The exchange below I took from http://janetmock.com/2013/09/12/men-who-date-attracted-to-trans-women-stigma/ the comments section, although the exchange has nothing to do about dating and everything to do about explaining what it is to be trans.
However, it is an outstanding, inspirational article by a trans woman when it comes to the world of dating cis men, having positive self-worth, and not being the "shameful secret." A must-read.
I got sucked into the comments section and found a great exchange of thoughts and feelings, highly educational and informative and just had to share!
Lee, a very analytical cis woman asks a question (I think she's confusing gender roles and expression vs gender identity and dysphoria), Jackie, a cis woman gives a pretty good explanation. Ellixis, a trans man gives the best explanation that gave me the chills! I can totally understand and get it. What do you think?
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Lee
September 28, 2013 at 9:25 pm
I want to begin by saying that this may come across as judgmental or something like that. But believe me when I say that I am not writing this out of any sort of malice or disrespect; I am writing because I am honestly curious; I know myself to be ignorant and genuinely want to understand better.
So I am speaking as a cis-gendered, heterosexual female. I was always brought up to judge people on their character, not based on anything like gender, race, sexual orientation, etc. etc. I truly am not just trying to sound pc here. Some of my best friends are gay, and I had this fascinating conversation about European history with a trans-woman I met once. My college has a comparatively large trans community – one of whom was the best chemistry TA EVER! and a trans-man who I will not deny, I found quite attractive. I did not pursue him because, well, I do not pursue ANYBODY. Because I’m a chump like that. Seriously. I’m WAY too shy for my own good. It’s pretty horrible.
All of that aside. I am very curious about the whole gender issue… I get really confused. I mean, I have never questioned my own gender, but I honestly believe that if I were born with man parts, I would be perfectly content living as a guy. I just am not sufficiently motivated to do so. Anyway, what I’m trying to get at is this: what does it mean to “feel like a woman” or “be a woman” born as a biological male? If it doesn’t matter who does what jobs or takes on which societal roles and responsibilities, why does gender matter at all?
Thus, why would a person feel the need to change their gender? I hate cooking, I hate cleaning, and I love math and physics. I don’t want kids. The only particularly “girl” thing about me is that I enjoy showing off my boobs and/or doing my hair/makeup from time to time. But not very frequently. I mean, ok, I don’t like using the word woman at all. Maybe it’s the biologist in me, but I prefer the term “female.” From my perspective, the box I check on government forms, or on facebook, is a biological fact – not a statement about who I am as a person.
I concede that, coming from the out-group in this case, I can try to understand but I will probably never fully comprehend. But I wonder if we lived in a world where mothers encouraged their daughters to play football if they want to… to make model airplanes… to play with those little green army men… Or in converse, if more dads encouraged their son to dance ballet, write poetry, do whatever it is society tells girls to do… I wonder if we lived in that world, if maybe there would be fewer people who felt the need to surgically alter their physically manifested sex? (I want to be a surgeon when I finish med school, so it’s not like I’m against surgery on principle).
I apologize if this has offended anyone – I cannot stress enough that this was not meant as an attack on any group or individual. I am a scientist. I get intellectually curious about things that I do not fully understand.
Thank you, and have a lovely day.
Jackie
October 11, 2013 at 12:38 am
Lee,
From how it has been described to me by many close transgender friends of mine, many trans people not only experience dysphoria due to societal norms based on gender, they experience a dysphoria about their bodies as well. Their mental “body map” (there is a term for it but it escapes me now) that tells them what parts of their body should be where doesn’t match the actual physicality of their body. So a transwoman isn’t just a male-bodied person who feels behaviorally/mentally they are a woman, they are a person who’s “body map” tells them when they look at their chest, they should have breasts or that when they look at their genitals there should be a vagina and not a penis. Also, there are many different levels of how a person who identifies as transgender wishes to change their body. Some only choose to take hormones and don’t wish to change their bodies surgically, others opt for surgery without hormones, and still others present themselves as their preferred gender through wardrobe/behavior. It is all acceptable and completely up to the individual. I went into a lot more detail there, but as far as your question goes, that at least how I understand it is why many desire a surgery option.
Ellixis
October 3, 2014 at 3:39 pm
I am a trans man. I’m going to take a shot at answering your question.
My parents didn’t force or even really push me to be “girly” as a child; I chose swimming classes over ballet, didn’t wear dresses most of the time, and played with toy cars and trucks as much as I played with dolls or stuffed animals. When playing pretend with my friends, I was the dad when we played house and the prince when we played princesses. It didn’t seem significant to me then, and I didn’t object to being considered a tomboy.
Just before puberty and when puberty began was when it started being problematic for me. I knew that I didn’t really feel like a girl, but since I had no awareness of the concept of being transgender and no idea that this wasn’t the way most girls felt, I assumed that this was normal. I thought that as puberty progressed, I’d start feeling like a girl. I looked forward to it, because even though I wasn’t made to act or dress girly, I still felt a subtle discord and discomfort with the idea of myself and my body, and I had a vague awareness that this had to do with my gender. However, instead of feeling more comfortable as my body shape altered and I grew breasts, I felt steadily less comfortable. It felt wrong, and I didn’t know why or even really how.
I’ve tried various approaches to dealing with my gender over the course of my life. I’ve tried dressing and acting in a more feminine way, and I’ve tried dressing and acting as an androgynous or masculine woman. It still doesn’t feel right, even all the way over on the butch end of the spectrum. I’ve never felt good about calling myself a woman or being referred to as “she.” The discomfort with my body has grown slowly worse as I’ve gotten older. I couldn’t tell you why, but that’s how it is.
The best metaphor I’ve come up with for the way my body dysphoria feels is this:
Imagine that you’re wearing a pair of pants one size too small. Imagine the way the pants pinch your waist, bind your thighs, and ride up at your ankles. It’s a relatively minor discomfort, and it probably doesn’t look too bad. If you don’t have another pair of pants to wear, you can deal with it. It’s workable, even if you’re not really comfortable.
Most of the time, as you go about your day wearing the wrong size pants, you’ll be able to ignore how it feels. You’ve got other things to think about, more important stuff to deal with. But the discomfort is always quietly there as background noise. If you have a minute in which you don’t have anything else to do, your discomfort with the badly-fitting pants might come back up to the top of your mind, and you’ll think about how you’d really rather have a pair of pants that fits you and wish you were home so you could change.
Now — take that feeling that you’re imagining, and imagine that instead of your pants not fitting, it’s your body that doesn’t fit. It’s a mental feeling instead of a physical one, but at least in my case, it’s a similar “sensation.” My body is the wrong shape, and I am not comfortable in it. I don’t like to look at it or be aware of it, and I’d rather change it so it fits my internal experience of how I should feel.
This isn’t necessarily representative of all trans people’s experience, but I hope it helps you understand a little better as to why I can’t just be a masculine woman, why instead I need to be a trans man.
This post was edited by Former Member at June 9, 2016 8:40 PM BST