Anonymous asked

Ok, my story (earlier I sent 2 asks but they were incomplete/incoherent). When I was 16-17 yo I thought I was trans guy but I dissmised it since it didn't feel right. Right now, when I'm 19, I'm questioning myself again. I feel barely connected to my female identification. I don't want to have breasts but I don't feel uncomfortable with them. I don't like it when I'm looking feminine. It's makes me uncomfortable. Sometimes i think I'm cis girl and later I think I'm demigirl and I'm confused.

crossdreamers answered

What am I? A trans guy? A demigirl? A crossdreamer?

Anonymous has also sent me the following questions:

I don’t have gender dysphoria but I feel off with my gender. I mean, I think I’m barely connected to my gender identification, sometimes I’m not sure if I even have gender identity. I don’t want to have breasts but I’m comfortable with them. Sometimes I want to have a penis but sometimes not. I think terms graygender or demigirl fits me best. But I still fear that I’m just cis girl trying to be “special snowflake” or something. Sorry for my English.

and

A little correction of my previous ask: I think I can be crossdreamer and demigirl since my connection to female identity and sex is little. But I still fear that I’m just cis girl.

And here’s my answer (to the best of my ability):

I understand perfectly well how you feel. It took me several years to come to that find out who I am, partly because I had repressed my gender variance, refusing to think about it, and – to the extent I did think about it – it scared me. There was a lot of confusion, for sure.

We are all afraid of social exclusion and losing our loved ones, and even if there has been a lot of LGBTQA progress, there are still transphobes out there.

So the first challenge is, as I see it, to embrace the transgender journey. For most transgender people, this journey takes time. And in spite of what the newspapers may tell you, only a minority of nonbinary and transgender people are 100 percent certain about who they are from the age of four. So it is OK to question everything. And there is not one “correct” goal for this journey.

The second challenge is to get beyond the restrictions of human thinking. We use language to understand the world around us. We have to, but there is no one to one relationship between the concepts we use and the world “out there”.

Our words are, at best, approximations, and people also use words to control what people think and do. This is, for instance, why transphobes are attacking the word “gender” and would like to force us reduce gender to biological sex. The word “gender” makes it possible for us to think about gender identity as something independent of biological sex or assigned gender. It helps people like us, but offends the kind of people who are scared of diversity, tolerance, compassion and progress.

Unfortunately there are also trans people who would like to use language in this way, insisting – for instance – that you need to have gender dysphoria to be transgender. This is – frankly – nonsense. Transgender is an umbrella term covering all types of gender variance. (Documentation on the meaning of the word trans here, and the argument for why you do not need gender dysphoria to be trans here.)

The third challenge is to get beyond the binaries. The bigots like binaries, because they can use them to force people into one of two neat boxes, defined by them, making it easier to control them. But neither sexual orientation nor gender identity are clear cut binaries.

We know now that gender identity may vary from clear cut woman to undeniably male. Yet, as far as i understand it, there exist no persons in the world who are exclusively female or exclusively male – if you look at their personalities, abilities, interests, gender expressions as well as their sexual characteristics.

But even if most people are a mix of pink and blue (to use the colors of the stereotypes) most people feel comfortable with the gender they were assigned at birth. They are cisgender, not transgender.

As soon as you feel uncomfortable about being classified as your assigned gender, you are – as I see it – some shade of transgender. That does not mean that you have to transition, or that you have to take hormones, but it means that you have to reflect carefully on who you are.

If you fear that you are cis girl (in a world were so many people insists that you have to be cis to be socially acceptable) I would say that you are not a cis girl.

In spite of what transphobic TERFs and religious extremists may tell you, questioning your own gender is not a modern “snowflake” trend or fashion. We have documentation of gender variance all the way back to antiquity. Most experts in the field (doctors, psychologists and trans activists) agree that gender variance is a real thing. The feelings are real. The identities are real. The journey is real.

Several of the terms you are referring to reflect the need for a language that captures the diversity of gender as well as the transgender journey.

Nonbinary is a word that can be of help to those who are uncertain about their gender, and those who feel that their gender lies between or beyond the two traditional genders. “Demigirl” is but a variant of nonbinary or genderqueer.

Crossdreamer is a word that refers to the act of dreaming about being another gender, and is not really an alternative identity. Trans people crossdream. Cis people crossdream. You crossdream.

Use the words that feel meaningful to you right now, and change your vocabulary if you find new words that are more on target. Ultimately you are the only one who can know who you truly are. No one else has the right to define your identity for you.

Illustration photo of transmasculine gender-nonconforming person by Zackary Drucker, The Gender Spectrum Collection.

peterbuggert:

Updated version of my “what is a packer” infographic. I decided there should probably be two, one for trans people just starting out and one for trans youth to give to their parents (which was the original ones purpose). The second one for trans people should be out soon.
After many requests I have changed the language to be as gender neutral as I know how, some graphic design stuff has been fixed, font size increased, some info added, some taken out. You can find the original on my page if you want.
Again this is meant to help people, please download it, share it, print it off, cross post it, I really don’t care, I want what I make to reach people and help them, just please leave my website on the bottom.

Packers help female to male trans people express who they are

Packers gives female to male trans people a more masculine body shape. This helps, for instance, to reduce the distress caused by dysphoria and gives them more room to express who they are.

See also: A Guide to Packers For Transmen (NSFW)

(via peterthephoenix16-deactivated20)

New research implies that there is indeed a genetic component to gender dysphoria

The feedback-loops between gender identity, real life experiences, cultural concepts, genes and hormones are complex and messy, but there is a growing consensus among scientists that hormones do play a role in the creation of transgender identities.

The main focus is on the pre-natal period, when that person is still in its mother’s womb, being exposed to hormones aimed at triggering the development of gender specific organs and a gender identity.

Mapping the genes of trans women

In a paper called “Genetic Link Between Gender Dysphoria and Sex Hormone Signaling” Madeleine Foreman, Lauren Hare, Kate York, Kara Balakrishnan, Francisco J Sánchez, Fintan Harte, Jaco Erasmus, Eric Vilain and Vincent R Harley reports on a research project including 380 transgender women who have transitioned and 344 control male subjects.

They have looked at associations and interactions between variants of 12 sex hormone–signaling genes and gender dysphoria in transgender women.

These are genes that are involved in the production of hormones or the body’s ability to “read” and act on these hormones. They may be responsible for undermasculinization and/or feminization of the brain.

To give one example of how one such gene may affect gender identity development:

“The minor, C allele of SULT2A1 is associated with elevated sex hormone–binding globulin, a glycoprotein that regulates circulatory sex steroid bioavailability and is present within fetal male blood during early gestation. In transgender women with the TC SNP, we speculate that fetal sex hormone–binding globulin levels are increased, which may reduce the effects of circulating hormones.”

Words of warning

There is a tendency towards oversimplifying stories like these. No doubt we will find statements like “scientists find the transgender gene!”

This is not the case. Keep the following in mind:

They are looking at a large number of genes, which may (or may not) cause the development of gender dysphoria.
They are looking into the interaction between genes, in the sense that you may need two or more to develop gender dysphoria.
Researchers will also have to look at epigenetics, i.e. to what extent such genes are activated due to other causes.
They are looking at statistical aggregates. Not all of the transgender women have one or all of these gene variations. Moreover, some of the cis men may have some of them.
They are deliberately looking at a sample of Caucasian subjects (in order to reduce the number of variables).

The researchers put it this way:

In summary, the results of our study of transgender women support the hypothesis that gender dysphoria has a polygenic basis, involving interactions among multiple genes and polymorphisms that may alter the sexual differentiation of the brain in utero, contributing to the development of gender dysphoria in transgender women.
However, although discordance rates for gender dysphoria suggest that genetics plays a role, it is not the sole determinant of gender identity. Genome-wide association studies, and genome and methylome approaches, especially when coupled with neuroimaging or sex steroid measurements, should be undertaken to better understand how genetic variants contribute to gender dysphoria.

backstrokerjc has translated the paper into Plain English over at reddit.

lavender-and-lesbianism:

It’s hard to find a radfem who has an accurate understanding of gender dysphoria tbh
You’ll often hear from terfs “well I don’t feel like a woman! I don’t feel like anything!”
Yeah…that’s because you’re cis. That’s pretty much what being cis feels like. You just feel like yourself.
Source: a cis woman

(via )

Gender expression deprivation anxiety

‘Describing [gender dysphoria] as “gender expression deprivation anxiety” is brilliant because that is exactly what it feels like.’

This is Joanna Santos referring to transgender philosopher and therapist Anne Vitale.

Joanna adds:

I feel that our aim should be to attack that discomfort by whatever methods work using a measured approach. This means that less is better at the outset until we have figured out what we really need. If a medical transition is what we require then that is exactly what we should do. However, many of us are already embroiled in lives we have built and, treating our dysphoria the way we would ultimately want to, may not be possible. This is where deft baby steps are called for.

More here!

Gender euphoria

Via Sophie Labelle on Facebook.

I’m a Trans Woman with Gender Dysmorphia, and This Is What it Feels Like

Gender dysphoria is defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) as “a difference between one’s experienced/expressed gender and assigned gender, and significant distress or problems functioning.” This “distress” and pattern of negative thinking is what defines dysphoria; just being trans isn’t the same thing, and not every trans person experiences gender dysphoria in the first place. But gender dysphoria is common among transgender and gender non-binary people, and it’s part of the reason why transgender people suffer from depression and anxiety, and attempt suicide, at much higher rates than their cisgender counterparts.

More here!

The Road to Becoming Unapologetically Transgender - Transgender Universe

Why I no longer care about what people think about me being transgender. – “The Weekly Rant” with Mila Madison

I reached the point when I really began to conquer that fear. I no longer cared about what anyone thought. It didn’t matter to me who I would lose or who would turn their back on me. I eventually got the courage to cutoff anyone who had a problem with my being transgender. I literally cut them out of my life. My being transgender actually became a gauge to help me understand who other people really were. I have said it a million times, “If you want to know if someone truly loves you, just tell them you are transgender.”
And that is when I realized that if someone didn’t accept me for who I was, I didn’t need them in my life. Why would I want to be around such a toxic person? Why did I spend half of my life being afraid of what such a person would think of me? This was all because of fear. I now have half a life left to live, and I will no longer be dominated by the fear of someone not accepting me.

More here.

"Transvestism" is on its way out of the WHO health manual, but its makers leave a loophole for further invalidation of transgender people

The beta version of the new edition of the WHO ICD health manual represents a huge step forward for transgender people, as it is removing the “fetishistic transvestism” diagnosis and underlining that “gender incongruence” is not a mental illness.

But the devil is in the detail, and I see now that there is a part of the beta draft version that may be used to label trans people as “paraphiliacs” (sexual perverts).

The short version is that if transgender persons have not transitioned, are practicing crossdressing and feel distress from their sexual fantasies, they may be put in the “Other Paraphilic Disorder” category.

I am afraid that this is a loophole the “autogynephilia” supporters can use to continue to invalidate trans people.

More about this over at my blog.

Why 'rapid-onset gender dysphoria' is bad science

Florence Ashley and Alexandre Baril look at a new term that has appeared in the transgender debate: “rapid-onset gender dysphoria”. There is no such thing. The term is made up by people who feel a need to invalidate transgender people, and not by scientists who know anything about the issue.

Gender-affirmative therapy’s motto is: “Follow the child.” If that means following them to social transition and, in due time, medical transition, then so be it. But only if that’s what they truly want.
Transgender children are in good hands. Therapists aren’t acting hastily in ignorance of scientific evidence. On the contrary, their approach is one that’s been built over decades of research and of following trans children.
The unfounded idea of rapid-onset gender dysphoria is a poor attempt at manufacturing a new moral panic — based on the same old idea of “contagion” — over children who couldn’t be in safer hands.

More here.