pressured to undertake or become. Like this 14yo male in "I am Jazz" on TLC now. Though his family seems very supportive of their son wishing to id as a girl he's said he wants to keep his penis and is attracted to other boys. To me that's just "gay and feminine." So I can't help but wonder if his parents ever gave him that acceptance as simply a gay son who's very effeminate. Is their acceptance dependent upon his being "transsexual?" Would they not have accepted him as a gay boy with a gender of something female-oriented? Those are my questions and concerns about this.

I'll assume you didn't get enough of the story, but she's really a she. Whatever she is, she knows. If it was gay and feminine, I'm sure that's what she'd do, but she isn't. I envy her so much. She got the chance to do what I didn't. She will get to lead the life I didn't.

As to why she wants to keep her penis, who knows? That's her choice and her personal business really. And she's only 14...it's one that may change. And who she's attracted to may change as well. I know I've always kind of felt like part of me was into guys, but it always seemed somehow incongruous. I'm starting to understand now that as a girl, so much of that stuff suddenly feels right. Relationships (with anyone) feel worth pursuing. There's all kinds of interplay going on with these things :)

I don't want to get involved in this conversation at all but I just want to say that it makes me incredibly upset.

*hugs* This conversation has actually stayed pretty level I think, but then, I'm used to exposing myself to far worse on youtube and trans news story comments. I know how you feel. The way I've learned to deal with it is picturing myself in a tiny little bubble. All this stuff? These conversations? That's noise outside the bubble. Inside the bubble is just me. Quiet, safe, just me. I am always the ultimate authority on me. It takes practice (I'm still learning) but if you keep repeating that, your bubble will always be safe, and it will grow in size. Eventually you'll have more and more space where you can be quiet, safe, and just you. *hugs again*

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I'm extremely effeminate. But that was fine growing up and I was never made to feel like I had to 'become more like a real girl' to be accepted. I'm just the kind of guy who has very feminine personality traits. But I don't id as 'trans.' I'm a guy, period. But as a mark of my feininity I do worry about those who might be just like me but didn't have the fortune to grow up and be accepted as-is.

Which is 100% ok. You can be as effeminate of a guy as you want, and that's no one's business but your own. You don't feel like you have to 'become more like a real girl' which is fine too. You do you.

Me? I'm not really that effeminate. Not over-the-top or obviously so anyway. But I'm not a guy. Sometimes when I'm discussing things with my therapist, she might say something seemingly simple like, "so as a woman you feel more free and relaxed than when you're a man?" And I have to be completely honest, that little bit, "when you're a man" makes my skin crawl. It shouldn't! Right? I mean, I am a man? Aren't I? Chromosomes probably say so. Genitalia says so. Why does that hurt so much? That's the rub I think. Saying "I'm a woman" feels "wrong" on a surface level. I don't look like any woman I've ever seen, but I can fix that. But saying "I'm a man" cuts extremely deep. Oh, I've got the hardware, but the software doesn't know what to do with it. The drivers are flakey. Changing up the software would fundamentally change who I am, and I'm not comfortable with that. Even if it were possible (which I don't think it is).

If as an adult, someone wants to id as trans more power to them. But it shouldn't be something anyone gets pressured to undertake or become. Like this 14yo male in "I am Jazz" on TLC now. Though his family seems very supportive of their son wishing to id as a girl he's said he wants to keep his penis and is attracted to other boys. To me that's just "gay and feminine." So I can't help but wonder if his parents ever gave him that acceptance as simply a gay son who's very effeminate. Is their acceptance dependent upon his being "transsexual?" Would they not have accepted him as a gay boy with a gender of something female-oriented? Those are my questions and concerns about this.

I'll assume you didn't get enough of the story, but she's really a she. Whatever she is, she knows. If it was gay and feminine, I'm sure that's what she'd do, but she isn't. I envy her so much. She got the chance to do what I didn't. She will get to lead the life I didn't.

As to why she wants to keep her penis, who knows? That's her choice and her personal business really. And she's only 14...it's one that may change. And who she's attracted to may change as well. I know I've always kind of felt like part of me was into guys, but it always seemed somehow incongruous. I'm starting to understand now that as a girl, so much of that stuff suddenly feels right. Relationships (with anyone) feel worth pursuing. There's all kinds of interplay going on with these things :)

I don't want to get involved in this conversation at all but I just want to say that it makes me incredibly upset.

*hugs* This conversation has actually stayed pretty level I think, but then, I'm used to exposing myself to far worse on youtube and trans news story comments. I know how you feel. The way I've learned to deal with it is picturing myself in a tiny little bubble. All this stuff? These conversations? That's noise outside the bubble. Inside the bubble is just me. Quiet, safe, just me. I am always the ultimate authority on me. It takes practice (I'm still learning) but if you keep repeating that, your bubble will always be safe, and it will grow in size. Eventually you'll have more and more space where you can be quiet, safe, and just you. *hugs again*

Felt really bad I hurt someone's feelings. Glad they mentioned it. Am also used to much more...Colorful exchanges. But that doesn't mean stomping around verbally is how we should be. If we begin to ignore the feelings and sensibilities of someone even who may be the exception we lose all our moral credibility.

"God makes us strong only for a short while. So we can help each other." - King Arthur, "First Knight"

When we discount those unlike us and disregard their feelings (also fromt he movie,) "We're just another robber-tribe."

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nerdperson777

What is weird is that even though I'm not religious at all, arguments along the lines of "you shouldn't try to change your body (gender in this case) to be other than how God/nature/whatever made you" really give me pause. Like, who am I to muck with what I was given? It's like if I was renting a car, I wouldn't feel right painting it a new color. Maybe it's like a destiny thing. Feeling like you have to fulfill the destiny of your body :(

I feel like the "changing your body" argument can also apply to plastic surgery. There are cisfemales who want the biggest boobs ever, so why can't transwomen do that too? Cisfemales have been increasing their sizes for a while, even with the slight negative idea some people have. But it has been around for a bit so there has been less talk about it being bad. But transwomen getting them? Transphobic people would just go gasp, a man getting plastic surgery! No!

Ooh, just noticed this o: It's late, so I haven't read up on the discussion yet, but I thought I'd add a thing or two about my experience. Even though I just downed a pair of day-old sleeping pills.

It seems to me that society has attached so much baggage to sexual characteristics, and then conflates the baggage with the body parts themselves. As such, when somebody talks about being a 'man,' they're unknowingly talking about two totally different things that they're failing to differentiate: (not so) objective biology, and a sort of title or social archetype.

I don't really get "being a man". It's just saying they can only be strong and never anything else. I talked to someone I knew a few months ago, and she brought up this quote that she heard, "Why do people say 'grow a pair'? Balls are sensitive. If anything, grow a vagina. Those can really take a beating." I told that to a fellow non-binary friend and said, "I almost feel good about having one." ^_^ And we both hate our bodies for what that thing does to us.

My sister hated dolls (and most things actually). She only had one or two barbies and they weren't fun at all. I was always most interested in the dolls that had weighted eyes that would close when you lay them down <3 I just thought it was the coolest, most realistic thing ever :lol:

Another question for you all:

Would familial relationships be a kind of social dysphoria? So, feeling like a daughter/son or sister/brother. Has anyone ever noticed that kind of thing as being very pronounced and noticeable?

Once I looked in my old toy chest and wondered, where did this Barbie come from? I've never seen this before. I think I played with it once, just to abuse her. I totally wasn't a girl.

I'll tell everyone what happens next week when I go to my cousin's wedding and they ask about my hair. Hopefully my parents don't disapprove of the attire I picked out for myself. It shouldn't be that obviously masculine, I hope.

Interesting how that happens. Ironically, my mother is the only one in my immediate family to really gender things, and she does so because she believes that women are oppressed. She is part of a wave of feminism that leads her to get an education as a nurse because women traditionally can't work, but she wanted to be able to do so to be independent. She places a lot of importance on being independent and came from a household where she was expected to basically be a housewife. Strong traditional gender roles. So she is the one who genders everything, in such a way as to make it possible for my sister and I to break gender roles... but it always bothered me that she gendered me as a female to start with. So she always was careful to use things like "children" instead of "daughers", but to me that was even more uncomfortable, because somehow when she says "children", we all know she means daughters, and is being self-conscious about saying the gender-neutral one. So, I experience dysphoria around my mother, because she unconsciously has strong gendering in her mannerisms and life, and that bothers me. But the superficial things, like the word "children" became associated with the persistent background gendering for me.

TL;DR -- I don't feel dysphoria with my dad referring to me as "daughter" or my sister calling me "sister". But I hate it when anyone calls me "girlfriend", or when my mother is so self-conscious and mechanical about using gender-neutral words.

I think my dad is the traditional one in the house. When I was still figuring out my gender, I was really stuck on sticking with what I knew. I was a daughter, whether I liked it or not. I knew my dad wanted a son, and mom would never give him that. (Well the dog was their son, but we messed up somewhere, and now we have another daughter dog.) Now I'm convinced that I'm actually a son, but I just don't like how my dad looks at things. No matter what I say, I'm still his daughter. Sure I say I'm male, but my family often goes by "but the reality is" sort of things so they don't 100% accept me. I don't really like my dad's traditional view though. Elders above all, regardless. (I shot down his argument with logic and he used physical force to subdue me. <_< Reason for me to learn internal martial arts for my safety now.) When my mom was let go from work due to economic depression a few years back, Dad felt overly superior being the sole one making money in the house, especially when mom is usually the breadwinner. He temporarily tried to make her a housewife by saying she had all the time to cook and clean, and saying a few demeaning statements in there too.

If you were successfully born at all you're exactly as your genetics say you're supposed to be. If your chromosomes identify you as male, female, of one of the other 4 possibilities I wont try and remember, you're that. Can make a choice to live however you like and call yourself whatever you want, but when medicine and mental health starts coming up with new words and things to label people with things have gotten out of hand. Why can't the boy who plays with his sisters dolls, and wears her clothes identifying as a girl instead of a boy just be 'that kind of boy?' Why do we need the label and to insert medicine and science into making him 'more like a girl.' His comfort, or our own? We tend to label things by how they appear don't we? So isn't telling boys who live as girls they're not boys but a transsexual-girl more about our inability to accept more than one kind of boy?

If an adult wants to go through gender-reassignment, more power to them. I'd never say they can't or shouldn't. I just worry we're pushing XX and XY's into transsexualism more for our own comfort than their's. We may have gotten better about homosexuality, but as with bigotry for ethnicity there's still massive prejudice in every society. Yet when we see a man and woman we have no problems with it. So wouldn't any insistence by people or groups into perpetuating transsexualism as literally changing your sex so same-sex sex became opposite-sex sex be more about eliminating homosexuality? Or at least hiding it?

I have a feeling there's more than 4 other possibilities but I'm not here to talk about that. I remember a friend finding a meme picture of a boy playing with dolls saying, "Are you afraid...that he'll be a great father?"

I think the rest was solved in a later post but let's just agree that transsexual guys aren't butch girls and transsexual girls aren't feminine guys.

Also, question for DFABs, I seem to always be thinking back at bottom dysphoria, but what are your thoughts and feelings about hygiene products "with wings"? I just thought it was a terrible way to announce your time to the world. When most of the storm has passed, I think can I switch to no wings now?

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Also, question for DFABs, I seem to always be thinking back at bottom dysphoria, but what are your thoughts and feelings about hygiene products "with wings"? I just thought it was a terrible way to announce your time to the world. When most of the storm has passed, I think can I switch to no wings now?

I'm okay with the wings. They keep my undies clean. But then, I'm not terribly unhappy with what I've got on bottom. One of my friends is a cis girl who hates wings on her hygiene products - if she's desperate and has to buy the winged ones, she will cut the wings off.

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I don't want to get involved in this conversation at all but I just want to say that it makes me incredibly upset.

I sincerely apologize if it upset you. Was by no means my intent.

Apology accepted. Thank you very much for admitting you were wrong in a later post.

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Okay, so first of all, I think you're confused as to what "transgender" actually means. For example, a trans woman (born with a penis, identifies as a woman) could be into football and trucks and barbecue and still be a woman. It's not about hobbies/behaviors ("gender expression", which varies by what a given culture considers "masculine" or "feminine") but rather about a deep, innate feeling that they're not "supposed to" be the sex their body was born as ("gender identity").

The majority of trans people I've known say they would still transition regardless of other people. Keep in mind that "transition" doesn't necessarily involve HRT, SRS, &c.; it depends entirely on what each individual is comfortable with. Some people would want HRT but not SRS, somebody might want top surgery while another person doesn't, and so on.

And you know what else? Transitioning tends to reduce acceptance by others, not increase it. A guy who likes wearing dresses and knitting is more socially acceptable than a "man" transitioning to be seen as a woman.

I don't believe I'm confused by it. I think instead my idea of male, female, or the other possibilities is just simpler than those who would say we can medically or surgically change our sex.

Sex to me is whatever our chromosomes say we are. We may identify our gender as something other than our sex, but when someone id's as transsexual I think what they mean is transgender, unless they're actually intersexed or hermaphroditic. But if your chromosomes are either XX or XY you're either 'male' or 'female.' Can CALL yourself whatever you wish, but there is a hard and fast biological reality too.

I'm not sure what you think the difference between "transsexual" and "transgender" is... "Transsexual" is an older word that's largely been phased out and replaced by "transgender." "Transgender" is used to mean roughly the same thing that "transsexual" used to (for simplicity's sake I'm not going further into that right now).

Anyway, if you'd like I can go dig up my lengthy post from another forum explaining mammalian sexual differentiation. It's not nearly as "hard and fast" as you might think. And that's just the genitalia, not the brain, which is where the actual person is.

That said, there' is credence to how some describe their sex as being "assigned" at birth. In western cultures we very much do that on a regular basis. In Eastern cultures though intersexed newborns are usually left as-is. Male circumcision occasionally results in sex-selection from botched procedures where a boy is damage so severely the doctors and/or parents may decide selecting them to be female is what's best. But except for these few instances, my impression of most transsexuals is they're XX and XY and choosing to identify as trans with or without the HRT or GRS to better fit how they FEEL. Not how they ARE.

Okay, slow down. Nobody "chooses" to be transgender. It's just something that happens in the brain due to some complicated combination of hormones, epigenetics, and weird luck that we don't entirely understand yet. Like how people are born bisexual or autistic or left-handed or whatever else.

Secondly, in my opinion, how somebody "feels" is (usually) "how they are." The actual person is in the brain, which is hella complicated and neither hard nor fast. The body comes second to the mind. A body may have male or female genitalia, but the physical differences between male and female bodies are pretty small and are largely dependent on hormones and epigenetics, not genes themselves, so why should sex chromosomes or genitalia trump the mind's identity?

Nothing wrong making your body more like how you feel. No different to me than getting a tattoo or piercing. My sole concern lies in how for some at least there's the thing about how they grew up where their behaviour didn't conform to society's stereotypes about boys and girls with no other possibilities, or tolerance for variation. So instead of simply accepting themselves as boys who identify as girls and wish to live THEIR lives that way, or vice-versa, they identify as something other than boys and girls despite their chromosomes confirming that that's what they are.

I have literally no idea what you're saying here. Gender identity doesn't have to do with how somebody was raised. Nobody gets pressured into being transgender. Everybody gets pressured into being cisgender, but that doesn't work because transgenderism is a neurological reality. As for chromosomes, maybe I do need to give that biology lesson. Just as a brief example, there are cisgender men with XX sex chromosomes who are born with penises and grow up male. You can't just simplify a person's identity down to chromosomes when chromosomes aren't even as black and white as you seem to think.

I'm extremely effeminate. But that was fine growing up and I was never made to feel like I had to 'become more like a real girl' to be accepted. I'm just the kind of guy who has very feminine personality traits. But I don't ID as 'trans.' I'm a guy, period. But as a mark of my femininity I do worry about those who might be just like me but didn't have the fortune to grow up and be accepted as-is.

Okay, so you're cis. Good for you. You know why you were never made to feel that you had to become a girl to be effeminate? Because (as several people have tried to explain) nobody pressures people into being transgender.

Please refer back to my explanation that "masculine" and "feminine" traits have nothing to do with being transgender. There are trans girls who are tomboyish or butch. There are trans guys who are effeminate. There are also cis girls who are tomboyish or butch and cis guys who are effeminate. That has nothing to do with whether somebody feels like a man or like a woman, it just describes their mannerisms.

If as an adult, someone wants to id as trans more power to them. But it shouldn't be something anyone gets pressured to undertake or become.

I feel like I'm beating a dead horse. NOBODY IS PRESSURED INTO BECOMING TRANS. It does not happen.

Like this 14yo [AMAB kid] in "I am Jazz" on TLC now. Though her family seems very supportive of their child identifying as a girl, she's said she wants to keep her penis and is attracted to boys. To me that's just "gay and feminine." So I can't help but wonder if her parents ever gave her that acceptance as simply a gay son who's very effeminate. Is their acceptance dependent upon her being "transsexual?" Would they not have accepted her as a gay boy with a gender of something female-oriented? Those are my questions and concerns about this.

(I changed the nouns and pronouns to be feminine. I've never heard of this kid, but I looked her up and she identifies as a girl, so using masculine pronouns is extremely rude.)

To you. Applying the rumored human ability known as "empathy," you may find that this person is not you and has different feelings and experiences from yours. You're not in their heads, so if they tell you something about their own feelings and experiences, you have to take their word for it.

Jazz Jennings is a pansexual girl (according to a YouTube Q&A she posted), although if she did only like boys she would be a straight girl. She's not an effeminate gay boy. How do I know? She said so, and because she's the only person in her head experiencing her life, she's the sole authority on it. She may happen to have a penis, but that's not really our business and has no bearing on whether or not we should treat her as a girl.

Thank you so much noparlpf! The fact that you're cis and so educated about transgenderism restores my faith in humanity.

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I don't want to get involved in this conversation at all but I just want to say that it makes me incredibly upset.

I sincerely apologize if it upset you. Was by no means my intent.

Apology accepted. Thank you very much for admitting you were wrong in a later post.

It's rare, but occasionally even I'm wrong. :)

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I have been reading this closely for the past few days, and I think it's about time I poked my head out from the shadows and thanked everyone involved.

This is why we can have nice things. This was a very good conversation, and I want to thank every single one of you for being so patient and open-minded in the discussion.

Major internet bonus points to all! And cake. Thank you for keeping Gender Discussions a nice place.

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As a person who has it so rarely, I actually love the taste of crow and have no problem eating it and admitting when I'm wrong. I was wrong in this. And if only because my ignorance appears to have caused some distress I profusely apologise. The last thing in the world I ever wanna do is hurt someone's feelings. I'm really really sorry that I did. I didn't understand. And was going off outdated knowledge.


We all have outdated knowledge sometimes, but I'm glad things sorted themselves out :) That's what we're here for. Welcome to the muddy world of shades of grey when it comes to gender and sex!

Also, question for DFABs, I seem to always be thinking back at bottom dysphoria, but what are your thoughts and feelings about hygiene products "with wings"? I just thought it was a terrible way to announce your time to the world. When most of the storm has passed, I think can I switch to no wings now?

TMI about periods and stains stuff...

I personally use winged pads, because they keep spills to a minimum; if the blood would normally have gone over the sides, there's just a little more protection. I hate stains on my clothes, and there is nothing more embarrassing than when it goes through to the pants. However, non-winged pads are also good, especially if you change them just a little more often. And you can get blood stains out as long as you use cold water. It's something a lot of people don't know, but while hot water works best for most other kinds of stains, it just sets the blood and makes it impossible to remove later. Cold water will get it out much better, to the extent that often you don't even need stain remover (though it never hurts, especially if it's been a few days since the stain).

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ok so here's soemthign for you. we have a hypothetical person we'll call Unlucky. Unulcky is kidnapped and taken to russia and the nasty kinappy people chop off Unlucky's little finger and send it to india. where is Unluck?

now the nastyy people chop off Unluky's arm and send it to turkmenitstan. how many people is Unlucky and where are they now?

now the nasty peopl remove both of Unluckly's legs and send one to libya and hte other to borneo. now how many poeple and where?

now they remove Uluckyt's genetilia and send it to hawaii. now how many peopla dn wehre?

personally i think that througout this orrific ordeal Unlucy is only one person who is still in rusia.

Reminds me of "Memphis Belle" joke about the guy captured by the Nazis and they have to amutate a limb and he asks them to mail it back home, and the do. Have to amp another and same thing, finally, the Nazis refuse, "No! We will not do this any more! We believe you are trying to escape!" :)

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Raises an interesting question how we are our brains independent of the rest of our bodies. Ever since I learned of it as a reality and not horror movie plot, I've wondered what happens if you transplant a person's head onto another person's body? Or just the brain?

They've successfully transplanted dog and Rheese's monkies heads from one to another (dog to dog, monkey to monkey, not the other way hehe) as far back as the 70s. But what if you only 'swapped' brains? Wouldn't that be a kind of virtual immortality? When you get old and your body begins failing, just swap the brain for a new younger body. Either grown ala the avatars in "Avatar" or you know the other more Franensteinian way, "Are you done using that? Can I have it?" :)

In which case, are individuals still individuals in completely different bodies?

Judaism says our souls are in our blood. Hence the dietary prohibitions against eating blood. Obviouisly that's wrong, just as with our thoughts and emotions come from our heart. But how would we as a people, society, and culture regard each other in totally different bodies? "Son! Son! It's Daddy! I know I"m in the body of a twenty-five year old, but it's still me!" Are we prepared for that?

Or what if instead of an organic flesh and blood body our brains are put into an artificial body liuke an android? Have artifical organs and limbs already, full body is the logical progression. If aritifical limbs and organs come to work even etter than the originals, isn't it likely that at some point people will opt (athletes, etc.) for artifical 'superior performing' bodies?

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pitchblackonyx

If aritifical limbs and organs come to work even etter than the originals, isn't it likely that at some point people will opt (athletes, etc.) for artifical 'superior performing' bodies?

this is already an issue - see the contrvsery around ocsar pistorius (before he shot his girlfiren) who was a world class sprinter who used two artifical legs .he wanted to compete in the able-bodied competitinos and olympics, and was repeatedy stopped due to hi s artifical legs ebing ruled an unfair advantage.

he was eventually able to compete in these competeiosns.

i am not aware of any cases of athletes deliberately inuring themselves in this way in orer to gain such an advantage yet though. dliberately injuring themselves through use of performane-enhncing drugs to gain a supireor peroforming body however...

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If aritifical limbs and organs come to work even etter than the originals, isn't it likely that at some point people will opt (athletes, etc.) for artifical 'superior performing' bodies?

this is already an issue - see the contrvsery around ocsar pistorius (before he shot his girlfiren) who was a world class sprinter who used two artifical legs .he wanted to compete in the able-bodied competitinos and olympics, and was repeatedy stopped due to hi s artifical legs ebing ruled an unfair advantage.

he was eventually able to compete in these competeiosns.

i am not aware of any cases of athletes deliberately inuring themselves in this way in orer to gain such an advantage yet though. dliberately injuring themselves through use of performane-enhncing drugs to gain a supireor peroforming body however...

Was who I was thinking of in fact, just didn't wanna utter a murderer's name. :) But those artificial limbs, if they are objectively better than our originals might wind up going the route of PEDs with athletes opting to not so much injure themselves as simply replace their limbs as easily as people ay get a tattoo or piercing.

And if that becomes a reality, power lifters might opt for full replacement of arms, legs, spines, etc. So how long until we're just putting organic brains into all-artificial bodies?

Something along these lines was depicted in the sci-f novel "Eon" by Greg Bear. In the distant future a version of humanity can now 'download/upload' everything that makes us individuals into aritifical bodies and even computers to live and exist in virtually, or in the real world in some artifical corpus. Seeing the first steps of this it's a fascinating idea to me. :)

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nerdperson777

Also, question for DFABs, I seem to always be thinking back at bottom dysphoria, but what are your thoughts and feelings about hygiene products "with wings"? I just thought it was a terrible way to announce your time to the world. When most of the storm has passed, I think can I switch to no wings now?

TMI about periods and stains stuff...

I personally use winged pads, because they keep spills to a minimum; if the blood would normally have gone over the sides, there's just a little more protection. I hate stains on my clothes, and there is nothing more embarrassing than when it goes through to the pants. However, non-winged pads are also good, especially if you change them just a little more often. And you can get blood stains out as long as you use cold water. It's something a lot of people don't know, but while hot water works best for most other kinds of stains, it just sets the blood and makes it impossible to remove later. Cold water will get it out much better, to the extent that often you don't even need stain remover (though it never hurts, especially if it's been a few days since the stain).

My mom always tells me to use the stain cleaner and I think, why? The water practically eliminates it. Unless it's deep in the fabric. I definitely don't change very often because of my super bladder, which I know is a bad thing. I put off washing due to dysphoria and later I even go, oh well, I couldn't clean off the entire thing, whatever. For some reason, even with wings, it moves too much. I totally do this wrong.

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One of the better things about the internet has been enabling people who feel unique, alone, or isolated to get online and realize they aren't unique or alone. As a kind of self-help therapeutic tool the internet is perhaps the best human invention of all time. Now we can google our thing and instantly realize there's thousands of others just like us.

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