Transgender Q&A

[surrogate corpse]

can't type a response now, but I'll try to do so in the next day or so. feel free to bug me if i forget

[surrogate corpse]

2 hours ago, liminal_luke said:

 

Is it?  Seems to me that almost everyone from a very young age can reliably sort people into male and female groupings at sight.  There are some people of indeterminate sex, of course, but the vast majority of folks are born clearly male or female.  I realize that these categories don´t feel comfortable to some people.  Some people avail themselves of medical therapies to successfully change their outward appearance such they appear as a different sex -- and if this make them happier or relieves suffering then more power to them!  But let´s not deny the reality of the categories themselves.  Afterall, if "maleness" or "femaleness" didn´t exist there would be nothing to transition away from.

Ok, got a free moment...

 

There's two issues here, first about the status of the categories related to "biological sex", the second related to what is required to make sense of transition. I'll take them in turn.

 

1. Biological sex categories

 

It's true that there are two biological poles of human sexuality (there are interesting biological/mathematical reasons for this!). These poles involve traits along a number of dimensions (chromosomal, hormonal, behavioral, external-appearance, etc.), which tend to covary but don't necessarily. And, again, some of them are more mutable (with current technology) than others. (None are absolutely immutable.)

 

My point is precisely that our ability to socially recognize "males" and "females" is a simplification imposed on a biological reality that is more complicated. I am absolutely not denying that we can do it. But what we're tracking directly when we make these distinctions (external presentation) is not what anyone takes to be essential to "biological" sex (chromosomes and/or gametes), and the mapping between them is complex. And, indeed, very nearly every aspect of sex classification that feeds into this classificatory ability is mutable with current technology. So I don't take this classificatory ability to speak strongly in favor of realism about immutable biological sex categories.

 

2. Making sense of transition

 

You say: "if "maleness" or "femaleness" didn´t exist there would be nothing to transition away from"

 

I think this is gets transition very importantly wrong. Transition does not need to be understand as moving away from one category toward another category.

 

For example, I really want bottom surgery. What does this involve? It involves replacing one set of genitalia with another. That is a concrete change, motivated by the fact that my current genital arrangement causes me significant distress. You can understand it as it presents itself: as a desire to replace genitalia. To then call it a change from "maleness" to "femaleness" is a conceptual imposition. Many trans women are quite happy with their "male" genital arrangement. It is, in fact, a choice to deem the penis "male"—a choice that, I might cheekily say, suggests a lamentable unfamiliarity with the pleasure of getting dicked down by a girl. (One can say similar things about boypussy.)

 

This holds for transition-related changes in general. They all deal with particular points of discomfort. One can group those together into more encompassing categories if one wants, but doing so is not required for making sense of transition.

 

And, indeed, I think recognizing this is really important. It is a major barrier to trans people figuring out that they want to transition that we think about it in terms of these nebulous, ill-defined categories. Do I want to be a woman? What's a woman? How does one know one falls into that category? I have watched so many girls trap themselves with this—it just functions as an unnecessary entry barrier to transition, when the reality is very simple. As I said in my first post in this thread:

 

Hungry? Eat

Thirsty? Drink

Want tits? Take estrogen

Want to be called "she" instead of "he"? Change your pronouns

And so on

 

The desires are always more particular than the categories, and the categories are more a hindrance than a help.

 

Long reply so I'll stop here. Hope something in this resonates : )

[Salvijus]

7 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

 

I've never found that to be true.

 

 

This thread alone is the proof that people can be inspired to observe and self-reflect and question something deeper. That is very auspicious in my view. This thread is full of auspicious moments imo. 

Edited April 24 by Salvijus

[liminal_luke]

10 hours ago, surrogate corpse said:

 

. It is, in fact, a choice to deem the penis "male"

 

This is, shall we say, a minority opinion.  And it gets at the heart of what many people find disconcerting about what is often called "gender ideology."  I get that it works for you to decouple genetalia from cultural meaning, but I´m a pretty phallocentric guy and the cultural trappings that normatively accompany having a dick work for me.  My dick is very central to my identity as a male. To me, it´s not just a "choice" to call having a dick a male thing.  Using the word "choice" here decontextualizes dick-edness in a way that gets my gruff.  It´s one thing to decide to get rid of your dick because you don´t like it, quite another to impose a particular understanding of what it means, or rather doesn´t mean, to have a dick on the rest of the dick-possessing world.  

Edited April 24 by liminal_luke

[blue eyed snake]

10 hours ago, liminal_luke said:

 

Is it?  Seems to me that almost everyone from a very young age can reliably sort people into male and female groupings at sight.  There are some people of indeterminate sex, of course, but the vast majority of folks are born clearly male or female.  I realize that these categories don´t feel comfortable to some people.  Some people avail themselves of medical therapies to successfully change their outward appearance such they appear as a different sex -- and if this make them happier or relieves suffering then more power to them!  But let´s not deny the reality of the categories themselves.  Afterall, if "maleness" or "femaleness" didn´t exist there would be nothing to transition away from. 

 

yeah but ...

 

ehm, when we were young people were neatly classified in male and female ( as god ordained )

 

Babies have no idea about male and female, 3 year olds in general have observed this classification. Brothers, fathers and boys are male, sisters, moms and girls are classed as female. But from the time they are babies they are approached according to their sexe. That is outcome of research but I've observed that rearing my son.

 

I got clothing from a sister who had a girl about a year older then my boy. so as a baby he had a nice warm pink babysuit. "oooh, what a lovely little girl, and your momma dressed you warmly to protect you from the cold, what a sweet girl you are"

Next week, same bakery, blue jacket and babyjeans, " now you're a sturdy little boy, you can handle the cold eh. You make your momma proud. See those different messages? shaping the expectations our society has from boys and girls, those expectations partly  shape our personalities. I found it also interesting that (perceived) babygirls got higher voices cooing over them then babyboys

 

so there's the biological aspect plus the societal aspects that tries to mold us into gender-specific behavior and identification.

 

But also, as a kid I was thus taught there are 2 categories, boy or girl. Nothing else to choose from. Well i was very sure I was not a girl so I had to be a boy. It was not that I wanted a dick  @Apech,  but i had classified myself as a boy "because i was not a girl" so there was no other choice. I expected to grow a dick as it was needed to fulfill the role of "boy"  just as my big sister in those days was growing boobs.

 

During my younger years I have so often wondered what was wrong with me, after a time I sort of decided I was a lesbian, but that was not right to as there were also guys I liked to share my bed with, so then I was biseksual. But why did I lean to be a man...et cetera.  For young people it is important to be clear about who they are, where they belong and what their place in a group is.

How they identify as it is currently called.

 

But the dichotomy male - female is not true, it is manmade, as there are people who are neither, That's both the intersex people and the trans/nonbinary people. Now that may not be a large group, but many people belong to it.

 

My life would have been a lot easier when i had been aware there exists a third category for those that do not fit in the large dichotomy. The way I lean to when doing nothing ( Thanks @surrogate corpse ) is mostly male, but I can lean female too. The current generation would probably label me nonbinary, for me, after all those decades, I am human and that's okay.

 

 

[blue eyed snake]

14 hours ago, Nungali said:

 

But WHY ?????? I never got this   ( the pants for boys dresses for girls thing ) .

 

Dresses or kilts or similar ... or at least a pants with codpiece suits the male anatomy ,  pants do not !   Pants suit more the female anatomy .   I even remember it being weird , when fitted for a junior school uniform being asked if I 'dressed to the left or right ', I had no idea what that meant . Later when I understood I thought ' Why should I do either ' ?    Why do I need that seam up there in the way at all ?  It can get quiet uncomfortable .

 

well....try to climb a tree, puddlejump, crouch through mud, catch toads dressed like this, while staying clean to top it off. As nice girls keep their clothing and shoes clean and neat. I just never aspired to be a nice girl I guess.

 

I preferred wellies, pants and  a sweater or shirt, 

at the end of the street nature began and I could play there all I wanted, as long as was at home in time for dinner everything was fine.

 

 

 

 

Edited April 24 by blue eyed snake
pics gone awry

[liminal_luke]

27 minutes ago, blue eyed snake said:

But the dichotomy male - female is not true, it is manmade, as there are people who are neither, That's both the intersex people and the trans/nonbinary people. Now that may not be a large group, but many people belong to it.

 

 

I don´t mean to exclude you, BES, or anybody else's for that matter.  I just want my own understanding of myself to be included in this gender umbrella.  I have a distinct memory as a young adolescent, perhaps around 13, of marveling at my genetalia.  I thought then, and think now, that having a penis is a distinct marker of masculinity.  I liked that.  I don´t want anybody to take that away from me, not even for the sake of including someone else.  Surely there´s room for all of our messy and contradictory human experiences?

Edited April 24 by liminal_luke

[blue eyed snake]

11 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

 

I don´t mean to exclude you, BES, or anybody else's for that matter.  I just want my own understanding of myself to be included in this gender umbrella.  I have a distinct memory as a young adolescent, perhaps around 13, of marveling at my genetalia.  I thought then, and think now, that having a penis is a distinct marker of masculinity.  I liked that.  I don´t want anybody to take that away from me, not even for the sake of including someone else.  Surely there´s room for all of our messy and contradictory human experiences?

 

Oh, i do not feel excluded Luke, on the contrary. I've met many a man with the same sort of relation ( for want of a better word,) with their genitalia.

 

just like women who feel their boobs are an important part of their being female ( which was one of the reasons I have been so insecure about who am I btw. I've regarded those boobs as unwanted as first, because they got in the way playing, later they got in the way of feeling myself as suddenly the whole world was adamantly treating me as girl. And now they get in the way, quite literally when i look down. I never had any emotional relationship with em, the only reason I would like to not have em is they get in the way, useless pieces of flesh) so thats the same sort of reason I am not happy with the weight I gained, the wrinkles that appeared and I won't anybody touch a knife to my body.

 

But regarding the question whether a dick is a distinct marker of masculinity, i do agree. For almost all males it is.

and i guess this person agrees too.

 

( warning, sensitive content  )

Spoiler

 

[surrogate corpse]

@liminal_luke

 

Thanks for the pushback. I want to reply (more briefly this time (editor's note: lol)) to one of your points, because I think it expresses a real concern, and I want to allay that concern. I'm not doing what you think I'm doing. I'm not wanting to take anything from you. Well, maybe one thing I'd gently suggest you'd be happier without... ; )

 

You talk about the importance of having a dick to your maleness, and express concern that I'm taking that meaning away from you. But I assure you I am not. It is wonderful for men to use their dicks as powerful symbols of their masculinity. It is also wonderful for women to use their dicks as powerful symbols of their femininity. There is no contradiction between these. Both can be affirmed. (Zhuangzi would call this 因是, yinshi, adaptive affirmation, as opposed to 為是, weishi, contriving affirmation).

 

What I am asking for is an opening up of the space of conception that makes both of those possibilities equally available and equally culturally acceptable (along with a whole range of other possibilities). Doing this does involve a certain "decontextualization" of the dick, and here your concerns arise. It is important to you that it is not a "choice" to regard your dick in the way that you do. Here is the one thing I want to take from you: I think it is a choice for you, and for everyone.

 

The alternative to it being a choice for everyone is for a certain way of meaning-making about dicks to be standard and normative for everyone, and for the people who go against it (trans women, in this instance) to be marginalized. You worry:

 

Quote

It´s one thing to decide to get rid of your dick because you don´t like it, quite another to impose a particular understanding of what it means, or rather doesn´t mean, to have a dick on the rest of the dick-possessing world.

 

My contention is that any sort of standard cultural meaning for dicks is an imposition on the dick-possessing world (and an imposition that we have chosen—we could do it differently). I entirely share your aim of making "room for all of our messy and contradictory human experiences"; this is purely a disagreement about how to go about it.

 

As for my thoughts being a minority or majority opinion, I don't know anything about that. I just think they're true, and that more widespread recognition of them would make a happier world for cis and trans people alike. : )

[liminal_luke]

@surrogate corpse

 

If somebody experiences their dick as a powerful symbol of their femininity, well, who am I to say differently?  That seems odd to me but I guess I´ll just add it to the growing list of things I don´t understand about this crazy life.  

[surrogate corpse]

my main aim here is to make room for the odd, the vast, the beguiling, the wily, the freak 

 

[liminal_luke]

1 minute ago, surrogate corpse said:

my main aim here is to make room for the odd, the vast, the beguiling, the wily, the freak 

 

 

I would say you are succeeding.

Edited April 24 by liminal_luke

[blue eyed snake]

20 minutes ago, surrogate corpse said:

As for my thoughts being a minority or majority opinion, I don't know anything about that. I just think they're true, and that more widespread recognition of them would make a happier world for cis and trans people alike. : )

 

well, just as I did not like the majority opinion pushed on my life the opposite is true, most people are content with their existence as guy or gal plus the physical adornments that come with it.

Trying to change that is one of the reasons the opposition against trans people is growing, which in its wake has caused me not to get out of the closet.

imho you youngsters are pushing too hard.

 

Further I wonder, when dick is not symbol for masculinity, why do transmen get surgery to get themselves a dick ( of sorts), and vice versa why do trans woman get bottomsurgery.

[liminal_luke]

I guess I still think dicks are a male thing because of the function the dick has in sex; the whole process of enseminating is quintessentially male.  This is not a culturally imposed thing -- it´s objective reality.  Just like pregnancy is a female thing.  I continue to believe in anatomy as the basic marker of manhood and womanhood.  How people fit into that or don´t fit into that is something else, but our anatomy does matter.

Edited April 24 by liminal_luke

[liminal_luke]

...

Edited April 24 by liminal_luke

[Apech]

2 hours ago, blue eyed snake said:

 

yeah but ...

 

ehm, when we were young people were neatly classified in male and female ( as god ordained )

 

Babies have no idea about male and female, 3 year olds in general have observed this classification. Brothers, fathers and boys are male, sisters, moms and girls are classed as female. But from the time they are babies they are approached according to their sexe. That is outcome of research but I've observed that rearing my son.

 

I got clothing from a sister who had a girl about a year older then my boy. so as a baby he had a nice warm pink babysuit. "oooh, what a lovely little girl, and your momma dressed you warmly to protect you from the cold, what a sweet girl you are"

Next week, same bakery, blue jacket and babyjeans, " now you're a sturdy little boy, you can handle the cold eh. You make your momma proud. See those different messages? shaping the expectations our society has from boys and girls, those expectations partly  shape our personalities. I found it also interesting that (perceived) babygirls got higher voices cooing over them then babyboys

 

so there's the biological aspect plus the societal aspects that tries to mold us into gender-specific behavior and identification.

 

But also, as a kid I was thus taught there are 2 categories, boy or girl. Nothing else to choose from. Well i was very sure I was not a girl so I had to be a boy. It was not that I wanted a dick  @Apech,  but i had classified myself as a boy "because i was not a girl" so there was no other choice. I expected to grow a dick as it was needed to fulfill the role of "boy"  just as my big sister in those days was growing boobs.

 

During my younger years I have so often wondered what was wrong with me, after a time I sort of decided I was a lesbian, but that was not right to as there were also guys I liked to share my bed with, so then I was biseksual. But why did I lean to be a man...et cetera.  For young people it is important to be clear about who they are, where they belong and what their place in a group is.

How they identify as it is currently called.

 

But the dichotomy male - female is not true, it is manmade, as there are people who are neither, That's both the intersex people and the trans/nonbinary people. Now that may not be a large group, but many people belong to it.

 

My life would have been a lot easier when i had been aware there exists a third category for those that do not fit in the large dichotomy. The way I lean to when doing nothing ( Thanks @surrogate corpse ) is mostly male, but I can lean female too. The current generation would probably label me nonbinary, for me, after all those decades, I am human and that's okay.

 

 

 

I was being crass @blue eyed snake so sorry.

 

 

[surrogate corpse]

I'm thinking carefully about what to say, because I feel likely I am saying X fairly explicitly, and yet I am being heard as saying Y. Let me see if I can put my finger on it.

 

I am trying to say: Human anatomy is just an arrangement of flesh. A wide range of meanings can be (and are) imposed on these arrangements. Some fit traditional ways of thinking about gender. Others don't. None of them are incompatible, so let's make space for all of them. Incompatibility only arises when one set of meanings is imposed on everyone. But that imposition is optional.

 

I am being heard as saying: Cis men should not see and treat their dicks as masculine. Cis women should not see and treat their vaginas and breasts as feminine. The meanings that make sense of your life for you: those are bad. You must give them up, and replace them with the correct meanings, which I shall tell you. If you don't give them up, I will take them away.

 

— —

 

What causes this mishearing? Maybe this. There is one thing I want folks to give up: the idea that one set of meanings placed on our anatomy is privileged because it reflects "objective reality". This indeed removes a certain validation of one's chosen meanings, the validation that comes from the feeling that nature herself approves them. Is that loss of external validation being felt as the loss of those meanings themselves? I would insist that the meanings can stand without it!

Edited April 24 by surrogate corpse

[liminal_luke]

...

Edited April 24 by liminal_luke

[liminal_luke]

Whew...this has been quite the ride.  I often rethink my posts after I´ve written them and decided to let a few of my latest entries go.  What came over me?  This thread was winding down nicely and it seemed everyone had settled into a cozy and nearly miraculous peace.  And then for some reason I decided to kick up some dirt -- go figure.  Anyway, thanks to all who have contributed here and especially to Maddie.  If the point of this thread was to make people think, then I count it a rousing success.

[Apech]

4 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

Whew...this has been quite the ride.  I often rethink my posts after I´ve written them and decided to let a few of my latest entries go.  What came over me?  This thread was winding down nicely and it seemed everyone had settled into a cozy and nearly miraculous peace.  And then for some reason I decided to kick up some dirt -- go figure.  Anyway, thanks to all who have contributed here and especially to Maddie.  If the point of this thread was to make people think, then I count it a rousing success.

Brother Luke trolls the thread.

[Maddie]

I guess since I've already owned being an attention whore there's really nothing holding me back is there? 🤭😂🫣

Edited April 24 by Maddie

[Maddie]

3 hours ago, liminal_luke said:

I guess I still think dicks are a male thing because of the function the dick has in sex; the whole process of enseminating is quintessentially male.  This is not a culturally imposed thing -- it´s objective reality.  Just like pregnancy is a female thing.  I continue to believe in anatomy as the basic marker of manhood and womanhood.  How people fit into that or don´t fit into that is something else, but our anatomy does matter.

 

I mean I think I agree because I had been wanting to get rid of that thing ever since I was little for that reason.

Edited April 24 by Maddie

[blue eyed snake]

2 hours ago, surrogate corpse said:

I'm thinking carefully about what to say, because I feel likely I am saying X fairly explicitly, and yet I am being heard as saying Y. Let me see if I can put my finger on it.

 

I am trying to say: Human anatomy is just an arrangement of flesh. A wide range of meanings can be (and are) imposed on these arrangements. Some fit traditional ways of thinking about gender. Others don't. None of them are incompatible, so let's make space for all of them. Incompatibility only arises when one set of meanings is imposed on everyone. But that imposition is optional.

 

I am being heard as saying: Cis men should not see and treat their dicks as masculine. Cis women should not see and treat their vaginas and breasts as feminine. The meanings that make sense of your life for you: those are bad. You must give them up, and replace them with the correct meanings, which I shall tell you. If you don't give them up, I will take them away.

 

— —

 

What causes this mishearing? Maybe this. There is one thing I want folks to give up: the idea that one set of meanings placed on our anatomy is privileged because it reflects "objective reality". This indeed removes a certain validation of one's chosen meanings, the validation that comes from the feeling that nature herself approves them. Is that loss of external validation being felt as the loss of those meanings themselves? I would insist that the meanings can stand without it!

 

change is hard eh, and for most people physical reality is all there is.

You are talking about different identities and bodies, I hardly identify with my body anymore, but will not tell anybody in real life, would only make life harder for me.

 

 

apart from the physical reality as objective reality, the approvement by nature, at least were I live, a lot of things are changing and people do not react well to that, they loose their accustomed structures. tbh i see societal structures collapsing and i do not think that bodes well. I guess part of the backlash transpeople get is overflow from other changes.

being scapegoated.

 

But i still cannot get feminine dick energy

 

I get people feel not at home in body

I get people wanting boobs or mastectomy

I have trouble getting bottom surgery but know a transwoman my age who did that and she was radiantly happy, at last she was who she want meant to be. Although she had some nasty complications.

 

I can understand how one tries to tie together body features and feelings.

 

But I do not get feminine dickenergy, i can understand it as a way of tying together several layers of being.

as something very personal for your body/emotional stuff

 

But looking at that transman I posted some posts before, i do guess that the changing of the physical reality plays a big part  for trans-people and I have always wondered whether that is because they then feel better in their body or they are better accepted in their new genderrole or both.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Apech]

15 minutes ago, Maddie said:

I guess since I've already owned being an attention whore there's really nothing holding me back is there? 🤭😂🫣

 

Yeah but Buddhism for Dummies?

[blue eyed snake]

1 hour ago, liminal_luke said:

Whew...this has been quite the ride.  I often rethink my posts after I´ve written them and decided to let a few of my latest entries go.  What came over me?  This thread was winding down nicely and it seemed everyone had settled into a cozy and nearly miraculous peace.  And then for some reason I decided to kick up some dirt -- go figure.  Anyway, thanks to all who have contributed here and especially to Maddie.  If the point of this thread was to make people think, then I count it a rousing success.

 

yeah...i saw that happening, i should-have quoted all your posts