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Trans Moments?


nerdperson777

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I want to tell my stories of being happily mistaken for the "opposite" gender, but I've kept up total gender neutrality on the web since I first started hesitantly posting into cyberspace all those years ago, long before I considered myself non-binary... and if I tell these stories, I sacrifice that, so I can't tell any stories of my trans moments...

But this, in itself, is a trans moment!

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  • 3 weeks later...

Ok I have a trans moment two actually:

So during gym class in high school we were playing some game (I can't remember what) and I got hit in the crotch with a ball. And I kinda just looked down and waited for it to hurt and then I was like oh yeah I don't have a penis.

Another time I was at home and was going to jump over the railing on our deck like I usually do, its just faster to get to the back yard, and I slipped and came down pretty hard. It hurt but it was the first and only time in my life I have ever been thankful to have been born a female.

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Whenever childbirth comes up in conversation, I end up outing myself. Then I have to explain that, yes, I gave birth, but yes, I am a guy. "Remember that story with Loki and the horse?" "You're not a shapeshifter." "Yes, but..."

Some people get it right away and call me his dad. Some people keep calling me his mom and I haven't figured out how to explain to them yet that I'm a dude. I've been out and living as a guy now for almost three years (I think? I'm bad with time.)

My boyfriend's brother called him a "dick sucking freak" who is "fooling" himself. Not only is that not an insult, but I don't have a dick. Apparently, I pass well enough for his brother to think I do though! Score!

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(A)rrogant Avian

Today I was sitting with two of my male friends and watching them play chess, and three other (younger) people came and started watching too, two of them male, and the other was female. The female (who I didn't know) was looking at my for a few seconds and asked, "Why do you like being a man?" I was silent for a few seconds, and just as I was about to speak, the male (who I also didn't know) that the female was sitting in the lap of, answered. I totally thought for a second that she was asking me!

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nerdperson777

Talking with parents on Skype in university apartment and hoping no one heard you shout "I'm not a man" at your computer.

EDIT: My friend in the next room heard it. God damn it.

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Today I was in the women's locker room at the gym putting on my running shoes and I heard someone walk behind me. My immediate thought was 'oh, shoot. I'm in the wrong locker room. I shouldn't be here'

but then I remembered that I am sort of unambiguously viewed as female, especially when I'm not binding (which, since I was at the gym, I was not)

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butterflydreams

My boyfriend's brother called him a "dick sucking freak" who is "fooling" himself. Not only is that not an insult, but I don't have a dick. Apparently, I pass well enough for his brother to think I do though! Score!

The logic is strong with your boyfriend's brother...*facepalm* I'm so glad you can take something positive out of such a shitty statement!

I still don't have a true "trans moment" for this thread (I'm trying real hard!). At least, I don't think I do. Anyway, I repainted my nails Thursday night after figuring out why they looked bad the first time. Most people haven't noticed or cared. My boss didn't say anything about it, but I felt weird thinking he saw it and was just wondering what the hell was going on all day, so I just held up my hand and said, "oh, just so you're not silently wondering about this, yes, I did paint my nails." He still didn't care. Yay!

Then I was down helping someone with something and this other guy from work who always likes to give me a good ribbing shows up. He sees my hand and we have the following exchange:

him: woah, what the hell happened to your hand?

me: (panicked a bit) oh, yeah, I was bored, so I painted my nails.

him: you were bored? Jeez, I should get you to write another app for me with all this bored spare time you have.

me: dude...I didn't do it while on company time.

Fortunately I was able to derail the conversation into talking about a gold dollar coin we had found earlier...whew.

Oh, and I told my mom I did it and sent her a picture (why?). She thinks it's weird and doesn't understand how I don't find it odd looking at my hand on the steering wheel while I'm driving. Probably because I'm not staring at my hand, mom, I'm looking at the road <_<

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I'm not going for miss-gendering since I'm agender, but since no one is going to address me randomly without gender, being referred to as sir is really exciting. The first time was in the summer, shortly after I cut my hair. I didn't expect it at the time so I thought the guy was talking to someone else. Since then I've gotten more used to it and now it doesn't phase me at all. In fact, the last time I went through airport security they thought I was a guy. I must not have said anything, because my voice is unmistakably female. I was really happy after that.

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It felt kind of different when that friend of mine had to fix bra straps and not me. I didn't normally fix my straps when I wore them but my binder has wider straps, yay. Also HRT gave her a curvier body than me when I don't even take hormones. HRT girl has more feminine body than biological girl. But I guess my genetics made me pretty masculine already while still looking like a girl.

I think you mean to say she has a more (expected) phenotypically feminine appearance than someone who was assigned female at birth.

Trans women on HRT are biological females. Hormones are biological. Using "biological female" to mean "cis woman" implies that even with transition, trans women will never be "real" females "biologically" (despite all the very biological changes!). I know this isn't what you mean to imply, so I'm letting you know.

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If you want interesting trans moments, read the anthology "Manning Up," especially the produce story (as in, vegetables).

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nerdperson777

It felt kind of different when that friend of mine had to fix bra straps and not me. I didn't normally fix my straps when I wore them but my binder has wider straps, yay. Also HRT gave her a curvier body than me when I don't even take hormones. HRT girl has more feminine body than biological girl. But I guess my genetics made me pretty masculine already while still looking like a girl.

I think you mean to say she has a more (expected) phenotypically feminine appearance than someone who was assigned female at birth.

Trans women on HRT are biological females. Hormones are biological. Using "biological female" to mean "cis woman" implies that even with transition, trans women will never be "real" females "biologically" (despite all the very biological changes!). I know this isn't what you mean to imply, so I'm letting you know.

She's not phenotypically feminine yet. She looks androgynous and can go both ways right now.

I understood the meaning of biologically female as DFAB but I guess we may have seen that differently. I did not mean cis woman because I am DFAB but not cis. I mean this in a non-offensive way, but I don't see MtFs as biological women, just from the way I interpreted the meanings. Biological just means D_AB to me. I accept them as real based on their mentalities rather than their physical bodies.

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It felt kind of different when that friend of mine had to fix bra straps and not me. I didn't normally fix my straps when I wore them but my binder has wider straps, yay. Also HRT gave her a curvier body than me when I don't even take hormones. HRT girl has more feminine body than biological girl. But I guess my genetics made me pretty masculine already while still looking like a girl.

I think you mean to say she has a more (expected) phenotypically feminine appearance than someone who was assigned female at birth.

Trans women on HRT are biological females. Hormones are biological. Using "biological female" to mean "cis woman" implies that even with transition, trans women will never be "real" females "biologically" (despite all the very biological changes!). I know this isn't what you mean to imply, so I'm letting you know.

She's not phenotypically feminine yet. She looks androgynous and can go both ways right now.

I understood the meaning of biologically female as DFAB but I guess we may have seen that differently. I did not mean cis woman because I am DFAB but not cis. I mean this in a non-offensive way, but I don't see MtFs as biological women, just from the way I interpreted the meanings. Biological just means D_AB to me. I accept them as real based on their mentalities rather than their physical bodies.

I thought you were saying that on HRT she has a curvier appearance (which is more phenotypically female) than you (who were assigned female at birth)?

(You're right, this has nothing to do with cis women, I didn't mean to imply you were and now that I look at what I wrote I see how that was confusing. I was saying that some people use the term "biological female" to mean "cis woman." There is sadly a history of what someone was designated at birth used explicitly to exclude trans women as "not really women" because they are "biologically male" or "have lived as men.")

I think the term used differently by different people, yes. I know that for me personally, being told I'm "biologically" female no matter what I do to my body feels like I'm being told that my identity is just this arbitrary mental state (which others may or may not accept as fully "real" depending on their own predispositions, that they have a "choice" whether to accept it as real or not) versus what I physically, measurably "am." Which is odd because surgery is biological, hormones are biological... but only chromosomes count as truly "biological" for these purposes? I've never had my chromosomes tested. No one can see my chromosomes without very special lab equipment!

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nerdperson777

Yes, my friend's body is curvier than mine.

I've had the ideas that you said put upon me so I have been taught to believe that I'm female no matter what I do to my body. Normally I'm really pessimistic but just being in the LGBTQIA+ community has taught me that it doesn't matter if my body is female, as long as I can handle it the way I want to, I should be able to live with it.

With better technology, we're just going to keep adding new meanings to terms until it becomes millions of times more confusing.

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Yes, my friend's body is curvier than mine.

I've had the ideas that you said put upon me so I have been taught to believe that I'm female no matter what I do to my body. Normally I'm really pessimistic but just being in the LGBTQIA+ community has taught me that it doesn't matter if my body is female, as long as I can handle it the way I want to, I should be able to live with it.

With better technology, we're just going to keep adding new meanings to terms until it becomes millions of times more confusing.

I take a different ideology, and that is that my body is whatever I am, however it's shaped. If I'm a woman, this is a woman's body. If I'm a man, this is a man's body. If I'm agender, then this is an agender body. There's a difference between naming specific anatomy a person has, and labeling their body into a category that they reject being a part of, a category contrary to who they are.

But this society is so obsessed with notions of fixed biological sex!

If you are comfortable being labeled as having a female body, for any reason and at any time, that is absolutely your right. I, however, am not comfortable with this label on my body in an "absolute" way (and at times, at all).

IMO, the notion of "fixed and absolute sexes," regardless of transition, pretends transition is merely social and and not also very biological. The ideology of "you are in this category no matter WHAT you do" (and you should just suck it up and learn to be OK with it because after all, there's nothing wrong with being male/female) has brought me to very deep dark places I won't talk about here.

Ahem.

I've found these articles really helpful on my journey:

http://janetmock.com/2012/07/09/josie-romero-dateline-transgender-trapped-body/

https://tteaequality.wordpress.com/2010/11/07/my-body-my-words/

There is also this article (discussion of sex as a "legal fiction" starts on page 819 (there's another law review article I was looking for but can't find at the moment so this will have to do): "Bodies and Bureaucracy: Legal Sex classification and Marriage-Based Immigration for Trans* People" by Olga Tomchin in the California Law Review (June 1, 2013).

http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4206&context=californialawreview&sei-redir=1&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Dhow%2Bthe%2Blaw%2Bconstructs%2Bgender%2B%2522law%2Breview%2522%2Btransgender%2Bimmigration%26client%3Dsafari%26rls%3Den%26hl%3Den%26oq%3D%26gs_l%3D#search=%22how%20law%20constructs%20gender%20law%20review%20transgender%20immigration%22

In relevant part: "Meanwhile, sex is the legal fiction that occurs when the appearance of an infant’s genitals at birth (as formalized by an “M” or “F” on a birth certificate) results in each person’s placement into a legal category of “male” or “female.” In both popular consciousness and legal discourse, sex is often imbued with a meaning that is ahistorical and biologically determinedmuch as race was in the past. In reality, sex and race are similarly a product of “the historically contingent systems of meaning that attach to elements of morphology.” [footnote] Indeed, legal sex is contingent on the classification system used. A single trans* individual is often categorized differently by the DMV, the Social Security Administration, the Passport Agency, state courts, prisons, immigration authorities, and other government agencies."

Biological sex doesn't have a fixed "true" meaning, it's always up to someone's interpretation, which is why every agency has ended up with a different set of criteria to determine it (and everyone thinks their way is the right way).

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My boyfriend's brother called him a "dick sucking freak" who is "fooling" himself. Not only is that not an insult, but I don't have a dick. Apparently, I pass well enough for his brother to think I do though! Score!

The logic is strong with your boyfriend's brother...*facepalm* I'm so glad you can take something positive out of such a shitty statement!

I still don't have a true "trans moment" for this thread (I'm trying real hard!). At least, I don't think I do. Anyway, I repainted my nails Thursday night after figuring out why they looked bad the first time. Most people haven't noticed or cared. My boss didn't say anything about it, but I felt weird thinking he saw it and was just wondering what the hell was going on all day, so I just held up my hand and said, "oh, just so you're not silently wondering about this, yes, I did paint my nails." He still didn't care. Yay!

Then I was down helping someone with something and this other guy from work who always likes to give me a good ribbing shows up. He sees my hand and we have the following exchange:

him: woah, what the hell happened to your hand?

me: (panicked a bit) oh, yeah, I was bored, so I painted my nails.

him: you were bored? Jeez, I should get you to write another app for me with all this bored spare time you have.

me: dude...I didn't do it while on company time.

Fortunately I was able to derail the conversation into talking about a gold dollar coin we had found earlier...whew.

Oh, and I told my mom I did it and sent her a picture (why?). She thinks it's weird and doesn't understand how I don't find it odd looking at my hand on the steering wheel while I'm driving. Probably because I'm not staring at my hand, mom, I'm looking at the road <_<

If that's not a "true" tans moment, then I don't know what is. If you so care to join the trans moments thread, I shall call that your true trans moment :D :cake:

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So the other day I went out to the frozen yogurt place in the local mall after picking up my new glasses. At the cash register, they had two bowls of plastic spoons: a bowl of blue spoons and a bowl of pink spoons.

I took a yellow plastic spoon out of my bag.

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So the other day I went out to the frozen yogurt place in the local mall after picking up my new glasses. At the cash register, they had two bowls of plastic spoons: a bowl of blue spoons and a bowl of pink spoons.

I took a yellow plastic spoon out of my bag.

So much win. So smooth. Kudos, I wish I could have been there to take a picture :P

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I wore an "I am not a girl" t-shirt to a therapist's office. (There were some family issues going on and my mom and I were going to her office to talk about that stuff -- I didn't want to make my gender the issue, but I did want her to get it right.) I'd even told her on the phone pre-session, and offered to send her resources on trans, but she declined and said no, she "has a friend" (another therapist) who can give her everything she needs.

Then she repeatedly got my gender wrong in the session. I tried to correct her, and she derailed the conversation into twenty minutes of talking about my gender, before I finally shut it down and told her MY GENDER IS NOT THE ISSUE WE'RE HERE TO TALK ABOUT.

(We never went back.)

So yeah, I wore a shirt that said "I am not a girl" and got repeatedly misgendered ANYWAY. It's so odd to me that for some people, coming out can be hugely dangerous (physically, financially, etc.) and for others, like me, I can jump and shout and wear a HI I'M TRANS (I have other trans shirts!) shirt and everyone remains entirely oblivious. Kind of feels like living in a bizarre sci fi movie at times.

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I wore my "404 error: gender not found" t-shirt today (with the male and female bathroom symbols in a red circle and slash), and the cashier at the supermarket told me they like it! :) YAY!

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butterflydreams

I kinda really want one of those t-shirts now... :ph34r:

Ditto. :D

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Female friends: "Let's go shopping!!!"

Me (looks at male friends): "Let's go find a sports bar."

Saturday: Feeling more like a girl so I go get my nails done.

Sunday: Feeling more like a boy and my manicure gets ruined because I'm tinkering under the hood of my car.

Getting called ma'am literally five seconds after asking not to be called ma'am.

My best friend and I have a legit bromance, even though I'm AFAB. 90% of our time together involves pizza, beer, and hockey. It's honestly the best thing ever.

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Been in the same clan playing Clash of Clans since last summer. Nobody knows I'm AFAB, I'm just one of the guys- male pronouns and all. Pretty much just a don't ask, don't tell situation. They didn't ask, I did tell.. It's my online boyspace :)

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I kinda really want one of those t-shirts now... :ph34r:

You can buy one online. :)

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I kinda really want one of those t-shirts now... :ph34r:

You can buy one online. :)

*runs off to the world of online*

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butterflydreams

*runs off to the world of online*

Be careful! It's...it's...well, it's a very interesting world, let's just say that :P

So, another contribution to this thread? I'm on a roll! I was talking to my mom on the phone tonight, and she jokingly asked if I'd painted my nails any other color. I said "nope, I like the blue, and the woman at the coffee shop complemented me on the color. She really liked it!" My mom still insists it's weird. So we keep talking and I mention how I've abandoned cramming stuff in my pockets and have a really stylish purse/bag now (no idea what it's called actually, it has a long strap, goes on your shoulder and across to the other side). I told her that I love it! It looks great, makes me feel great, and it's blue! She responds, "you're becoming a girl." I should've responded with, "thanks, mom, I'm trying!" but I just laughed a little bit :)

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So, another contribution to this thread? I'm on a roll! I was talking to my mom on the phone tonight, and she jokingly asked if I'd painted my nails any other color. I said "nope, I like the blue, and the woman at the coffee shop complemented me on the color. She really liked it!" My mom still insists it's weird. So we keep talking and I mention how I've abandoned cramming stuff in my pockets and have a really stylish purse/bag now (no idea what it's called actually, it has a long strap, goes on your shoulder and across to the other side). I told her that I love it! It looks great, makes me feel great, and it's blue! She responds, "you're becoming a girl." I should've responded with, "thanks, mom, I'm trying!" but I just laughed a little bit :)

The best of compliments :) For what it's worth, I can see a girl coming out in you too Hadley! And a dang gorgeous one at that.

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nerdperson777

Well, I think I have quite a few minor trans moments when I talk to my MtF friend but they're normally not something to write on. She often says how she wants a bigger chest and gets sad about it. I several times said to trade. I want to be flat, she wants small but noticeable boobs. I know I have the size she wants. One time I even said boobs for facial hair, but I'm not sure if that triggered her dysphoria about that since she didn't say anything about it.

Hadley, can it possibly be a shoulder bag? If it's a purse, maybe it's just a purse. Idk, I'm a dude, I don't know anything about women's fashion. :P

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I got one: That moment when you realize your life's journey (so far, anyway -- we're all still on it) isn't just a series of gender "this sucks" moments, endlessly, with no end in sight (till you don't believe there can be an end since you don't know, or have forgotten, anything different), but suddenly now it's become something other people want to hear about (want to hear you speak about, want to read your writing about, want to interview you about)... because you've crossed that magic line from "everything just sucks" to "you have an inspirational story/you can help us on our own journeys/your perspective is actually welcome in the queer community now."

I've been doing talks for a couple years, and I've seen things slowly changing, but I had my "moment" yesterday. Gender/sexuality has been so much "this sucks" for over twenty years that I'm sort of gobsmacked by this change in how people are treating me now. It's not "OK, that one moment was awesome, but it was an isolated thing, once I go home from the conference it will be back to the suck" -- it's more of a pattern now.

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butterflydreams

dash, that is really awesome. I hope that pattern continues for you!

Hadley, can it possibly be a shoulder bag? If it's a purse, maybe it's just a purse. Idk, I'm a dude, I don't know anything about women's fashion. :P

Hehe, I'm not sure! The style is definitely called "cross-body" bag. I just don't know how to refer to it when talking to people. Bag is probably good enough. I hesitate because when I first mentioned that I wanted to get one to a friend, she was like, "oh, like a man-purse?" and I really hate that term. What's a "man-purse"? A regular purse but with missiles, footballs, motorcycles and muscle cars embroidered on it? Why can't it just be a purse? No, it's just a woman's-style whatever, and I like it, because it makes me feel more feminine and looks great. Even if they made a purse with missiles, footballs, motorcycles and muscle cars on it, I wouldn't want it.

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