4thWaveNow

butiwasntaboy:

“Passing” on life

appropriately-inappropriate:

stubborn-string-bones:

4thwavenow:

butiwasntaboy:

I have a friend who recently announced that she is transgender. Now in her early 20s, for several years she was out as a lesbian, but set her sights on straight women who were unattainable and eventually broke her heart. (She is a beautiful girl, and even…

This is stunningly transphobic all over, but I’m going to talk about one specific thing that keeps coming up in these discussions.

Over and over I see lesbians and other women who are middle aged or who otherwise did not grow up in an environment where transition was a possibility saying ‘If transitioning was an option when I was a child I would have chosen it and I would have regretted it.’

And I am very, very tired of hearing it.

Because you didn’t grow up in an environment that allowed you to make a decision to transition. You didn’t face the knowledge that people knowing you are trans would greatly increase your health and safety risks. You did grow up facing the knowledge that people knowing you are not heterosexual would greatly increase your health and safety risks.

And I absolutely understand the impulse to apply your own experience of ‘wanting to be a boy’. It would make everything so much easier than being pressured to conform with girly behavior. It would be so much easier to find intimacy. The circumstance you were in was the wrong one, so the only other alternative seemed like the right one.

But this approach grossly misunderstands the issue. Being trans isn’t about day dreaming about ‘if I was born with a penis I would be more comfortable’. It’s about ‘I am not a woman’, or ‘I am a man’, or ‘I am a woman’, or ‘my gender does not conform to the colonially imposed white binary’ or something else entirely.

Using a non-trans experience of only having friends who were boys and hating dresses and having ‘masculine’ hobbies and liking girls who liked boys is not a valid access point to the experience of real trans people. Lots of trans men aren’t attracted to women. Lots of trans men are not gender conforming. Lots of trans men like dresses and want to have children and share interests with lots of other people, regardless of gender identity.

It is wonderful that the OP has come to accept her body and be grateful for the things it does. I am very happy for her. But I am deeply disturbed by the idea that if everyone else just tried hard enough they too would discover they were women, because it’s not true and it does very real harm.

“Over and over I see lesbians and other women who are middle aged or who otherwise did not grow up in an environment where transition was a possibility saying ‘If transitioning was an option when I was a child I would have chosen it and I would have regretted it.’
And I am very, very tired of hearing it.”

Now imagine how tired they must be of saying it.

That doesn’t negate the fact that they meant it, or that the societal conservativism and hatred of lesbians wouldn’t have pushed them into it.

Since most people with gender dysphoria just end up being GNC gays and lesbians, I’d say they have every right to speak on it.

And after all, you’re saying they don’t understand the trans experience—but that’s awfully presumptuous of you.

How do you know what they’re feeling?

Thanks for your comments. I wasn’t sure if I even wanted to address this accusation of transphobia, because it seems like that word appears whenever someone speaks against transition at all. A phobia is a FEAR, and I am absolutely not speaking from a place of fear. In today’s climate, people like to say that if you don’t jump on the transition bandwagon, you’re afraid. How?? If I was suggesting that people not keep Black Widow spiders as cuddly pets, because it could be dangerous and destructive, would that make me arachnophobic? Would I therefore fear all spiders?? Obviously not. Not even close.
I’m simply saying that I understand and acknowledge body dysphoria from a firsthand perspective, and choose to keep my body as it is. I mean, I could transition tomorrow if I wanted to. WHAT’S STOPPING ME?? Certainly not fear…..
Maybe it’s…..(call me crazy) uh…..wisdom and life experience??
My blog is not about criticism, it’s about CONTEMPLATION. I think I’ve written things in a way that makes that perfectly clear. I want to give others like me something to think about, because I absolutely relate to this experience. Ultimately, decisions about our bodies are ours to make, and when so many voices encourage rapid decision-making, I think there should be many voices like mine offering other perspectives. Not from a place of fear, but from a place of unconditional love.

shadycatz:

appropriately-inappropriate:

youreworthitsosmile:

appropriately-inappropriate:

spawkward:

dykemongering:

Vagina owner? Vagina haver? I didn’t go and pick this up in store, this wasn’t some clearance item I tossed into my cart not thinking about it. This is something that I was born with and has shaped every experience in this life thus far. I’m a woman, I’m a female, don’t belittle me. 

yeah but not every female has a vagina and not every person with a vagina is female

Females have vaginas. That’s a fact of life, whether it harshes your mellow or not.

It is literally one of the biological criteria for being “female”.

Now, I don’t care if you choose to fail biology, but do that on your own time.

Fail biology? A flower has both the female and male sex organs. What does that make it? Male? Female? It makes it whatever that flower chooses and feels comfortable being, just like humans.

It makes it a fucking flower, are you completely nuts or just deliberately ignorant?

The day I look in the mirror and notice I’ve turned into a fucking orchid, I’ll let you know—but until then, the fact that a flower has both a stamen and a pistil isn’t proof of hermaphroditism in humans, and certainly not a refutation of human biology.

Jesus fucking christ, did you go to school at /all/?

OH MY GOD

This is a new one: Flowers can “choose” and “feel comfortable being” either a stamen or a pistil. WHO KNEW?

vulvapeople:

Thinking about 4thwavenow’s post about suicide, much of the focus on suicides among trans youth seems to be veering toward:  If you don’t give us what we want, we’ll kill ourselves.  Some trans activists say as much to women who disagree with the axiom:  trans women are women.

And, frankly, that’s really unacceptable.  It’s unacceptable from a political standpoint, and it’s unacceptable from an individual health care perspective.  Suicide should never be used as an implicit or explicit threat.  If a trans teenager is claiming suicidal ideation, the response should be to get him/her necessary treatment to prevent suicide, and I’m talking about psychiatric counseling, not hormones.

radicallyhaley:

radfem-momma:

she changed a lot of her descriptions on social media to say “pansexual, but leans towards girls”.  I’ve kinda known for years but of course you don’t put labels on your kids unless they do it first but anyway… I realized its pretty fucking impossible to come out as a lesbian these days. You have to be attracted to *femininity* instead of actual females to call yourself a lesbian in queer theory. What is she supposed to say without being called a bigot? Its so hard to watch this. I just hope no creepy MTFs fuck with her. She is super entrenched in queer theory and would never accept any allusion that she is not obligated to be interested in transwomen.

Luckily she is stubborn and rude to people who bother her so maybe it will work out. *sweats nervously*

i wish you the best of luck for your daughter. i can’t even imagine how difficult it must be as a young teenager growing up in this cesspool of postmodernism.

That “pansexual” label seems to be the thing now. God forbid you should be “monosexual.” Strange times we live in.

butiwasntaboy:

I have a friend who recently announced that she is transgender. Now in her early 20s, for several years she was out as a lesbian, but set her sights on straight women who were unattainable and eventually broke her heart. (She is a beautiful girl, and even though physical attraction is not the most important thing in life, I think it is worth noting, because this is a person who has decided to become a man and deny herself the feminine beauty to which she was born.) She developed really strong crushes, most of the time did not even approach them and let them know what her feelings were, and spent her time alone, pining over these young women. The only reason I know this about her is because I noticed her sadness and basically called her out, saying “I think I know what is going on here. Are you okay?”. The reason that this was so obvious to me is because I have been there myself. The first time I ever experienced love as a teenager, it was for a girl I was very close friends with. She was beautiful, and I was entranced by her physical appearance, but also by her personality. Any time I would call her on the phone, my heart would beat out of my chest, and when I would see her, I would actually get weak in the knees. I would find excuses to talk to her, and became friends with her by mirroring her personality to a very large extent. At my young age, it didn’t matter whether or not I was being true to myself, because I just wanted to be near her. As an adult, I can honestly say that if transition had been available at that time, I might have pressured my parents to allow me to do so. However, after seeing what my trans friends have go through, and how much of a distraction focusing on physical appearance can be, I am deeply thankful that that was not an available choice for me. Not transitioning enabled me to focus on who I wanted to be on the inside, and to develop into a successful human being, gender aside. (You can read more about my personal feelings involving feeling “male” in my post titled, “Praying for a penis”.)

Over the past year or so, my friend has become completely obsessed with trying to pass. She binges on YouTube videos, signs up for FTM dating sites (although she has not transitioned), and abruptly abandoned the clothes that she used to wear in exchange for exclusively “men’s” clothes. I’ve seen her spend countless hours looking at herself in the mirror, imagining her body as male, trying to figure out the best way to pass.

There are many reasons that these choices strike a chord with me: One, who gets to decide what “men’s” clothes are, and why is it so important for her to choose them? Can’t they just be clothes? Why does “being a male” mean that she can no longer wear the clothes that she herself used to love? Another thing that seems sad to me is that when she goes out in public, instead of just enjoying her life and the reason that she has decided to go out, her reason for leaving the house is to see if she can pass. She has developed a very affected gait, swaggering around the way that she thinks that men walk. Sometimes, she forgets to do it, and for a second I see the person she was for the first 2 1/2 decades of her life, and it is a thing of beauty. The fact that she thinks she needs to do this at all just to be accepted by society is, however, heartbreaking. I have referred to what I feel is a very conservative climate, pressuring NGC women to transition, rather than being who they are, and when I see her deliberately changing who she is and becoming a stereotype, it is very sad. Why can’t she just walk however she walks and not feel compelled to imitate men? Why won’t society let her?
I will admit that when a lot of my friends told me that they were trans, my first reaction was unconditional support. I felt like any choice that they wanted to make regarding their bodies was theirs to make, and my liberal brain screamed something like “fight the power”. I told my trans friends how much I supported them, how beautiful they were, and how I couldn’t wait to see what they would look like with their new bodies. But then I started thinking about it. REALLY thinking about it. I questioned the duplicity of a society that appears to be so accepting of homosexuality and transitioners, but is actually sending the message that if you feel inside your brain that you are the opposite sex, you must therefore change your body to match. I think it is because most people, however accepting, do not want to deal with the fluidity of sexuality. They want to look at a person and know things about them by their appearance, rather than accepting that we do not come from cookie cutters, and have many different brains and personalities, regardless of body image.
That being said, the purpose of this post is not to criticize trans people, but to examine why physical appearance has become so important. This current obsession with pronouns and physical appearance leaves little room for inner growth and reflection. And suppose a person does transition and successfully “pass”? Does that change their moral compass, core values, or personality? Will “passing” make them better partners? It seems that while many people could be growing inside, this physical distraction might be preventing them from developing as humans. While focusing on “passing”, are they missing life?

I still feel like a male a lot of the time, but avoiding the trans trap has allowed me to focus on who I want to be as a person. Instead of bowing down to society’s pressure to present in a way that makes it easy for THEM, I chose ME and focused on how to be the person I want to be on the inside. When I see how little time “passing” leaves for self-reflection, I wonder if putting this pressure of physically presenting on hold would actually be a relief to my trans friends. My hope is that they would become free from worrying about whether or not their bodies “match” their brains. My body matches my brain perfectly. Because it’s MINE. What people think is no longer important.

Please feel free to respond to this post, and ask questions, as well as to answer any of the questions I posed in this post.

Is this an epidemic now?