#cis people are great sometimes

[non-un-topo]

More cishet observations from the past month at work:

- They really fucking buzz off of the TERF wizard book series

- Their favourite place on Earth is Florida (why???)

- If you tell them you're an artist, they will ask you if you've ever "tried out AI"

- They will joke about OCD a lot

- They absolutely hate their bodies and will take any opportunity to talk about food in a toxic way (bonus points if they compare their body/food to yours)

- They hate their spouses and think that this is funny

- They. Do not. Have interests. (Besides the TERF wizard book series)

- They don't watch movies or TV??

- If they have kids, the way they talk about them makes it sound like it was genuinely the worst decision they ever made

- If they don't have kids, they will still fucking talk about having them

- They don't like cats??

In other weird news, I'm gendered correctly at work and I pass to the point that cishets actually talk to me like I'm a cishet guy.

[purplespookybatx3]

over time ive began to realise that i literally dont know what it means to feel like a boy or to feel like a girl. like how would you KNOW. what does that FEEL like

[shadowkira]

Another thing since I'm apparently venting today:

While it is perfectly fine and honestly encouraged to headcanon characters as trans fem, trans masc or nonbinary... Don't use a canonically cis dude to bash a canonically nonbinary character.

Saw someone dunking on Venture being too feminine and then showing four "masculine nonbinary characters" as examples.

....One was a robot and the other was a cis man, Asra from the Arcana. He's very pretty but this doesn't strengthen your argument, especially when Venture is arguably more masculine visually than Asra. They're a cute little dirty gremlin and I honestly am considering going back to playing. I miss the game but I'm so tired of all the negative shit in the fandom and that the devs get put through.

[biromanticwritergal]

I remember cosplaying as a teen. I used to mostly dress as male characters just because the girl's outfits were usually too short/revealing that I wouldn't feel comfortable in. It was fun wearing suits and men's clothing.

I thought of it again last night even though I gave up cosplaying a WHILE ago because I'm not really into anime any more.

However, in college, I very nearly went out for a student drag show. I had a persona and everything. I backed out at the last second. Not proud of that, but it's what I did.

But the idea just kind of sat with me and has come back to me a few times since then.

There was a joke my friend and I had. He made a fake drag persona to go with mine. I don't think he thought I was serious but I think I might have been.

[invisiblyvisiblejay]

can i say i don't believe in cishet people in an academic essay that im turning in to the 70+ year old dean of the honors college

[drdemonprince]

I don’t mean to come off as rude or anything but how do non-passing trans men benefit from patriarchal or transmisogynistic systems? /gen please, I’m sorry

If you are a non-passing trans man, that means you are, broadly speaking, probably categorizable by most people as belonging to the gender group you were assigned at birth. While this is likely to be a highly dysphoric experience for you, and subjects you to a lot of forms of misogyny, it also means that you reap the benefits of being perceived to conform to one's assigned gender category, and a gender category that does also confer some privileges.

There are a great many privileges afforded to cis women compared to other gender minorities. You are not treated legally or socially the way that trans women are. You are not seen by default as a predator or a pervert, variance in your gender expression is more likely to be seen as acceptable or at least understandable rather than perverse and dangerous, legally you are not marked as the other, and if anyone does target you for violence or state repression by virtue of your transness, you have the power to turn down a whole hell of a lot of that heat by clarifying that you are not a trans woman. Some amount of expressing or aspiring toward masculinity in those viewed as cis women is tolerated in society, and showing masculine mannerisms or communication styles is sometimes downright rewarded even in non-passing trans men.

Within spaces that are for nonbinary or trans people, you can move with complete freedom as a non-passing trans man, viewed as welcome, safe to be around, desirable, understanding of the community's shared struggles, typical, expected, unremarkable, relatable, and normal. Every single trans space will understand you as an explicable member of it, and not police your identity the way they would the belongingness, safety, or legitimacy of a trans woman. You can find depictions of trans people similar to yourself in a lot of media, and that media will generally not depict you as a dangerous serial killer pedophile (whereas most of the media depictions of trans women do). You can use dating apps both for men or for women with a very low likelihood of being kicked off.

By virtue of not being a trans woman, you can access women's reproductive healthcare centers, women's shelters, women's sports teams and clubs, compete in women's sports free from transphobic discrimination, and participate generally in social spaces designed for gender minorities -- this again might be a *highly* dysphoric experience for you and not feel at all like a privilege, but it does mean you have access to resources that others do not.

By virtue of being a man, you have a degree of psychological remove from the "female" roles and standards imposed on you. You still experience sexism, discrimination, and are held to unfair standards to whatever extent you do move socially as a cis woman, but you also have a distance from those standards truly being relevant to you both psychologically and insofar as you read to others as moving beyond that categorization. You will always occupy a position that is less reviled, exploited, excluded, and feared than that of trans women in society, and you can utilize that distance from trans women to protect yourself and socially benefit whenever you want to, whether you actually do so or not.

I think it is important for people who feel resistance to this idea to think about how all of the challenges and unfairness that they very much *do* face would be amplified and rendered more complex and dangerous if they were having to move through the world as a trans woman. And if you can't imagine how *that* would make things harder, then you need a lot more friends who are trans women.

[rederiswrites]

Sometimes I'm on here and y'all make posts that just make me go, "you are very young and would benefit from learning something about our culture in the last hundred years".

Yes, people are upset by trans and enby people, because their lives are entirely structured around the different roles of men and women, and the idea that men and women are fundamentally different and inherently suited to their traditional roles. Like, that shouldn't be a big realization. That was a major part of western culture until quite recently, and still is for a great many people. We attack their basic worldview by existing as ourselves. Obviously they're wrong, but that doesn't change the emotion of the situation.

Yes, conservative cis people act like marriage is a chore. For most of history, and certainly US colonial history, marriage was a social and economic necessity that created a working partnership. Attraction was certainly a hoped-for element but not strictly required, and love was a bonus, possibly even a bit suspect as a motivation. It was still like this when my grandparents married. I know couples today who are separated but married for financial reasons. We're not talking about the distant past. Marriage has been many things through the years, and "an equal partnership based on love" is a very recent iteration. Of course our culture is littered with artifacts of the older way. The older way was like...yesterday. Today.

Yes, Grandma has trouble at the grocery store checkout. When she was a kid they had rotary phones and radios, and you paid for everything with cash. She grew up in a culture that taught that childhood was for learning and adulthood was for doing, and now the world is asking her to learn a bunch of new things that basically sound like magic, and she's not even sure she can, and she's not at all sure it's an improvement (and she's got a point, though she might not know it).

There's just....a real lack of perspective. I dunno, watch some documentaries about the fifties. Read some historical novels. Go to the local Victorian house tour.

[genderqueerdykes]

just kind of throwing this at your wall, sorry in advance. saw the post about "kill all men" and got really upset

im a trans guy. my boyfriend is cis, and im the first guy hes dated before. (sees me fully as whatever i want to be, does not care about my gender expression and loves me for me. great guy). he doesnt have many friends from being asocial as a teenager, so most of his friends are my trans friends!

of course. like every trans group seems to fall prey to, theres always the "all [CIS] men are bad" conversation that comes up somehow. and i never really thought much of it, because in my head itd be "ah yeah all men Except My Boyfriend"

but he and i were talking after some drinks, and he made a point that really struck me. about how he doesn't like being The Exception to the point, that he's still a man and has no interest in being anything But a man. so when people say stuff like that, he gets uncomfortable; not because He IS The Problem (like everyone who gives the "if youre saying not all men, youre the men" argument) but because it makes him feel ostracized from everyone. and idk, it really struck me.

we say stuff like that way too often in an attempt to exclude certain groups of people; and i feel like we end up excluding people close to us by proxy.

thanks for listening

i really appreciate you for taking the time to send this. i've been meaning to talk about this and have been forgetting. the following is of course not directed at you, anon, it is directed at people who behave like this

you're not feminist, progressive, cool, pro-queer rights or funny for saying "kill all men". you are exposing that you are a violent and dangerous person for believing that people should be profiled and literally killed for their gender or PERCEIVED gender.

this doesn't make people like you more. it outs you as a danger. how do we know you won't turn that hatred toward women whenever you feel like changing the goalposts? i can't trust someone like that to not turn that hatred toward other genders, either. YOU are the dangerous person you are profiling men as. you can't use men as a scapegoat for everything. sometimes YOU are the violent person who needs help.

your boyfriend shouldn't have to feel like that. like people have never really cared about gay men but people just straight up gave up all pretenses that they do and i hate it. cis men are not inherently evil. cis men can still be queer. cis men can still be good people. your boyfriend shouldn't have to feel isolated because he's cis. that's profiling. he belongs. why do people assume that everyone with a partner who is a man hates them? not everyone is choosing to be in a relationship with someone they hate. i understand that some people will date someone no matter who just to have a partner so they're not lonely, but not everyone does this. some people genuinely love their boyfriends

i'm sorry you both have dealt with this. i hope things can improve because men don't deserve to feel like this. this is why toxic masculinity exists in the first place. we have to stop reinforcing that men are evil monsters. they won't stop believing that if we keep telling them that forever. stay safe. your boyfriend is not a bad person & deserves to have a wonderful life.

[dolphin-diaries]

Who Gets To Talk Detransition?

Originally published on Dolphin Diaries

The story is supposed to go like this: a trans cult, or maybe the medical establishment, steals a young girl under its ghastly wing. A wounded girl, a scared one, desperate for reprieve from a violent world that has whipped her into self-hatred. The kidnapping cultists promise an escape. A cure to the horror of her body. Then, mutilation follows, which a brave few will eventually try to undo—only they never quite can.

No, wait.

The story is supposed to go like this: some people are trans men. They are assigned female at birth, but they are men, and so some want to make their body male. But sometimes, a select few regret their transition. They aren’t trans men. They’re actually cis—in agreement with their sex—but they’ve made a mistake for whatever reason. They are very scarce. A statistically inconsequential minority to which we ought not cede ground. After all, why should a society be concerned with a statistically minuscule people?

Regardless of which way you tell it, two constants remain. One: the trans and the detrans are antagonistic; the detrans have been hurt by transition care and now threaten its existence. Two: those that detransition are seeking to correct a prior mistake. Be it from the right or left, the story is always that of failure and regret.

Part I: When Your Worst Fears Come True

September 2023 marked the eighth anniversary of me starting testosterone. Getting HRT was something I’d fought for with great difficulty and determination: I’d burned bridges with an abusive family; I’d come out a year prior to the entirety of my university class and had already lived as a man; I then dropped out of university so I could work a full-time job to afford HRT. I did all this with full knowledge that I could not access the legal transition system in my country. I’d be unable to change my gender marker and would have to deal with that fact in a place where most people barely know what ‘transgender’ is, let alone accept it. But I was willing to weather all of that, and to my luck, I had no trouble passing for a man, and the vast majority of friends and acquaintances accepted me.

Needless to say, I was ecstatic to start testosterone. In adolescence my masculinity had been denied to me, the feminine traits of myself and my body forcibly exaggerated to put me in my (woman’s) place. Now, it felt like having all the features I’d come to despise overtaken by new growth. Like a ruin reclaimed by fresh ivy. I wasn’t entirely content—I wanted to be indistinguishable from a cis man, untouched by any insidious womanhood whatsoever. Only I found most cis men either uninspired-looking or repugnant, so… a pretty cis man? Androgynous, but not too androgynous, so I don’t get gay-bashed?

The real end goal I wished of my body was nebulous. There was no man I could cite as the Ur-Man for me, trans or cis, neither in character nor appearance. It wasn’t for lack of the much maligned Good Male Role Models in my life; I simply resonated with none of them. But there was life to be lived anyway. So I put one foot in front of the other, and sometimes, I knew my steps were dictated as much by fear of transphobia as they were by my own desires.

There are many things to fear while living as trans. One of my most personal anxieties was detransition. A forced one would be most horrid; to be put in a position where my bodily autonomy, so hard-won, could be stripped away as if it never existed.

But my strangest fear was that I would want to detransition. Not from some cruel necessity or right-wing brainwashing or what have you; genuinely, rationally, actively want it.

I knew why I feared that. Whenever I met another trans man or heard of their stories, some jigsaw puzzles would simply not fit. I never once desired to be a man until I learned of trans men’s existence. Never sought to play the role of a man and only half-enjoyed them now, if at all. Never, not even now, dreamt of myself as a man. At times another trans man would have the same ‘odd’ pieces, but then something else would find itself amiss again. On and on that list went.

One might call this a foregone conclusion in retrospect. Shouldn’t I have known? Shouldn’t a doctor have known? But this rather ignores that the psychology and study of transsexuality are hopelessly warped with attempts to eradicate it. My country’s procedures were dated. The questionnaires I took to have my doctor conclude I’m transsexual? Those were lousy with decades-dated misogyny (do you like housework? do you get aroused by housework? or maybe by cars?) and with voyeuristic, invasive questions (how do you have sex? how do you masturbate?) There were correct answers; there was no variation, which is only allowed for the cisgender. That procedure has since improved, especially in the West, but the traces remain. How does one introspect on one’s gender when that was the model for it? How does one even attempt to unravel the relationship between misogyny and desire to abandon womanhood when to do so threatens access to medical care? What sign ought I have looked for to distinguish myself from trans men when it was demanded no distinctions exist?

One does not exit a hostile care system with a healthier, more stable identity. That is nothing short of a miracle.

September 2023 marked the eighth anniversary of me exiting hostile care with a coveted prize in my grasp. It also marked the moment I looked in the mirror and saw exactly what I’d sought to win in that hellscape: an indisputable man. Not a cis man, of course, but one bereft of all the features that had haunted me to the point of self-harm. I was free, I had won; no one would ever look at me and think me a woman—no one ever did, those days.

I had won. And in my victory, I felt nothing at all.

Part II: Failure and Regret

The Right invests much bombast into transition regret. Loud ring the warning bells: this could happen to you! Your child! A girl with so much to live for, rendered barren, flat-chested, a misshapen man-thing! You, too, will live to regret it!

It amuses me. Queerness and butchness had marked me long ago; I was never particularly buxom or fecund. Never, in the heterosexist sense, something worthy of desire. I was a misshapen man-thing far before I asked people to call me ‘he.’ The people who made sure I knew I was a monster man-woman were precisely the kinds of people that now warned me away from turning myself into what—according to them—I already was. The sheer parental panic with which I’d been forced into makeup and dresses, you’d think I transitioned already.

Even more amusingly, sometimes the Right claims to care about butch lesbians. Tomboys are being mutilated, they say. It’s an imposition of gender stereotypes; women can be masculine!

But if the Right believes women can be lesbian and masculine, what’s with the whole fixation on ruined femininity and birthing wombs?

Indeed, the Right’s acceptance of detransitioned women is full of little caveats. They are to be paraded as damaged goods at conservative rallies. Their lost breasts and ovaries will be ever-ogled, figuratively if not literally, and the ‘irreversible damage’ left by testosterone examined with morbid fascination. They are the Right’s Magdalenes. They’re proof there’s good in the transgressive—that is, that the enemy can be pitied, assimilated. As an underclass, of course. They’re never to truly cease being damaged, for they must be proof that sex can only be ruined, never changed.

For a detransitioner, there is temptation in the Right’s conditional acceptance. It offers an easy answer to their current pain. The past choice they may regret or suffer under—why, it should’ve been prevented! If only you listened to the right authorities, all would’ve been well. Not altogether different than regretting a marriage or college major. Many an adult decries stupid choices of youth—and those certainly happen—but what’s scariest of all is the notion you weren’t making rash or ill-informed decisions. I know I wasn’t. And if that is so, then it means the current self—the mature one, the one with 20/20 hindsight—could make a mistake, too.

Right-wing detransitioners take for granted there exists a guardian angel that could’ve healed them of the gendered distress they once felt and showed them a path to contentment. That is a very tall order, considering how misogynistic and hostile psychiatry and psychology are, historically speaking. And that’s to say nothing of religion. But at least they would’ve been prevented from transitioning; misery averted—right?

My guardian angel, you could say, was lack of funds. I wanted top surgery—double mastectomy—but there was no way I could afford it, not in many years’ time. Now I realise I would’ve come to regret it and would’ve likely sought to reverse its effects. So I’m all good, right? I benefitted from how flawed trans healthcare is, didn’t I?

Perhaps. But there was a reason I wanted a mastectomy, and not a frivolous one. Every time I needed to see a doctor for a respiratory infection, I did so in fear of transphobic malpractice. I would minimise the time I spent in places where my chest could be exposed—gyms, pools, beaches, goddamned corporate retreats. And then there was the way my body, breasts included, had been used to prove to me I was not just a woman but Woman, a biodestined vessel for coy giggles, cookware, and pregnancy. And how that made me feel.

Indeed, I would later find out there are women and nonbinary people that do not identify with manhood yet seek the exact same top surgery I once wanted, for similar reasons. With no regrets. They wish to take control of their body and do so. And I know that, had I been able to get top surgery in the past, it would’ve made me happy for a good while.

So what’s more important: years of constant anxiety, or lack of hypothetical regret?

The right-wing detransitioner assumes one’s current self to be the ultimate judge of one’s choices—but take that principle to its logical conclusion, and it will seem like no decision should ever be made. There is always a prospective Future You which possesses more knowledge. Always the possibility of regret. Of course, decisions in life are sort of inevitable, but don’t worry about that—the powers that be will handle that. Ancestral tradition, or a caring authority figure. That’s also all humans with exactly the same issues, but don’t worry about that either. Maybe God is speaking through them. You never know.

In the end, the prescripts of the Right march to the same grim conclusion. That the only decision you can ever make with total certainty is death.

Part III: Death, the Tarot Kind

Queer culture delights in tales of transformation. We were all once larval—in the closet, often abused and scared. Trapped in a world of rigid roles and brutal dominion. But one day, we hope to metamorphose into our true shape and to take flight above a blissful, lawless, ever-shifting sea of change.

Most queer people are cisgender, and more still do not seek to transition, but the nature of all our transgressions is intimately entwined with gender anyway. We’re all doing it ‘wrong,’ by the wider society’s definition, even the most masculine of cis gay men or the most feminine of cis lesbian women. Unsurprising, then, are the queer community’s various attempts to embrace gender variance and to lay bare the plasticity of sex.

There is nothing per se about detransition that does not fit this mould. If gender is to be fucked with, why not take it for a swing? Indeed, in my experience most queer people would agree it’s entirely possible to detransition without weaponising transphobia or lapsing rightward.

But that’s usually a hypothetical thought exercise that ends exactly there. Maybe that queer person knows a detransitioner, maybe they don’t; regardless, the lives of the detransitioned do not interact with queer ideas of sex/gender, or indeed queer ideas about anything. The only time the detransitioned are really remarked on is only to state our statistical insignificance—or rather, the statistical insignificance of transition regret. I don’t personally regret my transition for the most part, so I wouldn’t even count there.

Whereas the Right sings lyrical about all the motivations and trials and tribulations of the detransitioned (and deftly twists the verses to fit the chorus), the Left does not usually consider the lives of the detransitioned at all. Mistakes happen, they suppose. Kind of funny we ‘failed at gender’ twice. Too bad we’re so miserable, they guess. What, ‘the patriarchy made you do it’? BuzzFeed feminism is so-o-o 2010s, bro.

It would be accurate to surmise the queer community has ceded the concept of detransition to the Right. The queer stance is, in effect, ‘it doesn’t matter anyway’—a defensive and reactive one.

That is not to say the Left as a whole is to blame for grifting detransitioners or the Right itself—the blame is always, first and foremost, on the ones that actually do the harm. And the negligence of the Left doesn’t really harm those that happily push others under the bus—sadly, some people are just assholes. No, the consequences are felt instead by detrans people that have no desire to participate in the transphobia circus, and after that, trans people themselves. The Right’s deathgrip on the detransition narrative means detransition itself is conceptually tied to the Right. Because there is no alternative trans-positive narrative, there is no way to exist as detrans and not affirm someone else’s transphobia, no matter how many times you say you don’t hate trans people. After all there is only one thing people think of when they hear ‘detransitioner.’ And now you are it, whether you like it or not.

I feared I would detransition because, on some level, I knew I might. But why fear it? It’s hard to be trans. There are clear privileges to socially presenting as your birth sex. Doctors will readily help you undo transition. I didn’t want to grift—well, fucking fantastic. Easy enough to not do something. What’s the problem?

I feared it because it’s soul-crushing to know your existence hurts the people you love most. Your friends, partners, mentors. So many cis people in my past knew me as The Trans Person—and now what? How much of the good I had done would be ruined? And by what possible example could I imagine my life as a detransitioner? What is there to even aspire to? And what about everything I’d sacrificed to transition in the first place? All the strife and ridicule I endured, only to have it whispered to me from leering faces: “See? We were right all along.”

All that, to face alone.

At a certain point my resistance to the idea of detransition was motivated only by this. Only by what others would make of me against my will. Not my personal desires. Nothing else at all. To be turned into such a spectacle, a public property of a person, felt like nothing short of death.

Part IV: Afterlife

I decided to start this substack after listening to every podcast appearance by Lucy Kartikasari I could find. She is a detrans woman with a similar yet different story; she transitioned much younger, but went through a similarly arcane approval system and years of waiting; she is not a lesbian; she has detransitioned, and she speaks in favour of trans healthcare and trans rights. The name Dolphin Diaries also originates with her—or rather, with a different, anonymous user, whose idea she broadcast on her TikTok. A dolphin as a symbol of detransition; a mammal that evolved from the ocean to walk on land and then returned to an aquatic life. I find it an appealing and pithy comparison, one free of unnecessary gendering or judgement.

There are precious few voices that speak of detransition in a positive, non-right-wing light. It’s a perspective fraught with thorny, uncomfortable questions. A perspective which is easier to ignore—unless you can’t. If for no one else, I write this for people that felt the same way I did. Trapped, not by ‘mistakes’ or by ‘gender ideology’, but by the image others have painted of them before they could even protest.

I do not write this for the Right. There is nothing I can say that would sway you, and there is nothing you can say that would sway me—and believe me, I have listened more carefully and with far more good faith than you ever have. Feel free to comment how much you pity my womb, or something. I promise to leave its fertility a mystery. I’m a tease that way.

As for other potential readers of this blog: while I do believe it a failure of queer rhetoric to adequately synthesise detransition into the overall gender politic, I don’t believe it’s everyone else’s job to create that synthesis. Who better than a detransitioner, after all? I ask not that you solve my problems for me.

I ask only that you listen.

[elftwink]

it is actually wild how cis people pretend "can you please not misgender me" as some sort of egregious demand that we're sooo unreasonable for and how we should just be able to brush it all off no matter what, considering not only do cis people get wildly offended when they're misgendered but also when they accidentally misgender someone they believe to be cis they practically get down on their knees and beg for forgiveness, so great is the social transgression they just committed. they really expect you to be mad as hell. obviously water is wet but sometimes i think when you're told over and over and over again that you're making a big deal out of nothing and everyone else is actually so chill about misgendering, it's important to recall that cis people are by far the least chill about being misgendered, and that in the absence of trans people, cis people all agree that being misgendered sucks and the person in the wrong who needs to apologize is the misgenderer, even if it was an accident (in fact especially so). like everyone implicitly understands the discomfort in being misgendered, and when they insist that it isn't uncomfortable, what they actually mean is that they think you deserve the discomfort. i think we should stop letting these assholes mince words and feign ignorance about something they understand perfectly well. if u all were literally half as chill as you expect us to be we could blanket the earth in 10ft of snow

[neil-gaiman]

Trans man here, and my girlfriend of seven years is trans too. I'm currently reading The Sandman and I'm delighted and impressed at your portrayals of trans people, particularly with it being written in 1989.

I wanted to ask - did you know a trans person who died back then? A great deal of cis people (even today) aren't aware that trans people are frequently disrespected in death in the same ways that Wanda was.

I am curious to know how you were so intimately aware of what goes on at a trans person's funeral.

And I want you to know that the way you depicted Wanda's funeral means a lot to me, and it sticks with me.

(Also casual reminder for any trans people reading this to create an advance directive or equivalent paperwork to prevent your deadname from being on your tombstone. If your next-of-kin is transphobic, you've got some legal work to do.)

I made friends with the late and much-missed Rachel Pollack in 1985 at the Milford SF writers workshop, and Rachel wrote to her friend Roz Kaveney and told Roz we would hit it off as friends, and we met at some publishing event or other, and we did.

Roz knew everyone and everything, and over the next few years she introduced me to her friends, so the number of my LGBT friends increased enormously. I remember being shocked when Roz told me about friends and acquaintances of hers who had been deadnamed and buried as Wanda was, and I wanted to put that outrage in Sandman, which was my most prominent way of reaching a lot of people. Wanda then acted as an introduction to a number of people over the subsequent decades who were in the (sometimes very long) process of transitioning, and felt that I was someone they could safely talk to.

[queermasculine]

you don't have to answer this but are you still on t? I know you've talked about thinking you were into guys before figuring out u were into butches and I wonder if that realization changed how you saw your body?

I ask bc I'm in a spot where I can't fully tell if I need to go on t to look the way I'd feel right or if I can get to enough of a butch level with exercise and clothing and being around better people than currently. My gender wouldn't change either way, I'm still not a woman, but .. yeah.

realizing i was into other butches did change how i saw my body absolutely, like completely changed it, i don't think i had anything positive to say about my body pre-butch4butch at all tbh. looking at myself and realizing my masculine dream partner would actually have most of the features i was most dysphoric about was a total shift in perspective for me

whether that type of mental shift can lessen your dysphoria to a point where you'll never need T as a dysphoric butch, i'm still kinda figuring that out myself. i was in that "i've done my research and i've seen friends go through the process but i'm being a pussy" stage when i had my b4b epiphany and that brought my dysphoria down to manageable levels (this was years ago now) so i never went on T, but i still think T might be in my future – even if i've cut down my dysphoria by like 70% that remaining 30% can really chafe sometimes depending on the day

but if the question is "is it possible to get to a good place just by focusing on all the other, non-medical aspects of transition" yeah absolutely. like you really can change your appearance completely it's kinda crazy. many ppl don't realize just how much of the average cis guy's masculinity – which can seem so inherent – is actually just clothes and hair. even just getting your hair cut by someone who will give you an actual men's cut instead of the girl version of that style can totally change how you look because it just frames your face and neck so differently (speaking from experience)

that being said i don't think you should ever withhold HRT from yourself if you have access to it and think it might help you. just that it's possible to have a good life even if that's not an option for you, at least in my case it has very much been possible

edit: love all the ppl chiming in with their positive experiences being on T, however i was kind of trying to make this a positivity post for the transmascs out there who are not on hormones rn (like me) so if we could refrain from using wording that paints that life as being incomplete or lesser-than somehow that'd be great, thanks everybody🤘

[scramratz]

Hey so if you dont feel like answering this it's fine & chill and all, you're just a stranger who's comics I like after all. But I've seen you get a few more personal asks & the way you answered them always seemed very nice so. Uh. Here I go. Because I've been rotating this in my mind for the last month or so like it's a shitty fish png

So like. I've been on HRT for a good 4 years now, and I love everything about it. I pass more often as a guy now, though it's hard to say how frequently exactly. But It made me feel comfortable enough to become more gnc again, which is something I heavily suppressed before and early into hrt, because it just was a fast lane to misgendering town which destroyed me emotionally back then. It still hurts a lot sometimes now, but im less likely to get me misgendered these days even with make up and a skirt and all that. Which, sounds great in theory! But now it just makes people yell slurs at me in public instead and shit. It feels like my options in society are either

- put on a gender conforming act that feels like I'm a clown performing for the circus just to get gendered correctly without all the abuse (bad, not fun, hate it, love clowns but hate this)

- keep doing what I'm doing, actually maybe fag it up more! It's fun! (Great now the men are spitting at me again in public. And not in a fun kinky way)

Like I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place man. And I love my friends and they support me and make me happy, and my family (at least the ones I care about) just let me dress like a little freak and dont mind, .... so I feel I should just be able to move on. And I dont have much like internal gender problems tm. Like I haven't figured it out beyond vague I'm a transsexual queer thing dude girl sometimes. But I'm fine with that. That's chill. I know what I wanna look like and be called blabla. What isnt chill is what happens when others perceive me, and that's sorta intrinsically tied to the whole transsexual gnc (?) Thing. So it makes me think about it all the time. I'm just so tired of it. I'm gonna have to keep going I guess because what else is there to do. But some days I just wanna teleport to an alternate dimension where cishet people tm at large finally stopped being the gender obsessed freaks they claim 'we' are

I wish this ask couldve just been like.... peace and love on planet trans... life is great, no notes, let's all hold hands and have a cookie w our HRT... but I just needed to get this out someplace that wasnt my diary or irl contacts

Yea I get where you're coming from. It sounds silly but something that helps me is remembering all the trans folks that came before me. I'll watch documentaries from the 60's-90's about these fabulous transsexuals who lived despite the hate, if even for a short time. A lot of them coped by expressing themselves underground, at balls and bookclubs, and bars. Somewhere cis people dared not go. Those places still exist you just gotta look for em. Besides, I take great pride in carrying on a long legacy of being hated!

[so-i-did-this-thing]

Hello! I just wanted to say I stumbled across one of your posts and ended up looking through the trans tag in your blog for a while and idk it felt so so nice to see a middle aged trans guy just living life and being there for others who are at earlier points of their own trans related journeys, and I hope I can look as awesome as you and be as comfortable in my own skin and style and everything when I'm older.

I guess I also wanted to ask if you had any insight or advice about a couple things, if you're willing to share.. First thing is, did you ever struggle with passing but looking much younger than your age and that somewhat affecting your perception of yourself? I'm 28 and I started T 11 months ago (though at a pretty low dose because I wanted slow changes) and my face just recently started visibly shifting to a more masculine contour and I love it, but I still don't really look like a 28 year old guy.

I've always passed easily even before T but people think I'm like 18-21 max. Things were fine while I was in college (I came out at 19 so for a while my face just felt fitting enough and didn't make me feel either dysphoric or in a weird age limbo) but every year it feels more frustrating and makes me feel sort of alienated from myself including in mental ways, like I'm just a little kid who can't grow up. Like I'll never look like a "real guy" even though I can be stealth because I look like a weird teen and not like a grown up man. It's especially bad when I look at my amab younger siblings who are now also adults and see how I "should have looked" in some other life if I was cis. I guess maybe that's just another manifestation of dysphoria that I didn't have to deal with before? Did you ever experience something like that? And if yes did it get better after some years on T or how did you deal with it?

The other thing is just.. internalized transphobia. It's one thing to know things in a logical or intellectual sense but it's so hard to really feel and believe it sometimes and let go of all the awful transphobic stuff my family said to me during the first years of me being out. I just kept going anyway because I needed to be true to myself and my family basically bullying me wasn't gonna just magically change how I felt about my gender, but what it did do is put my already low confidence and self esteem (in this context regarding my gender) down on the floor. And sometimes I still just think and worry "what if they were right and I was wrong and I'll never be real and valid because of x y z", "what if I'm just delusional", "what if I'm a ridiculous freak". I know, in a way, that no I'm not. I'm just a trans person and they're just transphobes. But feelings like that just get to me sometimes and I don't really know what to do about them even nearly 10 years after coming out. Does that get better at some point? Just like you kinda stop giving a shit what people think about you in general as you get older? But how can you change those internalized views affecting what you think of yourself?

Bit nervous about asking this stuff tbh, so sorry it was so long also sorry if I worded any of it in a not so great way.

I will say though, that seeing older trans people like you does help a little bit. Just makes it feel like "hell yeah I wanna be like him when I grow up". So thank you for showing me that today ;u; (and also for inspiring me to put a little more thought and effort into my styling and fashion choices haha)

Heya, Anon! Let's see what I can cover here:

Looking young.

Oh my god, yes. I was getting carded to buy superglue and spray paint well into my late 30s (I started T at 33). When my partner first asked me out for a date, they were worried I wasn't old enough to drink yet (I was 36).

This is me 1 year on T, age 34.

Years 6 & 7 (ages 39 and 40), is when I feel I started looking older.

I feel like it's only been recently, 14 years in at 47, that I look in my 40s, and a "mature" adult. My beard finally getting full helped, as did my receding hairline. And I feel like my skin texture has toughened up enough, to where wrinkles show more.

That said, yes, it is tough and annoying to deal with. Even when people tell me I look like a particular cis man (where I actually see the resemblance, lol), when I look at us side-by-side, I feel like I'm just a pale shadow of him. I feel jealous and dysphoric, even while I'm flattered by the comparison. I wonder what I "should" look like, and it feels like something has been stolen from me. Its a roller coaster of emotions.

That feeling never really goes away, but you need to afford yourself some grace. You're going to be your own worst critic, and I guarantee you that, of many cis men you grew up with, you can probably still see the kid in them. So of course, you're going to see the kid in yourself.

But, you also just need to let time run its course. HRT is a marathon, and a lot of changes don't really settle for about 5 or 6 years.

I hate to say "enjoy it while you can" because I sure as hell bristled at being mistaken for a teenager or barely 20 when I was in my 30s. But do enjoy what you can of it. Because once you hit middle age, you're going to start dealing with a strange intersection of dysphoria and aging that I myself am still trying to navigate.

One other way I help myself get over negative feelings is to think of how differently my life would have been if I were cis. I honestly worry I would have been a worse person; even though being trans creates a lot of obstacles in my life, I feel like it's been a net gain: being able to know myself so well and help others learn about themselves.

Internalized transphobia

This got better for me with age. My epiphany was that, even over a decade into my transition, I was still softening myself for the benefit of friends and family. I was still using my gender-neutral birthname (I only recently changed it). I would call myself a "person", "guy", or "dude", instead of a "man". I dressed on the young and casual side, eschewing full-on masculine outfits like proper suits with ties.

I only recently pulled myself out of this. It still is a habit-in-progress to refer to myself as a man, even though I have always felt like one. And I've started to dress more vintage, not just because of hyper fixations, but because it's a way to lean into a presentation that is unequivocally, "this is a middle-aged man". And it's done a lot of good for my mental health.

What I'd suggest is to see if you are holding yourself back in any way wrt your gender presentation or how you talk/think about yourself. Give yourself full permission to acknowledge that you are a man, full stop. You're a young man, sure. But still a man, and a full-ass adult at that.

I hope some of this helps. Transition gives us a unique toolset for examining who we are and how we want to move through the world, and that work certainly doesn't end after finally getting on HRT. <3

[genderkoolaid]

I hate how sometimes as a transmasc guy I feel like I'm betraying the cause kind of. Like I end up feeling awkward about stuff that's supposed to be great for women because it's not for me anymore.

Most recent time came when I stumbled upon some reddit drama over women only parking spaces which are in better lit areas close to the exit. I don't want to side with the "I guess I'll identify as a woman for ten minutes while I park" types but sometimes I feel like I'm forced to shove myself back into the woman box if I want that safety.

Also the many "girls in STEM" opportunities. Like it's good that they're there, but I hate having to either feel really uncomfortable but still get the opportunity or try and navigate that world how a man would while I still look and sound like a cis woman.

Also this one orchestra I'm in, where a while ago we were trying to pick a composer to commission, and the director noted that he decided not to put any white male composers on the recommended shortlist. Again, I get where he's coming from, but then I worry that once I transition I'll be just another white male. Maybe that would net me some opportunities if I pass well, but it hurts a bit knowing that in some people's eyes I'll fade into the boring grey amalgamation of suits and ties oppressing everyone else.

I think this is a pretty common experience.

This is what happens when feminism fails trans men & other gender-oppressed people who are not women. Cisfeminism in general forces trans people to fight over who gets to count as a woman & therefore be deserving of feminist support, because the feminist framework being used was never made for us. The fact that trans people who aren't women- or aren't exclusively women, or are read as cis men- are vulnerable and under-represented goes ignored & we struggle to have our voices heard.

Its also part of the harmful ways trans men are expected to act in order to have our identities respected. We are expected to pass, go stealth (or at least not bring up being trans "too much"), and never talk about how our experiences differ from those of cis men. Nonbinary & genderqueer transmascs are expected to either dissociate themselves from men or never talk about being NB/GQ. We are told we are othering ourselves when we point out that groups in which cis men are heavily represented have never featured trans men to any remotely similar extent. It sucks and its part of "affirming" transmasc erasure: instead of being erased through misgendering, we are erased by having our transness ignored so no one actually has to confront societal & individual bigotry against trans-men.

[genderqueerdykes]

people ask why i am adamant about stating that i am a gay man and a lesbian, and why i don't just simply state that i am bisexual. while i do that sometimes, it's very important for me to express that no matter how i present, or what space i occupy, i am queer, read as queer, and will never stop experiencing my own personal queerness.

i am never clocked as a heterosexual anything. even when i was a cis passing trans man, i was viewed as a faggot and a butch dyke dating a woman. no part of me has ever been viewed as straight. from childhood i started presenting masc and growing facial hair and bulking up from my intersex condition.

i was always viewed as a butch dyke by my peers, partially because i was not great at hiding the fact that i was attracted to girls, but also because of how masculine i was, both by nature and choice. i have always been a dyke, to the point of my friends' mothers asking their kids about it. when i was dating my FTM exes, we were just two butch dykes to everyone around us.

once i transitioned into manhood, i was instantly clocked as a faggot, and will always be. this is most people's primary reaction to me. i am the stereotypical fag in real life. i walk the walk, and talk the talk. even if i am dating or having sex with a woman, i will still be viewed as a faggot who loves and fucks women. i will be viewed as a butch dyke even if i am identifying and presenting as a woman dating a man. i will always be viewed as a lesbian or a gay man. i will never be viewed as a straight guy, or a straight woman, or a straight genderqueer person.

i am not and never have been a straight anything, so it's well in my rights to clarify that i am a lesbian and a gay man, not a straight something and a gay something. i have the right to say this, because this is what i am, and i don't have to sell myself short. i am allowed to be honest about how i identify, and how i am viewed. it isn't entirely about how i'm viewed, because this is also how i feel. the feeling is mutual. it's alright to say this, if everyone in the situation agrees that's what's going on.

it's alright for me to say i'm bisexual, gay, and a lesbian at the same time, it's just stating the truth. some bi people are gay and straight, some people are gays and lesbians, the world keeps turning.