Thanks, and sorry for writing a lot. I finally set up an appointment with a therapist (they’re trans too, which is cool), so soon I’ll have a space to sort myself out without imposing on the kindness of internet strangers.

fellow traveler

Your post gets at an issue I’m still coming to grips with, namely political consciousness. Owing to upbringing or temperament or whatever, historically I’ve skewed quite conservative. I could see myself someday becoming a Caitlyn Jenner-style trans woman, and I’m slightly horrified at the prospect.

All I expect out of politicians is to be left the f*ck alone, but both parties seem to fail in this regard. Republicans would like to legislate us out of existence, while Democrats are glad to use us as political props.

Basically I hope to disentangle my trans-ness from politics. They say “the personal is political,” but I don’t believe it.

Funny how this started out as “protect the children, who are too young to make permanent decisions,” which is not prima facie absurd, and then, once they pushed that through, became “no taxpayer money for trans surgeries,” which is much less defensible, but still may seem reasonable to many voters. I wonder where they are going with this.

Maybe some slopes are indeed slippery.

I still hope to get bottom surgery, once I feel emotionally ready to endure it and the care that comes with it. Too depressed at the moment.

Orchiectomy helped much more than I was expecting. I basically wanted it for practical reasons, like not having to take Spiro anymore and being assured that even if I lose HRT access my body won’t re-masculinize, but once I got it I was amazed at how much more human I felt.

Sounds like vagionplasty could be a bit like that.

made me feel more detached from who I was

I’ve been dissociating pretty much my entire life, even before puberty brought concrete evidence (in retrospect) that I’m likely trans. Presenting as female didn’t seem to fix things - I would still dissociate whenever someone was nasty, and in most social situations.

Maybe I’ve something else going on.

That’s all right. I’m still exploring how I feel myself. Usually for me introspection about gender only goes so far as “I want to kill myself,” so every post is an act of discovering and unpacking and interrogating my own beliefs. (I reserve the right to be wildly inconsistent and self-contradictory between posts 😛).

I remember having feelings along these lines really early in transition, during the first few chaotic months after coming out of repression.

I suppose I may still be repressed, in that I’m subconsciously trying to contort my trans identity to fit the rigid framework that seems to be my natural habit of mind (and which characterized my young adulthood for a while - I converted to traditionalist Catholicism). Not sure how to get out of this kind of thinking, probably by interacting with people. But I don’t get out into meatspace very often and my mom forbade me from visiting the autistic friend simulator (4chan). Lemmy.blahaj seems very welcoming though, and I think this kind of discussion falls well within its scope.

I’m increasingly convinced that the very idea of some kind of absolute or canonical vision of womanhood is inherently sexist and oppressively dogmatic.

I may well be an unwitting, but inveterate sexist: my father certainly was, and watching him abuse my mother emotionally/psychologically (and sometimes physically) for decades probably did a number on me.

https://stainedglasswoman.substack.com/p/jubilee

That went well over my head, if indeed there’s anything of substance behind the academic jargon. The closest-to-being-intelligible part was the numbered list towards the end, and I immediately take issue with the first point.

1. Performativity is about using action to convey symbolic meaning to other people.

I don’t see other people as being involved at all. (To be fair, I never could figure out “other people;” in my former therapist’s words I’m “”“probably”“” on the spectrum, which might explain it). For instance, gender euphoria happens when, somehow suspending my disbelief, I catch a glimpse of myself and think maybe I could be a woman. There’s no thought of conveying meaning to anyone, or moving through society in a different way. It’s just a fleeting, momentary paradigm shift, gone as soon as I notice it when my analytical brain starts dissecting the myriad ways in which I could never be. Other people aren’t involved, and the gender euphoria centers much more around physical characteristics of my body than around clothes or ornamentation. Physical characteristics which are, in effect, “hardwired” as feminine from an evolutionary perspective (with certain body proportions and other secondary sex characteristics correlating to appropriate hormone levels during puberty and indicating particular suitability for successful childbearing). (opinions may differ on this point, and I don’t wish to make this the focus of conversation. I was taught this in college about a decade ago, and it seems eminently reasonable to me).

Maybe if I had FFS, breast implants, hip implants, and a vaginoplasty I could “fool” my brain into thinking I was a girl. But perhaps not permanently. I’m sure that cynical analytical asshole part of me would point out that I’m just a guy with an inverted benis, bags of saltwater slid beneath his chest, and metal plates screwed to his hips.

The best I can hope is to reincarnate as a proper girl. (and, thankfully, I’m convinced suicides don’t reincarnate under the best of circumstances, if at all. Otherwise I’d be out of here like a shot).

I’m not sure if you want to hear exclusively from people who have detransitioned, or if perspectives from people who are still transitioning are also welcome.

All perspectives are very welcome, and thank you for your insightful comment. It gave me a lot to think about.

The idea of ‘passing’ or acting in a specific way is not only unfairly limiting but also dangerous for ourselves and others.

I’m not concerned about looking a certain way as much as, if this makes any sense, being in communion with the eternal essence of womanhood, the platonic form, if you will. I feel severed from this, like I was damned to be a male; all that’s left is this desperate longing. Dressing “as a woman”, or bullying people into pretending I’m a woman can’t begin to satisfy it.

there’s no such thing as a ‘real girl’

I guess we (might?) differ in that I believe there is some sort of “absolute” womanhood (and it presents in infinitely many ways); I just feel disconnected from it.

Or would you feel happy having people accept you as a woman who happens to be trans?

I live in what’s nominally a very liberal area but in my experience from when I first transitioned any “acceptance” felt either performative (e.g. “I’m such a good person for playing along with your delusion”) or coerced (e.g. “I have to respect your ““gender identity”” or I might get fired”).

But I guess the core of it is that I don’t see myself as valid. I’m not a girl because I’m not a girl. I certainly should have been born a girl, and I wish I was a girl, but if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.