Many trans people (me included) strongly identify with a gender.
If we didn’t strongly identify with a gender, why on earth would we put ourselves through this lengthy, expensive, socially punishing, and often painful transition process? The joy of living as yourself (which, for many of us, includes gender expression) makes it worthwhile.
Gender roles, like “men are doctors, women are nurses?” Very often, those are fucking bullshit.
Wanting to be recognized as a man/woman, and valuing that, does not imply being on board with sexism.
Shouldn’t we be making the distinction between TransSex and TransGender in that case then?
I’ve been told very conflicting opinions on the whole topic; from genitals don’t matter AT ALL in terms of being identified as a man/woman, to genitals being the defining thing that needs changing for a person to feel whole.
I’m the type of person who needs to understand things logically, and a lot of the time upon trying to understand - I’m given completely different goalposts by completely different people. How do I understand all the different opinions on the topic, in a way that allows me to logically follow a thought process in order to distinguish these different ways of thinking?
All of this resists easy categories because we are talking about people and societies (which are both incredibly complicated).
The position that “genitals are the only thing that matters in all cases” is very much not a position I agree with. I had such bad bottom dysphoria that I got the surgery. But I have friends who are gender conforming, sexy women that don’t experience bottom dysphoria and have no plans for surgery. They are no less trans or less women because of it.
In the community, the term “non-op” is often used to refer to people who can get where they want to be without surgery (wish it had been me, would have been a lot less work), and “Pre-op” / “post-op” for people who do want it, depending on status.
You may very well have talked to people who said “my surgery was everything, I needed it so much and that was what I needed to feel happy”. That’s a completely legit way to feel, I don’t want to downplay that. For me personally, hormones were almost as important; for a lot of people hormones are The Thing, for others it’s attire and presentation and social interaction.
I can’t give you simple answers. There aren’t any.
There’s simply no logical answer that will apply to everyone. But no, transSex isn’t a thing. You can’t change your sex, because that’s biological. Your gender is simply your presentation. It doesn’t mean you necessarily have to fit into any specific box. It can definitely be confusing. But no one is talking about gender roles. It’s about presentation. There is generally a feminine way to present and a masculine way to present. And a boy presenting feminine is just fundamentally different from a trans-fem person in ways that are difficult to classify. Because gender is a spectrum
https://old.reddit.com/r/lgbt/comments/yzg4b9/transgender_vs_transsexual/iwztr2a/ – This person says transsex is a thing and it’s distinct from transgender. :[
Why does nobody agree on this crap?! According to others, there IS a distinction between transgender and transsex. But you’re telling me there isn’t…
I swear to god I’m trying to understand… but as soon as I think I am starting to, someone bitches at me for being ignorant and apparently not understanding…