I’d like to point out that there seems to have been some consensus on giving you the benefit of the doubt, you haven’t been down-voted after all.

I’m on blahaj, so I wouldn’t see downvotes anyway (they’re not federated)

Personally I had a bad feeling about that first comment, but wasn’t sure enough to comment.

I hear you, I guess it’s fair to be wary when it seems like someone is implying enbyphobia, and when I re-read my comment I can see that possibility more clearly (which is part of why I felt it was good to delete my comment - it wasn’t really contributing much anyway).

I think from my end it felt so out of left field and unnecessary, what makes it feel like bad faith is how aggressive it felt, and how disconnected it felt from my original comments.

I’d think the bigoted part of our society would likely use this to invalidate everyone who is non-binary.

I really dislike when the trans community attacks itself as if this is all a zero sum game; on the one hand it feels like “transmedicalists” want to claim that healthcare will be taken away from people who have dysphoria and need medical transition if we open the gate to enbies or other gender diverse people, and on the other side it feels sometimes like binary trans identity is increasingly viewed with suspicion and treated as a kind of betrayal of a subversive, beyond-the-binary trans identity (as if being non-binary is the ideal response to transphobia, and not just a natural category). On the one hand is respectability politics, and on the other hand is counter-cultural separatism. Both can be bad, and neither are necessary.

In the end I don’t think passing trans people being more acceptable actually invalidates non-binary identity, that validation won’t change the fact those bigots are going to reject non-binary identities that are non-conforming … that is, the blame really belongs on the bigots and their bigotry, not on the trans people who receive less hate for being more conformist.

All this to be said, yeah, I dunno - feeling a bit alienated rn - maybe I should just take a break until I’m not sick with the flu and my brain isn’t mush … that would probably help me write things that don’t make people so upset.

I briefly had used a name when I was experimenting as a teenager, and decades later when I finally figured it out and transitioned, I decided to honor that girl by using the name she picked.

yeah, my first comment was poorly phrased and did assume the reader wasn’t going to infer that I think cis-sexism is a good thing, but since it’s ambiguous I’ve deleted my comments.

The relevance of enbies as a minorities: you could say I was making a generalization that for most trans people, transitioning will cause them to be more gender conforming. I think most people (both cis and trans) think of transitioning as subversive and as something that increases non-conformity, so the realization this isn’t true for some of us was amusing and felt ironic. I probably felt it was safe to say because it’s an irony that applies to the majority of trans people who medically transition, but there is a minority of trans individuals whose transition goals will put them into less conforming gender roles (where non-conforming is euphoric for them), and that was left out in my initial comments.

Pointing out they are a minority isn’t meant to re-affirm cis-sexism or to deny their validity, it’s meant to point out why I felt it was safe to make the comments I made about transitioning leading to gender conformity without feeling a need to add an asterisks that mentions the exceptions (which obviously exist, and are obviously valid).

I only mentioned cis people (not cis-hets) are 99% of people because I felt it was unfair when pooberbee said cis people can eat shit; that kind of mindset just seems wrong to me, and pointing out that cis people aren’t some minority of evil people but are actually nearly all people might be helpful for them to see why telling nearly everyone to eat shit isn’t a great sentiment.

To me it seems there’s a rather obvious implication that that somehow means conforming to the majority could be helpful in any way.

And in the context of “passing transpeople validating cishets expectations” this is a very bad take, because such validation would in turn invalidate all non-conforming identities, hence the throwing enbies under the bus interpretation.

I don’t think the majority of trans people being binary and thus transitioning in a way that conforms with social norms necessarily invalidates non-conforming identities, but I can understand sensitivity that this is being implied … I think this is where I feel there is consistent bad-faith, on my end there is no implication or intention to call into question non-conforming identities, and I feel nothing I’ve said is inconsistent with the validity of non-conforming identities … to the contrary, my initial comment assumed the default position is that all trans people are by definition seen as non-conforming, and the surprise and irony I was trying to point to is that wow, some of us really end up being gender conforming (against the default belief that transness is inherently subversive and non-conforming).

That said, re-reading my original comment I can see why it reads differently - I think I was just being glib and assuming I was in a safe space where people would understand where I’m coming from. :-/

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yeahhhh, transitioning has made me realize there is quite a lot of damage I’ve sustained

but it’s sort of irrelevant to the decision of whether to transition, I mean - at first I remember going through immense grief and so on, and later a realization that I’ll never be whole, etc. and more grief - but you have to remember in terms of a decision about whether to transition, I was already such a fucked up person, and transitioning was a massive and unambiguous improvement for my well-being.

So give yourself space to grieve, but I wouldn’t focus too much on the negative emotions - we can’t afford to not be practical about our feelings, we have to find ways to see things that helps us survive.

I really like what @phr@discuss.tchncs.de said in her other post:

i didn’t know forever that i was a girl. i don’t know today. i’m just starting to get a sense of self. something that was shattered and buried through thorough suppression. i am putting together fragments like an archeologist. but being trans is in a way still just a working hypothesis. it’s highly plausible, but i can’t see the bigger picture yet.

decades of repression left me with a poor sense of self, and sifting through the fragments like an archaeologist is a good way of putting it

Anyway, yes - entirely normal to feel dissonance, or different and mixed feelings about transition.

I spent a long time coping with my situation by learning to not care about my identity, so it makes sense that after becoming so good at that, that I would then struggle to feel connected to that part of myself.

Here’s a “poem” I wrote about gender identity, trying to make sense of it:

Hidden from the senses

Inferred shadows

Constraining, defining, shaping

Without a trace

Like water wondering about the shape of a bowl

for what it’s worth, in a context where you have access to informed consent care like in the US, being completely honest about my uncertainty with my gender-informed therapists didn’t cause problems for me … obviously with old-school doctors and gatekeepers, you will run into issues (but maybe avoid those doctors anyway). I only mention this because you don’t always have to lie or pretend you always knew, in the right context it’s OK to be vulnerable given it’s safe.

though it’s hard in my case, because when I was 5 I distinctly knew I was meant to be born as a girl and felt there was some kind of “cosmic mistake”, and when I was 4 years old I was trying on my mom’s heels in her closet … so even if I’m on the far end of having stereotypical signs early on, I think what’s important to clarify is that I didn’t know I had those early signs until after my egg cracked as an adult, and I suppressed my awareness of it until then. I didn’t think either of those signs were indications I “knew” I was a girl or anything like that - I just thought it signaled I wanted to be a girl (not that I was one), and I didn’t know this could be roughly the same thing in terms of experience of gender identity.

if you just want 2 - 3 suggestions, I would start with Julia Serano’s Whipping Girl and Sexed Up, and then maybe something like Mia Violet’s Yes, You are Trans Enough

I do not recommend letting the surgeons or endos inform you in detail, in general my advice on that is to know more than your doctors.

I know you mentioned you felt you hadn’t done your homework, and I think this communicates both that you feel overwhelmed and like you’ve started this process that demands so much more knowledge than you feel you have, but also that you might feel like you don’t have the level of certainty or clarity about your own dysphoria or needs to direct the transition.

Both are aspects I struggled with in my transition, and the first 3 - 6 months after my egg cracked and I realized I was trans, I read quite a few books, articles, etc. to educate myself while I was also going through the earliest stages of social and medical transition.

You can absolutely educate yourself assuming you have the time and opportunity to read.

Regarding the uncertainty about dysphoria and imposter syndrome (wondering you’re really trans, whether you really suffer from dysphoria, etc.) - that has basically never gone away for me, it’s just a question that becomes less relevant as I get on the other side of major transition milestones.

Even now I still wonder if I’m somehow secretly a cis man who tricked myself into transitioning. Such thoughts I now realize mostly come from a combination of irrational fears and internalized transphobia - I am older and grew up during a very transphobic time, so on some basic level I don’t really emotionally accept the medical establishment’s claims about gender dysphoria, and I worry someday I’ll wake up and feel differently … that said, I’ve wished I was born a woman my whole life, so now that I live as a woman it’s never an issue for me, and objectively I’m much healthier and happier now. So everything objective and concrete makes it clear transition was worth it, the fears are genuinely irrational.

So, given what I know about my fears, I took transition steps with the understanding that I was probably a binary trans woman and it’s safe to take every measure to help me live as a woman, and so far that has worked out perfectly for me even when I wasn’t sure beforehand. I even had bottom surgery without feeling certain about it, and I’m glad I did.

I wouldn’t recommend reading Stone Butch Blues - it’s traumatizing and not particularly affirming

I’ve already shared the relevant part from that book. I suggest you read a lot more about trans experience - I have a list I can put together if you’d like.

i realised years ago, that i actually didn’t want others to interact too much with or focus on my parts during sex

you should know this is stereotypical bottom dysphoria, e.g. Stone Butch Blues - the idea of being “stone” had to do with not wanting someone to interact with your genitals during sex (more common in trans men than in butch lesbians, hence “stone butch” was that line crossing over into trans territory)

Also: something that has helped me accept being trans was the realisation that being a woman is just easier for me than being a man. So based on that I’m probably a woman (-ish, again).

I’ve also struggled like OP to come to terms with whether I’m trans, whether I’m non-binary or a binary woman, whether I want surgery, etc. When my egg cracked I didn’t think I had experienced any real dysphoria, I was pretty certain I had no bottom dysphoria and would not want bottom surgery, and all I knew was the evidence was mounting that I was probably trans and should take steps to transition for my mental well-being.

Within a few months my repression and coping strategies like dissociation were diminished by social transition and I realized I had significant and severe dysphoria, and had suffered it most of my life. I went from thinking I had no awareness growing up I was a woman to realizing that some of my earliest memories would count as awareness of my gender identity (and even are common tropes), and that I had basically been trying to variably reconcile and repress this fact my whole life.

Since then I have had to acknowledge that my repression has left me ill equipped to be “in touch” with myself about what is best for me, and that even when I can’t tell if I would like something (e.g. before HRT I worried I wouldn’t like having breasts, I couldn’t tell beforehand), that I should probably take the steps I can.

So far that has worked well for me - and I think in the end I’m realizing I’m not non-binary like I originally thought. Like you, I went through a phase of denial that took the shape of identifying as non-binary, because it made it easier to rationalize not transitioning or admitting I was “trans” enough.

What helped orient me was to realize that there was no part of being a man that I wanted to be or keep. A beard was the opposite of me. My penis felt like a silly and foreign object, particularly when erect. My testes and scrotum made me nauseous. I had become good at ignoring or rationalizing away signs like the pervasive and intrusive genital mutilation ideation that came up for me, and lo and behold since bottom surgery I haven’t had any genital mutilation thoughts! In retrospect it all seems obvious and easy to discern. On the other side from a place of repression, it can feel very ambiguous and uncertain.

I think most people advise to be slow and cautious, and this aligns with cis society’s fear of transition as well: insurance companies and governments enforce long wait times to have access to care, despite clinical evidence showing this is harmful. So I tend to take the opposite tact: don’t gatekeep yourself and seek access to care ASAP. It’s nice to be able to go slow, but the system will force you to go slow anyway. Get on the waitlists now, make the appointments now, etc. Even if there weren’t an anti-trans campaign threatening to take options off the table in the future, there is also just the reality of your well-being and how long transition takes. You want to get through it so you are healthy and happy sooner, and so you reduce the risks that come with delayed access to care.

are you in Australia? 😄

(it’s cloudy and snowing where I am)

I was a very grumpy guy before, which makes me sad to think about

oh I meant more like I use the phrase a lot IRL 😅

agreed about cis people being genital focused and the term feeling different coming from them in a context like that.

tbh I think most people have a kind of implicit genital essentialist view of gender, and I’m sure that kind of view influenced my own dyphoria and discomfort with my genitals (though it’s hard to tell when dysphoria is coming from social expectations or socialized ways of thinking vs something more culture-independent and presumably biological).

Regardless, my essentialist views were pretty challenged by transitioning, and I even find it difficult now to think of trans women as having “male” genitals, that’s just not the reality …

through God all things are possible

it does suck, but more frequent injections also helped reduce my needle phobia, and I had more psychological distress from injecting when I went back to once a week, ironically…

a lot of the links are to dead / expired campaigns, are the links old or something?