I don't understand the term trans

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

Not really, most people don't think very deeply into it. Which is probably a good thing. He is what he is and that's all there is to it in that respect, that's probably the best evidence that he's a stable individual with no insecurity about his gender identity. That's a lucky thing too, most trans folk don't get to feel that way and when we do, gender dysphoria likes to jump to the front of your mind and take that away.

Do you not think it's a case of not thinking very deeply into it, rather than what he's saying which is "doesn't feel at all"?

I mean what I got from his paragraph there is akin to straight people saying that don't really know when they first started liking the opposite sex, or can't remember all the times they did when they were a teenager. It's not that he didn't feel it, it's just that there was no reason to think deeply into it.

I think we're basically in agreement here, it's one of those things that most people don't think about. It's also the sort of "feeling" that's hard enough for trans folk to identify, so it's not surprising that cisgender folk don't go around saying things like "I feel like a man", or "I feel like a woman".

 

[direkiller]

So my question to the trans community is, what is it that makes you think of your selves as trans?

Not Trans myself but, Web MD is surprisingly helpful on this one.

http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/gender-dysphoria

 

[Something Amyss]

I'm confused then, exactly what feelings a man could feel that a woman can't.

You might want to try going back to the prior question, then. Because this here is something nobody's claiming. At least, not in any practical sense.

If you have a question that's not a strawman about trans people or feminists, I'm all ears. Quite literally, now that Monsanto has altered my DNA to that of sentient corn.

It'd probably be best if culture never had expectations of either gender.

That didn't appear to be the question, though. The question was about designation, not expectation. And the thing is, for most people the birth designation system is fine.

 

[ThatOtherGirl]

I never really understood the term or even the concept behind it.
Trans, from transformation or even transcend.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but even the trans operation is cosmetic. You don't actually change genders. Caitlyn can't bare children and Miss Garrison couldn't have an abortion. They don't produce eggs or have an uterus. So they're not really trans in that way because fundamentally nothing has changed. They haven't transformed into a woman.

But if it's about sexuality and self identification, instill don't see the need for the term trans. Your self identification is just that. How you identify. You don't need to change because your identity conforms to you, not you to your identity. Someone says they self identify as a woman...great. sure. Where does the trans part come in? You don't need to transform into anything because you already identify as that thing!
You're already there!

And if we're saying it's about looking on the outside how you feel inside...then whatever happened to beauty in the eye of the beholder? Everyone is beautiful type.shit, you know? Why the need for a surgery if it's cheaper and easier to simply say "I am a woman and I look like this"?
And and if it's all about wanting to look different, why isn't the term trans applied universally? If I put on makeup, how am I not trans? Because I am changing my appearance to fit how I feel inside(ie better)? Have I not transformed myself? Have I not identified as something different(a prettier person) and transformed myself into that new identity?!

I'm not anti trans, mind you. I just don't understand the semantics behind the words or practices. Anyone wants to do it, hey free country. I just don't get the need for such....pageantry.

I want to respond to your post, but the problem is that you are missing the point so hard I don't even know where to begin. Not saying you are being willfully ignorant or anything. It is just that I am having trouble finding common ground to start on.

First of all, transformation and transcend are examples of the use of the trans prefix, but I think you are getting an entirely wrong idea of what is meant by trans by reaching to those examples. They both imply great change. But the actual meaning of trans can be better illustrated from something like cis?trans isomerism in chemistry. In chemistry it is possible for chemical bonds to be, essentially, identical in all respects except for orientation (the literal direction of the bond). Cis vs trans indicate two different types of the same thing, cis indicating the more common (or default) variety, trans all others. OR it can indicate being on one side or another of an arbitrary division, cis meaning literally "this side" and trans "the other side".

To illustrate this, lets break down trans-form-ation. Form, as in to form something. Trans means, basically, different from the default. ation indicates action or an instance of action. The action of forming into something different. The only part trans contributes is the "different" part. Same with transcend, the change comes from the -scend part. Trans just describes the type of change.

That might seem like a matter of semantics, but I think it is important because everything else you wrote relies on this idea of transformation, as if trans people are trying to change themselves into a different gender, which is a fundamentally incorrect way of looking at it. A trans woman is not a man trying to become a woman, she is in a subcategory of women in general.

So, if a trans woman is a woman already (and extending that to all other uses of the term), why is the term needed? The term trans is needed because we need a word that correctly describes trans people as what they are. We need a word for it for the same reason we need a word for anything. Because we need to be able to talk about it, think about it, and do things about it.

So why is the term only applied to transgender issues, and not anything else? The fact is the prefix trans is used all over the place for all sorts of reasons. Generally when it is applied to people it refers to gender issues. And really the only reason is basically that we used it first. Someone needed a word to talk about it and that person was smart and used a good term which eventually got shortened to just "trans" because of several reasons, including a negative association with the word "transgender" and the fact that transgender is harder to say in conversation. Often language isn't very logical, but there you are.

As for why trans people make the changes they make, many of which are indeed cosmetic in nature, that has to do with a very simple but entirely impossible to explain discomfort that comes from a gross mismatch between how you live and how you identify. What you look like is only a part of it. I say discomfort, but that hardly does it justice. Soul crushing stress is a better description. This is currently typically referred to as gender dysphoria. Unfortunately, there are not words that can describe the feeling in detail, only the result. Your just going to have to take our word for it (and the word of the experts in the field) that it is real.

This isn't something you can wish away or ignore. You can't just will it away by saying "I'm a woman on the inside!" any more than you can will away a broken leg by saying "I can walk on the inside!". Transitioning is not pageantry. It is about dealing with a very real problem.

Now, of course, most people are concerned with appearances. Trans people are no different, we like to look good as much as anyone else, and for all the same reasons. And like all other people, we want to look good as who we are, not pretending to be someone or something else.

But there is another aspect to trans people being concerned with their looks. For trans people it is as much for survival. If people can readily tell we are trans we are going to be discriminated against. This can range from mean looks to losing a job to being brutally mutilated, raped, tortured and murdered. But if no one can tell we are trans we don't have to deal with that. We get to be who we are and live how we want and no one hassles us or beats us to death for being different.

We sometimes call this "passing". I, for example, might say "I am successfully passing as a woman." Some people don't like the term passing, they feel it implies we are pretending to be a gender we are not, and as we use it I can see the problem. Personally, I think it is a good term, one we can use to educate people if we adjust how we use it. To be clear, I should say "I am passing as cis". Passing trans women are not pretending to be women, we are pretending to be cis. We practically have to if we want to be allowed to live normal lives.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

It makes it bitterly ironic for the time being, but it's still better than the alternatives. The fact is that they ARE easy to change, it just takes enough people actually wanting to change it. That cannot be said for people who refuse to take their medication and live on the streets until they die, all the hundreds of thousands of them in this country alone. My point is not about relative oppression, but relative challenges faced. You need tolerance, and deserve acceptance. After that, you're fine, which is sort of the whole point about trans people to begin with. They're different, not broken or sick. Right?

I understand and do agree with you for the most part, there are many ways in which basic functioning is more difficult for anyone with any mental illness than any other condition. But I think we're diverting a bit here by making comparisons. Because yeah there are a lot of people suffering serious mental illnesses, many of them coping as best they can, regardless of weather they're functional in society, or not. Heck it's pretty bad in the US because in part a person, say schizophrenic, isn't going to be hauled off and institutionalized against their will. That situation allows them to get into situations where they either refuse to take their medication, or they loose access to care due to financial issues and not knowing where to get further help. It's bad in other places too, for example I've heard horror stories about Australia where the mentally ill can have warrants issues and people picked up by the police. Then those are put in state run mental institutions, which generally put them on the wrong medications and don't contact their regular doctors. Heck being held in a state mental institution in Australia causes one to drop out of contact with even their friends and families, along with also generally costing people their jobs and homes at the same time.

Anyways comparing illnesses like schizophrenia to transgenderism is kind of a bit of apples and oranges. They are two very different things.

Still as conditions go, gender dysphoria needs to be treated, left untreated it causes all sorts of issues like depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts and tendencies. Getting to a point of tolerance if not outright acceptance for the trans community would be a godsend, though it'd be far from solving all the issues trans folk go through. As I said gender dysphoria needs to be treated and they've only found one successful treatment option for people suffering the condition, that treatment being transition. Transition at the best of times is expensive because insurance basically considers it optional and refuses to cover treatments related to it, even hormone replacement therapy. Even so, transition treatment never fully alleviates gender dysphoria, there is always that little niggling monster in the back of our minds that'll just ruin our day. So even with full acceptance and treatments we still have our own challenges.

I'm not going to say who has worse challenges between trans folk and say schizophrenics, because honestly I only have personal experience in the former. What I will say is that dismissing either is a mistake. Those of us in either situation, or like many trans folk I know who have both going on, need help, because as it stands the mentally ill and trans folk are just being trampled by society at large.

 

[peruvianskys]

You might want to try going back to the prior question, then. Because this here is something nobody's claiming. At least, not in any practical sense.

So if there are no feelings that only a man or only a woman can feel, then how on Earth could someone who is born, raised, educated, etc. as a man claim to "feel" like a woman? That only makes sense if there is some kind of existential experience of womanhood available only to those who are born with it, which again seems suuuper conservative.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

You might want to try going back to the prior question, then. Because this here is something nobody's claiming. At least, not in any practical sense.

So if there are no feelings that only a man or only a woman can feel, then how on Earth could someone who is born, raised, educated, etc. as a man claim to "feel" like a woman? That only makes sense if there is some kind of existential experience of womanhood available only to those who are born with it, which again seems suuuper conservative.

Well two things, first you're assigning a political stance to something that's more linked to the nature of human beings in general, second you're discounting the existence of sexual dimorphism. It's not something that you could talk about as being just existential, it's part of the nature of humans, because humans are biological creatures. We might be more than the sum of our parts, natures, and experiences, but there is still something else going on. The fact is, men and women are not the same, both sexes might be similarly capable, but there are differences that both sexes have, physiologically and psychologically. The point of base feminism is that those differences don't mean that one gender in better, or worse at any one thing, that both should be equal, and that both can work together for mutual benefit. What radical feminism says is that there are no differences between the sexes and that gender is a social construct that has no basis in biology, thus gender shouldn't exist because everyone is the same. The problem is that idea isn't even biologically true. While there are no mutually exclusive experiences and emotions between men and women, we still have identities, those identities either conform with biology, directly conflict with it, or don't relate to it in a direct manner. That's how gender dysphoria, thus transgender people can exist, that's how people can have identities that relate to both genders at the same time, or neither, instead of just one or the other. Part of it is based in things rooted in biology, part in experience, part in the unconscious mind, and all of that are major parts that combine to make a whole person psychologically.

Well that's at least how it looks to me after spending so much time looking into things like gender identity and sexuality, along with feminist concepts, so there's my two cents.

 

[wulf3n]

Maybe off topic but I think it's one of those things that if you don't experience it, you'll never truly understand it.

 

[Something Amyss]

So if there are no feelings that only a man or only a woman can feel, then how on Earth could someone who is born, raised, educated, etc. as a man claim to "feel" like a woman? That only makes sense if there is some kind of existential experience of womanhood available only to those who are born with it, which again seems suuuper conservative.

Okay, again, can you ask this question without putting words in my mouth? This reads as "I'm neither trans nor a feminist, let me tell you what you believe." Maybe that's not your intent. Maybe you really do have an honest question. But it looks like you're trying to chastise a group for beliefs that group does not hold. It also uses the same sort of equivocation Ray Comfort does to demonstrate that atheists have faith because they "believe" in their wives. You use two different concepts of "feeling" interchangeably.

To make this clearer, what do you think I am feeling that you think is a feeling that would be exclusive to one sex or t'other?

But to follow up: would you be willing to go through SRS to demonstrate how little sense this makes? Hypothetically, of course. I'm not challenging you to reassign your gender.

What radical feminism says is that there are no differences between the sexes and that gender is a social construct that has no basis in biology, thus gender shouldn't exist because everyone is the same.

No it doesn't, and it really doesn't help the issue to misportray them. Radical feminism is based around the ideal of systematic oppression by "the patriarchy." It doesn't really matter if you agree or disagree with them, but the general concept does not speak to there being no biological difference between men and women. At most, radfems are generally considered to want to do away with gender roles, which are not the same thing.

Also, the presence of TERFs/GCFs should indicate the contrary, given they staunchly believe that trans people are what their birth genitals are. If you were born with a penis, you are irrevocably a man to these camps.

In fact, most radical feminist ideals should be ones trans individuals are concerned with, since they deal with things like not dividing power based on gender lines and equal treatment regardless of your gender or genitals. The fact that TERFs exist and want womanhood to be proprietary should not impact those ideals. At most, you can point to individual radfems who believe there are no biological differences between male and female (which is not the same as "gender is a biological construct").

"Radical" in this context does not mean "extreme." Nothing you wrote is contradictory to radical feminism as a doctrine.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

What radical feminism says is that there are no differences between the sexes and that gender is a social construct that has no basis in biology, thus gender shouldn't exist because everyone is the same.

No it doesn't, and it really doesn't help the issue to misportray them. Radical feminism is based around the ideal of systematic oppression by "the patriarchy." It doesn't really matter if you agree or disagree with them, but the general concept does not speak to there being no biological difference between men and women. At most, radfems are generally considered to want to do away with gender roles, which are not the same thing.

Also, the presence of TERFs/GCFs should indicate the contrary, given they staunchly believe that trans people are what their birth genitals are. If you were born with a penis, you are irrevocably a man to these camps.

In fact, most radical feminist ideals should be ones trans individuals are concerned with, since they deal with things like not dividing power based on gender lines and equal treatment regardless of your gender or genitals. The fact that TERFs exist and want womanhood to be proprietary should not impact those ideals. At most, you can point to individual radfems who believe there are no biological differences between male and female (which is not the same as "gender is a biological construct").

"Radical" in this context does not mean "extreme." Nothing you wrote is contradictory to radical feminism as a doctrine.

I didn't say anything about extreme, but I think where my confusion lies is with several people whose statements I've read on the subject of radical feminism. So you're probably more right than I am. I think I confused radical feminists with transhuminsit feminists, or something along those lines. Although I don't think things like not dividing power, work responsibility, or treatment and rights are radical concepts within feminism. Then again I don't think feminism in general has a monopoly on the idea of equality of the genders in general, but I also don't really delve into feminism much because it gets a bit too gender centric for me. So what do I know in these regards anyways? Not enough.

 

[Secondhand Revenant]

You might want to try going back to the prior question, then. Because this here is something nobody's claiming. At least, not in any practical sense.

So if there are no feelings that only a man or only a woman can feel, then how on Earth could someone who is born, raised, educated, etc. as a man claim to "feel" like a woman? That only makes sense if there is some kind of existential experience of womanhood available only to those who are born with it, which again seems suuuper conservative.

I have to ask, why are you ignoring body issues? What exactly is super conservative about the idea that a woman would feel comfortable in a female body and not a male one? And vice versa.

 

[MrFalconfly]

You might want to try going back to the prior question, then. Because this here is something nobody's claiming. At least, not in any practical sense.

So if there are no feelings that only a man or only a woman can feel, then how on Earth could someone who is born, raised, educated, etc. as a man claim to "feel" like a woman? That only makes sense if there is some kind of existential experience of womanhood available only to those who are born with it, which again seems suuuper conservative.

I have to ask, why are you ignoring body issues? What exactly is super conservative about the idea that a woman would feel comfortable in a female body and not a male one? And vice versa.

Presumably because body issues aren't genetic in nature, but rather is something you develop from exposure to your peers.

The human brain is very plastic, so if the environment it finds itself in is filled with people who say you look weird, it'll develop an "ideal body image" which conforms to what your peers think.

If anything this just shows how peer-pressure works.

 

[Something Amyss]

I have to ask, why are you ignoring body issues? What exactly is super conservative about the idea that a woman would feel comfortable in a female body and not a male one? And vice versa.

Which, as you point out isn't a gendered issues. It impacts men, women, and anyone else not in one of those boxes.

 

[manic_depressive13]

The rhetoric surrounding transgenderism is just a giant clusterfuck of contradictions and bad science. I feel like this is a result of needing to justify transgenderism to the right wing majority. It's really frustrating, because while I wish I could wholeheartedly be an ally, all this nonsense about "male" and "female" brains makes me so angry. The idea that transgender people just want to be treated like their chosen gender seems to legitimise the notion that it's okay to treat people differently on that basis, and directly undermines how I've been fighting to be perceived and treated my whole life. I don't see why, in order to be progressive, I have to accept these really regressive notions about sex and gender.

 

[Drops a Sweet Katana]

Hmmmmmmm. You could be right. I haven't done biology since A-Level so I could very well be wrong. However, the NHS gives a similar explanation, although it's more a development-based one (http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Gender-dysphoria/Pages/Causes.aspx). I don't think I add much more past chin-scratching since I don't really have a proper understanding of biochemistry.

Wow, I'm actually kind of shocked that the NHS is reporting that as fact.

Put it this way, it is a known and observable fact that gender identity can change throughout someone's life. A person can live happily as a member of a particular sex for many decades and then suddenly hit a point where they desire to be the opposite sex. This can include people who have already transitioned once and, crucially, people who have had their gonads (testes or ovaries) removed, meaning it's very unlikely to be down to changing levels of sex hormones.

We tend to assume that when people's gender identity changes during their life they haven't actually "changed" but rather "discovered" something that was always innate to them, and that's a good assumption to follow because it's very comforting and affirming for the person who is transitioning, but taking it too far can also be very confusing. If someone has managed to survive for thirty years as a man but now wants to be a woman, the fact that they are authentically a woman doesn't necessarily mean they were never "really" a man. I would say that a person who can survive as a man is as worthy of being called a man as anyone.

I think in a better world, in a world where trans people didn't have to fear the accusation of mental illness, that would be something we'd probably find much easier to accept.

Ultimately, though, even if I'm completely wrong. Even if there is a single determinate cause of gender identity, then it's clearly not actually that determinate because people sometimes seem to be able to ignore it, or even to not know about it, for years on end. We tend to fixate on the experience of people who "always knew" and who never had any doubts or confusion or second thoughts and present that as typical. It's a common experience, sure, and one as worthy of respect as anyone's experience, but it isn't the only possible experience of being trans.

It's just a murky thing we don't really understand yet. When I had a quick look explanations for gender dysphoria, most sources pretty universally said 'we don't really know, but it could be this...'. It seems like it's only recently been the subject of any rigorous study. In situations like this, especially when very few people and fewer willingly can speak from first hand experience, it seems like chin scratching and spit balling are the order of the day. It doesn't help that it's a fairly alien concept to most people.

 

[ThatOtherGirl]

The rhetoric surrounding transgenderism is just a giant clusterfuck of contradictions and bad science. I feel like this is a result of needing to justify transgenderism to the right wing majority. It's really frustrating, because while I wish I could wholeheartedly be an ally, all this nonsense about "male" and "female" brains makes me so angry. The idea that transgender people just want to be treated like their chosen gender seems to legitimise the notion that it's okay to treat people differently on that basis, and directly undermines how I've been fighting to be perceived and treated my whole life. I don't see why, in order to be progressive, I have to accept these really regressive notions about sex and gender.

Forget about all the back and forth questionable science (fyi, it comes from both sides). And really, that stuff doesn't matter anyway, at least not in terms of being a progressive and accepting person. That is ultimately just arguing over the reason that a problem exists that most definitely does exist. Leave the why to the scientists and doctors to sort out. What you should care about is what you should do about it.

Ultimately, the problem you are having is the line of reasoning that says if a person assigned one gender at birth can identify as the opposite gender and that is real it implies that there are real, non superficial differences between the genders, which justifies treating genders differently. Or at least that is what you believe is implied. The other way to look at it, what I would say is the correct way, is that it supports that the differences between assigned genders is superficial and that gender is no reason to treat someone differently.

Consider this: If a person assigned male at birth can actually be female (and vice versa) it means gender is primarily a matter of personal identity. This means all that stuff women have been dealing with about "inherent differences" between the sexes has been bullshit from the very start. It is the ultimate proof of equality of different genders.

I (as a trans woman) would argue that I do not want to be treated as a woman. Let me justify that statement. Forget about male vs female for a moment and consider people who are non binary trans. What do they want to be treated like? They want to be treated in a way that is consistent with and respects their personal identity. The same is true of all trans people, and indeed all people in general.

I don't want to be treated like a woman. I want to be treated like me. It just so happens that I both identify as a woman and I largely want to be treated the way most people treat women in most situations.

This is a subtle but incredibly important point, and one that I don't think even most trans people have properly considered because the difference is so hard to see.

But explaining all of this to everyone I meet is impractical, so I often use the shortcut of "treat me like a woman" despite the pitfalls of that statement. I recognize that this includes the pitfall that you have a major problem with, which is that it suggests there is an inherently correct way to treat women, and thus treating people differently based on gender is justified.

Which is, of course, nonsense. It leads to bullshit like people claiming I am not a "real" woman because I am not a stereotype that loves to arrange furniture. (Yes, that has actually happened, and more than once.) Because guess what, treating people different based on gender is bullshit.

No, what you should do is treat people differently based on their personal identity according to their wishes.

Now lets boil all this down to actionable principles. What you need to do to be a progressive person in relation to trans issues is the following:

1. Recognize that whether or not we understand the causes this is real.
2. Recognize that people want to be treated according to their personal identity and respect that desire.

That is it.

 

[Something Amyss]

I don't see why, in order to be progressive, I have to accept these really regressive notions about sex and gender.

These regressive ideas that people aren't asserting, but that you're saddling us with?

If you want to talk regressive, though, what's with "chosen gender?" Sounds an awful lot like people relegating sexuality to a lifestyle choice.

Surely the designation leads to the expectation though yes? Without the expectation the designation means very little?

Without the expectations, men will still be men and women will still be women. What they won't be is anchored to ideals in terms of what that means with respect to gender roles.

 

[manic_depressive13]

Now lets boil all this down to actionable principles. What you need to do to be a progressive person in relation to trans issues is the following:

1. Recognize that whether or not we understand the causes this is real.
2. Recognize that people want to be treated according to their personal identity and respect that desire.

That is it.

I can totally get behind everything you said. I do respect transgender people's identities, support their medical rights, and try to treat them as they want to be treated. I don't mean that I'm not an ally. Just that I don't feel comfortable with the common rhetoric that emphasises gender differences, and because of that, I feel like I'm not being supportive enough. Like, when someone tells me they were born with a "female brain" or a "male brain" and I'm here thinking "that's bullshit, there's no such thing" I feel like I'm undermining them, and this makes me feel guilty, and like not a good ally.

 

[MrFalconfly]

Without the expectations, men will still be men and women will still be women. What they won't be is anchored to ideals in terms of what that means with respect to gender roles.

Pardon my ignorance.

But since there are no gender roles (something I thought we left behind in the 1970s, but that's just blisfully ignorant me in my little corner of the world aparantly), then "genders" would be a useless identifier.

And if genders are useless, then why keep using it?

I mean wouldn't the best scenario involve that we only be "humans", and that our choices should only be limited by merit? And if identification based on visual data is necessary, then sex, instead of gender, seems a lot more reliable (xx = female, xy = male. Not that it matters, but it makes it easier for me to find the "man in the brown coat, and red cap" who were supposed to meat me in the bus-station).

 

[ThatOtherGirl]

Now lets boil all this down to actionable principles. What you need to do to be a progressive person in relation to trans issues is the following:

1. Recognize that whether or not we understand the causes this is real.
2. Recognize that people want to be treated according to their personal identity and respect that desire.

That is it.

I can totally get behind everything you said. I do respect transgender people's identities, support their medical rights, and try to treat them as they want to be treated. I don't mean that I'm not an ally. Just that I don't feel comfortable with the common rhetoric that emphasises gender differences, and because of that, I feel like I'm not being supportive enough. Like, when someone tells me they were born with a "female brain" or a "male brain" and I'm here thinking "that's bullshit, there's no such thing" I feel like I'm undermining them, and this makes me feel guilty, and like not a good ally.

I wouldn't worry about it. You have a way forward to be a strong and supportive ally, focus on that. If you can feel comfortable speaking out against things like the bathroom myths and properly respect our identity then you are exactly what we need in an ally.