https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/health-wellness/2023/11/14/transgender-rights-under-attack-community-activists/71532530007/
Despite daunting attacks from right-wing politicians, transgender activists on the local level continue to fight fiercely for their communities.
Can confirm. Don't want to be brave. Don't want to be controversial. Don't want to piss anyone off. Don't want to stick it to anyone. Just want to live my own life and be left the fuck alone like literally everyone else. This very real problem that I was born with is my issue to fix and no one else's. And my life would have been a hundred times easier if I'd been listened to when I first voiced this problem as a minor.
I really really don't understand what people have against you. What you do with your body is obviously none of their business whatsoever. I don't get why people even want to have an opinion about that.
FWIW I'm really happy for you that you can live your life in the proper body to match your soul and I'm an LGBTQI+ ally <3 (and a little on the Q side myself).
I can understand people don't want to be trans because they are simply in the right body or they aren't but have religious doubts or whatever but that deep hatred I see even in some of my "friends" scares me.
No one wants to be trans. We just are born with it and have to figure it out. It's basically a medical issue. I didn't choose to do anything to my body either. The choice isn't there when not transitioning can deteriorate to being fundamentally incompatible with staying alive. A lot of bigots insist that transitioning is some trendy or otherwise low stakes thing but our lives would be so much easier if it was as easy as just not transitioning.
I apologize , that didn't come across as intended. I didn't mean to imply that it's a matter of wanting at all.
I just argued against the narrative that somehow trans people are forcing cis people to become trans. Obviously they don't 'want' that because they are in the right body for them. This is where all the "Don't say gay" idiocy comes from. Because they view it as propaganda or something.
But of course the whole premise is BS. Even the concept of 'becoming' trans is. And yes I know it's not a choice <3
But that came out wrong.
Considering it's only relatively recently that being trans wouldn't get you arrested (and earlier murdered), of course there are more openly trans people now!
Right after that you suggest that the number of trans people now over the past is something about trans people and not about humanity.
The number of trans people has not changed.
The number of trans people who feel comfortable in their own bodies has changed.
I mean the difference is likely not based out of a difference in the number of trans people but in the cultural risk one has in living out of the closet. Destigmatizing left handedness saw a sudden generation jump in people who were left handed. If you don't think you are likely to be accepted you struggle in darkness.
The covid bump has another possible explanation. My trans nature long existed in the shadow. My industry is such where it's all short term employment and causing your team any friction could mean falling to the bottom of the employment pool. I didn't try to be out because it came with drawbacks. Coming out to people is also the process of onboarding everyone and that transition period where people know but are still fucking up your name and pronouns takes a lot of your mental energy. It some ways it sucks less when people don't know they are hurting you. Then it's just not their fault. Once they know the struggle to switch how they think of you is plain. It's obvious they don't think of you as your gender, they just are faking it until they do and that disparity draws more attention to your own body and presentation and the uphill battle of true acceptance even if they are theoretically on board with trans issues. My Mom STILL fucks up my name and pronouns and even though she loves me it's like an admission that she will NEVER actually see me as I see myself. It's difficult to do that and work a soul crushing job at the same time so it was something I did one person at a time and I was a fucking hot mess in the process.
Then Covid happened and I was isolated in my cohort of friends and family to whom I was spottily out to. I had the time to DO the work and have the conversation and be the hot mess. I figured out I was trans back when I was 21 but there was a fifteen year gap before I came out to people outside because it seemed like a monumental task where I would risk losing a huge chunk of my relationships, risk my career and still have to juggle going to work every day even when I felt like dying. But since people started talking about it and showing trans issue support it gave me hope that there would be light on the other side. So by the time covid came around I was half-out.
But then during covid I got to live as myself full time. It's like having an allergy you are exposed to all the time. You don't realize exactly how shitty you feel until you stop being exposed to it and you realize that your capacity to feel generally more energetic and healthy is actually way higher than you thought... And returning to exposure makes it hit that much harder.
Returning to work I realized how bad I actually felt and felt more compelled to do something about it. Having the time to actually do the work, not on myself but on the people around me, gave me a taste of what it feels like to be healthy and it's hard to forget being actually happy and then willingly just go back to being miserable. From the outside it might look like being cooped up caused me to be trans but it's the opposite. Being cooped up gave me time to properly socially transition where the risks were lowered.
Probably. I ask cis folk about this pretty frequently because while I understand being trans I don't actually know what it is like to be cis, it is just sort of assumed mutual experience amongst cis folk. Trans is my lived experience and our society insists we need to defend our needs in ways that make sense to them but cisness is just as interesting. I encounter two camps. The majority of cis people I ask this question to just don't feel strongly about their body on the axis of their sex. They might feel dysmorphias around not looking good by the rubric of their sex that's more about how the privilege of beauty or ugliness impacts their lives.
I have also encountered a minority of cis people who are actually decently euphoric about their gender. Sometimes that has to do with the cultural bits of their experience and sometimes not. The one thing they have in common is they actually just really love what they got going on. Being male or female is an integral part of their self identity.
My personal COMPLETELY unsubstantiated posit that these two versions of cisness are distinct and the with the euphoric version they are basically experiencing the key component of binary trans nature with the one factor different being the body and mind are in alignment and not at odds.
Some of the non-binary agender experience seems almost like an extreme version of what you experience where the concept of gender matters so little internally that it's outside application to aspects of your life become a complete nuisance as if becomes an obstacle to people recognizing the actual person you are as they make too many assumptions about you based on a factor which is personally meaningless.
Not to say this is key to all agender folk. Some folk just react poorly to having any sexual characteristics at all. Non-binary as it's own spectrum is internally made up of such disparate presentations it is like comparing peaches to green peppers. Both are fruit but they practically nothing alike in experience.
The thing is in both cases it's hard for cis folk to really empathize with the trans experience because they either can't get a handle on what it is to care about gender at all or they take their comfort as a given and don't realize just how bad it is to live without that source of confidence.
the number of measured sinister people (as in, left-handed, that's where the word comes from) were rising like crazy too when it started gaining cultural acceptance that maybe, just maybe it's not evil that you use your left hand to do things. it was like a whole epidemic, sinister people started popping up left and right.
...and then it plateaued at a flat 12.5% and stayed there since. turns out that's just the biological occurrence rate, but everyone was under-measuring it because people weren't willing to own it up that they're left-handed.
trans people are the same. you get different amounts of persecution for it between different time periods and different regimes, and you get different levels of acceptance in different age groups, but the level of persecution is not zero anywhere. it's not as normalized as just being a lefty. as such, the measured number of trans people is below the real amount in all of these situations, and how much below it is represents the amount of repression and persecution. we'll get accurate numbers for the occurrence rate of people born in the wrong bodies when the stigma is gone.
also, you seriously misinterpreted the medical issue. the issue isn't with the brain, it's with the body. you're not a pile of muscle with some neurons slapped on top of it, you're a brain piloting a meat suit, and if the meat suit is the wrong kind that's what needs to be corrected. and that correction is much easier to do before puberty than after. which is why you need to listen to trans kids and at the very least give them puberty blockers, or preferably adequate hormone therapy. but you can't "prevent" trans people unless you can detect and fix the issue in the womb.
have you considered that maybe covid just gave people some much needed time to sit back, relax, and recognize things about themselves?
this isn't rocket science. i get the shtick of the "enlightened" centrist but when one side just wants to exist and the other side wants a trans genocide the right answer isn't maybe a little genocide, as a treat. and if you don't know how to tell apart conflicting data about trans people, you'd do well to actually listen to them for once, as opposed to discrediting them as biased and "just one side".
As a sufferer, it's true. It's very real. I can't argue with your ridiculous post any more than a diabetic can be expected to argue in favor of having access to insulin. Terfs have literally nothing to do with my experience with being trans. Everything you have written here is exhausting to have to deal with and it's insane that people trot out this clowny shit when they have no idea what it's like to live with this their entire fucking lives.
Downvoting me doesn't invalidate my lived experience lmao
Well you're "trans" and "trans" is our word we give to your people and the thing we're all debatey about at the moment too, so just sit and wait while we figure out what we want to do. So far I think it's going in your favour with camp trans being popular so its what everyone's picking rn. Is it okay if I say we're friends? It'll blow people's minds.
You stay brave, friend! You wait here, we're gonna go FUCK CAMP CIS UuUuUP! Woo!! Let's be louder and in their fucking faces! It's what my trans friend Velociraptor wants—yes, I totes have a trans friend! You don't? Wooowah.
Hey mate, I think you meant this as a lighthearted joke, but I'm really not sure it comes across very well in text. Can I suggest you reconsider it, as it might seem kinda insensitive?
It's just an idiotic persona the article is about—just one, at least. I mean, I had a chuckle while making a point that people are fully aware these people bandwagoning just for a fight and personal gratification do damage. But, okay.
"We can disappear into the world and continue to live in the shadows," he says. "But ultimately, that's not how it's supposed to be."
Ugh. I really wish people would quit saying this. I don't want "visibility." "Trans visibility" feels like an insult. I want to be invisible, and anything less is torment. Some people will never pass as the gender they identify with, but for them to prescribe their feelings on all of us is not fair.
I want for it to not be a big deal. Some of us being visible is how that happens. Passing is great. I shouldn’t have to disclose my medical history to strangers or coworkers or even friends, but I want to be able to chime in when it’s relevant. Sorta like how many people are about their extra nipples.
Lmao that's a really good analogy. If i had extra nipples, i wouldn't want "extra nipples day of visibility" but i also wouldn't want anyone to make a big deal about me taking my shirt off at the beach.
Yeah, though I think the context of day of visibility matters. It’s relatively young, and was created because for a while we only gathered as a community for day of remembrance. The idea was that we should be seen and loved while we’re alive too.
It’s become something more, a showcasing of our presence and a celebration of our existence. It’s mostly just freshly out people being really loudly out in my experience. But I’ve read the names every year since 2014. I’m glad we take a different day to remember that we live.
They aren't trying to force you specifically to be visible. If you want to continue to live in the shadows, by all means do so.
But by the same token, they shouldn't be forced to live in the shadows if they don't want to.
As far as I can tell, it's just about getting to a point where it's okay for those who want to, to be able to go out in public and be who they are (and therefore be visible) without getting insulted, or discriminated against or killed for it.
That in no way affects your ability to continue to do things the way you want to.
I don't want to be invisible, I want to be seen and heard by my family, friends and community. I spent too long trying to hide, and I'm happy to share who I am if it means that I can help reduce the stigma for anyone in the future.
Oh man. I am just remembering the last time we visited my wife's family in her home village. Whenever I spoke her family would be startled for a moment with a look "oh the sperm donor breadwinner is also here.".
It's funny how it worked out. My brother-in-law decided to finally introduce his trans fiance to his parents after our visit. He felt confident they wouldn't hate her after spending three weeks playing with their grandkids.
Ah passing privilege. "Trans visibility" doesn't mean people being able to clock you it means that people are fighting so that if somebody does clock you, you are still safe and supported.
I desperately wish I could be invisible, but I can't so I have to go the other direction. If I am invisible I am by default in the closet so "trans visibility" means that I am seen, understood and that people are able to understand so that I get to live too. It isn't exactly fair to us to disavow the work we do when it ultimately benefits you in the long run just because you essentially "got mine". You don't want to fight that's fine, you have the benefit of not having to ... But don't spit on the people who are.
I dont think the person in question was saying that you can't be stealth. They're saying that the cisgender world as the default cannot continue to exist. Trans people have to be visible, for many of us it's not even a choice but. Trans people have to be normal. It has to be a normal okay thing for a trans person to exist.
Going stealth is okay. A lot of us want to do that. But not everyone can, nor does everyone want to. It's also not something most of us can just up and go do. And for trans people who must be visibly trans, how the public perceives trans people has an extremely huge impact on their daily lives. If trans people are not normal, if being trans is not a normal thing to be, if being visibly trans is not a possibility, then we can't be ourselves at all. In this context, retreating into the shadows means going back into the closet for many of us and not being able to transition and be ourselves. Trans people have to be visible. Not every one of us, but a lot of us. So we want to be accepted. We do not want to be pushed back into the closet.
It's also for the next generation of trans people. So that trans youth growing up see trans adults in their community, so that trans adults see older trans people. So that trans people can see that life is possible as a trans person. So that people feel like they can be themselves and to see trans people living happily as themselves. To show trans youth who are just coming out that trans joy is real and it is possible to be happy and be trans. Trans people have lived in the shadows forever, we've lived behind closed doors and inside closets. It can't be that way anymore. No one should feel like they have to conform to cisgender society. And so trans people have to be visible. That's a lot more what people are talking about when we use the phrase "trans visibility".
So that trans youth growing up see trans adults in their community
When i was a teenager back in the early 00s, i went to a trans support group. It largely consisted of older transitioners, age 50+, who were not living good lives, through no fault of their own. But it was a very dark experience for me. I expected that my life would play out like theirs, and i would join the 41% club. I never thought that I'd get to experience just being a regular girl, and that part still seems surreal a decade later.
This is a common experience for young trans people seeking support. This is "trans visibility" and it harmed me profoundly. What would've been really nice back then were successful role models who make their trans-ness an incidental detail. We have those now, and they're not what I'd call "visible" to cis people, although they don't hide who they are.
so that trans adults see older trans people.
I'm still waiting to find older rolemodels. Most of us are really sad when we get older. I don't know how similar this is to the general lgbt population, but I'm concerned. My goal is to build a little family, and then just live a quiet life and keep each other close.
You're allowed to be stealth. There's nothing wrong with that. I will never be stealth. Neither will a lot of trans women. Do you see how I can't just have a quiet life alone and have transness be an incidental detail about me? You're kind of talking like being stealth is like pushing a button and BAM you just magically conform perfectly to cisgender society and are forever invisible.
That's not the common trans experience. Most trans women are visibly trans, and most of us will always be visibly trans.
Your experience was at a time when there was no trans visibility. The average population was entirely ignorant of trans people. Being trans was not a "normal okay thing to be". So yeah no kidding the people you met were older and depressed. Have you ever thought about why they felt that way? Do you think they transitioned knowing their communities their families and their societies would accept them? Do you think they saw trans women out and about in the real world visibly living happy lives even though they're trans?
I'm sorry you had that experience. But you still don't seem to understand what trans visibility is. We aren't cisgender. We never will be cisgender no matter what we do. We will always be trans. Non-binary people also exist and are also trans. They will always be visible and have to explain their identities to others. Trans visibility means seeing trans people at the grocery store. It means seeing trans people at the gym. It means having trans co-workers, trans family members, it means having trans politicians and trans people working in public facing roles. Trans visibility means being trans is okay. That being trans is an okay thing to be. That you can be happy and be visibly trans.
Cisgender society has to come to an end. Society has to embrace gender diverse people and normalize them. You don't have to be visibly trans if you don't want to and are capable of going stealth. I for instance can't do that. Do you understand that? No matter what I do I will always for the rest of my life be a visible trans woman. Do I not deserve happiness too? Should I be forced to hide who I am because I don't pass? Cause you're coming off like that's how you perceive non-passing depresses trans people. Passing is a privilege. If you have it and want to conform to cisgender society by all means. That's your prerogative. Do as you please. I can't do that. I will never be able to do that. It's either detransition and pretend to be a man or go outdoors visibly being a trans woman. I will never go back to pretending to be a man. So I will be visibly trans, and live the best happiest life I can so that trans people who see me know that it is possible to find joy in being trans.
I don't think you're understanding my point. Trans-ness is, for me, defined by gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria, by its very definition, is the pain i experience by not looking like a cis woman. Visibility is not a thing i want to celebrate. Visibility is the affliction.
Can everyone be stealth? No, absolutely not, and being trans should be normalized. But i still feel very uncomfortable with my debilitating endocrine disorder being used as a point of pride, in the same way gay pride is.
I'm gay, and I'm out and proud of that. I love being visibly gay. But being trans is different because it's not a thing i want to be.
That's your own internal transphobia. You are trans. It's who you are. You cant go back in time and make yourself cisgender, neither can i. I've got gender dysphoria too, I'm aware of what it is. I had reassignment surgery because I've wanted to have a vagina since I was a child. I've been on hormones for almost 9 years and meticulously tracked my facial fat and breast development and hip development, even adjusting my own doses to get the absolute best results I could. I'm going to south Korea next year and spending over 12 thousand dollars to get vocal cord surgery to undo the damage that puberty did to them.
I understand that feeling. I've always wanted to be a normal cis girl too. And I love my friends who don't treat me any differently than they do any other girls. I don't understand men, and my friend groups are composed almost entirely of cis queer women. I like being seen as a woman without any other identifier, because that's my gender that's who I am.
But I am proud to be trans. I have had people I knew in real life tell me that seeing me transition and be happy and be confident was what convinced them that they could transition too. I met with one of my friend's teenage kids who was questioning if he could transition. I'll never forget the way his eyes nearly fell out of his head just to see a trans person, a trans adult just living a normal life. I loved that experience. I loved being able to show him that if I could do it so could he, and he has since started T and come out to his friends and family. I'm proud of that. I always will be. My best friend in high school, who at the time identified a cis gay man, transitioned because she saw me do it. She sent me a letter years later thanking me for being brave enough to do it when she was so scared to. I cried like a baby reading that.
Trans people can't be hidden anymore. When trans people aren't visible only pain and repression happens. I'm doing everything I can to rectify the dysphoria I feel in my body. I want to pass, I want people to see me for who I am. But I'm okay with being trans and I'm okay with showing that world that trans people can be happy. It's not something anyone is responsible for. Like I said, there's no shame in going stealth. It's okay to not want to be visibly trans. But it has to be okay to be visibly trans.
Being trans isn't simply a diagnosis on a piece of paper. You can act like it is but it isnt. We would hardly be talking about it in these terms if that was the case. Being trans is a life experience, the experience of being raised in a body and gender presentation that was incompatible with who we are. It's the most awful painful alienating experience in the world, and many of us are literally killed for being trans. It's not just a medical diagnosis. It's not that simple. It's a social class. Society does not treat trans and cis people the same based solely on our being trans.
Hi trashgirlfriend, your username is cute, will you marry me so we can have a short, toxic marriage with lots of good sex and domestic violence?
Sorry I already got myself a boywife to emotionally manipulate/have bed breaking sex with
It is illegal for me to piss at work. I am not legally allowed to use the men’s restroom. I do anyways, because I’m a fat, hairy dude with a beer belly. If someone were to out me, I would likely lose my job, cause my workplace to get into trouble, and would probably be forced to move to escape death threats.
All I want is to take my testosterone shot once a week and do my job. My transness is irrelevant to anyone who is not having sex with me or my doctor.
Trans people are asking for nothing more to be respected, have access to health care and ideally to stop being hate crimed. But these basic facilities are threatened by those who need an "boogey monster other" to demonize for political points. Gender is such a given to most people that we as Trans people threaten their world view simply by existing outside of a narrow binary. Many feel justified in exerting control over our bodies, purely because our existence is too much of a nagging open question that threatens their worldview.
I'm here.
I'm queer.
And I'm filled with fear.
In the game of patriarchy trans rights, women trans people are not the opposing team. They are the ball.
I don't understand why being trans is such a big issue. I'm not trans and I'm definitely nowhere on the LGBT spectrum, so I'll never fully understand what it's like to experience gender dysphoria or be attracted to my same sex. However, none of that is relevant since it costs nothing to be considerate.
One of our librarians recently transitioned, and it effected absolutely nothing. I'm just as comfortable interacting with them as before, literally the only thing that changed is the pronouns I use with them. That's it.
If someone is getting bullied, I'll stand up for them the same if they're white or black, male or female, gay or not, etc. Bullying is never okay, so I really don't see how differences the target exhibits is relevant to anything. If there's a law that makes life more annoying or less equality vs others, we should reevaluate that law. That's just common sense to me.
Don't ask me my opinions on trans and adjacent issues because I'm not very well educated on them so I'll probably accidentally say something offensive. Regardless, I don't see any reason for civility to not be the norm here, regardless of how well educated you are about it. Just be nice to people, and stand up to bullies. That alone would probably solve most of the issues here. I don't understand why people need to be such jerks...
Don't worry about "saying something offensive". We can tell when people are genuine or being a jerk, I feel, most of the time. If you have any questions, no matter what, feel free to DM me. I find being trans and related things fascinating.
I'll just post them here so others can chime in. This will be kinda long, but most of it is setting up the questions, and I'll put the questions in a bulleted list at the end.
Here are some statements I'll refer to later:
So just by looking at these groups, gender identity simultaneously matters and it doesn't. Feminists argue that gender norms shouldn't really exist and that there are just roles people can play. A man can raise children, a woman can be the main bread winner, etc. But just as gender roles are mattering less and less, there's this huge push from the trans/non-binary community for recognition, and now I'm being asked to use certain pronouns after years of being trained that pronouns don't mean anything (at least in terms of social roles).
Obviously something is motivation trans people to transition. However, at least in terms of physical performance, testosterone suppression doesn't eliminate physiological advantages when transitioning to female (I'm not getting into the "should trans women play competitive sports" rabbit hole, just highlighting physiological remnants), so transitioning isn't going to turn you into a biological woman, even if you get all of the surgeries and live on T pills. Yet there are still plenty that find a lot of value in it.
And then there's non-binary folks, who don't feel strongly enough about either gender to identify with it. So to me that means they don't necessarily see an issue with their physiology, they just see some other value in picking something other than their originally assigned gender.
And that brings me to a few questions:
I would like to understand trans and non-binary people more, but I don't think that's really possible without experiencing it for myself, in much the same way that I won't fully understand my spouse or kids without experiencing things from their perspective. But I also don't think it's particularly relevant, I can be nice to people I don't fully understand, especially when it costs my pretty much nothing to do so. I'm still interested, just not sure how to get the perspective I lack.
Are you talking about third or fourth wave feminism? There is an interesting take in the book Gender Trouble. I'm surprised you're interested in women's sports. Did you catch the US Women's Soccer match? I missed it but got the gist from my guy friend. Personally, I'm a huge fan of roller derby. They've fully accept trans people. Love Suzy Hotrod. She's such a badass.
My cousin actually plays roller derby, which is pretty cool.
And yeah, I'm interested. I watched a lot of the women's World Cup this year, though I rarely watch pro soccer here in the US. I'll occasionally watch a WNBA game (was super proud when my team the Seattle Storm won the championship), but I haven't for years (I don't watch much men's sports either). I love women's volleyball though, so I'll watch it when I notice it's on (also like watching lacrosse). I'm not a fan of women's hockey though, not sure why.
As for which wave of feminism, I'm honestly not sure. I don't consider myself a feminist so I don't keep up on it, though I certainly support some of the less crazy proposals (e.g. equal pay, longer parental leave, etc). My wife considers herself feminist-lite, and I work with a few women who probably consider themselves feminists (though we rarely talk politics). I personally just prefer more equality and fewer top down rules and don't really associate with any political movement (I'm registered Libertarian mostly to pump registration numbers for third parties).
I have too many daily struggles to prioritize the political fight, though I would like to be able to do more.
As long as they aren't talking about "thriving and surviving" in women's sports or children's classrooms I have no problem with it. And for those who aren't involved in those things, condemn those who are. That's all we ask.
If that's your first thought when the issue of trans rights comes up, your priorities are seriously fucked.
Children's classrooms....
Heaven forbid a child be near a trans person. They could catch it!
🙄 🙄 🙄
You're not protecting anyone with this, devoid of reality, biology, statistics of who attack children and scientific studies on trans athletes, you are simply taking an opportunity to persecute. This is exactly the type of fear mongering nonsense I was talking about.
Studies show that transfem athletes perform on par with cisgender feminine athletes. Do some research before you spout bigotry.
Something something must protect the children is generally how these arguments go. Never mind that cis male are the overwhelming majority of child abusers.