I've read this post before, and it's just as heartbreaking now. As someone who had a lot of the same feelings before I transitioned, I just want to say that while the feelings that age and body...
I've read this post before, and it's just as heartbreaking now. As someone who had a lot of the same feelings before I transitioned, I just want to say that while the feelings that age and body shape are a barrier to transitioning are real and common, they're not accurate; that is, anyone can transition "successfully", and indeed I know many older trans women who are quite happy with where they are in their transitions after a scant few months. It does not take a lifetime to become comfortable in ones body.
That said, transition as most trans women think of it today - requiring hormones, GRS, laser/electro, voice training, and a lot of other garbage - is the product of a misogynistic, anti-intersex, and transmisognistic society, and shouldn't be required of anyone.
Heartbreaking is definitely what I feel reading this. I feel so deeply where the author is coming from. But at the same time I just can't help to think that she is mainly trapped by her own binary...
Heartbreaking is definitely what I feel reading this.
I feel so deeply where the author is coming from. But at the same time I just can't help to think that she is mainly trapped by her own binary thinking about transition. I know and remember how much one can want the magic chair, but if she rejects transition anyway, what's preventing her from experimenting in smaller ways? Like she keeps talking about how men are not allowed to do this and that, but you can just do it anyway! Most people will simply not notice or care, at least outside very conservative areas where she doesn't seem to live. Just shave your legs, it's not that weird.
Wanting to be "normal", while extremely understandable and normal in itself, is a toxic trap everyone should strive to escape.
I think it's simpler than all that. We live between the acceptable choices in what is essentially a binary society. We humans like to be checked off into little boxes: Leftie or rightie? Coke or...
I think it's simpler than all that. We live between the acceptable choices in what is essentially a binary society. We humans like to be checked off into little boxes: Leftie or rightie? Coke or Pepsi? PC or Mac? XBox or Playstation? We love to have two sides to everything, so when something doesn't conform to all of that, it makes people uncomfortable.
Mind you, that leads to the transmisogyny and such, but I think those are byproducts and not the root problem.
I agree, all forms of bigotry have their roots in aspects of human nature, culture and tradition. Sometimes things that don't immediately seem related to bigotry. I think there's so much value in...
I agree, all forms of bigotry have their roots in aspects of human nature, culture and tradition. Sometimes things that don't immediately seem related to bigotry.
I think there's so much value in exploring those root causes. Those are much harder conversations to have though. For a lot of reasons, the biggest of which is that nuance is hard, especially in large scale dialog.
A personal record of the author's life story that is basically about the title, and why the author will not transition, her reasons being (To the best of my medicre interpretation skill of...
A personal record of the author's life story that is basically about the title, and why the author will not transition, her reasons being (To the best of my medicre interpretation skill of to-me-and-most-people pretty foreign stuff, she describes it herself much better in the post):
"Generally speaking, I don't believe in my ability to transition (both on my own body to take the hormones, but also how I will be treated by society), but the following things have also taken away my desire to do so:"
"Because I was raised as a man, a lot of more rude women later into Teenager and Young Adult-hood often really didn't want to hear anything to be because they could never know I'm a woman, so they just figured I'm some cis-het dude they could ignore anything I say about woman-hood. (I've spent my whole life contemplating this, who are you to judge?)"
"They also often talked about how great being a woman is, and it often seemed they believed this was native to being a woman. Do they think I will believe they would suddenly be genuinely supportive of me if I decided to join them, when they currently treat me like this?"
Do I really believe a wig and a pronoun will change how they feel, deep down? About my body? About my chromosomes? About my “socialization”? I don’t. I want to, but I don’t.
They can believe deep down their feelings on who is smart & strong & reasonable and who is dumb & weak & dangerous are within their control, are controlled exaggerations and self-aware and performed, are well-examined. If they saw me nude and wigless and wet, would I not be subject to their funny opinions on penises? On neckbeards? On maleness? On who has a right to talk about femininity? They will read this and tell themselves “No!”
"And, In general, I resent that the whole culture says that an out trans-woman is the only true trans-woman."
I am also a non-transitioning trans woman, and this speaks to me. Thank you for the Christmas present I didn't think I could receive. My reasons for not transitioning are pretty much rooted in age...
I am also a non-transitioning trans woman, and this speaks to me. Thank you for the Christmas present I didn't think I could receive. My reasons for not transitioning are pretty much rooted in age and body shape, but nonetheless, I doubt in my ability to be accepted by people who don't already know me.
I was looking for this article using kagi, Tildes was one of the top results for it, reading this for reasons. Thank you for posting this nearly five years ago @Kuromantis.
I was looking for this article using kagi, Tildes was one of the top results for it, reading this for reasons. Thank you for posting this nearly five years ago @Kuromantis.
Since this has already been necro'd I'll tag in. I re-read (skimmed) the article. My main takeaway is that this person doesn't want to believe there's a better way to live. They don't want to...
Since this has already been necro'd I'll tag in.
I re-read (skimmed) the article. My main takeaway is that this person doesn't want to believe there's a better way to live. They don't want to admit they could be happier and could have been happier much earlier. Refusing to move to a more supportive place, justifying that decision with the assumption they'd need to cast hatred onto those left behind. Holding all of this resentment for a wave of shitty people instead of filtering so that the people around them aren't shitty. I'm not trans but I know a lot of trans people that have chosen to move to a place where they can live in relative peace. Choosing who to include in your life is one of life's greatest privileges.
My main takeaway was that the author has a great way with words and manages to convey so much emotion through their prose. I don't know, it didn't read to me as a problem that necessarily did or...
My main takeaway was that the author has a great way with words and manages to convey so much emotion through their prose. I don't know, it didn't read to me as a problem that necessarily did or didn't need fixing, just the author venting some of their feelings whilst advocating for treating others with compassion whether they hold our beliefs or not, and for reflecting on the views we hold rather than repeating them without contemplation because they feel warm and comfy.
They might also have been surprised how many people could become supportive if they'd changed. When the abstract becomes personal, many people are surprisingly respectful. Age and body shape are...
They might also have been surprised how many people could become supportive if they'd changed. When the abstract becomes personal, many people are surprisingly respectful.
Age and body shape are understandable barriers, but they mostly make the transition harder rather than impossible (unless someone is completely opposed to surgery and medical interventions).
That seems like what the author is getting at though, right? That support based on her transition feels disingenuous. If someone is telling you you're shit because of the way you look, but...
That seems like what the author is getting at though, right? That support based on her transition feels disingenuous.
If someone is telling you you're shit because of the way you look, but suddenly you're valid when your change your look, it feels off for lack of a better term. It doesn't feel like that person ever actually cared about the person you are and is far more interested in identity as the sole arbiter of validity or not.
Interestingly, as a cis man, who took many women's studies classes, enough that I could have taken only a handful more and had another minor in it: I never encountered these types of people who were so critical of my masculinity. My professors and peers in class always felt thoughtful and inclusive and this was all in the late 00s. I never felt like I was being excluded because of my identity.
I may not have communicated my point very well. I think much of the bigotry the author fears is unlikely to be substantiated. I believe most people are fundamentally well meaning, and our own...
I may not have communicated my point very well.
I think much of the bigotry the author fears is unlikely to be substantiated. I believe most people are fundamentally well meaning, and our own anxieties often keep us from opening up to and connecting with people.
Thank you for commenting on it. I'd not read it before and I found it moving and full of humanity, one of the best and most engaging things I've read in a while. It really surprises me reading...
Thank you for commenting on it. I'd not read it before and I found it moving and full of humanity, one of the best and most engaging things I've read in a while.
It really surprises me reading some of the other comments from when the article was originally posted about people getting a very-derisive-towards-feminists tone from it. I didn't get that from it at all, I found that the author was preaching kindness and thinking critically about the views we hold rather than parroting them because they feel good - I think that's such a wise lesson, whether you're a ciswoman feminist, whether you're a misogynistic man, an inadvertently patriarchal person, or whether the places in your life this may be applicable have nothing to do with gender whatsoever!
I remember at the time being really suspicious of this author, because all their reasons about not wanting to transition essentially boil down to hating other women, and specifically feminist...
I remember at the time being really suspicious of this author, because all their reasons about not wanting to transition essentially boil down to hating other women, and specifically feminist women. The author keeps pushing this sort of angle that because feminist women have complaints and grievances with cis men, it is their fault she cannot transition. She lays the issue of transmisogyny entirely at the feet of cis women, while having little to say about cis men's role in the issue. She keeps complaining about "misandry" that feminists have and how it prevents her from transitioning. She has not written anything else before or since. I am just as convinced now as I was in 2018 that the article was written as some sort of troll calculated to rile up as many different groups as possible. The entire conceit of the article is "misandry is real and if you think otherwise you are harming me".
I'd like to note, incidentally, that although my heart was warmed by its existence, I didn't read the article. For me, it's not the specifics of the person's experience (and reading what you just...
I'd like to note, incidentally, that although my heart was warmed by its existence, I didn't read the article. For me, it's not the specifics of the person's experience (and reading what you just wrote, I'm acutely pleased I didn't read it), it's the fact that I am not alone. I know who and what I am, but there is a tiny part of me that whispers in the night "you have no right to call yourself a trans woman, you haven't transitioned, you're a fraud who's appropriating the title."
This article's existence shut that voice up in a way my insomniac self-flagellation has always failed to. If my experience is not singular, it's not just me. And if it's not just me, then I am not at fault. In my better moments, my mid-day moments when it's not just me, the pillow, and the darkness, I know this. A trans woman isn't a woman because of physiology, but because of psychology. She's a woman from birth, it's the flesh that's wrong, we all know this. Now maybe in the darkness, I can get that voice to listen when I say "It's not just me, so shut up and let me sleep!"
Okay, that was rather long-winded, but I wanted to say I appreciate this article not for its content, but for the awareness I was able to glean from it by just the summation. Sometimes, the little things make you happier, sometimes you're better off not "meeting your heroes", and sometimes you just need to kick that little voice in the teeth and start that climb another day.
Honestly I'm glad the title itself spoke to you, I think there are parts of the article that have value for speaking to the kind of pain in choosing not to transition. It would be perfect if it...
Honestly I'm glad the title itself spoke to you, I think there are parts of the article that have value for speaking to the kind of pain in choosing not to transition. It would be perfect if it wasn't for all the weird agenda-pushing about misandry and how feminists are all shrill man haters.
Well fuck, here I am feeling like I'm making good progress with figuring out where I'm at with gender, and then this hits me (: It's a valuable perspective, and I'm glad to have read it, but fuck...
Well fuck, here I am feeling like I'm making good progress with figuring out where I'm at with gender, and then this hits me (:
It's a valuable perspective, and I'm glad to have read it, but fuck if it's given me a thousand more questions.
Oh hey, I have read this before! To the 4-and-a-half-years-ago me: Hey girlie, you would not believe how much better things are about to get for you. Some of the things in this post still haunt...
Exemplary
Oh hey, I have read this before! To the 4-and-a-half-years-ago me: Hey girlie, you would not believe how much better things are about to get for you. Some of the things in this post still haunt you occasionally, but life is so, so good since you came out. You're almost there.
Would we all have the clarity and self love to be able to write love letters like this to ourselves every five years. :') To many more years for your positivity, and may you rediscover this post...
Would we all have the clarity and self love to be able to write love letters like this to ourselves every five years. :')
To many more years for your positivity, and may you rediscover this post again in a few years feeling every more love.
I think it's reasonable to have doubts and questions along any journey of self discovery. I hope you are able to find the right venue to explore them. I would encourage you to not stay stuck in...
I think it's reasonable to have doubts and questions along any journey of self discovery. I hope you are able to find the right venue to explore them. I would encourage you to not stay stuck in your head and to reach out to others who have a similar experience or journey and gather their thoughts as well. I think it's easy to latch onto a particularly strong or resonant narrative, but sometimes its because it just happens to have the right emotional appeal at the time to really sink in. Having a breadth of experiences to compare to can help frame whether it should hold a special place, or whether the message just hit right because of the timing. Also, sometimes it's just nice to see how others experience the world - their thoughts might help to change yours. Regardless, I wish you the best on your journey and would mention that I'm around if you ever need someone to listen or speak with. 💜
I've read this post before, and it's just as heartbreaking now. As someone who had a lot of the same feelings before I transitioned, I just want to say that while the feelings that age and body shape are a barrier to transitioning are real and common, they're not accurate; that is, anyone can transition "successfully", and indeed I know many older trans women who are quite happy with where they are in their transitions after a scant few months. It does not take a lifetime to become comfortable in ones body.
That said, transition as most trans women think of it today - requiring hormones, GRS, laser/electro, voice training, and a lot of other garbage - is the product of a misogynistic, anti-intersex, and transmisognistic society, and shouldn't be required of anyone.
Heartbreaking is definitely what I feel reading this.
I feel so deeply where the author is coming from. But at the same time I just can't help to think that she is mainly trapped by her own binary thinking about transition. I know and remember how much one can want the magic chair, but if she rejects transition anyway, what's preventing her from experimenting in smaller ways? Like she keeps talking about how men are not allowed to do this and that, but you can just do it anyway! Most people will simply not notice or care, at least outside very conservative areas where she doesn't seem to live. Just shave your legs, it's not that weird.
Wanting to be "normal", while extremely understandable and normal in itself, is a toxic trap everyone should strive to escape.
I think it's simpler than all that. We live between the acceptable choices in what is essentially a binary society. We humans like to be checked off into little boxes: Leftie or rightie? Coke or Pepsi? PC or Mac? XBox or Playstation? We love to have two sides to everything, so when something doesn't conform to all of that, it makes people uncomfortable.
Mind you, that leads to the transmisogyny and such, but I think those are byproducts and not the root problem.
I understand that perspective, but I having seen "both sides" of that binary, so to speak, I must say that I don't agree.
I agree, all forms of bigotry have their roots in aspects of human nature, culture and tradition. Sometimes things that don't immediately seem related to bigotry.
I think there's so much value in exploring those root causes. Those are much harder conversations to have though. For a lot of reasons, the biggest of which is that nuance is hard, especially in large scale dialog.
A personal record of the author's life story that is basically about the title, and why the author will not transition, her reasons being (To the best of my medicre interpretation skill of to-me-and-most-people pretty foreign stuff, she describes it herself much better in the post):
"Generally speaking, I don't believe in my ability to transition (both on my own body to take the hormones, but also how I will be treated by society), but the following things have also taken away my desire to do so:"
"Because I was raised as a man, a lot of more rude women later into Teenager and Young Adult-hood often really didn't want to hear anything to be because they could never know I'm a woman, so they just figured I'm some cis-het dude they could ignore anything I say about woman-hood. (I've spent my whole life contemplating this, who are you to judge?)"
I am also a non-transitioning trans woman, and this speaks to me. Thank you for the Christmas present I didn't think I could receive. My reasons for not transitioning are pretty much rooted in age and body shape, but nonetheless, I doubt in my ability to be accepted by people who don't already know me.
I was looking for this article using kagi, Tildes was one of the top results for it, reading this for reasons. Thank you for posting this nearly five years ago @Kuromantis.
Since this has already been necro'd I'll tag in.
I re-read (skimmed) the article. My main takeaway is that this person doesn't want to believe there's a better way to live. They don't want to admit they could be happier and could have been happier much earlier. Refusing to move to a more supportive place, justifying that decision with the assumption they'd need to cast hatred onto those left behind. Holding all of this resentment for a wave of shitty people instead of filtering so that the people around them aren't shitty. I'm not trans but I know a lot of trans people that have chosen to move to a place where they can live in relative peace. Choosing who to include in your life is one of life's greatest privileges.
My main takeaway was that the author has a great way with words and manages to convey so much emotion through their prose. I don't know, it didn't read to me as a problem that necessarily did or didn't need fixing, just the author venting some of their feelings whilst advocating for treating others with compassion whether they hold our beliefs or not, and for reflecting on the views we hold rather than repeating them without contemplation because they feel warm and comfy.
They might also have been surprised how many people could become supportive if they'd changed. When the abstract becomes personal, many people are surprisingly respectful.
Age and body shape are understandable barriers, but they mostly make the transition harder rather than impossible (unless someone is completely opposed to surgery and medical interventions).
That seems like what the author is getting at though, right? That support based on her transition feels disingenuous.
If someone is telling you you're shit because of the way you look, but suddenly you're valid when your change your look, it feels off for lack of a better term. It doesn't feel like that person ever actually cared about the person you are and is far more interested in identity as the sole arbiter of validity or not.
Interestingly, as a cis man, who took many women's studies classes, enough that I could have taken only a handful more and had another minor in it: I never encountered these types of people who were so critical of my masculinity. My professors and peers in class always felt thoughtful and inclusive and this was all in the late 00s. I never felt like I was being excluded because of my identity.
I may not have communicated my point very well.
I think much of the bigotry the author fears is unlikely to be substantiated. I believe most people are fundamentally well meaning, and our own anxieties often keep us from opening up to and connecting with people.
Edit: grammar.
Thank you for commenting on it. I'd not read it before and I found it moving and full of humanity, one of the best and most engaging things I've read in a while.
It really surprises me reading some of the other comments from when the article was originally posted about people getting a very-derisive-towards-feminists tone from it. I didn't get that from it at all, I found that the author was preaching kindness and thinking critically about the views we hold rather than parroting them because they feel good - I think that's such a wise lesson, whether you're a ciswoman feminist, whether you're a misogynistic man, an inadvertently patriarchal person, or whether the places in your life this may be applicable have nothing to do with gender whatsoever!
I remember at the time being really suspicious of this author, because all their reasons about not wanting to transition essentially boil down to hating other women, and specifically feminist women. The author keeps pushing this sort of angle that because feminist women have complaints and grievances with cis men, it is their fault she cannot transition. She lays the issue of transmisogyny entirely at the feet of cis women, while having little to say about cis men's role in the issue. She keeps complaining about "misandry" that feminists have and how it prevents her from transitioning. She has not written anything else before or since. I am just as convinced now as I was in 2018 that the article was written as some sort of troll calculated to rile up as many different groups as possible. The entire conceit of the article is "misandry is real and if you think otherwise you are harming me".
I'd like to note, incidentally, that although my heart was warmed by its existence, I didn't read the article. For me, it's not the specifics of the person's experience (and reading what you just wrote, I'm acutely pleased I didn't read it), it's the fact that I am not alone. I know who and what I am, but there is a tiny part of me that whispers in the night "you have no right to call yourself a trans woman, you haven't transitioned, you're a fraud who's appropriating the title."
This article's existence shut that voice up in a way my insomniac self-flagellation has always failed to. If my experience is not singular, it's not just me. And if it's not just me, then I am not at fault. In my better moments, my mid-day moments when it's not just me, the pillow, and the darkness, I know this. A trans woman isn't a woman because of physiology, but because of psychology. She's a woman from birth, it's the flesh that's wrong, we all know this. Now maybe in the darkness, I can get that voice to listen when I say "It's not just me, so shut up and let me sleep!"
Okay, that was rather long-winded, but I wanted to say I appreciate this article not for its content, but for the awareness I was able to glean from it by just the summation. Sometimes, the little things make you happier, sometimes you're better off not "meeting your heroes", and sometimes you just need to kick that little voice in the teeth and start that climb another day.
Honestly I'm glad the title itself spoke to you, I think there are parts of the article that have value for speaking to the kind of pain in choosing not to transition. It would be perfect if it wasn't for all the weird agenda-pushing about misandry and how feminists are all shrill man haters.
Yeah. She's in a lot of pain and, in my opinion, is expressing that in a pretty unhealthy way.
Well fuck, here I am feeling like I'm making good progress with figuring out where I'm at with gender, and then this hits me (:
It's a valuable perspective, and I'm glad to have read it, but fuck if it's given me a thousand more questions.
Oh hey, I have read this before! To the 4-and-a-half-years-ago me: Hey girlie, you would not believe how much better things are about to get for you. Some of the things in this post still haunt you occasionally, but life is so, so good since you came out. You're almost there.
This brings me such joy 💜
Would we all have the clarity and self love to be able to write love letters like this to ourselves every five years. :')
To many more years for your positivity, and may you rediscover this post again in a few years feeling every more love.
Please feel free to message me if you need to talk or would be interested in the perspective of a "full time" trans woman.
I think it's reasonable to have doubts and questions along any journey of self discovery. I hope you are able to find the right venue to explore them. I would encourage you to not stay stuck in your head and to reach out to others who have a similar experience or journey and gather their thoughts as well. I think it's easy to latch onto a particularly strong or resonant narrative, but sometimes its because it just happens to have the right emotional appeal at the time to really sink in. Having a breadth of experiences to compare to can help frame whether it should hold a special place, or whether the message just hit right because of the timing. Also, sometimes it's just nice to see how others experience the world - their thoughts might help to change yours. Regardless, I wish you the best on your journey and would mention that I'm around if you ever need someone to listen or speak with. 💜
To you, dear reader of my comment - I'm glad you've figured out as many pieces of your personal puzzle as you have so far.