I am still very early in this whole process, and there is still a lot of self doubt, so I am reading a lot of literature on “Am I trans” and dysphoria.
One concept that people often like to propose in these ressources is the button that makes you the opposite gender, and, crucially, also makes everyone else believe that you have been that way forever.
I don’t really like this, because my time as a boy/man is part of who I am. I would not be me without it, and despite all of the problems I had and have due to my gender, it is still part of who I am. I fought through all of this and worked to find out who I want to be by myself. I wouldn’t wanna be cis, and I also don’t want to cease being the me born out of this struggle.
I would like a gender button, because ideally I would just switch genders at will. That would be dope as hell
Replying again because I remembered a thought-
A sort of version of this question I’ve seen, that for me was a loooottt more helpful, but is more kinda aimed at sussing out if you’re nonbinary vs male/female, was:
If you had been born as the opposite sex, would you have felt the need to physically transition?
And like. No? If I’d been born with a penis I think my main body dysphoria would’ve been over the fact that (based on my family) I would’ve been circumcised. The only physical change I would’ve done would be foreskin restoration, lol (also I’d work way harder at taking care of my butthole and not having hemorrhoids, since I wouldn’t have the easier bottoming option I have now). Other than that I believe I’d just be a queer sometimes femme sometimes masc guy, I doubt I’d identify as any kind of trans.
But as is I was born into my body and have experienced decades of dysphoria and have been various states of egg for most of that time. I’m not a woman but living as a girl and then a woman has shaped so much of who I am, that to remove that, would fundamentally change me.
If there was a magical get a full sized uncut penis button I think I would probably (but like, I’m not even certain of that) press it?
But I’m not interested in any button that undoes my life. Because then I’m not me. And that line of thinking is confusing and gives me existential dread. No thanks.
(I’m not trans myself so I have an outside perspective)
I remember watching a video that basically said that gender essentialism (“born trans”) is something you tell conservatives to accept you. The radical stance on the other side is “gender isn’t something you are but something you do” if that makes sense. So in your case, you did a lot of male and now you want to do female. There is nothing wrong with that. You don’t have to say that your former life was a lie nor that it defines what you are.
This isn’t against people who say they felt it since they were little. So they did the other gender without showing.
I hope that makes sense. It’s my outside perspective and I’m willing to learn. I can look up the video if you ask me to.
Edit: I took the time to rewatch the video and it is worth it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4r0CoXsGmk
The radical stance on the other side is “gender isn’t something you are but something you do” if that makes sense.
This isn’t “radical”, it’s literally just an attempt to uphold the status quo by reinforcing gender norms as fixed things.
What is a gay femboy doing? Is he doing the female gender? In all ways in every aspect of his life he is behaving withing feminine norms, and having sex with men. All aspects of his behaviour, of his everyday life, are indistinguishable to others as the same actions that a transwoman might perform.
Is he doing female gender? No he’s not. He’s just being outside of typical social norms.
Gender is not defined by behaviour.
A woman can be a bodybuilder, that dresses masc, that behaves masc, and still be a woman. She’s not “being a man”.
The premise of gender being defined by behaviour is just a conservative attempt to reinforce social norms that they wish to uphold because they’re trying to preserve patriarchy and various other social pillars they view as essential to preserving the existing hierarchies of power.
Gender is not something you do. Gender is something you simply are, and it is incongruence with what you actually are and what you’re socially perceived as that produces feelings of discomfort. Which is precisely why acceptance is absolutely crucial to positive feelings, and why suicide and depression rates in trans teens pre-op and pre-hormones that have a fully accepting social and familial network (basically their whole lives) drop to essentially near cis levels. The social factor is extremely significant.
I wish I had a slider where I can just change my gender from one side to the other, or somewhere in-between, through nano-machines that can rapidly disassemble and rebuild my anatomy.
turning a big dial taht says “Gender” on it and constantly looking inward to myself for approval like a contestant on Dr. Phil
