CW: I will discuss body dismorphia, or the (seeming) lack thereof I feel when thinking what it would be like to have been assigned the wrong gender. Also I describe sexual roles and thinking about having different anatomy.
Ok, so I’ve previously read Trans Liberation by Leslie Feinberg and I care about gender insofar as it takes to ensure all gender nonconforming people get healthcare, feel safe in public life, etc. I also will/have changed my language as much as it takes to make my trans comrades feel comfortable. With that out of the way:
I am a cis male, and I guess I am mostly okay with the body I’ve been given. I prefer to be called him, but I would only be a little annoyed if someone used she/her or they/them to describe me. If I try to imagine my body with a vagina and developing breasts in puberty with my current state of mind, I don’t feel very much discomfort. I don’t feel particularly attached to the role of penetrating another partner as a gay guy who enjoys bottoming more than topping. If I was forced to wear dresses to church growing up, I don’t imagine I would be very distressed.
I do value the relative ease of building muscle that comes with having a male hormonal profile, and I guess dealing with having a female hormonal profile could be alarming, but mostly because it’s not what I’m used to. But before puberty, I also wasn’t used to having a bunch of testosterone.
On some level, I understand that it can be traumatic to be the target of violence and hate speech, or to be denied medical care. I’m speaking from a position of relative privilege.
Does this mean I’m possibly non-binary? Or something else? I feel content to be assumed as male, but I don’t feel that strongly about it. And the title question again, does anybody else who is cisgender or otherwise just not have strong feelings about their own gender?
Cis straight guy here, I feel somewhat the same. Being male is easiest and most affirming for me right now, and I wouldn’t mind if people perceived me as non-binary or agender, but being female sounds like it would be a lot of work and less affirming for me. I’ve been working on getting in better shape lately, and having more strength and muscle definition feels good, not sure if that counts as affirming my male identity but it’s the closest thing I could think of.
In the last few years I’ve known a few people who transitioned, and it made me question my gender a little bit. Maybe I was just jealous because they had figured out their problem and had a clear path to solving it, whereas I’m still trying to figure out my own mental health issues (not to say that being trans is a mental illness, or to minimize the complex issues regarding transitioning, this was just my knee-jerk response). Seeing people who cared enough about their gender to go through the trouble of transition also highlighted to me how little I care about my gender. Or maybe I’m just taking it for granted because being a cis straight white guy is like playing the game on easy mode, and I haven’t been forced to think about it. My personal conclusion was that if I woke up tomorrow as physically female, and/or people perceived me as female, I wouldn’t live my life any differently. I probably wouldn’t dress in a feminine way, wear makeup, shave body hair, etc., but I also probably wouldn’t care too much about pronouns or medically transition to be more male.
Not sure if I’m using the right language, feel free to correct me if I said anything wrong. Maybe I need to read Trans Liberation and explore this further.
It’s a great read! And relatively short. Leslie touches on a lot of facets of trans and gender nonconforming life and why we all need a trans Liberation movement.
I also get the appeal of having a revelatory moment or period of time followed by depression ending and having gender euphoria. That can make a person jealous, remembering of course they may have had a really tough time before that turning point.
I would love my depression to please fuck off.
All the trans people I know seem a lot more confident and less anxious after transitioning.
I hope your depression fucks off