Estrogen was a milestone for me in my transition. I was nonbinary for many years, then 4 years as a woman on on E, now closing in on 2 years off, or back on T, as I like to say. I'm still walking through the world as a woman, but changing my hormones without changing my identity has allowed me to renegotiate my relationship to my body and see her differently.
I appreciate you putting your thoughts and experiences into words, given the size of your platform within the queer/nd anglophone world. More needs to be said, more possibility space opened, socially, to allow "detransition" to be what it usually is anyway, just another form of the original impulse to transition--not to reach an imaginary stability, but to be a continuous participant in the process of becoming.
it’s so comforting to read this. The pressure to feel perfect certainty kept me from scheduling top surgery for years! thank you for reminding us that grasping around in the dark is just the human condition 💜
(The core of this is something I wrote a few days ago in response to a tumblr post you made that also strongly touched on this, so if it's familiar that's no accident, but I figured it might contribute to the discussion here.)
Oh gods, do I ever feel you. I really, really wish this whole gendered bullshit would just fuck off. It's so exhausting. I wonder how I would think about myself if I didn't have to go through a fuck nasty gauntlet of bullshit that forced me into a very, very small gender box. Or at least pretend well enough to pass their scrutinizing. The toll that took on top of the near lethal dose of societal background conformity radiation.
Also, for the longest time I had no idea that you could just... do that. Transition. Just say fuck it, we ball, and change all that shit about yourself. The ostracism and bullying started years and years before I even could begin to attempt to articulate where the feeling of *wrongness* came from, let alone act on it. Others could certainly perceive how ill-fitting I was. Perhaps an aspect of that trauma, of being that weird autistic kid who genders wrong, being *alien* fucked me up.
Like, if I'd had to describe how I feel about myself it'd be something like "none woman with left autism", but good fucking luck getting anyone to understand that. So if I have to put a label on it it would be (trans) woman, which isn't untrue in that it speaks to the experiences I've had and I share with those who identify strongly with that.
However, it's also not the whole picture, far from it. It's all a big fucking unintelligible mess, and I'd slap a non-binary label on it but a) I don't understand what actually makes a binary gender what it is, how people can have any sort of neatly circumscribed notion about what their gender is, and b) as if somebody embodied like I am is permitted the space for uncertainty or not upholding rigid ideas about gender if I want even a chance to be treated like a person. (While the latter can be because of malice, even well-meaning people often are like that because of ingrained societal patterns & prejudices.)
Your story reminds me a little of a friend, who transitioned one way, and after some time decided to change course. A myopic view would wrongly call it detransition, as for them it was nothing like that. More a display of changing understanding of the self.
idk, maybe I'm just too fucking autistic too get it. There's steps I've taken that I'm still glad with and wouldn't want to give up. Due to shenanigans I briefly had to stop HRT, throwing me back to the before times, and I did not like that feeling one bit, so I keep being on it. Just let me vibe in peace with people. Some of the most intense pressure to conform to some ungraspable idealized gendered performance has come from other trans and/or queer people, and that really disappoints me. Just let everybody fucking be.
It’s downright uncanny how perfect the timing on this essay is. I got my first prescription for E last month, and it was so easy and barrier-free that it triggered a legitimacy crisis. I had resisted calling myself trans for years even after I was dressing exclusively in women’s clothing and doing makeup more often than not. I could never bring myself to do it because I didn’t fit that perfect narrative of knowing from birth. That changed less than a year ago when I met a bunch of trans folks who were also very open about not believing that it was predestined, who were open and unashamed to have chosen this path of their own free will. The fact that I thought of myself as a boy for most of my life didn’t invalidate me because the same was true of most girls there. I had always been a little Judith-Butler pilled, but now with the help of thinkers/shitposters like @queercodeddividual I began to fully embrace it as a basis for identity. “Born This Way” is an arbitrary standard, and everyone ought to enjoy the freedom of trans-ing their gender for whatever reason they chose.
In the past few weeks, though, I confess my thinking has changed again. Gender is a social construct, sex is merely the gendering of the body, and everyone’s gender identity is uniquely a product of their own life experiences, but we have to keep in mind that there are, in fact, some people who are born this way. While most of us use some amount of theory to engage with identity, there are trans kids who know who they are as soon as they can know anything, and it’s increasingly evident that our theory is failing to account for them. I’ve also witnessed trans people who always knew who they were and don’t feel like they could be anything else get marginalized and alienated within ostensibly trans spaces because they are now dominated by a majority who are choosing to embrace gender autonomy. I really don’t know how to feel about this. It’s especially complicated because broader cis society still assumes most trans people conform to the old narratives. There isn’t even a good language to describe the problem, and it’s nearly impossible to convince someone if they haven’t already seen it. I often wonder if I’m gaslighting myself and making up a problem that doesn’t exist, but then I see it again. The trans people who are trans by virtue of embracing trans philosophy and exerting autonomy over their identity are growing to outnumber the trans people who don’t have a choice in being trans, and our theory is failing to accommodate the people who inspired it in the first place.
Around 5-10 years ago when non-binary/genderfluid/genderqueer identities were becoming more commonplace in north american queer/trans circles and there was a debate happening whether these were true trans identities and whether this obfuscates so-called 'binary' trans identities, this is what some people were cautioning against. for a brief unstable minute both seemed to coexist even though the underpinning theory and narratives were diametrically opposed in some cases, and now the tide has swelled, non-binary identities are undoubtedly trans, and much of gender-exploratory identity has become subsumed under 'non-binary'/'enby' and 'trans', and the trans foremothers and forefathers who paved the way are too often derisively called 'binary' by the youth. idk idk. these are my observations as a 'cis'(?) gender-dropout(??). cis doesn't fit me anymore and I am grateful for the expansiveness offered by trans folks of all genders that I may explore more freely, and also, also, I wonder about who is getting left behind. I also wonder about how we become illegible to each other btwn generations while material conditions worsen. gender liberation requires gender solidarity.
I also wonder about how we become illegible to each other btwn generations while material conditions worsen. gender liberation requires gender solidarity.
Oh wow, thank you for articulating something I’ve been grappling with in my memoir draft. I feel like I’m “trans-by-choice” and thus have a privilege others don’t. You’ve outlined the problem beautifully.
I didn't know from early on - and still I feel like I didn't have a choice. I was sinking deeper into depression to a point where I think I wouldn't have survived. Accepting myself as trans was like a big puzzle coming together. I am living a happier life now and one with a future.
Probably, what we subsume under the trans umbrella, is a multi faceted phenomenon. Some things are more true for some of us and some things for others. That's why I am very weary of a unifying theory - it will always invalidate some trans people.
Only when we accept gender as a very messy thing with roots in biology and society (Julia Serano calls it the “inclination model”, Anne Fausto-Sterling has a similar idea) must we acknowledge that self-determination is the only way. It's just too complex for tests, standard procedures and rigid boxes.
Which also brings me to the belief that trans as an umbrella is good and should not be further divided - as any boxes we create will never reflect the myriad of ways people interact with their gender and sexed bodies.
If we'd stop assigning genders, we could just do away with the whole cis/trans thing… just give people options for self determination and dysphoria. But that surely won't happen in a few lifetimes.
Btw. I don't think Butler’s ideas invalidate trans people’s identities either way? It's more that they are often misunderstood. It's very academic writing and some terms have a very different meaning than lay people often assume.
(Admittedly I'm still trying to get to the bottom of their work - I'm usually good at reading English academic texts but it's not my native language and philosophical texts are often hard even in my native language. I'm not a studied philosopher…)
The honesty embarrassing thing about this comment is is the complete failure to even think about any of the content of any of the previous comments.
You might very well be right about me personally. I’m probably not a woman, I am probably just a man who’s very good at all the skills of femininity and is treated like a woman by most of society. But that’s not because sex is all in DNA, because after all that would mean there are dozens of sexes, and that most males aren’t male anymore after the age of 60. Science is never perfectly settled, and as we learn more and more about genetics and neurology we will likely have to radically redefine our terms.
I’m also not a man because trans people don’t exist. How we define trans people can be open to discussion, but nearly every society that has tried to group people into categories based on reproductive potential has had to contend with the fact that some people won’t stay in the groups they are put in. Hence Bakla, Kathoey, Hijra, Mukhannath Femminiello, Muxe, Machi, and countless other categories that have very complex meanings in their original cultures but which English is left to generically group together as “third-gender categories.” If “Gender” is a linguistic term only and has no application to humans, If none of us really have any gender, then I can wear skirts and tights, do cat-eye makeup, use the woman’s changing room, and even take estrogen purely for aesthetic reasons. None of those come from genetics. If everyone then proceeded to treat me like a woman, as they usually do, then the fallacy lies with them and not me.
I’m going to block and report just for the sake of prudence, but I want it to be clear that it’s not because you words have any power to hurt me. I’m going to report your comment only because I worry about other people who it does have the ability to hurt. It is an act of solidarity, not self defense.
My words do have the power to hurt you because my words are truthful.
The truth hurts those who lie. The very fact that you insist my words aren't hurtful means that they are.
Btw I like that you admit TERFs like me are right, right off the bat. "I'm probably not a woman, I'm probably just a man." After all this time trying to force us to say that trannies are women (because they're not), you admit that it's bullshit. It's not probably, sir. You're not a woman. You'll never be a woman.
There are no "skills of femininity." You're literally only speaking about makeup and clothes. That's all women are to you because you hate women--because you know you'll never be one.
How tf would you know what it's like to be treated LIKE A WOMAN? A woman is an adult human female--you're not female. You're a male who thinks he passes because you're delusional. You have no clue. People just lie to you because they're probably afraid of you going crazy and punching holes in walls.
And even if you did "pass," which you probably don't, you still don't know what it's like to be a woman. You know what it's like to be a man who tricks others into thinking you're something you're not. That's not being a woman. That's being a fraud. Fool's gold isn't gold, even if everybody thinks it is.
I don't care what some backwards third world tribe in Pakistan does, that has no relevance to health care in 2024 in the modern world. Those are men in dresses, which is what trannies are. Just say that.
There is sex only--female and male. There are two, nothing else. Genetic disorders do not change this, there is no spectrum, and this is not complicated.
Gender means nothing for humans. It's for words only. If you mean clothes, say it. A man wearing makeup is a man. A man is a dress is a man. And they look stupid. The vast majority look like freaks.
This is the nonsense trannies say--GENDER IS SOCIAL! THAT'S WHY I NEED ESTROGEN TO CHANGE MY BIOLOGY! Then it's not social. You're changing biology to imitate something you'll never be. You'll never be female--that's sex.
You should be in a mental hospital. "Trans" is a lie and is nothing but a symptom of mental illness.
If you really want to definitely gender as exclusively as specialized terminology in the field of linguistics, I could accept that as the terms of discussion, but I would be curious to know what you would propose as an alternative word for the social phenomenon, because something is being socially constructed. When you walk into a department store, there’s a “men’s” section and a “women’s” section. When you go to a hair salon and look through their offerings, they often divide between women’s styles and men’s styles. That’s not because of trans people, and if you’re angry that XY-chromosome havers are being called women when they wear clothing from the “women’s” section and get their hair cut in “women’s” styles, it’s more the fault of those hair salons and department stores. Similarly, you have an article on sex segregated incarceration. I hope I’m not the first person to tell you this, but there are no genes for when or how someone should be incarcerated. The laws that criminalize certain behaviors and the procedures for addressing that criminalization don’t come from DNA, they are decisions made by society, and society is equally capable of making different decisions about how to describe haircuts and clothing and where to incarcerate people. We don’t have to call it gender, since that’s going to be an exclusively linguistic term, and we can’t call if sex if sex is chromosomal, but we are going to have to call it something. No part of this conversation can continue until we do have a word for this phenomenon, because it’s integral to my position.
There's no such thing as "trans" people. A male who thinks he's a female is delusional, and usually has autogynephilia. These men are perverted freaks, nothing more.
Most of the time people just mean sex. That's simple--there are two, nothing more. That's what "gender" means under California law--literally look it up. Say female or male as those are the two sexes and that is how human reproduction works.
The other times people mean clothing. Say clothing. You mentioned that yourself. That's just clothing, not "SoCiAL cOnStRuCt." Women wear pants--they're still women. Men walk around looking stupid in dresses--they're still men. Men in dresses. Say that.
If you mean sexist stereotypes, say that. If you're dumb enough to think idiot trannies should be allowed to distill womanhood into sexist stereotypes and build an identity on that, then say it.
Yes, there is basic biology on how people should be incarcerated. THAT'S CALLED SEX. Males go to male jail, females in female jail. Males are XY and produce sperm; females are XX and produce eggs. It's literally that simple. Otherwise, how do these trannies know to demand to go to the female jails?
This worked for thousands of years, now nobody knows anything? That's sex-segregated jails, and women need them because men are violent and male rapists are now in women's jails.
That covers it. This is not complicated. People like you complicate things because you're not intelligent to understand what is going on.
The word is sex. Female, male. That's the word for this PHENOMENON. It's literally called reality.
This is what happens when everyone is supposed to pretend like this is rocket science. It isn't. It's simple.
And btw thanks for admitting everything I say is true, you just want a NEW WORD that somehow covers this amazingly complex PHENOMENON--it's called sex.
Wow, what hard agenda to disprove, the lie of "trans." I have to explain this to unintelligent people like I'm talking to a 2-year-old. That's how pathetic this whole thing is.
The incoherency of this argument is almost self-evident without mention the unmentionable word. Sex-segregated jails are a very recent historical phenomenon, as are sex-segregated restrooms, while sex-specific forms of attire and adornment is a reoccurring pattern across many different time periods and cultures. Arguing that some these social conventions are biologically necessary while others are actually completely meaningless is already difficult, but arguing that the very recent ones are biological in nature and the ones that have persisted across millennia are perfectly arbitrary is laughable.
If you want to call most of these conventions sexist stereotypes, I won’t necessarily argue with you, but we do have to be a little more precise. The fact is that when a boy(xy chromosome, small gamete producer) wears a miniskirt and crop-top with a pixie cut, men will often start hitting on him and/or catcalling him. Sexism obviously plays a roll in this, but we have to understand how and why the sexist assumptions are being applied in this way. It’s obvious not because our xy-chromosome’d small gamete producer is an xx-chromosome’d large gamete producer. It might not even be because the catcaller in question believes the xy-chromosome’d small gamete producer is an xx-chromosome’d large gamete producer. It’s largely because associations exist in people’s minds between appearance and sexual availability, ostensibly on the basis of sex, which become so strong that they transcend sex itself. It is a sexist stereotype, but it reveals much more than that, and we need to be able to discuss the deeper connection between all these things.
Full disclosure, I am going to stop responding after this. I only replied in the first place because I wanted to undermine the narrative that trans people block and report because they can’t really refute TERF arguments. I feel I have demonstrated conclusively that you don’t really have anything novel or useful to contribute to any discussion of gender or sex, so while I’m sure you’re going to reply, I’m satisfied knowing that no one who sees this thread will care.
I think around 2014 I decided my gender identity would be a choice (whether it really was or not, that's how I would understand it from a political perspective) in order to stop the OCD-ish constant questioning of whether I was "really" trans and the fear of having my identity rejected I'd internalized. Then I started low-dose T in 2016 planning to get a few changes and then stop before I got too masculinized, but I ended up staying on it b/c it treated some of the symptoms of a genetic disorder I have and the couple attempts to stop I made led to chronic pain + low endurance and strength.
I was absolutely seen and recognized as nonbinary for around 6 years after the start of my transition. I would shave my face (but I have pale skin and dark hair so the stubble was still visible) and dress femme or punk and even people who didn't know about nonbinary people would be confused about whether I was a trans man or trans woman or weird cis person of either cis gender and therefore either would treat me as nonbinary, or would pick a different way to gender me than someone else in the conversation and end up passive-aggressively fighting over how to gender me, which was hilarious. I also have had mostly nonbinary and other trans friends since before I medically transitioned and while in the late 00s/early 2010s relatively few people (even trans men and women) respected my nonbinary identity when it wasn't supported by physical androgyny, I see the communities I live in having changed a lot to where even some cis people will remind people not to assume gender for people who "look" cis.
But after 6 years I grew out my facial hair and ended up liking it enough I don't want to shave it even though I dislike how it caused people to gender me as male quite consistently (even though I still wear dresses and such a lot, don't bind, and have never attempt to alter my behavior to fit any gender stereotype). Ultimately I prefer the chaotic gendering I'd get when I looked physically androgynous to being pigeonholed into any particular identity.
The physical changes have caused me quite a bit of dysphoria, though now that I take T less often so I can have a more feminine body shape and I have a full beard and long hair that's changed mostly to euphoria... yet then there's the social dysphoria of people calling me "he" -_- . But yeah I decided that it was still beneficial to have the autonomy to experience the sort of dysphoria I wanted to have. I'd much rather have dysphoria similar to a transfeminine person getting called "he" when they wanted "she" or "they" and feeling gross over their body hair and other physically masc traits because the image of myself in my head has always mainly been of a feminine AMAB person. And of course there is value in exercising the autonomy itself, regardless of the results.
The one thing I haven't recovered from since transitioning is never figuring out how to navigate the dating scene when people no longer approach me because I don't have the same gender role and body capital... Although I did have a straight boyfriend from before I transitioned decide to date me again after the transition (and after a marriage and divorce in the intervening years on his part), which coincidentally is part of why I grew my beard out for the first time when I did––I wanted to test to make sure he wasn't just seeing me as a girl, and it didn't bother him at all, in fact he enjoyed the physical sensation of it.
Wow. Having started T 14 months ago just before my 30th birthday and going through a current period of doubt this resonates so much for me. The idea of stopping T feels just as uncomfortable as continuing it does at the moment and each week is a full interrogation of self. The load has lightened over the last few months as I’ve made an effort to relax the pressure of ‘knowing’ my gender and the path I want to take. I cannot overstate how reassuring and comforting it is to see so much of my self, my fears, and my joys in this post.
I'm crying, Devon. I... I don't have words. just, thank you. thank you so, so much. I haven't lived your life but I relate so much to the feelings-- the uncertainty, the fear, the longing that comes with transitioning. when I came out as non binary in 2019, I remember that it was because I told myself that my identity doesn't need to be shaped by violence alone but by liberation. that non compliance with womaning was me being true to myself. and everything you described about labeling yourself enby followed. today, people generally do and say the right things. they use they/them and affirm my genderqueer identity, and yet it still feels farcical at times. the gender fluidity is being very fluid lol, and sometimes I just wanna be a girl. I think about random shit like doing drag but how I'd want to be a dragqueen because that's the gender performance that I feel most adept at, it feels the funnest to do and it is such a performance. all these feelings are contradictory and weird; and I haven't been able to truly articulate it. but I think that's due to the fear of being perceived as some idk clout chasing transphobic former-trans-identifying cis girl? idk?! idfk!! I know that it's okay to not know, but coming out is made out to be this passage beyond the point of no return and that's awful. this whole forced gender thing is suffocating.
This piece reflects how I feel about gender better than anything else I have ever read. I can't wait for the day where we can articulate ambiguous feelings about transition without the fear of TERFs weaponizing that.
This piece is so raw and powerful and amazing! I could feel the passion you brought to the writing. I identify with a lot of what you wrote, too, despite having never physically transitioned, though I suppose I somewhat superficially transitioned and then detransitioned (I just wrote about that the other day, but I didn’t use those terms). Thank you for sharing your journey and I hope you get some moments of peace away from all this gender at some point.
I have none words for how much this post spoke to me. There is no configuration of my body that will work in this particular incarnation for me, when I think of gender in my mind, its not even relevant. I tell my wife, I am actually a space or sea slug inside, that's what I see, just a beautiful Sea Dragon, turns out, they can change their gender at will. It makes sense to me, I can't be locked into a single gender if I have one at all. But since in this colonial world we seem to all be required to pick a gender, my wife and I call me Minessa gender.
This is an absolutely beautiful read, and I had the overwhelming sense, reading it, that gender might kind of be like religion?
That, say 500 years ago, not being part of a particular faith (at least superficially) would have been unheard of, but as people learned more about other options, tried different sects, kids became less and less raised in their parents faith, it became more and more socially acceptable to say "I'm happy for you that you believe, but it's really not for me". Maybe this is the direction that gender could be heading?
This is so beautiful. I appreciate the openness in your writing so much. I hope you get to do all the things you wrote you want to do in those last couple of paragraphs, and more!
Estrogen was a milestone for me in my transition. I was nonbinary for many years, then 4 years as a woman on on E, now closing in on 2 years off, or back on T, as I like to say. I'm still walking through the world as a woman, but changing my hormones without changing my identity has allowed me to renegotiate my relationship to my body and see her differently.
I appreciate you putting your thoughts and experiences into words, given the size of your platform within the queer/nd anglophone world. More needs to be said, more possibility space opened, socially, to allow "detransition" to be what it usually is anyway, just another form of the original impulse to transition--not to reach an imaginary stability, but to be a continuous participant in the process of becoming.
Beautifully said.
Lmao, you’re so unhinged. Why are you so obsessed with us? Enjoy your sad life.
it’s so comforting to read this. The pressure to feel perfect certainty kept me from scheduling top surgery for years! thank you for reminding us that grasping around in the dark is just the human condition 💜
(The core of this is something I wrote a few days ago in response to a tumblr post you made that also strongly touched on this, so if it's familiar that's no accident, but I figured it might contribute to the discussion here.)
Oh gods, do I ever feel you. I really, really wish this whole gendered bullshit would just fuck off. It's so exhausting. I wonder how I would think about myself if I didn't have to go through a fuck nasty gauntlet of bullshit that forced me into a very, very small gender box. Or at least pretend well enough to pass their scrutinizing. The toll that took on top of the near lethal dose of societal background conformity radiation.
Also, for the longest time I had no idea that you could just... do that. Transition. Just say fuck it, we ball, and change all that shit about yourself. The ostracism and bullying started years and years before I even could begin to attempt to articulate where the feeling of *wrongness* came from, let alone act on it. Others could certainly perceive how ill-fitting I was. Perhaps an aspect of that trauma, of being that weird autistic kid who genders wrong, being *alien* fucked me up.
Like, if I'd had to describe how I feel about myself it'd be something like "none woman with left autism", but good fucking luck getting anyone to understand that. So if I have to put a label on it it would be (trans) woman, which isn't untrue in that it speaks to the experiences I've had and I share with those who identify strongly with that.
However, it's also not the whole picture, far from it. It's all a big fucking unintelligible mess, and I'd slap a non-binary label on it but a) I don't understand what actually makes a binary gender what it is, how people can have any sort of neatly circumscribed notion about what their gender is, and b) as if somebody embodied like I am is permitted the space for uncertainty or not upholding rigid ideas about gender if I want even a chance to be treated like a person. (While the latter can be because of malice, even well-meaning people often are like that because of ingrained societal patterns & prejudices.)
Your story reminds me a little of a friend, who transitioned one way, and after some time decided to change course. A myopic view would wrongly call it detransition, as for them it was nothing like that. More a display of changing understanding of the self.
idk, maybe I'm just too fucking autistic too get it. There's steps I've taken that I'm still glad with and wouldn't want to give up. Due to shenanigans I briefly had to stop HRT, throwing me back to the before times, and I did not like that feeling one bit, so I keep being on it. Just let me vibe in peace with people. Some of the most intense pressure to conform to some ungraspable idealized gendered performance has come from other trans and/or queer people, and that really disappoints me. Just let everybody fucking be.
no.
It’s downright uncanny how perfect the timing on this essay is. I got my first prescription for E last month, and it was so easy and barrier-free that it triggered a legitimacy crisis. I had resisted calling myself trans for years even after I was dressing exclusively in women’s clothing and doing makeup more often than not. I could never bring myself to do it because I didn’t fit that perfect narrative of knowing from birth. That changed less than a year ago when I met a bunch of trans folks who were also very open about not believing that it was predestined, who were open and unashamed to have chosen this path of their own free will. The fact that I thought of myself as a boy for most of my life didn’t invalidate me because the same was true of most girls there. I had always been a little Judith-Butler pilled, but now with the help of thinkers/shitposters like @queercodeddividual I began to fully embrace it as a basis for identity. “Born This Way” is an arbitrary standard, and everyone ought to enjoy the freedom of trans-ing their gender for whatever reason they chose.
In the past few weeks, though, I confess my thinking has changed again. Gender is a social construct, sex is merely the gendering of the body, and everyone’s gender identity is uniquely a product of their own life experiences, but we have to keep in mind that there are, in fact, some people who are born this way. While most of us use some amount of theory to engage with identity, there are trans kids who know who they are as soon as they can know anything, and it’s increasingly evident that our theory is failing to account for them. I’ve also witnessed trans people who always knew who they were and don’t feel like they could be anything else get marginalized and alienated within ostensibly trans spaces because they are now dominated by a majority who are choosing to embrace gender autonomy. I really don’t know how to feel about this. It’s especially complicated because broader cis society still assumes most trans people conform to the old narratives. There isn’t even a good language to describe the problem, and it’s nearly impossible to convince someone if they haven’t already seen it. I often wonder if I’m gaslighting myself and making up a problem that doesn’t exist, but then I see it again. The trans people who are trans by virtue of embracing trans philosophy and exerting autonomy over their identity are growing to outnumber the trans people who don’t have a choice in being trans, and our theory is failing to accommodate the people who inspired it in the first place.
Around 5-10 years ago when non-binary/genderfluid/genderqueer identities were becoming more commonplace in north american queer/trans circles and there was a debate happening whether these were true trans identities and whether this obfuscates so-called 'binary' trans identities, this is what some people were cautioning against. for a brief unstable minute both seemed to coexist even though the underpinning theory and narratives were diametrically opposed in some cases, and now the tide has swelled, non-binary identities are undoubtedly trans, and much of gender-exploratory identity has become subsumed under 'non-binary'/'enby' and 'trans', and the trans foremothers and forefathers who paved the way are too often derisively called 'binary' by the youth. idk idk. these are my observations as a 'cis'(?) gender-dropout(??). cis doesn't fit me anymore and I am grateful for the expansiveness offered by trans folks of all genders that I may explore more freely, and also, also, I wonder about who is getting left behind. I also wonder about how we become illegible to each other btwn generations while material conditions worsen. gender liberation requires gender solidarity.
(last line got cutoff?)
I also wonder about how we become illegible to each other btwn generations while material conditions worsen. gender liberation requires gender solidarity.
Oh wow, thank you for articulating something I’ve been grappling with in my memoir draft. I feel like I’m “trans-by-choice” and thus have a privilege others don’t. You’ve outlined the problem beautifully.
I see the same problem, it's not just you.
I didn't know from early on - and still I feel like I didn't have a choice. I was sinking deeper into depression to a point where I think I wouldn't have survived. Accepting myself as trans was like a big puzzle coming together. I am living a happier life now and one with a future.
Probably, what we subsume under the trans umbrella, is a multi faceted phenomenon. Some things are more true for some of us and some things for others. That's why I am very weary of a unifying theory - it will always invalidate some trans people.
Only when we accept gender as a very messy thing with roots in biology and society (Julia Serano calls it the “inclination model”, Anne Fausto-Sterling has a similar idea) must we acknowledge that self-determination is the only way. It's just too complex for tests, standard procedures and rigid boxes.
Which also brings me to the belief that trans as an umbrella is good and should not be further divided - as any boxes we create will never reflect the myriad of ways people interact with their gender and sexed bodies.
If we'd stop assigning genders, we could just do away with the whole cis/trans thing… just give people options for self determination and dysphoria. But that surely won't happen in a few lifetimes.
Btw. I don't think Butler’s ideas invalidate trans people’s identities either way? It's more that they are often misunderstood. It's very academic writing and some terms have a very different meaning than lay people often assume.
(Admittedly I'm still trying to get to the bottom of their work - I'm usually good at reading English academic texts but it's not my native language and philosophical texts are often hard even in my native language. I'm not a studied philosopher…)
The honesty embarrassing thing about this comment is is the complete failure to even think about any of the content of any of the previous comments.
You might very well be right about me personally. I’m probably not a woman, I am probably just a man who’s very good at all the skills of femininity and is treated like a woman by most of society. But that’s not because sex is all in DNA, because after all that would mean there are dozens of sexes, and that most males aren’t male anymore after the age of 60. Science is never perfectly settled, and as we learn more and more about genetics and neurology we will likely have to radically redefine our terms.
I’m also not a man because trans people don’t exist. How we define trans people can be open to discussion, but nearly every society that has tried to group people into categories based on reproductive potential has had to contend with the fact that some people won’t stay in the groups they are put in. Hence Bakla, Kathoey, Hijra, Mukhannath Femminiello, Muxe, Machi, and countless other categories that have very complex meanings in their original cultures but which English is left to generically group together as “third-gender categories.” If “Gender” is a linguistic term only and has no application to humans, If none of us really have any gender, then I can wear skirts and tights, do cat-eye makeup, use the woman’s changing room, and even take estrogen purely for aesthetic reasons. None of those come from genetics. If everyone then proceeded to treat me like a woman, as they usually do, then the fallacy lies with them and not me.
I’m going to block and report just for the sake of prudence, but I want it to be clear that it’s not because you words have any power to hurt me. I’m going to report your comment only because I worry about other people who it does have the ability to hurt. It is an act of solidarity, not self defense.
My words do have the power to hurt you because my words are truthful.
The truth hurts those who lie. The very fact that you insist my words aren't hurtful means that they are.
Btw I like that you admit TERFs like me are right, right off the bat. "I'm probably not a woman, I'm probably just a man." After all this time trying to force us to say that trannies are women (because they're not), you admit that it's bullshit. It's not probably, sir. You're not a woman. You'll never be a woman.
There are no "skills of femininity." You're literally only speaking about makeup and clothes. That's all women are to you because you hate women--because you know you'll never be one.
How tf would you know what it's like to be treated LIKE A WOMAN? A woman is an adult human female--you're not female. You're a male who thinks he passes because you're delusional. You have no clue. People just lie to you because they're probably afraid of you going crazy and punching holes in walls.
And even if you did "pass," which you probably don't, you still don't know what it's like to be a woman. You know what it's like to be a man who tricks others into thinking you're something you're not. That's not being a woman. That's being a fraud. Fool's gold isn't gold, even if everybody thinks it is.
I don't care what some backwards third world tribe in Pakistan does, that has no relevance to health care in 2024 in the modern world. Those are men in dresses, which is what trannies are. Just say that.
There is sex only--female and male. There are two, nothing else. Genetic disorders do not change this, there is no spectrum, and this is not complicated.
Gender means nothing for humans. It's for words only. If you mean clothes, say it. A man wearing makeup is a man. A man is a dress is a man. And they look stupid. The vast majority look like freaks.
This is the nonsense trannies say--GENDER IS SOCIAL! THAT'S WHY I NEED ESTROGEN TO CHANGE MY BIOLOGY! Then it's not social. You're changing biology to imitate something you'll never be. You'll never be female--that's sex.
You should be in a mental hospital. "Trans" is a lie and is nothing but a symptom of mental illness.
If you really want to definitely gender as exclusively as specialized terminology in the field of linguistics, I could accept that as the terms of discussion, but I would be curious to know what you would propose as an alternative word for the social phenomenon, because something is being socially constructed. When you walk into a department store, there’s a “men’s” section and a “women’s” section. When you go to a hair salon and look through their offerings, they often divide between women’s styles and men’s styles. That’s not because of trans people, and if you’re angry that XY-chromosome havers are being called women when they wear clothing from the “women’s” section and get their hair cut in “women’s” styles, it’s more the fault of those hair salons and department stores. Similarly, you have an article on sex segregated incarceration. I hope I’m not the first person to tell you this, but there are no genes for when or how someone should be incarcerated. The laws that criminalize certain behaviors and the procedures for addressing that criminalization don’t come from DNA, they are decisions made by society, and society is equally capable of making different decisions about how to describe haircuts and clothing and where to incarcerate people. We don’t have to call it gender, since that’s going to be an exclusively linguistic term, and we can’t call if sex if sex is chromosomal, but we are going to have to call it something. No part of this conversation can continue until we do have a word for this phenomenon, because it’s integral to my position.
There's no such thing as "trans" people. A male who thinks he's a female is delusional, and usually has autogynephilia. These men are perverted freaks, nothing more.
Most of the time people just mean sex. That's simple--there are two, nothing more. That's what "gender" means under California law--literally look it up. Say female or male as those are the two sexes and that is how human reproduction works.
The other times people mean clothing. Say clothing. You mentioned that yourself. That's just clothing, not "SoCiAL cOnStRuCt." Women wear pants--they're still women. Men walk around looking stupid in dresses--they're still men. Men in dresses. Say that.
If you mean sexist stereotypes, say that. If you're dumb enough to think idiot trannies should be allowed to distill womanhood into sexist stereotypes and build an identity on that, then say it.
Yes, there is basic biology on how people should be incarcerated. THAT'S CALLED SEX. Males go to male jail, females in female jail. Males are XY and produce sperm; females are XX and produce eggs. It's literally that simple. Otherwise, how do these trannies know to demand to go to the female jails?
This worked for thousands of years, now nobody knows anything? That's sex-segregated jails, and women need them because men are violent and male rapists are now in women's jails.
That covers it. This is not complicated. People like you complicate things because you're not intelligent to understand what is going on.
The word is sex. Female, male. That's the word for this PHENOMENON. It's literally called reality.
This is what happens when everyone is supposed to pretend like this is rocket science. It isn't. It's simple.
And btw thanks for admitting everything I say is true, you just want a NEW WORD that somehow covers this amazingly complex PHENOMENON--it's called sex.
Wow, what hard agenda to disprove, the lie of "trans." I have to explain this to unintelligent people like I'm talking to a 2-year-old. That's how pathetic this whole thing is.
https://reduxx.info/exclusive-female-inmate-sexually-assaulted-by-violent-trans-identified-male-at-washington-womens-prison/
The incoherency of this argument is almost self-evident without mention the unmentionable word. Sex-segregated jails are a very recent historical phenomenon, as are sex-segregated restrooms, while sex-specific forms of attire and adornment is a reoccurring pattern across many different time periods and cultures. Arguing that some these social conventions are biologically necessary while others are actually completely meaningless is already difficult, but arguing that the very recent ones are biological in nature and the ones that have persisted across millennia are perfectly arbitrary is laughable.
If you want to call most of these conventions sexist stereotypes, I won’t necessarily argue with you, but we do have to be a little more precise. The fact is that when a boy(xy chromosome, small gamete producer) wears a miniskirt and crop-top with a pixie cut, men will often start hitting on him and/or catcalling him. Sexism obviously plays a roll in this, but we have to understand how and why the sexist assumptions are being applied in this way. It’s obvious not because our xy-chromosome’d small gamete producer is an xx-chromosome’d large gamete producer. It might not even be because the catcaller in question believes the xy-chromosome’d small gamete producer is an xx-chromosome’d large gamete producer. It’s largely because associations exist in people’s minds between appearance and sexual availability, ostensibly on the basis of sex, which become so strong that they transcend sex itself. It is a sexist stereotype, but it reveals much more than that, and we need to be able to discuss the deeper connection between all these things.
Full disclosure, I am going to stop responding after this. I only replied in the first place because I wanted to undermine the narrative that trans people block and report because they can’t really refute TERF arguments. I feel I have demonstrated conclusively that you don’t really have anything novel or useful to contribute to any discussion of gender or sex, so while I’m sure you’re going to reply, I’m satisfied knowing that no one who sees this thread will care.
I think around 2014 I decided my gender identity would be a choice (whether it really was or not, that's how I would understand it from a political perspective) in order to stop the OCD-ish constant questioning of whether I was "really" trans and the fear of having my identity rejected I'd internalized. Then I started low-dose T in 2016 planning to get a few changes and then stop before I got too masculinized, but I ended up staying on it b/c it treated some of the symptoms of a genetic disorder I have and the couple attempts to stop I made led to chronic pain + low endurance and strength.
I was absolutely seen and recognized as nonbinary for around 6 years after the start of my transition. I would shave my face (but I have pale skin and dark hair so the stubble was still visible) and dress femme or punk and even people who didn't know about nonbinary people would be confused about whether I was a trans man or trans woman or weird cis person of either cis gender and therefore either would treat me as nonbinary, or would pick a different way to gender me than someone else in the conversation and end up passive-aggressively fighting over how to gender me, which was hilarious. I also have had mostly nonbinary and other trans friends since before I medically transitioned and while in the late 00s/early 2010s relatively few people (even trans men and women) respected my nonbinary identity when it wasn't supported by physical androgyny, I see the communities I live in having changed a lot to where even some cis people will remind people not to assume gender for people who "look" cis.
But after 6 years I grew out my facial hair and ended up liking it enough I don't want to shave it even though I dislike how it caused people to gender me as male quite consistently (even though I still wear dresses and such a lot, don't bind, and have never attempt to alter my behavior to fit any gender stereotype). Ultimately I prefer the chaotic gendering I'd get when I looked physically androgynous to being pigeonholed into any particular identity.
The physical changes have caused me quite a bit of dysphoria, though now that I take T less often so I can have a more feminine body shape and I have a full beard and long hair that's changed mostly to euphoria... yet then there's the social dysphoria of people calling me "he" -_- . But yeah I decided that it was still beneficial to have the autonomy to experience the sort of dysphoria I wanted to have. I'd much rather have dysphoria similar to a transfeminine person getting called "he" when they wanted "she" or "they" and feeling gross over their body hair and other physically masc traits because the image of myself in my head has always mainly been of a feminine AMAB person. And of course there is value in exercising the autonomy itself, regardless of the results.
The one thing I haven't recovered from since transitioning is never figuring out how to navigate the dating scene when people no longer approach me because I don't have the same gender role and body capital... Although I did have a straight boyfriend from before I transitioned decide to date me again after the transition (and after a marriage and divorce in the intervening years on his part), which coincidentally is part of why I grew my beard out for the first time when I did––I wanted to test to make sure he wasn't just seeing me as a girl, and it didn't bother him at all, in fact he enjoyed the physical sensation of it.
Wow. Having started T 14 months ago just before my 30th birthday and going through a current period of doubt this resonates so much for me. The idea of stopping T feels just as uncomfortable as continuing it does at the moment and each week is a full interrogation of self. The load has lightened over the last few months as I’ve made an effort to relax the pressure of ‘knowing’ my gender and the path I want to take. I cannot overstate how reassuring and comforting it is to see so much of my self, my fears, and my joys in this post.
I'm crying, Devon. I... I don't have words. just, thank you. thank you so, so much. I haven't lived your life but I relate so much to the feelings-- the uncertainty, the fear, the longing that comes with transitioning. when I came out as non binary in 2019, I remember that it was because I told myself that my identity doesn't need to be shaped by violence alone but by liberation. that non compliance with womaning was me being true to myself. and everything you described about labeling yourself enby followed. today, people generally do and say the right things. they use they/them and affirm my genderqueer identity, and yet it still feels farcical at times. the gender fluidity is being very fluid lol, and sometimes I just wanna be a girl. I think about random shit like doing drag but how I'd want to be a dragqueen because that's the gender performance that I feel most adept at, it feels the funnest to do and it is such a performance. all these feelings are contradictory and weird; and I haven't been able to truly articulate it. but I think that's due to the fear of being perceived as some idk clout chasing transphobic former-trans-identifying cis girl? idk?! idfk!! I know that it's okay to not know, but coming out is made out to be this passage beyond the point of no return and that's awful. this whole forced gender thing is suffocating.
just. thank you. 🫶🏼
Ooh! I think you’re onto something very interesting here. I hope you write about it soon!
This piece reflects how I feel about gender better than anything else I have ever read. I can't wait for the day where we can articulate ambiguous feelings about transition without the fear of TERFs weaponizing that.
This piece is so raw and powerful and amazing! I could feel the passion you brought to the writing. I identify with a lot of what you wrote, too, despite having never physically transitioned, though I suppose I somewhat superficially transitioned and then detransitioned (I just wrote about that the other day, but I didn’t use those terms). Thank you for sharing your journey and I hope you get some moments of peace away from all this gender at some point.
Fucking brilliant.
🙏🏻
I have none words for how much this post spoke to me. There is no configuration of my body that will work in this particular incarnation for me, when I think of gender in my mind, its not even relevant. I tell my wife, I am actually a space or sea slug inside, that's what I see, just a beautiful Sea Dragon, turns out, they can change their gender at will. It makes sense to me, I can't be locked into a single gender if I have one at all. But since in this colonial world we seem to all be required to pick a gender, my wife and I call me Minessa gender.
This is an absolutely beautiful read, and I had the overwhelming sense, reading it, that gender might kind of be like religion?
That, say 500 years ago, not being part of a particular faith (at least superficially) would have been unheard of, but as people learned more about other options, tried different sects, kids became less and less raised in their parents faith, it became more and more socially acceptable to say "I'm happy for you that you believe, but it's really not for me". Maybe this is the direction that gender could be heading?
I hope it’s not like a religion…
How so? Not "a religion" specifically, but the concept of religion in general
Oh well you know, just thinking of all the havoc religion has wreaked on the world. All the wars and stuff
Very true
Fuck gender. This sounds like freedom.
This is so beautiful. I appreciate the openness in your writing so much. I hope you get to do all the things you wrote you want to do in those last couple of paragraphs, and more!
Let’s bake!
This struck so many chords for me. Thank you for sharing this 🙏