IDK who needs to hear this but figuring out your gender identity isn't a prerequisite to being trans or transitioning.
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tL;dr: Transition is punk rock. Fuck the rules!
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IDK who needs to hear this but figuring out your gender identity isn't a prerequisite to being trans or transitioning.
Sure, it's nice to be able to walk into a gender clinic or a therapist's office and say, "I identify as X. One Y2X transition, please." but that's often not the way it works. The identity language we use is kinda rubbish, actually, and often puts the cart before the horse.
Some people, like myself, never really get that clear-as-a-bell sense of gender identity. Maybe it's because we're a bit agender or our neurospice gets in the way or maybe it's because the trauma beat it out of us or maybe it's something else. It doesn't really matter. At least for me, transition was much more about what I wanted than what I felt like I already was.
Many people have a sense of gender that doesn't really fit into any of the boxes. They know what it is but the language doesn't exist to be able to really pin it down or precisely describe it to someone else. They could maybe say, "I identity as..." but it's hard to fill in the blank in a way that makes sense to anyone but themselves.
And for many, many people, transition is a journey and they try something and it's kinda in the right direction but they want more or they want something slightly different. You don't have to have this one identity that you've had since you were 6 and have stuck to ever since. You're allowed to grow and change.
It's all valid. There are no rules. There is no "trans enough." If you look at your AGAB and you're like, "Nah, I don't wanna be stuck in that box my whole life.", that's all you need. Transition is about saying, "Fuck you!" to the rules and that includes rules set by other trans people.
@faithisleaping Well said!
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tL;dr: Transition is punk rock. Fuck the rules!
Yeah, when I came out the only thing I was sure of was that I wasn't a man. I was pretty sure I knew where I'd end up, and mostly have gone straight there so far. But the past couple months I'm starting to move away from that goal/path or at least meander a bit from it for now.
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IDK who needs to hear this but figuring out your gender identity isn't a prerequisite to being trans or transitioning.
Sure, it's nice to be able to walk into a gender clinic or a therapist's office and say, "I identify as X. One Y2X transition, please." but that's often not the way it works. The identity language we use is kinda rubbish, actually, and often puts the cart before the horse.
Some people, like myself, never really get that clear-as-a-bell sense of gender identity. Maybe it's because we're a bit agender or our neurospice gets in the way or maybe it's because the trauma beat it out of us or maybe it's something else. It doesn't really matter. At least for me, transition was much more about what I wanted than what I felt like I already was.
Many people have a sense of gender that doesn't really fit into any of the boxes. They know what it is but the language doesn't exist to be able to really pin it down or precisely describe it to someone else. They could maybe say, "I identity as..." but it's hard to fill in the blank in a way that makes sense to anyone but themselves.
And for many, many people, transition is a journey and they try something and it's kinda in the right direction but they want more or they want something slightly different. You don't have to have this one identity that you've had since you were 6 and have stuck to ever since. You're allowed to grow and change.
It's all valid. There are no rules. There is no "trans enough." If you look at your AGAB and you're like, "Nah, I don't wanna be stuck in that box my whole life.", that's all you need. Transition is about saying, "Fuck you!" to the rules and that includes rules set by other trans people.
@faithisleaping@anarres.family i love this!
this is pretty much how i approached transitioning, tho i wish i understood this before ~2 years ago
when i started transitioning, all i knew is that i was vaguely nonbinary and that i wanted the physical and mental changes from estrogen. or at least most of them, knowing i could stop if i hated it
for the first 1.5 years on hrt i didn't change much besides pronouns, i dressed mostly how i did before (which was already pretty androgynous). but after that point i felt like presenting more explicitly feminine and using a new name so i started to do that. i'm not sure if this is a genderfluid thing or a long term shift, but it feels right at this moment
that's just one way my sense of gender has changed over time. i honestly think i was mostly fine with my assigned male gender and body when i was in my 20s and early 30s, but the prospect of aging as a male became increasingly stressful and i was getting much more dysphoric
so yeah, fuck the rules and do what feels best for your body
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@faithisleaping@anarres.family I mean, yes, very yes, all that, but.
Medical coverage is often built around the idea that we know exactly, and can write an essay around the idea. You know, like cis people probably could - fun idea, ask a cis person to explain their gender identity without refering to body characteristics, gender roles, or their official piece of paper.
It's absolutely OK to feign that level of "I'm completely and utterly sure" to people who have no actual idea what they're even asking if that's the only way to even get a try at transition.
I know I did, all the way to the operating table. And you know what, while I turned out not to be a woman, I still yearned for the right shape I want my body to be in.@thatfrisiangirlish @faithisleaping yeah, for me, it was actually learning what estrogen could do to change my body and my mind and realizing that had been the thing I was longing for my whole life that gave me the confidence to say "I am a woman" even if it wasn't exactly right because that was what I had to say to get what I needed. Nowadays, I don't even worry much about what exactly my gender is. "Woman" is close enough for the world at large, especially since I know most people aren't going to bother about subtle distinctions. In trans spaces and with people I'm close to, I'll get into more details because they don't necessarily need a simple singular answer.
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@faithisleaping@anarres.family i love this!
this is pretty much how i approached transitioning, tho i wish i understood this before ~2 years ago
when i started transitioning, all i knew is that i was vaguely nonbinary and that i wanted the physical and mental changes from estrogen. or at least most of them, knowing i could stop if i hated it
for the first 1.5 years on hrt i didn't change much besides pronouns, i dressed mostly how i did before (which was already pretty androgynous). but after that point i felt like presenting more explicitly feminine and using a new name so i started to do that. i'm not sure if this is a genderfluid thing or a long term shift, but it feels right at this moment
that's just one way my sense of gender has changed over time. i honestly think i was mostly fine with my assigned male gender and body when i was in my 20s and early 30s, but the prospect of aging as a male became increasingly stressful and i was getting much more dysphoric
so yeah, fuck the rules and do what feels best for your body @jiub @faithisleaping Having felt kind of okay with my body and and not that dysphoric as a younger adult is one of the things that did (and does) give me all sorts of doubts about transitioning now. I think some of that “fineness” was that my gender had been suppressed, and I’m relatively resilient and happy by nature, so I coped OK. But gender-fluidity is also somewhat at the heart of it. And I’m really trying to be done apologizing to anyone, including myself, about just wanting what I want.
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IDK who needs to hear this but figuring out your gender identity isn't a prerequisite to being trans or transitioning.
Sure, it's nice to be able to walk into a gender clinic or a therapist's office and say, "I identify as X. One Y2X transition, please." but that's often not the way it works. The identity language we use is kinda rubbish, actually, and often puts the cart before the horse.
Some people, like myself, never really get that clear-as-a-bell sense of gender identity. Maybe it's because we're a bit agender or our neurospice gets in the way or maybe it's because the trauma beat it out of us or maybe it's something else. It doesn't really matter. At least for me, transition was much more about what I wanted than what I felt like I already was.
Many people have a sense of gender that doesn't really fit into any of the boxes. They know what it is but the language doesn't exist to be able to really pin it down or precisely describe it to someone else. They could maybe say, "I identity as..." but it's hard to fill in the blank in a way that makes sense to anyone but themselves.
And for many, many people, transition is a journey and they try something and it's kinda in the right direction but they want more or they want something slightly different. You don't have to have this one identity that you've had since you were 6 and have stuck to ever since. You're allowed to grow and change.
It's all valid. There are no rules. There is no "trans enough." If you look at your AGAB and you're like, "Nah, I don't wanna be stuck in that box my whole life.", that's all you need. Transition is about saying, "Fuck you!" to the rules and that includes rules set by other trans people.
@faithisleaping One of the more traumatic trans things that held me back for some 25 years was that when I was first questioning my gender back in the 90s, the ONLY narrative I could find anywhere was "I've always known I was a girl, wanted to wear dresses, be fem, ever since I was able to understand gender". Which like ... Good for those kids.
I didn't really begin to decide "boy" didn't fit til puberty when I looked at "tomboys" and wished I could be one of them who got the "good puberty" but didn't have to wear dresses or stop running around in the woods and camping and climbing mountains. But I didn't see any trans girls like that in the internet forums I found. So I just assumed I couldn't be trans, I was just ... Something else with a weird "be a girl" fetish.
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@faithisleaping One of the more traumatic trans things that held me back for some 25 years was that when I was first questioning my gender back in the 90s, the ONLY narrative I could find anywhere was "I've always known I was a girl, wanted to wear dresses, be fem, ever since I was able to understand gender". Which like ... Good for those kids.
I didn't really begin to decide "boy" didn't fit til puberty when I looked at "tomboys" and wished I could be one of them who got the "good puberty" but didn't have to wear dresses or stop running around in the woods and camping and climbing mountains. But I didn't see any trans girls like that in the internet forums I found. So I just assumed I couldn't be trans, I was just ... Something else with a weird "be a girl" fetish.
@JessTheUnstill @faithisleaping
When I was a kid, I wanted to be able to enjoy all the things I enjoyed, but I also wanted the good puberty and I wanted to have the ability to also be feminine too.
Like, I want to be a girl with some "masculine" hobbies here and there, not a dude.
But I didn't know that trans people existed *at all*. I vaguely suspected I was LGBT, but gay didn't fit me
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@faithisleaping@anarres.family i love this!
this is pretty much how i approached transitioning, tho i wish i understood this before ~2 years ago
when i started transitioning, all i knew is that i was vaguely nonbinary and that i wanted the physical and mental changes from estrogen. or at least most of them, knowing i could stop if i hated it
for the first 1.5 years on hrt i didn't change much besides pronouns, i dressed mostly how i did before (which was already pretty androgynous). but after that point i felt like presenting more explicitly feminine and using a new name so i started to do that. i'm not sure if this is a genderfluid thing or a long term shift, but it feels right at this moment
that's just one way my sense of gender has changed over time. i honestly think i was mostly fine with my assigned male gender and body when i was in my 20s and early 30s, but the prospect of aging as a male became increasingly stressful and i was getting much more dysphoric
so yeah, fuck the rules and do what feels best for your body @jiub @faithisleaping @ElsaPreme i've been playing it fast and loose since the beginning, but i'm glad i was able to do an informed consent model instead of having to lie my ass off.
I would have lied my ass off and said that growing up I wanted barbies and my room painted pink and to use makeup and nail polish in a heartbeat though if I was forced to take that route to get what i actually wanted -
@JessTheUnstill @faithisleaping
When I was a kid, I wanted to be able to enjoy all the things I enjoyed, but I also wanted the good puberty and I wanted to have the ability to also be feminine too.
Like, I want to be a girl with some "masculine" hobbies here and there, not a dude.
But I didn't know that trans people existed *at all*. I vaguely suspected I was LGBT, but gay didn't fit me
@burnoutqueen @faithisleaping I knew trans people as the jokes from daytime TV, but I thought trans people were just "super duper gay" trying to "trick" men into sleeping with them...
