#honestly i dont need ppl to further complicate my relationship w/ my sexuality

[ritternacht]

sometimes I see ace positivity and I get excited for two seconds before remembering my experience in my HS queer club where the very first fucking meeting I attended they were discoursing about whether demisexuality is """valid""" and called it stupid and I just stormed out of the room angry crying and never attended another meeting

[3000s]

ig i just dont understand ur post bc like if a “cis” woman wants to transition to look more masculine and has dysphoria about being a woman and wants to become more like a traditional man isnt that just being a trans dude? and like if cis women start transitioning while still calling themselves women wouldnt they be misgendering themselves? also wouldnt us calling them women after transitioning just give more excuses to transphobes to misgender trans men?

the thing about that is like, if they dont identify as trans men then they're not trans men! the reason these labels exist isnt to categorize people based on how we see their experience, its for people to have the language to describe themselves!

i think a lot of yall get stuck on the idea of dysphoria being something that makes someone transgender, but thats not something i believe, so thats a large part of why an argument based in transmedicalism would fall flat on this subject... people have the right to self-identify, just like how there are trans people who dont medically transition, there are also cis people who do, and you cant force them to identify as transgender if thats not how they feel!

its def important that ppl within our community learn that as trans ppl we arent the only ppl who can have a complicated relationship with gender. i've mentioned it a couple times before, but there are a lot of factors at play with regard to someones gender + presentation + dysphoria + decision to medically transition! race, sexuality, and things of that nature can play a part in the way someone experiences these things... for ref, this post puts it well; even a cishet person of color can have a more complex relationship with gender than a white lgbt person, and some further explanation on that in a post here as well! like, for example, historically (yes, even within lgbt spaces and relationships) black women have been and continue to be treated as though they are more masculine than white women because of their race, and although that isnt exactly what you asked, thats why i say that peoples experiences in a gendered society vary, that can cause someone to have a different relationship with gender, something you or i may not be able to relate to

and really anyone can feel alienated from belonging to their assigned gender with those factors at play to influence it, and that doesnt always cause them to feel like they belong to another gender either. there are many lesbians who feel that their only ties to womanhood are through their sexuality and love of other women, its not uncommon for them to use pronouns other than she/her, or to go on testosterone, or to get top surgery, but at the end of the day they can still tell you explicitly that they do not identify as trans men, and it wouldnt make sense for someone to assign them that label.

you didnt mention it here, but to get it outta the way: the last thing i've seen argued is that women are using up & taking spots in line for life-saving resources that transmeds believe trans men should be entitled to... honestly i think its kind of batshit how the ppl saying this don't realize how stupid they sound by advocating for the medicalization of transness, having to jump through all these hoops for these treatments, then somehow placing the blame on other people looking for treatment. like, if you were a cancer patient needing chemo you wouldn't go around blaming other cancer patients as the reason you arent getting treatment, right? it makes no sense, and we should be talking about the issues with the way access to hrt and affirming surgeries are set up rather than prying into the personal lives of others to see who "really" needs it the most, yknow

anyway this got long as hell, my bad, dm me if u have anymore questions or w/e