DrivebyHaiku @ DrivebyHaiku @lemmy.ca

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"Being born in the wrong body" is a phrase used to simplify a fairly complex situation in a way that also makes it seem like to trans people it's a metaphysical belief about the nature of the the soul. This is by and large incorrect. What trans people experience isn't delusion. Delusion relies on a belief that contradicts reality or relies on the very shaky ground of the insubstantiated supernatural. What trans people experience is an uncontrolled mental reaction to physical replicatable stimuli to their own bodies. All the cultural stuff is in service to this.

For example - When you call a trans man a woman - what that person is reacting to is your perception of their body making them ground in that physical discomfort. It is like if you had a physical feature you despised, say a physical deformation with a traumatic memory attached, and people kept remarking on it in conversation. While you might be able to walk the world happily temporarily forgetting it exists someone remarking on it is like shoving a mirror in your face. This is why misgendering doesn't have to be intentional to be hurtful.

Our culture has a lot of cultural protections built in for people who have deformaties through birth or accident because we understand universally the effect those things have on the psyche. It's impolite to stare, to mention or exclude people with those features. Gender however is harmless for about 98% of the population. It's remarked upon in the form of pronouns in every conversation where three or more people participate. This is ultimately why that saying "trans women are woman (etc.) " exists. It's not them saying that trans people have any misunderstandings or delusions about the history of their bodies or how they differ from cis women. They have no delusions, they are painfully aware, at all times, exactly how they differ. What that saying is trying to convey is that a trans person should not be treated or categorized by society any differently than cis people of that gender or should be accommodated for being treated as neither gender.

This is also why surgeries are often employed. It's in part to gain unwitting compliance from a population who reacts to physical sex characteristics and pairs that with gender. It's mending how people react to themselves in the mirror as much as it is removing the mirror from the hands of other people. What the removal of the disorder portion of the DSM was about was an acknowledgement that this problem is cultural. It is as much a problem with society's constructions and beliefs around sex and gender as it is a singular person's problem. Just as being gay is only a problem if society responds to it as an undesirable characteristic the issues with being trans are exacerbated by cultural sorting of gender into exclusive categories and people's personal ick about people's surgical and hormonal personal autonomy around their bodies.

The reason trans people have to frame their fight primarily as medically nessisary intervention is largely because of cis people's squeamishness causing them issues of lack of personal freedom to choose how to personally navigate a society not built to manage their specific personal struggles around their physical sex. The problem with society isn't going anywhere most places yet so the individual is assuming the burdens of that and it's well proven that those experiencing this issue are tackling that issue in thoughtful, logic based ways with proven ability to accurately judge risk and reward of their choices on that front.

As a gay trans guy who grew up in the 90's trying to sort out the toxic masculinity/internalized misogyny while fully closeted and being unaware that other trans men exist is a trip. Like doing all that "I have no emotions and refuse anything remotely girl-coded" song and dance kind of made me into what looked from the outside like a "pick-me" for years and I was relentlessly pursued romantically by people I just wanted to hang out and drink beer with. It was isolating and fucked up even if the behaviour soothed the dysphoria.

Had to address the internalized misogyny thing first, realize that was not motivating the trans portion of the issue and then had to work on getting off the toxic sauce that felt so darkly affirming and actually spend time with cis men who had properly deconstructed their own masculinity. Now I'm generally way better off and have a bunch of folk whom I brunch with who gas each other up over cocktails.

I am glad to have been of help!

With the trans community being under so much pressure from outside it really has negative impacts inside the community crushing down the narratives into only the most defensible to cis people. We repeat them so often it's likely we'll internalize that framework and that's not great for us I think. We defend things so often in terms of nessesity and harm prevention and medicalization of the trans experience that trans joy and the nature of creatures to chase the conditions they instinctually know are the most conducive to happiness get lost.

If the cis folk understood the first thing about being trans, really understood, they wouldn't try and stop us from doing what we want. It's only because they get the ick about body modifications that we are forced to be beggars and question ourselves if we are adequately poorly off enough for rescue by a system that really only cares about survival, not quality of life. We shouldn't have to be dying to be worth care or the grace to be ourselves. We don't have to follow any specific playbook or treatment plan. We are not sick. It's hard to resist but don't let them get in your head and make you start looking at yourself as a paitent and not a deserving seeker of comfort and joy. You don't need to find joy perfect and whole to make it worthy of the risk or the cost.

Now extrapolating from our conversation I will make a few leaps. It seems to be that in many ways medical transition for you was revelatory. It makes sense you want to evangelize it. I imagine though it is also something that you've had to self advocate a lot for to pursue - which can be traumatic. Defending your choices to friends, family members and medical professionals to the bar demanded is stressful and there is strain that can impact you long term.

However that fight can twist you out of true. When you see someone who isn't conforming to that model that you had to advocate so hard for maybe it's a little threatening? Maybe to you it has to be unhealthy to do what I am doing because that strain of self advocacy has boxed you into a position where everything you've done doesn't seem valid if it wasn't nessisary. So when I come along with a different situation where I am existing alright without the things you've had to defend as nessisary for your continued success it comes across as a challenge to that hypothesis. Hence why you keep probing for fault with my situation

Maybe you aren't looking at my situation as simply a thing I am doing, you are looking at it as an arguement against the validity of what you are doing

Thing is - and I say this with emphasis - none of the choices I have personally made or the reasons behind them have anything to do with yours. My situation being stable and reasonably healthy doesn't invalidate any of your choices. If you believe what you did is nessisary - it was. It doesn't have to be universally nessisary.

Better yet : who said your transition needs to be necessary to be worthwhile? I certainly didn't. If it was just what you wanted with all your heart - that's enough. You should be able.

There's also this valorizing of my endurance I am picking up on which I think may have been from my statement about how one handles different types of pain. I think you may have taken it as some type of "I'm a fucking bad ass and can endure" sort of sentiment...but that's really not it. What was intended was this -enduring something is handled differently when you are adequately rewarded for your trouble. Yes my experience sucks but I have but when that happens I have adequate reasons to remind myself why exactly why I am doing this. Would I endure this if I were not nigh constantly rewarded for my efforts? No... It's not bravery or self perceived strength that I should hold out because I can or some kind of deep seated transphobia. I don't believe that sacrificing for love is some noble thing. It's literally just the offsets have been simply judged worth the cost. The Mennonite woman is doing what she does out of an assertion that she is stronger and more moral than other people who have made different choices. That's, pardon the language, self aggrandizing bull shit.

The reaction some have trying to convince me of what I am doing as being wrong in some way is something I encounter specifically with binary trans folk who have been through the ringer or who are insecure to the point where I am pretty sure what they are doing is a trauma response. However just because it's a potential trauma response doesn't mean it is cool. Think of it this way - In trying to stess test my transition choices by finding fault this way binary trans people are doing what cis people did to them just in reverse - The requesting or coercing of trans people to defend their transition choices. Enbies are sometimes looked at as the weak flank of the arguements that trans people make to society for the right to accommodation. These forms of Enbyphobia aren't often discussed because it's acknowledged that these issues come from pressure from outside the community. A united front pushing things as a nessesity is what gets traction with cis people. Edge cases, nuanced situations and people who do not neatly fit into that narrative sometimes become targets because we are inconvenient so we get hit on multiple flanks having to justify our choices to binary trans people and cis people. It's that shared experience more than anything that keeps me solidly identifying as non-binary rather than binary trans. It's also a personal declaration that I need not conform to anybody else's views of masculinity and acknowledging/accepting rather than rejecting this space I occupy as a possible end goal.

There is again quite an assumption here mainly that my partner somehow asked me to not transition, that again I am somehow being coerced to stay by a domineering voice.

This was a discussion, a frank one, where I clarified with him what the potential outcomes of a medical transition were in terms of our relationship and decided on my own. It was not something he was comfortable asking me to do on his behalf and even after making my decision he took some time to feel comfortable on his end with it because his concerns and lack of self confidence of being "worth it". People have approached him in the past with the attitude that he's doing me a disservice and it ruins him for at least a week.

You are also conflating my comment about medical transitioning being a no brainer with transitioning itself. I have still transitioned socially and have been impacted in losing career advantages, family and friends for my choices. All transitions carry risks regardless of the medical component and when you frame it in this way where it focuses on medical transition as the majority of the risk or defining portion of transistion it implies that non-medical transition doesn't count as transition. Any transition should be approached as potentially having serious reprocussions. In many cases of my friends who have medically transitioned the decision to medically transition was ultimately a lot less difficult than the decision to socially transition because by the time they got there they'd already experienced bigotry and yes, their lives have gotten markedly better since... But they also do not pity me and that is the tone of what you give off here (particularly in quoting a book about a womam dealing with religious trauma and internalized homophobia) the sense that you aren't simply empathizing or sympathizing with the aspects of my choices which are difficult but that you veiw those choices as harmful or misguided.

I am glad that you found happiness and comfort in your transistion. It's obviously a great fit. Maybe rethink your approach to non-binary folx as it seems like you bring a little overmuch of your personal baggage with you.

I appreciate the apology. As a suggestion it's best to ask clarifying questions before handing down judgements about what counts as healthy for someone or offering advice. As a long term non-medically transitioning person I receive a lot of unsolicited advice about how to live my life from people whose circumstances are much more clear cut. It comes across often as quite condescending when someone extrapolates from a very small snippet of personal information that mine were not carefully thought out and reasoned choices that are made daily.

The choice to transition medically isn't a simple medical question and in my mind should not be out of hand treated as if it were a straightforward form of medical treatment to restore function. The question we should be asking ourselves is always "are the decisions I am making wholistic towards the outcome of making my life the best it can be." For a lot of people the decision to medically transition is a no brainer, there is nothing keeping you but for some it comes with a slew of either/or sacrifices that impact other valuable aspects of the human experience. For some of us there isn't a good solution without pain of some kind and the only choice we can make is what is preferable to endure. The reasons other people have to make are their own to make and not seeking "treatment" is not a metric of whether they take their situation "seriously".

There is a very big difference between how people carry pain endured for little to no reason versus pain that is the willing price paid for something cherished.

Just a gentle suggestion that not physically transitioning for your partner's preferences is probably not healthy or OK, I know it's difficult and you have to figure that out yourself - but I encourage you to seek counseling and find a way to help your partner see that being trans is a genetic and medical condition that for your health and well-being you really shouldn't ignore and forego treatment on, esp. for something like their preferences. Not all trans experience is the same, but it's probable that medical transition would significantly improve your life.

In the nicest possible way - don't. This is not your call and this is not good advice. The relationship is 16 years old and a been a constant sense of comfort through a number of life's traumas and bumpy roads. I would happily take a bullet for him any day of the week and my choices are not founded on nothing. He can't help having a phenotype preference any more than I can and the decision I made was in regards to a wholistic assessment of what my values are. He is very aware of the nature of transness and your assumption that what works for you is the best path forward is not welcome.

I accept the conditions under which I live as imperfect but preferrable by far then losing a partner with whom I share my burdens.

As a trans guy who is sort of non-binary as a shorthand explanation and mental crutch for a complicated resting state of not physically transitioning because of my long-term partner's phenotype preferences I feel this so hard. My physical body does not sort easily into people's gender code. I ended up going with they/them pronouns more as a defensive move.

In my case it's the daily sacrifice in the name of love but fuck if it doesn't destroy my confidence regularly and feel like a fey curse.

And trans men, don't forget about us!

Real bloody fun to be arrested by police srripped and humiliated or run out by security guards or assaulted by patrons all while being treated like perverts for following idiot laws to the letter by peeing in the "correct" bathroom...

Cis folk... Are you doing okay? We of the trans community are getting concerned for you.

This is a very America centric veiw and even if it is a steel man it deserves a counterpoint.

After WWII most of the nations who were old empire builders were decimated. The general feeling was even those on the winning side didn't feel like they'd won. The rebuilding was slow and economic austerity lasted for decades.

The American prosperity of the 1950's and 60's wasn't "normal". America didn't have international competition it otherwise would have and that power gave them bargaining rights which made them both culturally dominant as they projected a sense of prosperity and politically powerful due to the resources at their disposal. Opposition to America was potentially disastrous and America threw their weight around like crazy. They expanded their military with these resources and established bases in countries too weak to oppose them.

America came out of the war with something of a Big Damn Hero complex. Communism, for all it's perceived threat was also a handy excuse to pursue expansion and in keeping American supremacy in place. Whether countries wantes to be "protected" or not really has a lot of across the board nuance. A lot of American political will was coercive and a lot of the things done in the fight for "democracy" were disproportionate and horrific.

Really a lot of the American supremacy at bottom was might makes right. With the world finally recovering economically and now able to speak as equals the US is using measures that demand a return to that economic supremacy and stranglehold. The larger sore points are growing. The world doesn't need one big power in charge. They don't need a king with a standing army. They want to make their own choices and have freedoms to not conform to whatever America wants and the attitudes Americans show to disregard that will is garnering response.

Genocide is technically a process and a sliding scale. It exists by degrees. It may seem hyperbolic to classify some actions as genocidal particularly when they are slow or the number of deaths do not seem absolute but it is still genocide.

What defines a genocide via international Convention is any of five acts intended to diminish the population of a cultural community. None of these have to be a totality of the group it can be only in part. The important thing is victims are targeted because of their real or perceived membership of a group, not randomly. The five acts of genocide are :

• Killing members of the group
• Causing them serious bodily or mental harm
• Imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group
• Preventing births
• Forcibly transferring children out of the group

While a number of countries are full five for five in regards to trans people you only really need one to qualify. Things like the lack of reporting of Trans deaths, the removal of services needed by the group including medical care or critical mental health resources as is happening with the closure of LGBTQIA+ specific crisis support in the US, the labelling of Trans people as pedophiles or removal of children from the custody of supportive parents into state custody by labelling gender affirming attitudes as "child abuse", the forcing of trans people to endure security risks because of laws that often get them arrested for following them such as bathroom bills... All of these are genocidal measures they just aren't fast acting.

While it may seem like the point of the word is to be splashy and attention grabbing that need not be the point of it. The cultural expectations that genocide need only be wartime type measures of systematic elimination is a disservice to a lot of other genocides that are happening globally.

Her last name is Wilson... Is there some really terrible Wilson I don't know about?

Trans people just need to be loved and accepted like everyone else but unfortunately a lot of people really suck.

Point of order. Trans people do not just need to be loved and accepted. Sometimes when this discussion point comes up it's under the context that if everyone was playing ball with pronouns and being nice then medical transition would be unnecessary. That is not the case.

While it's true that one of the effects of medical transition means that strangers are more likely to read and not misgender you - being trans the feedback system isn't dependent on outside observers. What a lot of people seem to think is that gender as understood by cis people, as a largely performative construct, is by and large not how trans people interact with gender.

I personally wish we would stop looking at trans healthcare from the sour perspective of needing to justify itself being a worthy endeavor or not strictly on the basis of suicide rates as though if something is not provably strictly lifesaving in every case it isn't worthy.

So here's where the whole "but kids shouldn't make these decisions" arguement kind of falls apart... You are assuming it's the kids making the decisions.

The reality here is there is a bar that trans kids need to pass to be eligible which requires the signoff of a whole panel of adults based on the observed behaviour, self descriptive process and recorded outcomes of thousands of trans people in the past creating a rubric that professionals draw on. Being trans and the way gender is processed by trans people is actually more different from being cis than a lot of cis people are aware and the presentations of transness are actually pretty consistent. The regret rate is astronomically low - kind of to the point where it is actually unusual because of the level of care taken to predict and assess potential harm.

To get puberty blockers you need first a child who wants them, then all guardians of the child to agree it is worth pursuing. Then you require the endorsement of a psychiatrist with years of consultation and a social worker to make sure the home situation is above board and nobody is being coerced. Then you need a pediatrician to sign off on the standing health of the paitent, and endocrinologist to assess the safety of pursuing blockers...

It's not a one time thing either, you have to have routine check ins once things start and if any of these adults remove their endorsement of the paitent then it doesn't matter what the kid wants. It's not happening.

If anything medical starts going wrong long term health remains priority.

So can we please not pretend it's dumb children showing up to a tattoo parlor? It's a panel of professionals working off predictions based off of a nigh century of diagnostic data in conjunction with parents making informed decisions on behalf of their incredibly dedicated child- because these kids need to self advocate like fucking crazy at all points of the process... Which in itself tends to disqualify kids who don't absolutely need this because it's a job and a half.

This is designed as ironclad ethical assisted decision-making as can be made and people are being tricked into thinking that somehow this process is not as rigorously checked for flaws or deals with consent of minors differently than any other form of pediatric medicine. Why is that?

Yes... but the "how you get there" stage never actualizes which means maybe there's something more fundemenally wrong with the theory.

To overthrow the resting state of a government you need power. That power generally doesn't work if it isn't organized so like it or not the efficiency of hierarchy ends up being key to creating the resistance able to take over and have the ability to enforce the set of ideals.

Now Communism wants a society that is laterally structured as possible which means that any new hierarchy that attempts to assemble itself is antithetical to the whole idea. The minute a hierarchy appears it is more structured and more efficient in disseminating it's directives because it works off of deffering the stages of debate and arriving at concensus... So the first hierarchy that forms in a lateral system has game advantage right off the bat unless it is stopped.

Now humans in a lateral power structure don't always agree. You can't count on all of them being conditioned to unilaterally and naturally oppose these hierarchies as they emerge. People are generally unhappy if government is slow and doesn't appear to be addressing their concerns - which is basically a problem with every Government because the allocation of resources and expertise is finite. Dissidents are going to happen and they are going to organize.

...But in a political landscape weak against emerging hierarchy and dependent on hierarchy not appearing how do you stop an emerging hierarchy from upsetting the apple cart? You have a standing force in place. Every attempt thusfar has either been capitalism with a red coat of paint or whatever revolutionary force overthrew the standing power remaining in place and exerting force against a population to keep the power of the masses atomized in the name of a system "without hierarchy" ignoring the hierarchy of the standing power because they are supposed to hand over the power at some point.

That point never actualizing is the bit Communist writers never really address. If the former revolutionaries let up the force used to keep people from organizing themselves Communism as it works in practice falls apart and the things they do to keep themselves in power are authoritarian because it is directed to stop the political will of others outside of their official hierarchy. Once you remove personal wealth from individual hands you also lock people inside the system because they have to accept that to move outside the boundaries they to leave to pursue life under other systems they will need do so with virtually nothing.

Really not looking forward to a repeat of the time of the Hogwarts Legacy game. Online Trans spaces were being brigaded with every reveiw or JKR tweet and comment sections filled unchallenged with tacit endorsements after the trans voices fell silent because we were all just hoping the abuse would stop. That the HP targeted adds and their companion transphobic political adds riding on the wake of the high on queer creators would dry up. The media, the platforms the people coming into places proclaiming they are gunna buy multiple copies of the game to show us what is what. The suicidal ideation of our most vulnerable friends as they deal with feelings of being targeted and feelings of being unwanted or ignored by the world...

Most people not caring might not be "valid" but it will feel like the truth again.

Trans person maybe, some of us are subject to our own personal problems just like anyone... But a concensus of trans people should be the marker. I don't know how many times I have heard someone claim allyship when they are being called out by multiple trans people for something they said or did.

It's interesting how fast some people will flip. Sometimes a well meaning cis person will suggest something as a work around for some trans engineered social convention or accommodation to try and make things easier for them without realizing how it interacts with the actual experience of being trans. When trans people try and explain exactly why it does not work based off of experience the cis person, upset their idea to solve a problem that they do not fully understand was rejected , suddenly start into the old transphobic gems - "oh you're just trying to be difficult, play the victim, nobody will like you if you're that sensitive"

End of day Trans allyship does involve a certain amount of trusting trans people to tell you what makes them comfortable and what they need because it really is a very different experience of gender at it's core. Deciding what we need on our behalf or telling us how we should feel or giving us advice on how to approach transness happens a lot out in the world and it really isn't helpful. It often just exposes how much the speaker does not understand.

Maybe? The fear of clowns is often rooted in the uncanny. The obscuring makeup of clowns makes their emotions and expressions either so overly exaggerated or difficult/impossible to read which messes with the lizard brain and makes them seem to some people, particularly ones who have issues with reading facial cues, as inhuman. It's sort of the same principle that freaks people out about dolls and mannequins. That almost but decidedly not quite human alarm.

Drag makeup generally serves the opposite purpose. It is exaggerated but in such a way as to be easier to read the performer's face at a distance.

The short answer is it's not books. It's mostly licencing deals in the form of video games and merchandise... However HBO is about to put forward a new series that JKR will have executive control and an executive sized pay check for.

It's the "well it already exists and licencing deals are already paid, might as well watch it/play it/own it" that keeps the whole engine rolling on. Every time there's a little bit of advocacy to disengage from the fandom it is always spun as "too late" or focuses on the books or death of the author... But all that's really required is ambivalence.

Inevitably the new HP thing will come out and whether or not trans people mention anything people will drag up the controversy, use the reminder to brigade the spaces trans people connect online, try and goad their trans coworker for a commentary and set off yet another flurry of right wing backlash that makes elevating the franchise a patriotic duty to "stick it to the moralizing trans people to show them who is boss". All of this causes more cultural pressure on a population already underwater with being chased out of the public sphere but it will be framed as a just retaliation for a perceived slight.

It's a song and dance that will continue ad infinitum as long as it's profitable because appearantly nostalgia is worth turning a blind eye to the where the money goes.