Can someone please help me deal with some of my ? This is kind of embarrassing to post so please try not to judge me. I'm trying to do better
cw for transphobia about masc trans people (I still love you all)
I don't really know how to put it. I suppose when I hear of someone being trans masc I just feel a bit sad? I know I should be happy for them living their best life, and I am, but part of me just feels like its a shame I guess? Just like "destroying" their femininity. I know its wrong to feel this way (its their body, they're happier, etc), but I just do I guess. Like a gut reaction. Am I just doomed to have that emotional reaction and try to respond "using my head"?
The number one thing to remember that transmasc folks are fighting the same battles as transfem folks. They're fighting to become the real them just like transfem folks and their battles are just as harsh and difficult as ours. There's nothing wrong with them, they just want to embrace what you're moving away from.
Reminds me of a story when I was in the hospital for the first few days of post-op. I had a nurse that was a trasmasc man. He was a fun guy and we had a lot of great conversations. And even though he 100% looks like a man, his co-workers would constantly misgender him and I felt fucking awful for him. He's fighting the exact same battles as myself and I feel a strong connection to that even though I'm moving the opposite direction.
They’re definitely similarly difficult but transfemme people and transmasc people have vastly different forms of oppression they experience (though they share the same thread of transphobia that affects them both). Whipping Girl talked about this; Transmasc people deal with being erased and their desires are outright ignored most of the time, but their ultimate goal (being a man) is societally seen as normal and desirable if people manage to get past that (though of course you still get tons of weirdos saying it’s bad because transphobes are Like That). Related but opposite, transfemme people are often heard and visible, but their goal is seen as insane and questionable (wanting to be a woman). Femininity and especially womanhood is seen as strange and weird to desire being. So both transfemme and transmasc people experience the sheer inhumanity of having their very sanity questioned, but it manifests in ways that are different enough that I imagine some degree of confusion and even bitterness at each other is somewhat “normal”. This doesn’t make it good, of course; We should focus our anger to punch up, instead of being angry at people who are just as fucked over as us. But it does make it easier to recontextualize and rationalize our emotions.
I think just getting to know some transmasc people on a closer personal level would probably help dispel that. One of my dearest oldest friends is, and like, they didn't have femininity to destroy, that was never them, and it was literally killing them in direct proportion to how hard they tried to conform. So being with them through all that really eliminated any feeling I might otherwise have had along those lines.
Is it partly an attraction thing, do you think? I've felt a twinge of that for a different acquaintance, back when I thought I wasn't bi... if you are fundamentally just not into guys, a transmasc transitioning is going from someone you might have really been drawn to, to someone you're just not attracted to at all. But the person I thought was cute just like, does not exist, it was a facade, and even if they kept the facade up it could never have worked out, same as me and my cis ex. Not to say that's what it is for you, but it's worth exploring where these feelings come from if you want to attack the thoughts at their roots.
Another thing that helps me is realizing how shitty the gender roles are for both men and women. Both have huge downsides that nobody should feel bound by, and trans people especially suffer when crammed into those little boxes, on either side.
Ultimately I think time and exposure will help you work it out. Be conscious of how you feel and don't let it affect your actions, but there's no need to feel guilty, we all have biases and brainworms that we inherit from the world around us, and they don't just disappear as soon as we notice them, it takes time and effort.
Yea it probably would I don't really have any trans friends atm.
I don't know. Maybe. I am attracted to and very jealous of women (I'm a bit of an egg) so maybe those are both part of it. I really try to keep my hornyness out of things though
I hope so. Its hard not to feel bad though, I know its wrong of me and I don't want to accidentally hurt someone I love my trans comrades.
This might be somewhat reductive because my internal logic tends to work oppositionally, but (assuming you are transfem here) you wouldn't want someone looking at you and mourning how you are "destroying" your masculinity, right? There are bits of masculinity that are cool and funny, but you also don't have to understand why someone would want to be masc, as long as you are normal about it. Like SnowySkyes said, same stuff we go through, just the opposite direction.
I liked reading stuff that transmasc people would say on tumblr and stuff, place is nuts but taking in those different experiences was very cool. That someone could find the emotional outpour typically associated with estrogen to be annoying or awful, and feel better & more stable on T, for instance.
Just in case I was wrong in my assumption and you were agender, for instance? I try not to go around assuming everybody is a trans girl y'know
I mean I agree that femininity is pretty cool, but there are also women who enjoy being big and loud, Idk. It's not like these people are bringing about the end of femininity, there will still be femmes at the end of the day to appreciate and kiss, although I'm not certain femininity is any more inherently treasurable than masculinity. I'm dead curious, where do femboys and other feminine male-aligned identities fall in your value system? /gen
Actually also, where do butch lesbians fall into this? What about transmasc lesbians who like, microdose T or something? Do nonbinary people also get this dichotomous reaction from you? /gen
Also masculinity is not inherently loud and awkward, I'm pretty sure? Toxic masculinity sure can be, but there's nothing about masculinity that says it has to be loud or awkward, it just didn't fit you is all. Also insert "trans man short king" meme here!
Yw It's not a great reaction and it's good to acknowledge that and do self crit, but I also think it's not productive to beat yourself up about having these brainworms.
No you're fine I say and feel some very transfem things but I'm still working through it.
I know, I'm probably projecting a lot of my own feelings about myself into the issue.
femboy brainworms
where do femboys and other feminine male-aligned identities fall in your value system?
I don't know if this is really my like "value system" because I do logically love all my trans and queer peers. Its just like a gut reaction thing I want to improve.
I don't know. Its really hard to parse all my feelings. Its a little... uncanny? My gut reaction is disliking it. I think its really when you see/they show their masc features that it gives me that feeling. I know its rooted in bad reasons (either my very cishet childhood, or my own feelings of wishing I was more fem and suppressing those feelings somehow [if that makes sense]), but yea. I don't know.
Thank you for your kind words. I can be very hard on myself. I'm trying
Saying and feeling transfem things uncritical support.
Indeed yaw, and that's not super good cause they're other people, your feelings about their bodies are irrelevant!
mmmm, brainwormssss
"Uncanny" because feminine but a man, I suppose...? I'm feeling like this analysis of masculinity & femininity is painfully rooted in binary gender exclusively, that's my vibe. I might find masculinity sometimes unpleasant myself, and certainly I'm not a fan of testosterone's effects on the body, but that is personal preference and doesn't make masculinity bad, you know? Transmasc lesbians are kinda rad actually. There are lesbians who use he/him, even!
Cishet childhood will do a number on anyone, I assume you're not satisfied with your level of fem atm though?
Yw again, trying is the first step to getting better so good on you
that's not super good cause they're other people, your feelings about their bodies are irrelevant!
I know they are! I just want to make my feelings a little more aligned with how they should be.
I'm feeling like this analysis of masculinity & femininity is painfully rooted in binary gender exclusively
Yea probably. It bothers me so much because I know it's wrong but I don't quite feel it yet, you know?
I assume you're not satisfied with your level of fem atm though?
I definitely wish I could do some fem coded things (like get rid of all this awful hair), but I don't know if I need to throw out my whole gender, or how comfortable am I with just kinda accepting what I've got. I also don't feel very "womanly" atm, my body just feels like a dude. And then there's some things that don't bother me as much that I feel like "should" if I was a transwoman, but I do feel a lot of gender envy, and :cri: it's just no good.
Gender binarism sucks, your life will improve if you delete it from your mind & expand your analysis to have more genders in =)
Woah, that's a ton at once, lots of conflicting stuff. I can say that you absolutely should get rid of that hair since it's bugging you, any way you can: shaving, epilating(expensive), waxing, nair(use carefully), whatever works just do it to be more comfortable. Is there anything stopping you from doing it?
I'm not certain what you mean regarding "throw out your whole gender", if you mean your agab then yeah prolly. It seems like it bothers you?
some things that don't bother me as much that I feel like "should" if I was a transwoman,
What things don't bother you as much as you feel they should?
Yea, sorry for the trauma dump 👉👈 I was feeling pretty bad last night.
I have been, the stuff that's not visible + face and neck. It's just social fear. I don't want people to make comments.
I don't know, maybe some cis guys feel the ways I do. Sure sometimes I hate it (or at least parts of it) but sometimes I don't. Maybe I'm just a cis guy who likes some more feminine things.
I don't really have any bottom dysphoria, which seems like a big one. I remember watching a contrapoints video (I know I know) and she mentioned that transwomen don't "use" their penis the way men do. And I kinda want to. If I was born without one I don't think I'd have any great pull towards getting one, but I also don't want to get rid of it necessarily.
I feel like these feelings happened/were noticed too late. Like if I was trans, surely I would have known once puberty started up or maybe even as a teen, but now I'm past both of those things.
Okay cool, very nice. Fwiw I've never had anyone comment about my body hair, although I do wear long sleeves a lot. If someone does, just tell em it's aerodynamic, like swimmers do.
Okay but cis guys never "hate it" though, I'm certain of that. I don't think you'd be here, you know?
Oh man fuck Contrapoints, she's ridiculous, she's a sad /tttt/ user with awful ideas about everything. An enby-exclusionary transphobe to boot. What the fuck is "using" a penis the way a man does? Does this mean trans women aren't allowed to have insertive sex, because if so I have bad news for half this thread, and I'm also a fake trans, lmao. Benefit of the doubt, I'll assume Contra wasn't generalising, but there are no rules about how trans people can use their sexual anatomy. (Also nobody has any right to pass judgement on how anyone uses their sexual anatomy) There are tons of transfemmes who happily enjoy insertive sex. Your view of your bits does not make you less trans. Presence or lack of dysphoria does not make you less trans.
Trans people realise they are trans at many ages in many different ways, observe @EstraDoll@hexbear.net who just realised she is trans like two months ago. I might be a teenage transitioner, but without running into certain books I'd have probably transitioned way later. My wife transitioned in her 30s. The idea that trans people just know from childhood is a myth perpetuated by gatekeeping health "care" "professionals" for whatever stupid fucking reason. Gender is hard though, and it takes everyone different amounts of time and internal consideration to realise. Coming to know that you are trans in your 20s, 30s, 40s, or even later does not make you less trans.
Trans people realise they are trans at many ages in many different ways, observe @EstraDoll@hexbear.net who just realised she is trans like two months ago.
more like 7 weeks lmao. I'm still a zoomer but I'm a grown adult, which means i'm transitioning at like, a little older than average if I had to guess (I have no idea what the average age to transition is) but like, regardless of how long it takes you to realize, the eggy ass thoughts were always there. There are a lot of trans people out there who didn't figure it out until much later than me. There's even this one absolutely adorable photo of a trans woman at the top of r/transtimelines (which is bad for my mental health and I should not look at that sub again for a long time) who didn't transition until she was sixty seven. It is absolutely never too late!
Oh man fuck Contrapoints, she's ridiculous, she's a sad /tttt/ user with awful ideas about everything. An enby-exclusionary transphobe to boot. What the fuck is "using" a penis the way a man does? Does this mean trans women aren't allowed to have insertive sex, because if so I have bad news for half this thread, and I'm also a fake trans, lmao. Benefit of the doubt, I'll assume Contra wasn't generalising, but there are no rules about how trans people can use their sexual anatomy. (Also nobody has any right to pass judgement on how anyone uses their sexual anatomy) There are tons of transfemmes who happily enjoy insertive sex. Your view of your bits does not make you less trans. Presence or lack of dysphoria does not make you less trans.
and it's funny you mention that because I think one of the reasons it took this long for it to click is that I just don't have any genital dysphoria. I wouldn't say I love them but I like them and I want to use them. In a weird sense I think of it as something of a privilege because of how few other women can claim that. It is a little inconvenient because taking the no-op route basically means that there are a handful of fashion choices that are going to take some extra work to pull off, if I can at all but like... eh. (god i wish i could just wear the leggings and nobody cared)
Probably 25 if I had to guess? Idk. Hello zoomer :) sorry for the @
I do think that not figuring it out till way later isn't mutually exclusive with looking back and going "oh, egg behaviour", not universal but not uncommon. Imma keep it real w/u chief, I love our trans elders. Literally always happy to hear about my trans siblings finding themselves at any age ❤
I hate that so much, the narrative that bottom dysphoria is a requirement for being trans. It's dumb and it's fake, like there have been nonop trans people since there have been trans people. Also honestly, after hearing some cis women talk about wanting one... maybe it sort of is in a weird way? Trans superiority!!
But yeah same re: fashion stuff, I just wear jeans for convenience...
I'm doing okay right now, overall this is not fun though.
hmm. Maybe I'll give it a try at some point. I don't want to go the whole summer hating my legs so what else is there to do.
Its hard for me to imagine someone always liking their gender and all that. Like who isn't a littlevery jealous of women.
I know she is, but idk. Sometimes she made sense to me. I'm surprised its that common, I feel like I've seen a lot of transwomen complaining about not wanting to perform penetration and their partners wanting them to.
cw for brainworms around transwomen's genitals (is anyone surprised at this point)
So obviously I don't care what transwomen do with their bodies, and if they want to keep the penis, that's up to them. (and iirc like 90% do?)
But like, as if it wasn't bad enough for women to have a penis how can a woman be okay with that? Its so... unwomanly. And that's really me? A transwoman who some how is okay with the whole penis thing? That's just... odd. It doesn't make sense to me. If I like the penis I must be a guy, but at the same time I'm pretty sure I'd hit a button to magically change my gender from birth and all that. Its just so confusing It makes me feel like a man pretending to be a woman.
I have been watching her transition she seems very happy and brave. Thank you for sharing your story. I know you don't "have" to know from when your a child but it still feels very weird to me.
Yeah shaving your legs is awesome, feels great. I haven't in ages but I might do just for fun, Idk. I tend to yeet all my body hair maybe once every eight or nine months? Weirdly I don't really mind the body hair but for its curliness, which makes it bunch up and stand out.
Lmao, I know right?? Surely everyone wants to be beautiful lady! It Is Known!
She has said good things, she's not a total brainworm pit, but I'd turn a critical eye to anything she says. Unsurprisingly societal connotations around having a penis and the expectations that come with it mean that a lot of trans women get fetishistically pigeon-holed by anyone they have sex with, which is awful. I've seen people talk here about how they both do not have bottom dysphoria but also hate it when every partner they have expects them to top. Not having bottom dysphoria also is not equal to always having insertive sex.
my comrade in christ....
No it's fuckin not, there are tons of women who in fact do not have a vulva. Secretly, sexual anatomy is only gendered because cis people, the majority sadly, have chosen to conflate gender and genitalia 1:1, it's how they "decide" a baby's gender and get it wrong so often. They do this because as cis people their gender is aligned with the one they were assigned at birth, and in not changing their bodies at all they keep the genitals they have. But one size does not fit all. Also that 90% stat is probably down to the inaccessibility of bottom surgery.
But yes, a woman can have a penis, a man can have a vulva, hell very rarely people are born with something more ambiguous. Some people get surgery to have both, which is incredible. You sometimes hear cis women talk about how it would be cool to have a penis, which doesn't automatically make them a man. The association of sexual anatomy with gender only exists due to the dominance of cisgender people, which has been enforced very violently over the course of our history. Certain gatekeepy medical "professionals" will get arsey with you if you say you don't want bottom surgery, because they must uphold the cisnormative social order. It's harder to keep their strangehold on cishet gender, which helps feed the machine of capitalism with workers, if people are running around questioning the dogshit assumptions they have put in place. Society drives these cisnormative assumptions into you from birth, which is insidious and hurts people and is part of why that shit must be stopped.
Why is a penis inherently male? Just because most people born with one are men? Ridiculous; if the penis belongs to a woman, she is still a woman, and the penis is female, same in reverse for anyone with a vulva, and of any gender. You are not pretending to be a woman, if you say you are one, you are, regardless of what is in your pants.
As a footnote to all of this, read The Gender Accelerationist Manifesto which is an awesome synthesis of trans/queer theory and leftist theory. Great read.
We love our trans comrades, don't we folks? ✨ I really adore seeing people go through transition and feel good about it, warms my heart.
No prob, and it's like anything else I guess, you could switch careers or realise your sexuality isn't what you thought or become a hardcore leftist or change your gender, any time in your life. Life comes at people at different speeds, and we're always changing.
Take some time and listen to trans masc people and their struggles. You don't even have to know someone personally, but reading enough on how dysphoria wrecks them should be more than enough to help you understand better. I know you said don't be too harsh on you, so I'll just say this is something worth diving into more if this is still how you react to trans masc people
Also sounds like you have your own gender things to work through right now that are contributing heavily to this. Hope to see you posting when yoi get past this too
I should have asked this originally, but do you have any good transmasc youtubers I could listen to share their experiences? I know it's bad that's why I want to get over it. It feels so reactionary and I want to do better.
Yea, the more I think about it the more I wonder/feel like that's the case. I will keep posting, I love this place :meow-hug:
Hmm I don't have anyone in particular, tho I'm reminded of this video that I saw recently about someone trans masc coming out and beong happy about it. Maybe that's worth a watch
Its big and gross and terrible. Its loud and awkward and I hate it.
That seems like a fairly reductive way of thinking about masculinity - there's a whole range of masculine gender expression archetypes from the jolly epicurean guy with a big beer gut to the shy smol twink, or the American frat boy dickhead.
It's a good guess because that's basically how it's used (and how I used it)
In modern popular usage, an Epicurean is a connoisseur of the arts of life and the refinements of sensual pleasures; Epicureanism implies a love or knowledgeable enjoyment especially of good food and drink.
Because Epicureanism posits that pleasure is the ultimate good (telos), it has been commonly misunderstood since ancient times as a doctrine that advocates the partaking in fleeting pleasures such as sexual excess and decadent food. This is not the case.
Spend more time listening to transmasc people, learn about their struggles, their dysphoria triggers etc. This will help a lot to empathize, and it actually expands your own understanding of gender a lot to see how trans people of other genders go about their transitions.
In my experience simply knowing and understanding why transmasc people transition and what they feel dysphoric over and don’t doesn’t really get rid of my envy or confusion, it just urges me to be more empathetic to them. To an extent I think it’s just normal for trans people be envious and confused of each other? I imagine transmasc people have the exact same thoughts about transfemme people all the time. Like, I don’t understand why people like IPA’s but I don’t think they’re less valid for liking them (or that I’m less valid for not liking them!)
I vaguely feel the same way but I don't feel sad, I just feel comically confused. I don't actually believe this, and I understand that you can have gender dysphoria going the other way, but every time I think about trans masc people I just keep thinking "What the fuck? You're going the wrong way???" Like, I have gender dysphoria just like trans masc people, but they're transitioning to gain all of the things that make me dysphoric? what the hell?
I obviously don't believe that literally or take it seriously. I think it's really funny, actually, and I would probably laugh if a trans masc person said I was transitioning the wrong way too
It makes sense to feel pissed if someone you’re experiencing gender envy towards explicitly doesn’t want to present that way, because it can feel like you’re sort of being disrespected by proxy because they’re not respecting the thing you covet so much. But the thing is that everyone is different and something so essential and desired for you can literally just be repulsive and undesirable for someone else. It’s like different kinds of candy. It’s normal to be kind of angry if someone has licorice and you like licorice, but they throw it away because they don’t like licorice. But, not only would you never force someone to eat licorice, gender expression isn’t a discrete thing that can be transferred like licorice is! So our reactions are something we shouldn’t beat ourselves up over, but we also don’t want to let it make us hurt or affect our actual opinion of our trans comrades (and it should go without saying that this applies both directions for transmasc and transfemme people!).
Can someone please help me deal with some of my
? This is kind of embarrassing to post so please try not to judge me. I'm trying to do better 
cw for transphobia about masc trans people (I still love you all)
I don't really know how to put it. I suppose when I hear of someone being trans masc I just feel a bit sad? I know I should be happy for them living their best life, and I am, but part of me just feels like its a shame I guess? Just like "destroying" their femininity. I know its wrong to feel this way (its their body, they're happier, etc), but I just do I guess. Like a gut reaction. Am I just doomed to have that emotional reaction and try to respond "using my head"?
The number one thing to remember that transmasc folks are fighting the same battles as transfem folks. They're fighting to become the real them just like transfem folks and their battles are just as harsh and difficult as ours. There's nothing wrong with them, they just want to embrace what you're moving away from.
Reminds me of a story when I was in the hospital for the first few days of post-op. I had a nurse that was a trasmasc man. He was a fun guy and we had a lot of great conversations. And even though he 100% looks like a man, his co-workers would constantly misgender him and I felt fucking awful for him. He's fighting the exact same battles as myself and I feel a strong connection to that even though I'm moving the opposite direction.
I'll try to.
That is horrible. I hate people sometimes.
They’re definitely similarly difficult but transfemme people and transmasc people have vastly different forms of oppression they experience (though they share the same thread of transphobia that affects them both). Whipping Girl talked about this; Transmasc people deal with being erased and their desires are outright ignored most of the time, but their ultimate goal (being a man) is societally seen as normal and desirable if people manage to get past that (though of course you still get tons of weirdos saying it’s bad because transphobes are Like That). Related but opposite, transfemme people are often heard and visible, but their goal is seen as insane and questionable (wanting to be a woman). Femininity and especially womanhood is seen as strange and weird to desire being. So both transfemme and transmasc people experience the sheer inhumanity of having their very sanity questioned, but it manifests in ways that are different enough that I imagine some degree of confusion and even bitterness at each other is somewhat “normal”. This doesn’t make it good, of course; We should focus our anger to punch up, instead of being angry at people who are just as fucked over as us. But it does make it easier to recontextualize and rationalize our emotions.
spoiler
I think just getting to know some transmasc people on a closer personal level would probably help dispel that. One of my dearest oldest friends is, and like, they didn't have femininity to destroy, that was never them, and it was literally killing them in direct proportion to how hard they tried to conform. So being with them through all that really eliminated any feeling I might otherwise have had along those lines.
Is it partly an attraction thing, do you think? I've felt a twinge of that for a different acquaintance, back when I thought I wasn't bi... if you are fundamentally just not into guys, a transmasc transitioning is going from someone you might have really been drawn to, to someone you're just not attracted to at all. But the person I thought was cute just like, does not exist, it was a facade, and even if they kept the facade up it could never have worked out, same as me and my cis ex. Not to say that's what it is for you, but it's worth exploring where these feelings come from if you want to attack the thoughts at their roots.
Another thing that helps me is realizing how shitty the gender roles are for both men and women. Both have huge downsides that nobody should feel bound by, and trans people especially suffer when crammed into those little boxes, on either side.
Ultimately I think time and exposure will help you work it out. Be conscious of how you feel and don't let it affect your actions, but there's no need to feel guilty, we all have biases and brainworms that we inherit from the world around us, and they don't just disappear as soon as we notice them, it takes time and effort.
spoiler
Yea it probably would
I don't really have any trans friends atm.
I don't know. Maybe. I am attracted to and very jealous of women (I'm a bit of an egg) so maybe those are both part of it. I really try to keep my hornyness out of things though
I hope so. Its hard not to feel bad though, I know its wrong of me and I don't want to accidentally hurt someone
I love my trans comrades.
This might be somewhat reductive because my internal logic tends to work oppositionally, but (assuming you are transfem here) you wouldn't want someone looking at you and mourning how you are "destroying" your masculinity, right? There are bits of masculinity that are cool and funny, but you also don't have to understand why someone would want to be masc, as long as you are normal about it. Like SnowySkyes said, same stuff we go through, just the opposite direction.
I liked reading stuff that transmasc people would say on tumblr and stuff, place is nuts but taking in those different experiences was very cool. That someone could find the emotional outpour typically associated with estrogen to be annoying or awful, and feel better & more stable on T, for instance.
I am confused
spoiler
No 😔 but masculinity sucks. Its big and gross and terrible. Its loud and awkward and I hate it. Femininity, now there's something to be treasured.
but I do understand what you're saying, thank you.
Just in case I was wrong in my assumption and you were agender, for instance? I try not to go around assuming everybody is a trans girl y'know
I mean I agree that femininity is pretty cool, but there are also women who enjoy being big and loud, Idk. It's not like these people are bringing about the end of femininity, there will still be femmes at the end of the day to appreciate and kiss, although I'm not certain femininity is any more inherently treasurable than masculinity. I'm dead curious, where do femboys and other feminine male-aligned identities fall in your value system? /gen
Actually also, where do butch lesbians fall into this? What about transmasc lesbians who like, microdose T or something? Do nonbinary people also get this dichotomous reaction from you? /gen
Also masculinity is not inherently loud and awkward, I'm pretty sure? Toxic masculinity sure can be, but there's nothing about masculinity that says it has to be loud or awkward, it just didn't fit you is all. Also insert "trans man short king" meme here!
Yw
It's not a great reaction and it's good to acknowledge that and do self crit, but I also think it's not productive to beat yourself up about having these brainworms.
No you're fine
I say and feel some very transfem things but I'm still working through it.
I know, I'm probably projecting a lot of my own feelings about myself into the issue.
femboy brainworms
I don't know if this is really my like "value system" because I do logically love all my trans and queer peers. Its just like a gut reaction thing I want to improve.
I don't know. Its really hard to parse all my feelings. Its a little... uncanny? My gut reaction is disliking it. I think its really when you see/they show their masc features that it gives me that feeling. I know its rooted in bad reasons (either my very cishet childhood, or my own feelings of wishing I was more fem and suppressing those feelings somehow [if that makes sense]), but yea. I don't know.
Thank you for your kind words. I can be very hard on myself. I'm trying
Saying and feeling transfem things
uncritical support.
Indeed yaw, and that's not super good cause they're other people, your feelings about their bodies are irrelevant!
mmmm, brainwormssss
"Uncanny" because feminine but a man, I suppose...? I'm feeling like this analysis of masculinity & femininity is painfully rooted in binary gender exclusively, that's my vibe. I might find masculinity sometimes unpleasant myself, and certainly I'm not a fan of testosterone's effects on the body, but that is personal preference and doesn't make masculinity bad, you know? Transmasc lesbians are kinda rad actually. There are lesbians who use he/him, even!
Cishet childhood will do a number on anyone,
I assume you're not satisfied with your level of fem atm though?
Yw again, trying is the first step to getting better so good on you
I know they are! I just want to make my feelings a little more aligned with how they should be.
Yea probably. It bothers me so much because I know it's wrong but I don't quite feel it yet, you know?
I definitely wish I could do some fem coded things (like get rid of all this awful hair), but I don't know if I need to throw out my whole gender, or how comfortable am I with just kinda accepting what I've got. I also don't feel very "womanly" atm, my body just feels like a dude. And then there's some things that don't bother me as much that I feel like "should" if I was a transwoman, but I do feel a lot of gender envy, and :cri: it's just no good.
Gender binarism sucks, your life will improve if you delete it from your mind & expand your analysis to have more genders in =)
Woah, that's a ton at once, lots of conflicting stuff. I can say that you absolutely should get rid of that hair since it's bugging you, any way you can: shaving, epilating(expensive), waxing, nair(use carefully), whatever works just do it to be more comfortable. Is there anything stopping you from doing it?
I'm not certain what you mean regarding "throw out your whole gender", if you mean your agab then yeah prolly. It seems like it bothers you?
What things don't bother you as much as you feel they should?
Yea, sorry for the trauma dump 👉👈 I was feeling pretty bad last night.
I have been, the stuff that's not visible + face and neck. It's just social fear. I don't want people to make comments.
I don't know, maybe some cis guys feel the ways I do. Sure sometimes I hate it (or at least parts of it) but sometimes I don't. Maybe I'm just a cis guy who likes some more feminine things.
I don't really have any bottom dysphoria, which seems like a big one. I remember watching a contrapoints video (I know I know) and she mentioned that transwomen don't "use" their penis the way men do. And I kinda want to. If I was born without one I don't think I'd have any great pull towards getting one, but I also don't want to get rid of it necessarily.
I feel like these feelings happened/were noticed too late. Like if I was trans, surely I would have known once puberty started up or maybe even as a teen, but now I'm past both of those things.
No worries you are okay
Okay cool, very nice. Fwiw I've never had anyone comment about my body hair, although I do wear long sleeves a lot. If someone does, just tell em it's aerodynamic, like swimmers do.
Okay but cis guys never "hate it" though, I'm certain of that. I don't think you'd be here, you know?
Oh man fuck Contrapoints, she's ridiculous, she's a sad /tttt/ user with awful ideas about everything. An enby-exclusionary transphobe to boot. What the fuck is "using" a penis the way a man does? Does this mean trans women aren't allowed to have insertive sex, because if so I have bad news for half this thread, and I'm also a fake trans, lmao. Benefit of the doubt, I'll assume Contra wasn't generalising, but there are no rules about how trans people can use their sexual anatomy. (Also nobody has any right to pass judgement on how anyone uses their sexual anatomy) There are tons of transfemmes who happily enjoy insertive sex. Your view of your bits does not make you less trans. Presence or lack of dysphoria does not make you less trans.
Trans people realise they are trans at many ages in many different ways, observe @EstraDoll@hexbear.net who just realised she is trans like two months ago. I might be a teenage transitioner, but without running into certain books I'd have probably transitioned way later. My wife transitioned in her 30s. The idea that trans people just know from childhood is a myth perpetuated by gatekeeping health "care" "professionals" for whatever stupid fucking reason. Gender is hard though, and it takes everyone different amounts of time and internal consideration to realise. Coming to know that you are trans in your 20s, 30s, 40s, or even later does not make you less trans.
My comrade in christ
I hope you are doing okay 
more like 7 weeks lmao. I'm still a zoomer but I'm a grown adult, which means i'm transitioning at like, a little older than average if I had to guess (I have no idea what the average age to transition is) but like, regardless of how long it takes you to realize, the eggy ass thoughts were always there. There are a lot of trans people out there who didn't figure it out until much later than me. There's even this one absolutely adorable photo of a trans woman at the top of r/transtimelines (which is bad for my mental health and I should not look at that sub again for a long time) who didn't transition until she was sixty seven. It is absolutely never too late!
and it's funny you mention that because I think one of the reasons it took this long for it to click is that I just don't have any genital dysphoria. I wouldn't say I love them but I like them and I want to use them. In a weird sense I think of it as something of a privilege because of how few other women can claim that. It is a little inconvenient because taking the no-op route basically means that there are a handful of fashion choices that are going to take some extra work to pull off, if I can at all but like... eh. (god i wish i could just wear the leggings and nobody cared)
Probably 25 if I had to guess? Idk. Hello zoomer :) sorry for the @
I do think that not figuring it out till way later isn't mutually exclusive with looking back and going "oh, egg behaviour", not universal but not uncommon. Imma keep it real w/u chief, I love our trans elders. Literally always happy to hear about my trans siblings finding themselves at any age ❤
I hate that so much, the narrative that bottom dysphoria is a requirement for being trans. It's dumb and it's fake, like there have been nonop trans people since there have been trans people. Also honestly, after hearing some cis women talk about wanting one... maybe it sort of is in a weird way? Trans superiority!!
But yeah same re: fashion stuff, I just wear jeans for convenience...
hmm. Maybe I'll give it a try at some point. I don't want to go the whole summer hating my legs so
what else is there to do.
Its hard for me to imagine someone always liking their gender and all that. Like who isn't a little
veryjealous of women.I know she is, but idk. Sometimes she made sense to me. I'm surprised its that common, I feel like I've seen a lot of transwomen complaining about not wanting to perform penetration and their partners wanting them to.
cw for brainworms around transwomen's genitals (is anyone surprised at this point)
So obviously I don't care what transwomen do with their bodies, and if they want to keep the penis, that's up to them. (and iirc like 90% do?)
But like, as if it wasn't bad enough for women to have a penis how can a woman be okay with that? Its so... unwomanly. And that's really me? A transwoman who some how is okay with the whole penis thing? That's just... odd. It doesn't make sense to me. If I like the penis I must be a guy, but at the same time I'm pretty sure I'd hit a button to magically change my gender from birth and all that. Its just so confusing
It makes me feel like a man pretending to be a woman.
I have been watching her transition
she seems very happy and brave. Thank you for sharing your story. I know you don't "have" to know from when your a child but it still feels very weird to me.
Yeah shaving your legs is awesome, feels great. I haven't in ages but I might do just for fun, Idk. I tend to yeet all my body hair maybe once every eight or nine months? Weirdly I don't really mind the body hair but for its curliness, which makes it bunch up and stand out.
Lmao, I know right?? Surely everyone wants to be beautiful lady! It Is Known!
She has said good things, she's not a total brainworm pit, but I'd turn a critical eye to anything she says. Unsurprisingly societal connotations around having a penis and the expectations that come with it mean that a lot of trans women get fetishistically pigeon-holed by anyone they have sex with, which is awful. I've seen people talk here about how they both do not have bottom dysphoria but also hate it when every partner they have expects them to top. Not having bottom dysphoria also is not equal to always having insertive sex.
my comrade in christ....
No it's fuckin not, there are tons of women who in fact do not have a vulva. Secretly, sexual anatomy is only gendered because cis people, the majority sadly, have chosen to conflate gender and genitalia 1:1, it's how they "decide" a baby's gender and get it wrong so often. They do this because as cis people their gender is aligned with the one they were assigned at birth, and in not changing their bodies at all they keep the genitals they have. But one size does not fit all. Also that 90% stat is probably down to the inaccessibility of bottom surgery.
But yes, a woman can have a penis, a man can have a vulva, hell very rarely people are born with something more ambiguous. Some people get surgery to have both, which is incredible. You sometimes hear cis women talk about how it would be cool to have a penis, which doesn't automatically make them a man. The association of sexual anatomy with gender only exists due to the dominance of cisgender people, which has been enforced very violently over the course of our history. Certain gatekeepy medical "professionals" will get arsey with you if you say you don't want bottom surgery, because they must uphold the cisnormative social order. It's harder to keep their strangehold on cishet gender, which helps feed the machine of capitalism with workers, if people are running around questioning the dogshit assumptions they have put in place. Society drives these cisnormative assumptions into you from birth, which is insidious and hurts people and is part of why that shit must be stopped.
Why is a penis inherently male? Just because most people born with one are men? Ridiculous; if the penis belongs to a woman, she is still a woman, and the penis is female, same in reverse for anyone with a vulva, and of any gender. You are not pretending to be a woman, if you say you are one, you are, regardless of what is in your pants.
As a footnote to all of this, read The Gender Accelerationist Manifesto which is an awesome synthesis of trans/queer theory and leftist theory. Great read.
We love our trans comrades, don't we folks? ✨ I really adore seeing people go through transition and feel good about it, warms my heart.
No prob, and it's like anything else I guess, you could switch careers or realise your sexuality isn't what you thought or become a hardcore leftist or change your gender, any time in your life. Life comes at people at different speeds, and we're always changing.
Take some time and listen to trans masc people and their struggles. You don't even have to know someone personally, but reading enough on how dysphoria wrecks them should be more than enough to help you understand better. I know you said don't be too harsh on you, so I'll just say this is something worth diving into more if this is still how you react to trans masc people
Also sounds like you have your own gender things to work through right now that are contributing heavily to this. Hope to see you posting when yoi get past this too
I should have asked this originally, but do you have any good transmasc youtubers I could listen to share their experiences? I know it's bad that's why I want to get over it. It feels so reactionary and I want to do better.
Yea, the more I think about it the more I wonder/feel like that's the case. I will keep posting, I love this place :meow-hug:
Hmm I don't have anyone in particular, tho I'm reminded of this video that I saw recently about someone trans masc coming out and beong happy about it. Maybe that's worth a watch
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
spoiler
Its big and gross and terrible. Its loud and awkward and I hate it.
That seems like a fairly reductive way of thinking about masculinity - there's a whole range of masculine gender expression archetypes from the jolly epicurean guy with a big beer gut to the shy smol twink, or the American frat boy dickhead.
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It's a good guess because that's basically how it's used (and how I used it)
I know I'm just :projection: my feelings. My ✨ gender feelings ✨ are kinda kicking up right now too so that doesn't help.
Although I will say, twinks have always seemed very femme to me.
Spend more time listening to transmasc people, learn about their struggles, their dysphoria triggers etc. This will help a lot to empathize, and it actually expands your own understanding of gender a lot to see how trans people of other genders go about their transitions.
Real! Talk to your trans comrades!
In my experience simply knowing and understanding why transmasc people transition and what they feel dysphoric over and don’t doesn’t really get rid of my envy or confusion, it just urges me to be more empathetic to them. To an extent I think it’s just normal for trans people be envious and confused of each other? I imagine transmasc people have the exact same thoughts about transfemme people all the time. Like, I don’t understand why people like IPA’s but I don’t think they’re less valid for liking them (or that I’m less valid for not liking them!)
I vaguely feel the same way but I don't feel sad, I just feel comically confused. I don't actually believe this, and I understand that you can have gender dysphoria going the other way, but every time I think about trans masc people I just keep thinking "What the fuck? You're going the wrong way???" Like, I have gender dysphoria just like trans masc people, but they're transitioning to gain all of the things that make me dysphoric? what the hell?
I obviously don't believe that literally or take it seriously. I think it's really funny, actually, and I would probably laugh if a trans masc person said I was transitioning the wrong way too
ya i feel this. logically i know it's silly but nevertheless my brain goes "whaddahell, why would you do that?" like i'm watching chess blunder
It makes sense to feel pissed if someone you’re experiencing gender envy towards explicitly doesn’t want to present that way, because it can feel like you’re sort of being disrespected by proxy because they’re not respecting the thing you covet so much. But the thing is that everyone is different and something so essential and desired for you can literally just be repulsive and undesirable for someone else. It’s like different kinds of candy. It’s normal to be kind of angry if someone has licorice and you like licorice, but they throw it away because they don’t like licorice. But, not only would you never force someone to eat licorice, gender expression isn’t a discrete thing that can be transferred like licorice is! So our reactions are something we shouldn’t beat ourselves up over, but we also don’t want to let it make us hurt or affect our actual opinion of our trans comrades (and it should go without saying that this applies both directions for transmasc and transfemme people!).