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Transgender rights are under attack. But trans people 'just want to thrive and survive.' (www.usatoday.com)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 103 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Can confirm. Don't want to be brave. Don't want to be controversial. Don't want to piss anyone off. Don't want to stick it to anyone. Just want to live my own life and be left the fuck alone like literally everyone else. This very real problem that I was born with is my issue to fix and no one else's. And my life would have been a hundred times easier if I'd been listened to when I first voiced this problem as a minor.

[+] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 9 months ago (2 children)

No one wants to be trans. We just are born with it and have to figure it out. It's basically a medical issue. I didn't choose to do anything to my body either. The choice isn't there when not transitioning can deteriorate to being fundamentally incompatible with staying alive. A lot of bigots insist that transitioning is some trendy or otherwise low stakes thing but our lives would be so much easier if it was as easy as just not transitioning.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (13 children)

We just are born with it and have to figure it out. It’s basically a medical issue.

I'm sorry, but this is just not true. It's necessarily at least partially a psychological and social issue. Why am I certain about this? Because there are clear distinctions in the number of transgender people in different time periods and different age groups. Our species hasn't changed in 10-30 years, but these numbers have changed massively.

If you're steelmanning the argument of "terfs", this is the thing they're critical about. If we are in some easily correctable way causing trans people to appear where they in other circumstances would not, this should be looked into. For instance, the number of transgender identified people doubled during the Covid years. So perhaps it's not a good idea to hole up teenagers in their rooms every day and prevent them from seeing their peers?

This is not to say that people with this condition (whatever its reason) should be treated differently from those without the condition. As you said, almost nobody wants to be trans, so if it can be actually prevented (in ethical ways, not like electroshock therapy or conversion therapy or some other absolute shit like that), that's certainly a good thing?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Considering it's only relatively recently that being trans wouldn't get you arrested (and earlier murdered), of course there are more openly trans people now!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Yes, judicial acceptance contributes to its being a social issue.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Right after that you suggest that the number of trans people now over the past is something about trans people and not about humanity.

The number of trans people has not changed.

The number of trans people who feel comfortable in their own bodies has changed.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

This could be true. You're claiming it way too strongly, I think. It could also be that the acceptance of transgenderism is causing people to form transgender identities. This is not an absurd concept given neuroplasticity and the theory of Behaviorism.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

I mean the difference is likely not based out of a difference in the number of trans people but in the cultural risk one has in living out of the closet. Destigmatizing left handedness saw a sudden generation jump in people who were left handed. If you don't think you are likely to be accepted you struggle in darkness.

The covid bump has another possible explanation. My trans nature long existed in the shadow. My industry is such where it's all short term employment and causing your team any friction could mean falling to the bottom of the employment pool. I didn't try to be out because it came with drawbacks. Coming out to people is also the process of onboarding everyone and that transition period where people know but are still fucking up your name and pronouns takes a lot of your mental energy. It some ways it sucks less when people don't know they are hurting you. Then it's just not their fault. Once they know the struggle to switch how they think of you is plain. It's obvious they don't think of you as your gender, they just are faking it until they do and that disparity draws more attention to your own body and presentation and the uphill battle of true acceptance even if they are theoretically on board with trans issues. My Mom STILL fucks up my name and pronouns and even though she loves me it's like an admission that she will NEVER actually see me as I see myself. It's difficult to do that and work a soul crushing job at the same time so it was something I did one person at a time and I was a fucking hot mess in the process.

Then Covid happened and I was isolated in my cohort of friends and family to whom I was spottily out to. I had the time to DO the work and have the conversation and be the hot mess. I figured out I was trans back when I was 21 but there was a fifteen year gap before I came out to people outside because it seemed like a monumental task where I would risk losing a huge chunk of my relationships, risk my career and still have to juggle going to work every day even when I felt like dying. But since people started talking about it and showing trans issue support it gave me hope that there would be light on the other side. So by the time covid came around I was half-out.

But then during covid I got to live as myself full time. It's like having an allergy you are exposed to all the time. You don't realize exactly how shitty you feel until you stop being exposed to it and you realize that your capacity to feel generally more energetic and healthy is actually way higher than you thought... And returning to exposure makes it hit that much harder.

Returning to work I realized how bad I actually felt and felt more compelled to do something about it. Having the time to actually do the work, not on myself but on the people around me, gave me a taste of what it feels like to be healthy and it's hard to forget being actually happy and then willingly just go back to being miserable. From the outside it might look like being cooped up caused me to be trans but it's the opposite. Being cooped up gave me time to properly socially transition where the risks were lowered.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Great anecdote, thank you for that.

My trans nature long existed in the shadow.

This is one of the difficult parts for most of us normies, I suppose. If I imagine myself in a woman's body, the thought doesn't fill me with neither anticipation nor dread. It seems to me that my identity is not at all linked to my gender. Is this just a symptom of being too comfortable with the current situation and not being able to properly imagine how a conflict would feel like?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Probably. I ask cis folk about this pretty frequently because while I understand being trans I don't actually know what it is like to be cis, it is just sort of assumed mutual experience amongst cis folk. Trans is my lived experience and our society insists we need to defend our needs in ways that make sense to them but cisness is just as interesting. I encounter two camps. The majority of cis people I ask this question to just don't feel strongly about their body on the axis of their sex. They might feel dysmorphias around not looking good by the rubric of their sex that's more about how the privilege of beauty or ugliness impacts their lives.

I have also encountered a minority of cis people who are actually decently euphoric about their gender. Sometimes that has to do with the cultural bits of their experience and sometimes not. The one thing they have in common is they actually just really love what they got going on. Being male or female is an integral part of their self identity.

My personal COMPLETELY unsubstantiated posit that these two versions of cisness are distinct and the with the euphoric version they are basically experiencing the key component of binary trans nature with the one factor different being the body and mind are in alignment and not at odds.

Some of the non-binary agender experience seems almost like an extreme version of what you experience where the concept of gender matters so little internally that it's outside application to aspects of your life become a complete nuisance as if becomes an obstacle to people recognizing the actual person you are as they make too many assumptions about you based on a factor which is personally meaningless.

Not to say this is key to all agender folk. Some folk just react poorly to having any sexual characteristics at all. Non-binary as it's own spectrum is internally made up of such disparate presentations it is like comparing peaches to green peppers. Both are fruit but they practically nothing alike in experience.

The thing is in both cases it's hard for cis folk to really empathize with the trans experience because they either can't get a handle on what it is to care about gender at all or they take their comfort as a given and don't realize just how bad it is to live without that source of confidence.

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 9 months ago (14 children)

"We can disappear into the world and continue to live in the shadows," he says. "But ultimately, that's not how it's supposed to be."

Ugh. I really wish people would quit saying this. I don't want "visibility." "Trans visibility" feels like an insult. I want to be invisible, and anything less is torment. Some people will never pass as the gender they identify with, but for them to prescribe their feelings on all of us is not fair.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I want for it to not be a big deal. Some of us being visible is how that happens. Passing is great. I shouldn’t have to disclose my medical history to strangers or coworkers or even friends, but I want to be able to chime in when it’s relevant. Sorta like how many people are about their extra nipples.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Lmao that's a really good analogy. If i had extra nipples, i wouldn't want "extra nipples day of visibility" but i also wouldn't want anyone to make a big deal about me taking my shirt off at the beach.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago

Yeah, though I think the context of day of visibility matters. It’s relatively young, and was created because for a while we only gathered as a community for day of remembrance. The idea was that we should be seen and loved while we’re alive too.

It’s become something more, a showcasing of our presence and a celebration of our existence. It’s mostly just freshly out people being really loudly out in my experience. But I’ve read the names every year since 2014. I’m glad we take a different day to remember that we live.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago

I don't want to be invisible, I want to be seen and heard by my family, friends and community. I spent too long trying to hide, and I'm happy to share who I am if it means that I can help reduce the stigma for anyone in the future.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago

They aren't trying to force you specifically to be visible. If you want to continue to live in the shadows, by all means do so.

But by the same token, they shouldn't be forced to live in the shadows if they don't want to.

As far as I can tell, it's just about getting to a point where it's okay for those who want to, to be able to go out in public and be who they are (and therefore be visible) without getting insulted, or discriminated against or killed for it.

That in no way affects your ability to continue to do things the way you want to.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

if you wanna be invisible then you should have kids, so you could become transparent :P

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Oh man. I am just remembering the last time we visited my wife's family in her home village. Whenever I spoke her family would be startled for a moment with a look "oh the sperm donor breadwinner is also here.".

It's funny how it worked out. My brother-in-law decided to finally introduce his trans fiance to his parents after our visit. He felt confident they wouldn't hate her after spending three weeks playing with their grandkids.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

Ah passing privilege. "Trans visibility" doesn't mean people being able to clock you it means that people are fighting so that if somebody does clock you, you are still safe and supported.

I desperately wish I could be invisible, but I can't so I have to go the other direction. If I am invisible I am by default in the closet so "trans visibility" means that I am seen, understood and that people are able to understand so that I get to live too. It isn't exactly fair to us to disavow the work we do when it ultimately benefits you in the long run just because you essentially "got mine". You don't want to fight that's fine, you have the benefit of not having to ... But don't spit on the people who are.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It is illegal for me to piss at work. I am not legally allowed to use the men’s restroom. I do anyways, because I’m a fat, hairy dude with a beer belly. If someone were to out me, I would likely lose my job, cause my workplace to get into trouble, and would probably be forced to move to escape death threats.

All I want is to take my testosterone shot once a week and do my job. My transness is irrelevant to anyone who is not having sex with me or my doctor.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Why would you being trans affect the person having sex with your doctor?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

It won't, it's just polite to consider them in these kinds of things, you know?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

It makes a lot more sense if OP is having sex with their doctor.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

I too choose this guy's doctor

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago

Trans people are asking for nothing more to be respected, have access to health care and ideally to stop being hate crimed. But these basic facilities are threatened by those who need an "boogey monster other" to demonize for political points. Gender is such a given to most people that we as Trans people threaten their world view simply by existing outside of a narrow binary. Many feel justified in exerting control over our bodies, purely because our existence is too much of a nagging open question that threatens their worldview.

I'm here.
I'm queer.
And I'm filled with fear.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago

In the game of ~~patriarchy~~ trans rights, ~~women~~ trans people are not the opposing team. They are the ball.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

Yup. I just want to live my life being left alone.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago (4 children)

I don't understand why being trans is such a big issue. I'm not trans and I'm definitely nowhere on the LGBT spectrum, so I'll never fully understand what it's like to experience gender dysphoria or be attracted to my same sex. However, none of that is relevant since it costs nothing to be considerate.

One of our librarians recently transitioned, and it effected absolutely nothing. I'm just as comfortable interacting with them as before, literally the only thing that changed is the pronouns I use with them. That's it.

If someone is getting bullied, I'll stand up for them the same if they're white or black, male or female, gay or not, etc. Bullying is never okay, so I really don't see how differences the target exhibits is relevant to anything. If there's a law that makes life more annoying or less equality vs others, we should reevaluate that law. That's just common sense to me.

Don't ask me my opinions on trans and adjacent issues because I'm not very well educated on them so I'll probably accidentally say something offensive. Regardless, I don't see any reason for civility to not be the norm here, regardless of how well educated you are about it. Just be nice to people, and stand up to bullies. That alone would probably solve most of the issues here. I don't understand why people need to be such jerks...

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

I have too many daily struggles to prioritize the political fight, though I would like to be able to do more.

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