I am glad to have been of help!

With the trans community being under so much pressure from outside it really has negative impacts inside the community crushing down the narratives into only the most defensible to cis people. We repeat them so often it’s likely we’ll internalize that framework and that’s not great for us I think. We defend things so often in terms of nessesity and harm prevention and medicalization of the trans experience that trans joy and the nature of creatures to chase the conditions they instinctually know are the most conducive to happiness get lost.

If the cis folk understood the first thing about being trans, really understood, they wouldn’t try and stop us from doing what we want. It’s only because they get the ick about body modifications that we are forced to be beggars and question if we are adequately poorly off enough for rescue by a system that really only cares about survival, not quality of life.

Now extrapolating from our conversation I will make a few leaps. It seems to be that in many ways medical transition for you was revelatory. It makes sense you want to evangelize it. I imagine though it is also something that you’ve had to self advocate a lot for to pursue - which can be traumatic. Defending your choices to friends, family members and medical professionals to the bar demanded is stressful and there is strain that can impact you long term.

However that fight can twist you out of true. When you see someone who isn’t conforming to that model that you had to advocate so hard for maybe it’s a little threatening? Maybe to you it has to be unhealthy to do what I am doing because that strain of self advocacy has boxed you into a position where everything you’ve done doesn’t seem valid if it wasn’t nessisary. So when I come along with a different situation where I am existing alright without the things you’ve had to defend as nessisary for your continued success it comes across as a challenge to that hypothesis. Hence why you keep probing for fault with my situation

Maybe you aren’t looking at my situation as simply a thing I am doing, you are looking at it as an arguement against the validity of what you are doing

Thing is - and I say this with emphasis - none of the choices I have personally made or the reasons behind them have anything to do with yours. My situation being stable and reasonably healthy doesn’t invalidate any of your choices. If you believe what you did is nessisary - it was. It doesn’t have to be universally nessisary.

Better yet : who said your transition needs to be necessary to be worthwhile? I certainly didn’t. If it was just what you wanted with all your heart - that’s enough. You should be able.

There’s also this valorizing of my endurance I am picking up on which I think may have been from my statement about how one handles different types of pain. I think you may have taken it as some type of “I’m a fucking bad ass and can endure” sort of sentiment…but that’s really not it. What was intended was this -enduring something is handled differently when you are adequately rewarded for your trouble. Yes my experience sucks but I have but when that happens I have adequate reasons to remind myself why exactly why I am doing this. Would I endure this if I were not nigh constantly rewarded for my efforts? No… It’s not bravery or self perceived strength that I should hold out because I can or some kind of deep seated transphobia. I don’t believe that sacrificing for love is some noble thing. It’s literally just the offsets have been simply judged worth the cost. The Mennonite woman is doing what she does out of an assertion that she is stronger and more moral than other people who have made different choices. That’s, pardon the language, self aggrandizing bull shit.

The reaction some have trying to convince me of what I am doing as being wrong in some way is something I encounter specifically with binary trans folk who have been through the ringer or who are insecure to the point where I am pretty sure what they are doing is a trauma response. However just because it’s a potential trauma response doesn’t mean it is cool. Think of it this way - In trying to stess test my transition choices by finding fault this way binary trans people are doing what cis people did to them just in reverse - The requesting or coercing of trans people to defend their transition choices. Enbies are sometimes looked at as the weak flank of the arguements that trans people make to society for the right to accommodation. These forms of Enbyphobia aren’t often discussed because it’s acknowledged that these issues come from pressure from outside the community. A united front pushing things as a nessesity is what gets traction with cis people. Edge cases, nuanced situations and people who do not neatly fit into that narrative sometimes become targets because we are inconvenient so we get hit on multiple flanks having to justify our choices to binary trans people and cis people. It’s that shared experience more than anything that keeps me solidly identifying as non-binary rather than binary trans. It’s also a personal declaration that I need not conform to anybody else’s views of masculinity and acknowledging/accepting rather than rejecting this space I occupy as a possible end goal.

There is again quite an assumption here mainly that my partner somehow asked me to not transition, that again I am somehow being coerced to stay by a domineering voice.

This was a discussion, a frank one, where I clarified with him what the potential outcomes of a medical transition were in terms of our relationship and decided on my own. It was not something he was comfortable asking me to do on his behalf and even after making my decision he took some time to feel comfortable on his end with it because his concerns and lack of self confidence of being “worth it”. People have approached him in the past with the attitude that he’s doing me a disservice and it ruins him for at least a week.

You are also conflating my comment about medical transitioning being a no brainer with transitioning itself. I have still transitioned socially and have been impacted in losing career advantages, family and friends for my choices. All transitions carry risks regardless of the medical component and when you frame it in this way where it focuses on medical transition as the majority of the risk or defining portion of transistion it implies that non-medical transition doesn’t count as transition. Any transition should be approached as potentially having serious reprocussions. In many cases of my friends who have medically transitioned the decision to medically transition was ultimately a lot less difficult than the decision to socially transition because by the time they got there they’d already experienced bigotry and yes, their lives have gotten markedly better since… But they also do not pity me and that is the tone of what you give off here (particularly in quoting a book about a womam dealing with religious trauma and internalized homophobia) the sense that you aren’t simply empathizing or sympathizing with the aspects of my choices which are difficult but that you veiw those choices as harmful or misguided.

I am glad that you found happiness and comfort in your transistion. It’s obviously a great fit. Maybe rethink your approach to non-binary folx as it seems like you bring a little overmuch of your personal baggage with you.

I appreciate the apology. As a suggestion it’s best to ask clarifying questions before handing down judgements about what counts as healthy for someone or offering advice. As a long term non-medically transitioning person I receive a lot of unsolicited advice about how to live my life from people whose circumstances are much more clear cut. It comes across often as quite condescending when someone extrapolates from a very small snippet of personal information that mine were not carefully thought out and reasoned choices that are made daily.

The choice to transition medically isn’t a simple medical question and in my mind should not be out of hand treated as if it were a straightforward form of medical treatment to restore function. The question we should be asking ourselves is always “are the decisions I am making wholistic towards the outcome of making my life the best it can be.” For a lot of people the decision to medically transition is a no brainer, there is nothing keeping you but for some it comes with a slew of either/or sacrifices that impact other valuable aspects of the human experience. For some of us there isn’t a good solution without pain of some kind and the only choice we can make is what is preferable to endure. The reasons other people have to make are their own to make and not seeking “treatment” is not a metric of whether they take their situation “seriously”.

There is a very big difference between how people carry pain endured for little to no reason versus pain that is the willing price paid for something cherished.

Just a gentle suggestion that not physically transitioning for your partner’s preferences is probably not healthy or OK, I know it’s difficult and you have to figure that out yourself - but I encourage you to seek counseling and find a way to help your partner see that being trans is a genetic and medical condition that for your health and well-being you really shouldn’t ignore and forego treatment on, esp. for something like their preferences. Not all trans experience is the same, but it’s probable that medical transition would significantly improve your life.

In the nicest possible way - don’t. This is not your call and this is not good advice. The relationship is 16 years old and a been a constant sense of comfort through a number of life’s traumas and bumpy roads. I would happily take a bullet for him any day of the week and my choices are not founded on nothing. He can’t help having a phenotype preference any more than I can and the decision I made was in regards to a wholistic assessment of what my values are. He is very aware of the nature of transness and your assumption that what works for you is the best path forward is not welcome.

I accept the conditions under which I live as imperfect but preferrable by far then losing a partner with whom I share my burdens.

As a trans guy who is sort of non-binary as a shorthand explanation and mental crutch for a complicated resting state of not physically transitioning because of my long-term partner’s phenotype preferences I feel this so hard. My physical body does not sort easily into people’s gender code. I ended up going with they/them pronouns more as a defensive move.

In my case it’s the daily sacrifice in the name of love but fuck if it doesn’t destroy my confidence regularly and feel like a fey curse.