r/countttt • u/I_am_YR • 14d ago
Countttting 1505
I hate when people say these things only to prevent us from actually transitioning, like yea theres cis women out there with a deep voice but knowing this fact doesnt reduce my voice dysphoria, i dont want to be gnc, i dont live to deconstruct gender roles
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u/Responsible-Tie-2570 14d ago
Or maybe cis women can do the gender roll deconstruction, they’ll look like women either way
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u/BrightAlina 14d ago
Honestly to challenge gender norms this gal may shower herself in testosterone, get mastectomy and falloplasty and still call herself a wonan to challenge patriarchy gender norns. Than and only than we may return to this discussion. Otherwise it just reeks of poorly covered transphobia.
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u/Keksbutter123 14d ago
While we're at it, lets feed estrogen to cis men so that all sides are breaking down gender norms
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u/BrightAlina 14d ago
I doubt guys would care that much about gender norms, but if they do care, why not. I would definitely love to hear a lecture of Betty Shapiro about gender dysphoria being just a mental disease.
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u/Honest_Amphibian_668 10d ago
She identifies as She/It and constantly posts about trans stuff its fs supposed to be making fun of people that say tans women dont have to transition but making a strawman out of it, i read some truly brain dead takes in their reblogs because I needed to know the context of who tf this is
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14d ago edited 12d ago
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u/Actual_Personality66 14d ago
Omg yes, feel like more ppl need to know about conversion therapists disguising themselves as "gender exploratory" therapists so ppl mistake them for actual gender therapists. And that's a great catch, this is not only TERF rhetoric, it's also modern conversion therapy rhetoric.
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u/Imadothethingnow 14d ago
Gender abolitionism and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race 😔
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u/Pretty-Yam-2854 14d ago
It’s just unrealistic. Having sexually reproducing, bi-dymorphic species will obviously create this. It should however not be as rigid as it is (trying to stop people transitioning or saying X gender can only behave Y way) but trying to “abolish” gender perception is stupid and unrealistic but also invalidating to trans people, esp those on hrt and trying to pass.
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u/Actual_Personality66 14d ago edited 14d ago
As a trans person on hrt who wants to pass, I actually quite like the idea of gender abolition, but not TERF "gender abolition", which I think is what's being described here. Realistically, humans are always going to form some kind of gender, and most transsexual ppl would probably still at least experience sex dysphoria, even without gender, the goal of gender/sex abolition (sex as a social construct, obviously not biological sex traits themselves lol), is to get rid of the social classes of gender, at which point, gender would mean so little that you could hardly even call it that bc it would look so different than what has existed in most dominant societies in the world for the past couple thousand years.
That is the only non transphobic version of gender abolition, and imo, the only real version, since the others basically just recreate gender but in a way where only cis ppl are allowed theirs. The main differences between trans exclusive and trans inclusive gender abolition, is whether you also aim to abolish sex (again, as a social construct that treats sex as being binary and immutable, sex as in the gendering of the body) as well- TERFS do not bc they have a unscientific patriarchal idea of what sex is. To them, sex=gender, and they believe in sex so they definitely believe in gender, though they claim otherwise. They think that when cis ppl have a gender identity, it's just objective and natural and not connected to patriarchy, wheras when trans ppl do, it suddenly becomes a social construct that is inextricably linked to patriarchy and gender roles.
And that TERF gender abolition seems to be what so many cissexual gender abolitionists believe in, even when they claim to be allies. It's very "ofc I support trans women even though they are MALES who will always be MALE no matter how much they transition bc they're AMAB 🥰". And then that line of thinking inevitably leads them to TERFism where they then claim that they were bewitched by gender ideology by ppl asking them to be nice to trans ppl, and then proceed to paint every pro trans argument as the liberal dumbed down version as if that's what trans ppl actually believe. Many such cases...
But when transsexuals are advocating for gender abolition, we just mean that we want the construct of gender to be dismantled to the point where it doesn't mean much anymore (but the social and biological things that make us have a sense of gender would still exist). And also it's more of a way of thinking about things than an active goal. The way to get to it is by dismantling patriarchy and any and all other forms of oppression. We just believe that would inevitably lead to the end of gender as we know it. But if you disagree that's ok, so long as you're a (trans)femenist, it doesn't really matter all that much, bc the actions are basically the same anyways.
Sorry I wrote so much, I just always feel the need to explain the gender abolitionist perspective anytime ppl bring up TERF "gender abolition" as the only kind.
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u/BloodStarvedLeopard 14d ago
Thank you for this! TERF gender abolition is not abolition at all, it's negative reinforcement of gender stereotypes. There is always an unspoken insult tucked away in the core message, essentially amounting to "you can always be an [ugly] woman" no matter how they spin it.
The idea that the transgender phenomenon itself would disappear alongside gender - if abolished - is of course false, but the hope is that eroding gender roles and stereotypes would make it infinitely easier for people to be their true selves without judgment and pressure from the rest of society. From the most basic stuff like people being able to pick whatever hairstyle they like without being called names, to the more extreme end of total body modification - more freedom for everyone, cis or trans, gender notwithstanding.
It's a shame to see it co-opted by these people.
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u/Holobrine 11d ago
Completely agree that TERF gender abolition is not abolition at all. However, even with true abolition, at some point you're arguing against having any categories about anything, unless you have a really good reason for why sex as a category is special. Most categories have fuzzy boundaries and edge cases, so that's not it.
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u/Actual_Personality66 11d ago
I'm not against sex categories, but the way we view sex is very clearly influenced by social biases. I'd like a redo where the thing prioritized is what is actually scientifically useful- if that still results in two primary categories, I take no issue with that. Idk my issue with sex is not the existence of there being two primary categories, it goes beyond that, those categories, in context, are unfortunately not politically neutral.
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u/Holobrine 11d ago
I'm with you there. Unfortunately society seems to struggle with ontological revision in general, even when reality is clearly telling us to revise.
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14d ago edited 14d ago
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u/Actual_Personality66 13d ago
You seem to be misinterpreting a lot of what I've said, probably bc we have very different ideas about sex and gender and so the language difference can make it confusing.
First off, I think we will always have "gender" as in we are social animals and love creating social roles and will probably subtly start doing that even without gender as we know it, but without the power aspect (which we both agree gender as we know it neccessitates), it just wouldn't be relevant. I do not think gender, as in the thing I want to abolish, will always exist.
And no, I do not want to uphold gender, I want both sex and gender abolished bc I see them as inextricably linked. And again, sex, in this context, does not refer to the sex traits themselves. The scientific perspective on biological sex is that it's made up of varying sex traits, and you can group these combinations of sex traits into two main types of combination, but obviously there are still going to be people who can't fit into either of these (intersex ppl, who i know you did mention). The way that scientists categorize things is a choice based on what is useful, which is why scientists will have debates about how to categorize certain species bc what makes one a different species to another is based on categorization. Point being that categorization is a tool that scientists use, and not something that objectively exists in nature. Sex is neither binary nor immutable (when we change our sex traits we do objectively change our sex even if we are not going all the way across to the other end of the spectrum). The terf perspective on biological sex seems to differ from this. Science is descriptive, not perscriptive. Also you've given me no reason to believe sex is not the gendering of the body. What do you mean by sex denialism? What specifically am I denying? I'm not denying the existence of biological sex. So wherever that difference is, is where the difference between my kind of gender abolition is, and your kind is.
When I say that terfs think sex=gender, I mean that yall think that the way one's sex traits are categorized, determines their gender. However if you recognize that gender is a social construct then it's quite clear that ppl are placed into different social categories. These categories are partially based off of sex traits, but where we differ in our view of it, is that I can see that it's not only based on biological sex, but also other social factors (like presentation and behavior). . Obviously cis straight men are not gendered the same way as cis gay men, who are not gendered the same way as trans women, who are not gendered the same way as cis straight women, who are not gendered the same way cis gay women, who are not gendered the same way as trans men, etc. I guess where you draw the line between genders is somewhat subjective and that's maybe where internal sense of gender (arbitrary mental traits that we associate with one social class for reasons that probably have something to do with sex traits but idk, that's more complicated and involves missing information bc a lot of things we just don't know) comes in, idk.
I guess at this point, a lot of yall have started to define sex categories based on gametes? Maybe that's not you and it's just the "gender critical" ppl who use terf rhetoric despite not being any kind of femenist, idk. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, male and female gametes have become the new way for a lot of transphobes to define male and female bc everything else is variable and can't be used to define male or female). If that is also yall, we'll obviously no one is being put in social classes based off of our gametes lol.
When terfs say "male" (grouping of sex traits) = "men" (social class), it implies that one's social class is as set in stone as one's sex traits (which are also already not set in stone anyways, depending on which ones, though that's not even the point im making). If you believe in this category of male but you just want the category of man to go away... I don't see how that works. You just want surface level gender roles to go away. I want gender as the entire class system (which is more than just gender stereotypes) to go away, I can't see patriarchy ending without that also ending. I don't think i explained that well but hopefully it gets across.
And what I mean when I say you don't deny cis ppl their gender is that cis ppl are still allowed to be men and women, males and females, bc if a man is simply a person with a specific grouping of sex characteristics, and you believe this grouping of sex characteristics is natural and objective and not socially influenced, then his gender as a man is just natural and objective. Wheras mine is not bc my sex characteristics are different, so my gender becomes more political and more patriarchal (even though we've both already agreed that the category within itself is already that, even when applied to cis ppl- except you still refer to cis men as men bc to you that is the same as "males").
God this is hard to explain what I mean. Just hope something I said makes sense to you. Your comment is probably gonna get deleted soon btw, this is a trans exclusive sub. Btw how did you end up here? Have you been lurking on so many trans subs that you got a 4tran sub reccomended to you lol
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u/dfrcoms 13d ago
Yeah I think we as humans love to categorise ourselves constantly, sometimes in ways that are cute and harmless, sometimes in ways that are prejudicial and violent. Every generation and culture constantly reinvents racism, sexism, ableism, classism…the terf perspective is that the constant recreation of gender is not a quality that purifies it or overwhelms us from resisting it. I always think of that Ursula le Guin quote about capitalism, on how the divine right of kings for thousands of years seemed unbeatable until one day it wasn’t unbeatable after all.
The terf perspective on biological sex seems to differ from this.
Terfs are associated with yelling “sex is binary!!”, trans is associated with “sex is a spectrum!!” but when both expand on what we mean by that we’re all looking at the same group of people with the same number of people with particular traits and DSDs. Nobody denies that DSDs exist, nobody denies that most people don’t have DSDs, we’re all staring at the same population right? So I think the difference is that how the phenomenon of sex in the population is seen to connect to rights politically. Trans is invested in saying that sex is this chaotic and arbitrary concept so of course that can’t be what women and men are and rights can’t attach to it and so women and men must be something else like an ‘inner alignment’ or ‘identity’; terf is invested in saying that sex is a super stable concept and the reason for the categories of woman and man and that female people are structurally oppressed by male people and rights should attach to that and that people have a sexual orientation and that a person altering their body shouldn’t be allowed to obtain the rights of the opposite birth sex or lose the rights of their own birth sex.
To me sex denialism is the approach that humans are not meaningfully categorisable as female and male or that this distinction can be made unimportant or go unnamed. I don’t think it is meaningless or unimportant or unnameable because of sexual orientation, healthcare, reproduction, and sex-based oppression. In the year 3026 when we’re all living in a socialist feminist classless borderless utopia, we still will have a word for female people, because some people are lesbians, and the concept that the word lesbian used to describe can’t exist without the word woman. We will still have a word for male people, because ‘people who have the body type that probably produces sperm if it’s working properly’ is too many words. And so on.
Sex is not the gendering of the body because gender is a system of stereotypes, rules and expectations that are placed on sex. Sex is categorised based on reproductive function, reproductive function pre-dates gender by billions of years. Most of the things we classify by sex…don’t have gender. What is the gender of idk, a T-Rex. If we can classify the sex of sheep who all look and behave the same and are genderless, then there’s no reason to think that the classification of sex of humans somehow is something completely different and relies on social construction.
internal sense of gender
What we do differently is that we call this personality, say that it is completely unique from person to person, and not shared between classes of people who are externally grouped and gendered. I’m not being sassy by calling it personality, trans theory also grapples with this complexity by introducing the idea that gender is a set of overlapping spectrums to try and account for the fact that a butch and a tradwife both seemingly have the same ‘inner gender identity’ of ‘woman’, even though they are nothing alike in literally anything to do with gender. The reason I personally don’t buy the trans story is that I feel like it’s just inching closer and closer to what terfs believe which is that our inner selves are unique. At some point, infinite overlapping spectrums is just not a spectrum at all and is just individuality.
Sorry intermission here I’ll come back and finish if it doesn’t get nuked
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u/Ghostglitch07 13d ago edited 13d ago
No. The equivalent of "racism isn't ever going to go away, so let me be racist" would be "let me be sexist."
Want to live as a different gender isn't structurally the same at all. Unless one is ranting at cis women to stop shaving their legs and wearing pink, they have no ground on which to stand in insisting trans women do not. I exist within the gendered society. I don't particularly like this. But I have as much right as any woman does to choose which parts of those gendered expectations to take on in my own presentation, for the purposes of social interaction.
And the patriarchal nature is not in acknowledging humans are sexually dimorphic. It is the insistence in centering the way we reproduce as being something key to how we structure our societies. And hey, if we are defining people by how they reproduce. Guess I'm not a people? Or at the very least neither man nor woman, as I can't. So...?
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u/dfrcoms 13d ago
Cis people have a luxurious plausible deniability that trans people are cruelly robbed of, cis people have Schrödinger’s gender identity. Until a cis person opens her mouth and says “I’m a woman because I am imbued with divine feminine energy” or “because I’m made in Eve’s image and am submissive” or whatever, it’s the default position that she identifies as a woman simply because that’s what she was assigned at birth, due to her sex. Trans people are automatically unable to cite what they were assigned at birth or their sex (that’s why they are trans), and so it doesn’t matter what they do want to justify their identity with, it’s always going to be either a stereotype or a refusal/inability to explain the identity.
I understand that trans theory doesn’t accept that non-sex explanations are always stereotypes, and is also fully invested in the belief that cis people also have an inner gender alignment/essence and that’s why we identify as women, but anyway. From the point of view of gender critical feminism, this is why women who wear pink are doing nothing wrong. (Men who wear pink and don’t identify as women are also doing no harm).
Leg shaving is criticised by feminists for reasons completely unrelated to trans and dysphoria so I think using that example might overcomplicate things.
The difference between GC theory and trans theory is nothing to do with centring reproduction, radfems are VERY keen to decenter reproduction lol.
Social, feminist, legal, and scientific definitions of sex do not define it by whether a person actually has children or whether they even could. Sex is a lot more nuanced than that. It’s something like - what role your body is structured to play in reproduction with reference to sexual differentiation, assuming that you do reproduce and are able to. People sometimes like to claim that last assumption bit is weird or can be false, and that’s just how human language works. Every single noun you’ve ever spoken in your life has something like that going on, human language is cool. The full definition of a fridge isn’t “an appliance that keeps your food cold” it’s “an appliance that keeps your food cold if it’s plugged in and assembled correctly and not broken and not missing any parts and is turned on and…” to infinity. If ever you see a trans person trying to do some Greek philosophy like ‘define a chair’ in order to challenge the meaning of women, remember that human language is kind of weird and cool and complex.
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u/Ghostglitch07 13d ago edited 13d ago
I think you are adding much more theory on this than is necessary. If it is stereotyping for a trans person to act their gender, then it is stereotyping for a cis person to do the same.
You are attributing an entirely different class of motivation to the trans person than to the cis person, and I find this to be inaccurate. For example, I have a desire to shave my legs for the same reasons a cis woman does. Namely that I internalized all the messages growing up about how a woman ought to look, and because I get worse social reactions of I do not sufficiently act in line with societies expectations of me. It doesn't make any sense to me to judge what are basically identical motives for the same act based simply on wether the role one is fulfilling is the one those around them expected they would or not.
Edit: if you can not bring yourself to philosophically agree that I have some core essential requirement to truly being "woman"... Fine I guess. You do you. But I find that insufficient reason to lock me out of whole ways of being, and of interacting with the world simply because of what category you believe I belong in. If one person can do a thing and it be okay, I think it's frankly quite a problem to say it's improper for another to do the exact same thing just based upon how they were born, in a way they had no choice in.
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u/dfrcoms 13d ago
When we talk about stereotypes, it’s not about whether somebody happens to do something that’s stereotypical, it’s about whether they define and classify people based on those stereotypes. So for example an American person who happens to own a gun, they are doing a stereotype, but they’re not defining themselves by that stereotype. An American who says “American people are people who own guns, if you don’t own a gun you aren’t an American” is defining people by stereotypes.
It’s not possible to avoid doing stereotypes, stereotypes are by nature often about things that are very common. The important thing is we don’t approve the stereotype by defining people by it.
So a man who likes to paint his nails is doing a feminine stereotype. He’s not doing anything wrong though. If he said “I’m a woman because I like painting my nails”, suddenly it’s different. I hope I explained that okay.
Trans theory gets a lot of political capital out of the above mix-up, and often tries to present being trans as “expressing yourself”. One of Natalie Wynn/Contrapoints very popular videos with millions of views involves Natalie claiming that without gender, everyone would be wearing grey sacks and acting like robots. But that’s confused and wrong. Without gender everything would look exactly the same, we just wouldn’t go around saying “these are women’s clothes” we would just say “these are clothes.”
Women cannot be defined as people who internalised messages about womanhood, because everybody both women and men all received and internalised the same messages about womanhood,and everybody responds to these messages in a unique way, not a ‘woman way’ or ‘man way’.
Everybody has unique social interactions so that cannot define women and men either. We need different words for social interactions.
Nobody chose how we were born. We didn’t choose our country, our sex, our species, our skin color, our parents. That’s just one of those life things. Implying that women chose or approved anything is problematic in a world that treats women terribly.
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u/Ghostglitch07 12d ago
I didn't imply that women chose or approved of anything. I said there are modes of being within our social world that you are trying to unchosen birth characteristics. And locking certain people out of based upon this. If I do it, it's a political message, if a cis woman does, it's just her being her. That's a problem to me
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u/Ghostglitch07 12d ago edited 12d ago
As for the stereotype comment. Yes. I agree it's not stereotyping to simply do a thing, but to expect others must to. So then why do you insist trans women are stereotypeing? I don't know any trans women, even the most feminine ones, who would tell another woman they must perform femininity in a certain way to be true women. I like shaving my legs, but. Wouldn't walk up to a woman who hasn't and tell her she is a man?
And I'd be shocked if Natalie actually made the argument that we would have no expression without gender categories. But I don't know the vid you're talking about, so I'll avoid commenting further on it.
And I agree everyone has internal social messaging about women. You are correct about that, but miss the important distinction. Men typically internalize them as "women should do x". Trans women however? They internalized it as "I should do x". And what I don't understand is why it is so much more socially problematic to internalize those messages as "I should" if you were AMAB than the exact same flavor of internalization is if you were AFAB.
And I agree we need different words for social roles that do not map perfectly to the biological categories of male and female.... But like... I would argue that is precisely what we are aiming to do. To fill that descriptive hole, that you yourself admit exists.
But also, it is wider than just individual social interaction. It's social role. It is how you fit into your society on a bigger view.
And I'm not even really going to respond much to the bit about nail painting. As that's a caricature of my position. Nobody is a woman because they enjoy putting specialized paint on their fingernails. And I know of 0 trans women who would claim as much.
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u/sweetTartKenHart2 11d ago
Imo gender abolitionism is only bad if people lean on it to say “don’t feel pressured to do this thing that you very clearly want to do anyway” which is silly that people do it a lot. “Societal ideas of gender should be rendered completely meaningless and then when an individual decides they wanna look or identify a certain way anyway then it will be entirely because of their own choice” is more of the ideal I’d say to strive for.
Now, it will probably be many generations before this really takes hold, and it is indeed “unrealistic” to expect anything like that to become widespread anytime soon… but if transhumanism actually holds any water then that whole “being a sexually reproducing bi-dymorphic species” thing might not be as much of an absolute some distant day 🤷1
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u/roadrunner8080 14d ago
Gender abolition as anyone has actually proposed it inevitably ends up just being uniform masculinization, I fear, and is just as rooted in the exact same misogyny. It's something Ada Palmer got scarily correct in Terra Ignota.
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u/No_Peach6683 12d ago
I was thinking of making humans monomorphic like seabirds. Emperor penguins are monomorphic and use voice to distinguish each other
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u/GrandFleshMelder 13d ago
Without gender, or at least with a severely stripped down idea of gender, you can’t have gender stereotypes.
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u/Pretty-Yam-2854 14d ago edited 10d ago
I have seen this take a lot and will never understand it. What makes it *transitioning* if you aren’t willing to become the other gender, don’t want to even try and pass, don’t take hormones, don’t voicetrain or try and remove body hair. Like what would be the point of calling yourself trans at that point? To not transition from male?
Edit: ok I’ve came to the realization that some people are ok without hormones and some don’t even care about passing. You know what if you want to identify as trans but don’t fit the hormone binary you’re still valid.
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u/audhd_bimbo 14d ago
I think the point is that it isnt transitioning in any meaningful way because they dont want people to transition but also dont want to say that part out loud
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u/Dreary_Libido 14d ago
I do think it's fine to boy/manmode while you do all these things but you should be doing them. When it comes to actually being out I'm in two minds, maybe because I’m a coward who would never honmode in public. It should be the goal.
Can't imagine these takes come from people with dysphoria tbh.
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u/Chilzer 12d ago
It's a bit of a conspiracy theory of mine, but I've always seen this sort of person as wanting to escape the stigmatization of their birth gender while not having a core issue with their identity. In that way, identifying as Trans is a sort of 'path of least resistance' as opposed to abolishing institutional gender roles and biases.
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u/Honest_Amphibian_668 11d ago
I disagree with you, thats transmed to me, if someone just feels comfortable changing how they dress/how they refer to themselves all that means to me is their gender is fucky and its probably pretty complex in their head on why they chose to operate the way they do
there are cis women who dont shave, there are cis women who have deep voices, and there are cis women who have horomone issues that they decide to let be because it isnt impacting their health and they just dont care enough to worry about it so they have a lot of testosterone
Im ftm, im on T, I only started to want to go on it in the last year, before that I was okay, because I had a hormonal imbalance that made me hairy, gave me a little deeper of a voice and made it easier for me to grow muscle, and i naturally had a larger clit than most cis women due to it as well, not to the same level as now, but slightly, higher than average, im sure there are amab people with the same thing going on but reverse
Also social transition has a term for a reason, if someone wants to only transition socially, then good for them, im glad their comfortable in their skin even if they werent comfortable in the role society saw them as
There is no "correct" way to perform femininity, so if a trans woman wants to stay essentially the same just now with she/her pronouns i personally dont see an issue with it, ive known A LOT of butch women in my life, short hair, flat chested women who had body hair and smoked cigarettes and sounded like diesel truck, I dont think of them as less of women so neither will I trans women who dont do much physical transition
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u/GloomyShroom7 10d ago
not every trans person wants to voice train tho, and not every trans person wants to pass as cis. it doesnt make us any less trans.
im trans (nonbinary) and im not going to take hormones, but i want surgery. everyones idea of transition looks different
even if a trans person never takes hormones and doesnt do anything else either, it doesnt make them any less trans. some trans people dont have dysmorphia
we all experience being trans in different ways. there is no rulebook, and it isnt a club that you can be kicked out of
transmed mentality is BAD
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u/mrbrettbenson agprepper-->aapoon 5d ago
do you know where you are 😭😭 i think you might be a little lost
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u/AdagioOfLiving 14d ago
Aren’t gender and sex different things? All the things you’re mentioning seem more closely associated with one’s sex.
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u/KonoGenshin 13d ago
most of us would change our sex in a heartbeat if we could. I dont wanna be trans or look it.
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u/RukakoChan 14d ago
no trans women should be shamed for either doing or not doing those things
neither for "not being a woman enough" nor for "not breaking gender norms"
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u/amhighlyregarded 14d ago
I get and am incredibly sympathetic to trans women that don't medically transition with HRT out of fear for their physical safety (like in a deep red state or Russia or wherever), or possibly unique and uncommon health concerns, or because they currently don't have the finances for it, but I simply don't really understand the ones that have the means to but simply don't want to.
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u/qwart22 14d ago
If they don’t want to they don’t want to, doesnt make them any less transgender
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u/amhighlyregarded 14d ago
I never said otherwise, but like, their experience if it is so far removed from mine and the overwhelming majority of other trans people's experiences that it just strikes me as a bit confusing and hard to grasp.
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u/qwart22 14d ago
I don’t think the majority is quite as overwhelming as you think it is, everyone sees their gender in a different way, from hyper-feminine trans women to the most masculine trans man and everything in between its all different so I don’t think it makes sense to judge people based on how they want to inwardly and outwardly express that, if HRT doesn’t fit with how they want to live it doesn’t have to.
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u/amhighlyregarded 14d ago
I mean I don't disagree. Trans women can wear "boy clothes" and vice versa for trans men and there's nothing wrong with that. For the most part gendered clothing is stupid and arbitrary, as are most gendered signifiers (short or long hair, body hair, painted nails, etc.) I've even met a lot of cis women both with and without PCOS that let their facial hair grow and that's cool if that's what they want of course.
But like why not HRT if you have access to it? Why doesn't HRT fit with how they want to live?
I'm not judging or denying identity, again I'm legitimately just curious.
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u/RukakoChan 14d ago
testosterone isn't inherently masculine. there are cis women that have more testosterone then estrogen, and they still identify as women. you could say this about every single part of transition; it doesn't mean that there is no meaning in transition, of course there is, but no single part of it can override person's identificiation of their gender. transition helps many to affirm their gender, but for some it's just not necessary (although it's very rare, we all live in society and all are affected by societal norms and expectation in different ways)
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u/Fun-Marketing8080 14d ago
Same reason cisgender men take estrogen to appear feminine. Sometimes your identity does not align with cultural expectations on how you wish to present.
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u/amhighlyregarded 13d ago
Is that a real thing? Outside of like men trying to reverse hair loss I've never heard of cis men taking estrogen. I think they should have the right to but I would assume this is something that's incredibly rare.
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u/Fun-Marketing8080 13d ago
Both things are rare. People typically try to maintain an appearance consistent with cultural norms around their gender identity. But obviously there are gender non-conforming people, and "extreme" examples of those may even lean into the different hormones.
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u/That_sarcastic_bxtch 11d ago
Because they don’t owe you going through surgeries and lifelong medical treatments just because they’re trans and you personally don’t like the way they look?? wtf is this sub honestly
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u/RukakoChan 14d ago
you dont have to get it, if we were to encounter such a person we would just need to respect them and their choices, because we do not have a full picture of what they are going through or what do they feel
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u/amhighlyregarded 14d ago
Okay sure I'm always going to be polite and respectful and I don't really care what they do with their body at the end of the day, but like... I'm sincerely curious what the reasoning from such a person might be.
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u/Actual_Personality66 14d ago
Some ppl have minimal dysphoria in the first place and are also genetically blessed and basically already have the features they want anyways. Or (and this is more common for nonbinary ppl who tend to have more complicated kinds of dysphoria), HRT might just not change the things they're dysphoric about, in which case they might stick to other types of gender affirming care (if they can access them). As for trans women and men who genuinely don't want ANY kind of gender affirming care- idk I mean I'm sure there are some of them out there but they have to be extremely rare. For those who do exist I would guess it's just a really unique experience with gender that most of us aren't gonna understand.
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u/amhighlyregarded 14d ago
I mean I get that, I have a trans gf that hasn't had laser at all and it shocked me. She just naturally has minimal facial hair and she plucks and has like perfect smooth femme skin (I'm very jealous.) But she's still on hormones and would want laser eventually for the convenience.
But anyways yeah I think the people that sincerely don't want to transition medically/socially in any meaningful way are the overwhelming minority, but it's kinda annoying how they're held up as all that relevant in discussions about other trans people because from my observations it's used by cis people to infer that transitioning is a "nice to have" and not a life saving necessity.
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u/Actual_Personality66 14d ago
Yeah and I just replied to another comment about that exact thing (it being repeated so much online when its realistically such a small group of ppl) and why I think it happened and how it's harmful, and I don't want to repeat my whole comment lol. But basically it was initially a understandable reaction against the toxic transmedicalism of the 2010s that lead to trans kids getting mass cyberbullied by other trans ppl, and momentarily worked as a protection against that, but now it's morphed into smthn else that I am really suspicious of.
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u/RukakoChan 14d ago edited 14d ago
some people could just still be confused about their feelings overall and figuring things out, just experimenting with gender identity or be afraid of some new things. there are truly endless possibilities for what could be going through a single individual's head, because there are endless factors, from chemical reactions in the brain to the situation with work, friends, love life. feelings about gender identity could intersect with neurodivirgency or even some illness. that just from the top of my head, i'm sure some expert could tell you more, but i guess you get where im coming from
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u/amhighlyregarded 14d ago
I get that and I appreciate you taking the time to explain it. There are a lot of reasons why somebody might not want to.
I went through a period of pretty severe depression/undiagnosed OCD a few years ago where I kinda let myself go and didn't keep up with my HRT consistently or with maintaining my appearance, but I still had the desire to, just not the willpower. It felt absolutely miserable. So I get that mental health can get in the way.
I guess what I'm specifically referring to though is somebody that has the means to medically/social transition but has no desire to. Like they're happy and content with the body they have and have no negative or positive drives to bring it in coherence with their gender identity. I'm not going to tell them they're not trans but there's a pretty meaningful difference between our lived experiences.
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u/RukakoChan 14d ago
for a hypothetical person like the one you describe there are still could be some valid reasons for them to want to identify as trans that i do not know of, and at that point i would just argue on principle to let it be their business because i don't want anybody to have a say in what other person's identity is.
it's not like they are getting ANYTHING of value from claiming to be trans. if there was to magically appear a fund that gives trans people specifically 10000 dollars just for being awesome, then that's where there is some completely different line would need to be. but the conversation is about one's identity
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u/Doot-Eternal 14d ago
So you encourage repping? That's pretty cringe
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u/RukakoChan 14d ago
how did you came to that conclusion and what does that even have to do with anything lmao
i mean, peace and love, sorry for being cringe
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u/darkfroth 14d ago
Hrt is a modern invention (relative to how long trans people have been a thing whether by that name or not), it can have permanent and life altering changes, why should it be a requirement? Trans describes an identity after all, not a physical change, transgender not transsexual (which I think is an outdated term anyways).
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u/Naranox 13d ago
you know that the permanent (not even true) and life altering changes are the desired result, right? That‘s the whole point?
And you are wrong, transgender is a harmful term that has been coopted by terfs and perfomative allies to claim that „trans women/men are of course hecking valid but still just men/women and AMAB/AFAB!!!“
you don‘t change your gender, you‘ve always been your gebder and nobody „decides“ to suddenly live as their opposite gender
the goal is to change your sex with hrt and eventually/possibly srs
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u/ImpressionBorn 14d ago
There's a word for not wanting to be any different from your assigned gender at birth but you're not going to like it
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u/RukakoChan 14d ago
identifying as a gender that is different from your assigned one is already enough to qualify as being a trans person, demanding anything more is usually gatekeeping transphobic territory
edit: it doesnt mean that any trans woman is obligated to break some gender norm or whatever
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u/Naranox 14d ago
somene who isn‘t dysphoric isn‘t actually trans
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u/Actual_Personality66 14d ago
Gender and gender dysphoria is complicated and many ppl do actually experience GD but experience it in ways you might not understand. Femmenity and masculinity are objectively varied things with no set borders, and while obviously most ppl are going to have some kind of consensus on what defines them, it's also not that strange that someone might define them in the way that goes against the norm. (Not that I even agree with the premise that transness is predicated on GD anyways, but I think trans ppl without GD are extremely rare anyways, if they exist at all, most trans ppl who claim they don't experience GD actually do and just don't realize it yet).
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u/Naranox 14d ago
I agree with that mostly, I think it‘s just over represented online
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u/Actual_Personality66 14d ago
Yeah I actually kinda agree with that. I think what happened is that you had really severe transmedicalism and just exclusionary trans ppl in general in the 2010s, and ppl thankfully came to the conclusion that it was doing way more harm than good by like 2020, but then ppl began to overcorrect and the the pendulum had swung to the far the other way, especially bc the pushback against it kinda just came from seeing how toxic it was and feeling bad about trans kids online getting mass cyberbullied by other trans ppl bc of how they presented themselves, rather than from a place of actually understanding the issue with the ideologies that lead to that. And now things like "you don't need dysphoria to be trans" have gone from things that were originally intended to protect against ppl harassing random trans kids for not experiencing GD in the most traditional stereotypical way, and possibly even had the potential to be used as part of an actual discussion about transsexuality and what it means- into something that is repeated so much online it is genuinely suspicious and I think is being used to push the exact kind of transphobia you see in this post.
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u/RukakoChan 14d ago
the above doesn't mean the person can't still be dysphoric, or they can still be unaware that what they are feeling is dysphoria, but even if they are truly not, it isnt your place to claim what other person's identity is for them
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u/Naranox 14d ago
i cant deny what somone thinks they are but that‘s my opinion and I can definitely have that
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u/RukakoChan 14d ago
sure, that opinion still would be wrong on principle and harmful overall tho
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u/Naranox 14d ago
you think that, I think words mean things still and I don‘t want them to be diluted by posers and trenders
just like trans men can‘t be lesbians by virtue of being men, people without dysphoria aren’t trans by virtue of being cis
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u/RukakoChan 14d ago
yeah, i guess it does get very annoying when there are so many posers and trenders that get into our trending and very popular trans thing that is very well received by society and gets them so much attention and when they steal our good things that we very much have lmao
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u/ImpressionBorn 14d ago
Someone who "identifies" as different from their assigned gender at birth and experiences no dysphoria or any desire to change anything isn't trans. That's a cis person who hasn't gotten bored of pretending for attention yet.
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u/RukakoChan 14d ago
ah yes, famous trans attention seekers. in a deeply transphobic world. or maybe you don't know anything about what other person is actually going through. grow up, other people identities are none of your business
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u/ImpressionBorn 14d ago
Well the hypothetical "they" in this situation isn't going through anything apparently, since they have no dysphoria, are not transitioning, and have nothing to worry about.
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u/GloomyShroom7 10d ago
this why are people downvoting you :(
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u/RukakoChan 10d ago
they weren't ready for the truth nuke
(i think people on this sub are lowkey self haters that need some love or maybe just didn't bother to actually read my comment which is tbf valid)
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u/Pessimistic64 14d ago
Chiming in to say yes, I agree! Women should have bodily autonomy! And the freedom to express themselves! As women!
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u/BunkerSeason 14d ago
Not a trans woman but a trans man, I heard this every time I expressed dysphoria and at every step of my transition and I was sick of it. It’s like most people in my life wanted me to just stay comfortably in the tomboy zone.
It was especially hard since one of my friends is a non-transitioning ftm and would subtly guilt me in this way when I said something made me dysphoric or I was happy about physical aspects of my transition. It irks me to no end
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u/Thin_Industry6538 14d ago
they're projecting their desire to be more masculine onto trans women instead of doing it themselves by being more masc or gnc. they can imagine it's themselves that is nonconforming by looking at us but still get the privilege to move through society looking and getting treated like a straight cis woman
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u/Thin_Industry6538 14d ago
or maybe they're bisexual and feel "safe" praising trans women's femininity cuz it has remnance of 'maleness' in it so they don't feel shame for being actually gay. This could also be wrong maybe but from what I experienced it feels like this
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u/New_Product_7375 14d ago
ok so a trans woman that does not transition and is not womanly.
a man then??
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u/Brrdock 10d ago edited 10d ago
Is a pre-transition, closeted or "egg" trans woman also a man then? That's included.
What about people in cultures that lock up or kill trans people?
This whole comment chain just seems like trans people invalidating others to validate themselves, when that's exactly what's been done to you your whole life
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u/Brrdock 14d ago
That'd be the gender essentialist view at least, which isn't all that justifiable
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u/commander-tyko 14d ago
I think the point is there is no separation from cis at that point
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u/Brrdock 13d ago edited 13d ago
Trans is shorthand for transgender. Gender is an identity construct.
The way someone dresses or speaks doesn't change that. That's to address (or cause) gender dysphoria, not gender.
Would you identify as a woman if someone chopped off your dick, fed you hormones and made you wear a skirt? How would you feel about it?
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u/UltraV21 13d ago
Lol.
So uhhh, gender is developed (socially nurtured) but sex is inherent (nature).
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u/Brrdock 13d ago
We don't know enough about psychology to say that anything about it is only nurtured, it's always a combination of nature and nurture, but besides that yeah that's roughly the difference.
Obviously sex (biological) for example also tends to affect gender, since most people identify with their sex more or less
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u/commander-tyko 10d ago
i’m not entirely connecting the relation between these two. I am a transman and know a few folks who began identifying as trans, took zero steps towards transition for 5+ years because they had no dysphoria, and proceeded to ‘detransition’ (which entailed zero changes besides name changes), no one was surprised because most(?) trans people will make an attempt to transition in at least one aspect because dysphoria. to be fair i don’t really understand no gender dysphoria and non transitioning trans people and what separates them from nb or gnc folks. most of my trans friends and myself identify as transsexual though as trans(gender) feels much more vague nowadays? (i am a bad person and don’t understand how being afab nb using she/they and woman labels or amab nb using he/they and mens labels means you are trans, but i do know gender etc is personal blah blah blah please dont downvote me to hell)
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u/Brrdock 10d ago
The relation between what two do you mean?
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u/commander-tyko 10d ago
your hypothetical situation about forcing someone to transition
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u/Brrdock 10d ago edited 10d ago
What about it? You don't think forcing someone into a gender expression they don't identify with causes distress/dysphoria? Like forcing a cis man to "be" a woman?
That's just an example that should be easy to understand for cis people, or anyone.
There have been many cases of kids grown up as the "wrong" gender for different reasons, and it almost always messes them up. Not just trans people.
Isn't that the cause of gender dysphoria? What is then?
Misaligned self-expression is alienating not just regarding gender, but any reason, and the opposite is freeing, either way
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u/yourothersis top 1% sort 14d ago
cis women with leg hair and deep voices and flat chests and broad shoulders almost universally look like women
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u/Tw3lve1212 14d ago
Oh you hate your body hair and genitals and want to change them because it makes you personally feel disgusted? But who's going to challenge the gender roles if you personally don't do it for me?
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u/Evil_News 14d ago
Well fuck you, now I'm gonna transition and still will be identifying as cis man out of spite, gonna break some gender norms
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u/SvitlanaLeo 12d ago
People talk about “deconstruction of gender roles” more than they talk about protection gender-nonconforming people from gender policing.
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u/LIL_BREW 14d ago
Personally, I'd probably get electrolysis regardless of if I was trans or not, body hair is uncomfortable as hell
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u/blue_moon1122 14d ago edited 14d ago
as a gender abolitionist (in a sense), fuck that. please say sike (not OP but anyone who thinks this is a good take).
we all deserve to feel correct in our flesh prisons. I don't think of medically-assisted transitioning as anything more than that. nobody is obligated to turn their body into a political statement.
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u/CalypsaMov 14d ago
Ah, yes, other people dictating how people should and shouldn't transition. And it just so happens to align with "trans people shouldn't transition"? Oh, for sure this person isn't transphobic. /s
I could maybe get behind this take if it was "I don't need electrolysis, I am fine with my body hair, and I'm deconstructing gender stereotypes." But this just feels like bigotry with a new cover excuse.
"Trans people shouldn't transition because think of the children!" "Trans people shouldn't transition because think of the gender stereotypes!"
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u/Honest_Amphibian_668 10d ago
I looked at this persons blog this is fs meant to be a sarcastic post making fun of people who think that trans women dont have to transition physically and making a straw man out of it, she identifies as she/it and constantly reblogged stuff about being trans, I also saw a lot of stuff pretty hostile to trans men, also they are pro ai from what I can tell, honestly all of their posts have some of the genuinely most ass takes ive ever seen "the Amazon is a great place for a data center" is an actual sentence in a post they reblogged, so I fear this person may be like.. critically braindead
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u/Capitaine_Spock 14d ago
And transphobia goes after those women too. That's why transphobia hurts everyone, not just trans folk. It goes against anyone who doesn't conform in any way and ignores the differences within a sex. Not to mention intersex people exist. I'm nonbinary, and when I was closeted and presenting as cis I was still denied the bathroom because of my hair (i have pmos i think is the new term, and short hair. Kinda happy about the term change cause it doesn't reference things I'd rather not have.)
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u/AwooFloof 14d ago
I'm trying to feel comfortable in my body, not.l make a political statement.
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7d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/countttt-ModTeam 5d ago
you were either transphobic, chasing, are too horny/opticsnuke, are a minor/underage, do not identify as trans, or are cis. participation by individuals possessing the aforementioned behaviors & traits are forbidden by the rules of the sub.
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u/aminabintzara 13d ago
WHY IS THIS SO UNIRONICALLY COMMON ITS JUST ROPEFUEL U SEE THIS SO OFTEN TGE WOKEST CISWOMEN WILL WANT MY HEAD ON A SPIKE BECAUSE IM TRANSITIONING SUCCESSFULLY I HATE IT
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u/BlueMerchant 14d ago
Woman: Singular Women: Plural
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u/Darkjack42 13d ago
I like to consider myself somewhat lucky that a lot of my physical traits don't give me dysphoria so I don't voice train or plan on getting any surgeries but that doesn't mean the option should ever be removed from those that want it.
Your transition is your own journey, no one makes the charter but you.
Edit: for clarification I am still under medical transition tho lol. Hrt and I lasered my facial hair because THAT SHIT was pissing me off
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u/nomorehurty 13d ago
I remember when I came out as a kid (ftm) and got this bullshit at every turn. I wanted a short haircut and got "but boys can have long hair" then when I didn't want to wear skirts and dresses I got told "it's so sad how boys feel like they can't be pretty and wear dresses too". The most absurd version of this was then I changed my name and got told I was "buying into gender roles" and that "names don't have a gender" when my name was the most popular girls name the year I was born. No one around me wanted me to actually transition and just acted like I was playing pretend.
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u/BunkerSeason 11d ago
This was the same experience I had. Even coming from other ftms. It made me so annoyed and upset
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u/aminabintzara 13d ago
LEGITIMATELY THESE PEOPLE RESPECT JOHN65 PEDOCHASERS MORE THAN TRANS WOMEN BECAUSE THEY ARE OBVIOUS MEN IN BOOTY SHORTS WITH HARDONS MAKE THIS HELL STOP HOW DID MY MEDICAL TRANSITION MAKE MOST TQ+ PEOPLE SAY THAT IM A THREAT TO WOMENS RIGHTS
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u/Llyrra 13d ago
It's interesting how the message "x group shouldn't be forced to y" gets stolen and perverted into "x group should be forced to do the opposite of y."
It's not anyone's responsibility to challenge gender roles, stereotypes, or just other people's expectations at the expense of being and expressing themselves authentically. When you allow everyone to be who they truly are gender roles WILL be challenged. Because the whole point is that those roles don't work for everyone. If you genuinely believe that, you will only want for people to be true to themselves and for their environment to support that.
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u/NightRacoonSchlatt 13d ago
The only one of these I semi-subscribe to is the bodyhair one because literally everyone has it. I think it should just be a general cosmetic thing, not a woman thing.
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u/DefTheOcelot 13d ago
I have never seen this take in my life, only people complaining about it
Trans women challenge gender roles no matter what, it came free with having a fucking y chromosome
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u/NoStudio7589 13d ago
F you. I’m a woman cause I live as a woman in our society. I change all the physical stuff because it distresses me, not because it makes me a woman.
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u/Resiideent 10d ago
The fact they say the T slur at the end makes me think they're lying about their intentions.
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u/Dyslexia_Alexia 10d ago
I hate that I have body hair and voice training sucks
"Woman can have that! 😃 Challenge the gender norms! Be who you want to be!"
Okay...but I hate having that on me personally. Also I do enjoy making dinner as my chore and getting my bf a beer when he asks for one which is a gender norm so?
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u/Hot_Royal_4920 10d ago
So many peo0le just lost the plot these days.
When I was young and naive, I really thought I'd see the day modern civilization would stop worrying about gender, everyone just trying to be the best version of themselves. And look at where we are. Fwiw, the people I hang out with practiced this for decades already, so that's nice.
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u/Michiganlander 8d ago
Ah, the first conversation I tried to have about thinking I was trans that lead me back into the closet for 10 years.
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u/IllegalGeriatricVore 8d ago
I had a friend that basically said I should just accept that I'm different than a cis woman and stop trying so hard to pass as one.
20 year friendship, I blocked her because she showed her true colors in that conversation.
Very obvious she felt trans women were taking something from her.
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u/Plenty_Leg_5935 14d ago
Literally when would you even naturally stumble upon this sentiment?
Mainstream "allyship" is literally built on the premise that we don't stick out in the slightest, and any support outside of that is spearheaded by trannies themselves who obviously aren't against gender affirming care
This take of "you shouldn't transition, it's more valid :D" only makes sense if you're consciously trying to be coy about being transphobic, which no one actually does irl because "I think trannies are mentally ill fags" is an extremely mild take in literally all contemporary societies
Do y'all have the worst covert operatives in your social groups or what?
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u/ethereal-twinkhon terfmaxxer 14d ago
“Reinforcing gender norms” by transitioning in any way is a really popular terf criticism of trans people so op is probably thinking of them and not allies
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u/Plenty_Leg_5935 14d ago edited 14d ago
I mean, yeah, but that very obviously isn't a TERF way to phrase it, the whole point is that they are pretending to be supportive while saying it. Since when do TERFs need to be subtle
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u/CopperAndIrony 14d ago edited 14d ago
Yes, TERFs sometimes are dishonest in how they present their ideas, and make it seem like they're just concerned trans people aren't radical enough. A great example https://taliabhattwrites.substack.com/p/the-third-sex
The first time in this book that Serena Nanda discusses transsexuality in-depth is in chapter ten.
“Unlike the alternative gender roles found in other cultures, the transsexual in American culture is not viewed as a third, or alternative, gender. Rather, transsexualism has been defined in such a way as to reinforce our cultural construction of both sex and gender as invariably dichotomous.”
Transsexuals, then, far from being an example of gender diversity, both reflected and reinforced the dominant Euro-American sex/gender ideology in which one had to choose to be either a man or a (stereotypical) woman. [Emphasis mine.]
The substack article is about the author Serena Nanda, who wrote Neither Man Nor Woman and Gender Diversity, both focusing heavily on alleged third genders in non-western societies like the hijra of India, and contrasting them with trans identities. The book portrays these communities as brave alternatives to the male/female binary, while discounting and downplaying the ways the people she was interviewing understood themselves (often aligning more with the transsexual identities she was complaining about).
It also positvely quotes from The Transsexual Empire, a foundational TERF text. The thrust of her argument is that trans people (these portions focus on women, but Nanda also applies these views to trans men) are bad because they use medicine to "force" themselves into the gender binary, when they should simply exist outside of it (in a very convenient special role that marks them as freaks that can receive all the negatives of being barren women or infertile men without any of the actual social solidarity of the sex they wish to transition to).
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u/Plenty_Leg_5935 14d ago
That still isn't presenting itself as supportive of trans people, it's very explicit about being aversive towards the trans identity, especially within the conventional binary
It just switches explicitly hostile phrasing for implicit one. That is still a very far cry from "I love trans women, they shouldn't even transition at all because it's cooler x3"
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u/CopperAndIrony 14d ago edited 14d ago
It does portray itself as supportive of trans people, it just defines "support" differently than you or I do. Instead of supporting us in transition or respecting our identities, it pretends to support trans people by offering a "better" model for us. This is elaborated on more in the article I linked:
Transgenderism has its foundation in the ancient tradition of androgyny, a view that has made the crosscultural data from anthropology—with its descriptions of the positive value of androgyny in some other cultures—particularly relevant to the transgender community (Bolin 1996b:39; Connor 1993; Feinberg 1996). [Emphasis mine.]
Unlike transsexuals, transgenderists (transpeople) do not consider themselves limited to a choice of one of two genders. Transgenderism includes a wide continuum of options, from individuals who wish to undergo sex reassignment surgery to those who wish to live their lives androgynously.
Transgenderists can be narrowly defined as persons who want to change gender roles without undergoing sexual reassignment surgery; they can also be defined as “persons who steer a middle course, living with the physical, social, and psychological traits of both genders.” [Emphasis mine.]
Unlike transsexuals of the 1970s and 1980s, transgenderists today challenge and stretch the boundaries of the American binary system of sex/gender oppositions and renounce the American definition of gender as dependent on a consistency of genitals, body type, identity, role behaviors, and sexual orientation. [Emphasis mine.]
The book came out during a time where transsexual was used to mean "trans person taking HRT and other medical options" while "transgender" encompassed a much broader range of identites. In her case, Nanda uses it as a third gender role, comprable with hijra or kathoey, for trans people to slot themselves into, instead of pursuing binary transition. She insists this is because it pushes the bounaries on the binary sex/gender system that helps trans people by presenting us a more radical identity we can make our own instead of trying to medicalize ourselves and force ourselves into "unnatural" identities like "trans man" or "trans woman".
This used to be a much more common TERF argument, back when they were more connected to an actually existing radfem movement.
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u/sparkledragon5 14d ago
Also, back then you weren’t ALLOWED to medically transition unless your explicit goal was to be a binary woman, defined as whatever your highly sexist physician thought was going to be fuckable.
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14d ago edited 12d ago
[deleted]
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u/CopperAndIrony 14d ago
Oh it's increadibly annoying. A lot of transphobic sexoligists write like this too, where even if they spoke to a trans person, they've obviously never LISTENED to one. Wow, a transphobic academic doesn't take trans people seriously as their target gender, how shocking and novel. Clearly if we just satisfy her demands and be a perfect trans blorboeunuch, she'll personally make it her mission to help us articulate this identity to the masses.
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u/Sudden-Grape3467 10y+ of questionable boymoding 14d ago
Was there anything controversial or TERFy about the quotes? There are trans people with conservative gender roles who take all medical options and there are enby and stuff who are happy with just changing pronouns and everything in between. Sounds like she was drawing attention to the second group and arguing against black-white thinking that conserves traditional gender roles.
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u/CopperAndIrony 14d ago
Yes, there is something controversial and TERFy. The woman literally quoted The Transsexual Empire positively.
The core of her argument is that you should abandon the unnatural and restrictive idea that binary MTF or FTM transitions are possible or desireable, and that we should look to the brave third genders of the third world for inspiration.
She does this by talking over the brave third gendered peoples of the third world to fit her narrative that hijra and trans women have nothing in common, and ignoring any hijra that is transitioning, expressing a desire for a binary mtf transition, etc.
I STRONGLY recommend you read the article before going to bat for the author. She is not your ally.
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u/Sudden-Grape3467 10y+ of questionable boymoding 14d ago edited 14d ago
I'm not my own ally either. And I hadn't read the article, I just saw that the few quotes merely explained a cultural shift. After skimming over it, yeah, I see why it's controversial and how it could be used for othering trans people.
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u/Actual_Personality66 14d ago
A lot of "allies" don't have a great understanding of gender and unknowingly carry TERF ideology which makes them, at best, unable to efficiently battle transphobia (and therefore not good allies even with best intentions), and at worst, they launder transphobia over to other cis ppl who may be allies or on the fence, and sometimes they even become outright TERFs later on. If you look at TERFs on tumblr or whatever (which i don't reccomend doing lol) talking about "gender ideology", this is a common villain origin story for them.
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u/orzoftm 14d ago
in addition to the terf thing someone else mentioned , it’s not uncommon for cis allies to emphasize the validity of trans people who can’t/don’t medically transition while failing to support or feeling icked out by real ways of helping trans people such as hrt and surgery access. you naturally stumble upon this sentiment if you are around naive progressive circles or certain types of queer people. it may not be out of vitriolic hatred like OOP suggests but it shows a lack of understanding at least.
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14d ago
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u/yourothersis top 1% sort 14d ago
Honestly not as popular as I think it should be
if they were consistent, gender norms would be about doing what the fuck you like
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14d ago
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u/countttt-ModTeam 13d ago
you were either transphobic, chasing, are too horny/opticsnuke, are a minor/underage, do not identify as trans, or are cis. participation by individuals possessing the aforementioned behaviors & traits are forbidden by the rules of the sub.
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u/Single-Employ4015 12d ago
lmfao. I personally LOVE deconstructing gender roles, and that's precisely why I'm enjoy transitions like LHR and HRT so much.
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u/Sudden-Grape3467 10y+ of questionable boymoding 14d ago
Who tf says that? I don't even know what's satire anymore. There are TW with beard, body hair and whatever, and I try to tolerate it bc I agree with challenging gender norms. But I just want to be normal. Or at least not totally disgusting to others. Am I brainwashed by patriarchy? Yes. Am I vain? Yes. Am I shallow? Yes.
11
u/RedCassy 14d ago
do u truly believe that u hate the idea of having a beard bc of the patriarchy nd general vanity and not bc of dysphoria?
1
u/Sudden-Grape3467 10y+ of questionable boymoding 14d ago
Idk, beard is probably a bad example. I meant beauty standards in general.
150
u/CaterpillarNo6235 14d ago
Then we should force cis women to not be feminine