It sucks. I hate it. And I hate that I have no other choice.
I thought I passed pretty well and for a good bit now, and there where no indications that I didn’t. I’ve been on HRT for over 1.5 years now and it has done a lot too.
Yet lately, especially at work, the misgendering has been getting worse and worse. Both from colleagues that knew me from back then and colleagues that are relatively new.
Why… How… What changed… I don’t get it. What is that people actually think about me. I know what other people think of me doesn’t change who I am but it’s still just such a punch in the face every time.
Why couldn’t it all just be different… Why could I not have been born the way I want to.
Edit: I don’t want to be trans, I don’t want to hold the trans label and I don’t even want anyone to remotely think about that. Not because I’m ashamed of it, just because I just want to live a normal fucking life the way I want to live.
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I’ve definitely been both the victim of this and guilty of this with others. When it comes from people that respect and love you I’ve found that it is around the time that they are viewing your current version of you and the past version of you are as natural to them as each other. I normally don’t see this with people that I’ve met post transitioning, and I don’t have this issue with people that I have met post their transitions.
It doesn’t suck less, and it still hurts. Especially when you get snapped out of a happy space by someone that you trust.
I’m really sorry that you have been having to go through this.
I completely agree with you. No one sane would ever choose to be trans, if it were a choice. Which is just one more reason why it’s so obviously not a choice
For what it’s worth, a few years in to my transition, I reached the point where I realised I have no desire to be cis. I would absolutely choose to be trans. But it took me years to get to that point
Honestly not trying to judge or anything, honestly curious - why do you want to be trans?
Because I am. I want to be me. Not a watered down version of me
Yes! I hate that the world that we live in makes it so fucking unbearable but I do want to be trans. Being trans is good actually. I fucking love trans people and I would never want to live in a world without us.
I feel the same way. I made my most meaningful connections in communities of other trans women and if I was cis I just wouldn’t have that
They’re doing it to disrespect you. Don’t believe their bullshit. Some cis people are so insecure that they can’t get others to like them unless they make someone else look worse. They just want to feel powerful but in the end you’re the one they’re getting validation from which makes you more powerful than all of them combined.
Basically Hegelian dialectics. The identity of those in power is dictated by their contrast with those without power, but this means that the actual power over that identity lies in those they cast as lesser than themselves. It’s why Fox News is always freaking out and stirring shit about something like Bad Bunny doing a half-time show in Spanish but they don’t blink at Trump posting racist memes and openly calling the country a garbage fire.
Their privilege is challenged by any empowering action from those who pay the cost of that inequality, but literal disgusting behavior by those who share that privilege doesn’t threaten anything they care about. Which, paradoxically, shows exactly what needs doing to upend their dominance. Disregarding and subverting their status quo is the most powerful thing you can do to overturn the whole mess.
So a self-possesed and unashamed trans person who is willing to stand up and act as though they’re worthy of respect is terrifying. The backlash means we’re getting somewhere, and it shows the cracks in their armor. That’s why pride matters, and why pride is a target.
I couldn’t have said it better myself. That does make me a little more optimistic
No they aren’t. Most of my colleagues are really sweet and I’m also liked by pretty much everyone at the workplace. If it would be a thing if disrespect then I could handle it.
You just said the misgendering got worse meaning that they got your pronouns right before. They aren’t ignorant. They know what they’re doing.
I’m not really sure why anyone expects to love being trans - even if it weren’t highly stigmatizing, it’s also just not a good time. I don’t like having to depend on exogenous hormones (let alone ones I have to inject with scary needles), and not having the right body or anatomy has been so acutely distressing at times I wasn’t sure I was going to make it.
I think there is a reason a lot of us disappear into deep stealth once we can and don’t build and maintain an identity as a visible trans person if there is an alternative, it’s not only that trans people are mistreated in society, but being “trans” starts to feel like a deeper invalidation of who we are, and if we become cis-passing, an invalidation of who we have become. Why would we want to identify with the very label society uses to remind us of the invalidity of our gender? “Trans” really starts to feel like an asterisks, “trans woman” might as well be “woman*” (*the FDA has not reviewed this statement for accuracy).
I’m well aware that even if I tell queer allies that I’m trans, that what they hear is that I’m actually male, that my womanhood is fake. I just don’t feel that’s accurate, so I don’t tell people I’m trans. I don’t identify as trans. I don’t want to be trans, and I don’t have any interest in identifying as trans.
That said, I think the only reason we’re having this conversation is because there has been a pride movement that has been trying to elevate trans folks - both in terms of visibility, but also our rights. There are brave men and women who own being trans and who have helped influence society towards better acceptance, and also so that other trans people can see an alternative to the social stigma and shame associated with being trans. (This is more than just visibility, even cultivating and propagating the idea that you could be proud of being trans, or the work done to help de-stigmatize gender dysphoria by recognizing that it’s not all pathology, that we are a part of natural variation in humans.)
In this way I think you find some folks like Ada (and others I know IRL) who come (usually years into transition) to not only make peace with their trans identity, but who feel proud of it.
(At this point it seems there is even a “subversivism” that has emerged, where within some queer communities the dominant sexual and gender hierarchy is simply flipped, and being straight and cis are seen as negative while being queer in sexuality and gender are seen as preferred; but I’m not sure this is “pride”, which in general I think is more reasonable and healthy.)
I can’t really speak to what that pride is like, it might vary from person to person. I suspect it could be like a self esteem for the struggles you have endured and overcome to get where you are, and recognizing the way that has shaped you in ways you wouldn’t trade.
Either way, I think the take-away is whether you integrate into cis-normative society and hide, or you become more secure in your identity and come to own it publicly, I suspect the further you get into your transition the better it gets. Surgeries, HRT, and experience with how to socially navigate the world as your gender should all improve and reduce gender dysphoria, and hopefully eventually you’ll wake up one day and feel happy about who you are.
I think sometimes it’s more comfortable being around queer folks because they’re at least substantially less likely to say some wild shit and get offended if you so much as blink. With cishet people it takes a while to know that they’re not secretly harboring some anti-queer bigotry to spring on you when you’re not expecting it. I’ve definitely met cishets who “tolerate” trans people but actually look down on us and will flip the moment we do anything at all to defend our rights or suggest that we should have rights in the first place. Usually it’s “apolitical” people who are actually just lazily conservative, but you never really know until it happens.
With queer people that’s unusual enough for it to be notable.
That makes sense, esp. for folks early in transition or who struggle to be seen as their gender. Queer spaces might be the only places that you are seen as you, let alone where you are tolerated and not glared at.
At some point though I started to pass and especially cishet people cluelessly just see me as another straight, cis woman - and while I’m not technically either of those, I am a woman and it is more affirming to me to be seen as a cis woman than as a trans woman. In that context I’ve started to have a harder time being around queer folks because they’re the only ones who notice I’m trans, and it outs me and I get treated differently and I feel degendered and dehumanized by it - instead of being a cis woman I suddenly become a trans woman (a woman*).
I keep flip flopping between wishing I was born a cis woman and being happy I’m trans. I think partly I do really want to look like a cis woman in all the subtle ways people take for granted, but also I know that if I was born a cis woman it wouldn’t really be me at all. There are things about being trans women that are unique to us, and while society treats those things as bad and wrong and tries to punish us for being trans, or push us to transition more completely or not at all, I don’t want to lose the parts of me that are unique and special just to pass better. Partly I feel that way because I have the body I have and accepting it for what it is even as I try to change it hurts less than the alternative, but also I want to love myself for who I am not become someone other people deem worthy of love.
The concept of intersectionality comes to mind. I’m trans, bi, have audhd, and probably aro. I’ve spent the majority of my life under complex layers of masks, hiding my neurodivergence, hiding my sexuality, hiding gender, hiding my lack of interest in traditional romantic relationships, trying to fit into boxes other people presented to me. I did that to myself every day for my entire life. I fabricated a person who never existed for the benefit of others and wounded myself emotionally, constantly, to keep up the facade. What I learned from that experience is that hiding myself doesn’t really get me anything, because any love or affection or approval or praise that I got because of my masks meant nothing to me. If I could pass as neurotipical, straight, a man, whatever, and feel nothing for the accomplishments of that person I was playing, why would I feel any different about playing a cis woman? I’m not a cis woman. I have a penis and testicles. I have a y chromosome (as far as I know). I am who and what I am, and I want to love myself for the real me. I want my loved ones to love me for the real me. I want everyone to see the real me, see what the real me has accomplished. If they hate me for it at least they’re hating the real me. That’s better than them accepting a mask in my place. Idk. That’s just how I feel about it.
Hmmmm, see I think we have different experiences - I feel living as a straight man was a real lie, whereas living as a cis woman feels entirely natural and compatible with who I am.
I do sort of feel what you’re describing about how my trans-ness contributes to parts of who I am, but I think I would be more me if I were a cis woman (if that makes sense). I also just assume that because I’m bisexual and mostly sapphic that as a cis woman I would still be me in those authentic queer ways, and I think I sometimes can positively view my transness as connecting with my sexuality as a queer woman (like, maybe I look more like a lesbian as a trans woman?) … but if I were cis I still think I would probably look like a lesbian and I wouldn’t have lost anything crucial to what is me.
I think I also experience this alienation with my neurodivergence (assuming I’m right about being neurodivergent) - there are neurodivergent traits I have that very much make me “me”, but which I do not endorse or like and wish were not how I am. (This makes it like the transness, it’s definitely a big part of who I am, but I still have a strong desire to be different than this - it feels wrong, not like an authentic part of me, like a part of me I don’t like or endorse.)
I think sometimes this topic comes up in disability discussions, about how some people can really identify with their condition (like neurodivergence), while others don’t identify with them and experience it more as a pathology.
For me, my transness and my neurodivergence are more pathologies that are barriers in the way of being “me”. I know not everyone experiences them this way, but it is how I experience them - and I think it’s not uncommon that others experience it that way too.
I’m not a cis woman. I have a penis and testicles. I have a y chromosome (as far as I know). I am who and what I am, and I want to love myself for the real me. I want my loved ones to love me for the real me. I want everyone to see the real me, see what the real me has accomplished.
When my partner loves my trans body or my body before transition, it doesn’t make me feel loved - it feels like she loves someone else, because I didn’t identify with my male or “hermaphroditic” body (for lack of a better term). What she sees is not the authentic or real me, and just because it’s my body doesn’t make it more authentic or real.
Maybe you just have a gender identity more compatible with your genderqueerness?
My guess as to what changed: people’s inner insecurity levels are on the rise due to the stress of an increasingly uncertain & unstable-looking future. it’s a highly subconscious thing, so if you ask them they’ll instinctively deny it without any real thought. People tend to react to such subconscious stress by overcompensating for their insecurities via looking for other things to put down so they can feel “better” about themselves.
The problem is that it effectively becomes the same as any drug addiction, albeit a technically legal one. The dopamine hit becomes less powerful each time (in part because it’s now expected), and so they chase that “high” by doing it more and/or more intensely. Ultimately it’s never enough, and a lifelong bully is born.
IMHO, if we’re ever going to reach the ideal society we all long for, bullying will have to be taken even more seriously as a problem than even drug & alcohol addiction have ever been.
I think maybe all the anti-trans propaganda spread by lobby organizations and many political parties around the world had something to do with it too :P
Is that not bullying to you?
ETA: it’s all driven by an utterly insatiable need to dominate and control, which comes from deep insecurities preventing acceptance of what they don’t understand for fear it could hurt them.
That would make sense if people would misgender me on purpose, but that’s just not the case. Some people even correct themselves and say sorry, tho even that never used to happen in the past… And a few times it’s not even a thing of them having to get used to me being trans now since they haven’t known be before.
It just is such an obvious punch to the face of “no matter what you think, you don’t pass”.
I think it’s helpful to remember that people who knew you before you transitioned will continue to see you as you were before, no matter whether you are passing with new people. There’s this great part of Julia Serano’s Sexed Up that describes this:
That may have been the most surreal part of my whole transition: gradually having strangers come to the consensus that I was a woman, while the people who knew me best and saw me most often couldn’t even tell that any of this was even happening. When I wasn’t spending my time at music shows, I was usually at work in the lab, and there were always strangers stopping by: students looking for someone they knew, delivery people dropping off packages, people from other labs asking for advice, and so on. At the height of my “in-between” phase, I learned to avoid these people like the plague because they would often vocalize their presumptions about my gender to my coworkers, saying things like “The woman over there told me that I should speak with you.” One time this happened right in front of me: A salesperson from a laboratory supply company was talking with my coworker and pointed directly at me and referred to me as “she.” And my coworker gave me a side-eye glance as if to say, “What’s up with this person? They can’t even tell what gender you are!”
Needless to say, changing jobs and moving away from the town where I had lived as a man really helped me live fully as a woman - interacting with people who knew me before I transitioned creates a lot of stress for me, and “degenders” me in a real way - I can tell they don’t see me as a woman.
I learned to accept it. And the communities have come a long way too since I started.
I don’t know what to say, just hang in there. One day at a time.
