Ask a trans woman

[wopphil]

1 hour ago, Angels Never Die said:

Yeah, I'm into women, cis and trans. I don't think it will change. 

I met her after actually. She's absolutely fine with my transition.

Awesome. I applaud your courage and uniqueness. 

[Angels Never Die]

1 hour ago, notherhalo said:

maybe this is a dumb question, but Im serious

If an dude (generally athletes) can take male hormones and become more "manly" (in the sense of things like hair, muscles, etc)

and a male can take female hormones to become more womanly (and vice versa)

 

Can a woman take female hormones to become more feminine?  (more than just emotional, but physical)

I'm not an endocrinologist so please don't think of me as an authority, but I think it's like when a cis woman becomes pregnant, and her hormone levels are higher. I'm sure you've seen a pregnant woman, things change.

[angelinkc]

God Bless America

[Angels Never Die]

8 hours ago, Don said:

Legit question: What were your teen years like? I have a niece (born with a penis, chooses to identify as female) that came out as trans at roughly 15. Everybody in our family chose to respect it and use the preferred pronouns out of respect for her. But she seems to be fairly fluid in the way she identifies in terms of clothing and all else. Like she will wear typically male clothing sometimes, but decided (at 17) to wear female clothing/makeup to my father’s funeral. I bring that up because she had been out here for a couple days ahead wearing typically male dress, but decided funeral day was the day to express female. It made me wonder if it was teen shock the system stuff, which I know is a shitty thought, but still. It was just more of a “I didn’t know that gender identity in terms of dress was a day to day choice”. I ask this because it legit confuses me. I’m completely supportive of her, as is her father (my brother), but I feel like there are questions I can’t really ask without risking offense. 

My teen years were very dark, my mental state got considerably worse after I had begun puberty. I don't want to go into detail.

So the difference between gender and sex can be confusing, I want to validate that it's hard to fully understand, and it doesn't help that a lot of trans people are uncomfortable talking about this individually because we're so on guard from people using some variation we have as ammunition to invalidate us. I'll start off using myself as an example: I expressed very feminine early on in my exploration, which is very common for trans women. I was trying to be recognized as the gender I identified with despite not having as much time to physically transition yet, and people were more likely to recognize what I was going for when I was hyper-feminine. Trans women (or men) can vary in their gender expression just as much as cis people do, and if you take me for example, I still dress casually feminine a lot of the time, but as I've grown more comfortable with my body, I've started to dress a little more "dykey," and I would dress that way more if it didn't lead to me being misgendered sometimes. When I think about my situation, I identify as a woman, and will want to embody that socially and aesthetically to varying degrees (just like cis people do), it feels more comfortable to me than any other alternative, but if you ask me what's more important to me than anything, it's my body. It's my bone structure, my muscles, my shape, my facial/body hair, my voice, my genitals, my size, it's what I see when I look in the mirror and how I sound.

However, not all trans women feel the same way. For some, gender is more important than body stuff (gender being social behavior like makeup, clothes, hairstyle, getting social gender affirmation, speaking in more passive language, and mannerisms.) And, some people have just body dysphoria, and the gender stuff doesn't really matter to them all that much, but they still identify as a woman. Then there's non-binary people, people who don't identify as one of the binary genders. I'm not sure if genderfluid people typically consider themselves non-binary, but they are people who kind of bounce around in their gender expressions based on how they feel. And someone can be physically transitioning and be non-binary, because it seems gender/sex dysphoria have those two main components to it, the gender one and the sex one (I'm using that word to represent bodily sex characteristics.) And the balance of those components vary from individual to individual. The identity stuff is harder to understand, because it's not always so clear where sex identity ends and gender identity begins. Okay, I'm tired of explaining things, that's all you get for now. As far as your niece goes, all you have to do is give her some space to figure it out, it's a process, and not an easy one. It really sucks being evaluated all the time.

Disclaimer: This is my understanding of things, not all trans people agree with what I've said here, some have different views of things.

[Taylor]

AND, thank you for this thread. I admire your courage and am so grateful for your insight.

[m0nkey]

Agreed, AND. My fiancée has a couple of trans friends (One of them is an “influencer”) and I admit I had difficulty understanding, but it’s got to be tough living in a world that isn’t full of accepting people. 

[tdawg87]

Can I touch you

[Angels Never Die]

Hey all, just wanted to say thanks for asking good questions. This turned out to be kinda therapeutic for me, hopefully it was helpful for you too.

[wopphil]

8 hours ago, Angels Never Die said:

Hey all, just wanted to say thanks for asking good questions. This turned out to be kinda therapeutic for me, hopefully it was helpful for you too.

Another question: how old are you?

[Blarg]

On 6/3/2020 at 8:22 AM, Angels Never Die said:

I still dress casually feminine a lot of the time, but as I've grown more comfortable with my body, I've started to dress a little more "dykey,"

[Vegas Halo Fan]

I commend you for your courage. Many people in your situation, perhaps most, wouldn't take the personal risk of putting themselves out there. I appreciate you not only disclosing this, but also offering to educate. I went to a Ryan White Conference about a year ago, and it was an eye opener. I believed that I was pretty well educated on sexual and gender orientation, but I still had a lot to learn. It has become a major issue in dealing with the prison population.

Edited June 6, 2020 by Vegas Halo Fan

[Angels Never Die]

4 hours ago, Blarg said:

That's my final evolutionary stage.

[Angels Never Die]

6 hours ago, wopphil said:

Another question: how old are you?

I'm 34.

[Blarg]

6 minutes ago, Angels Never Die said:

That's my final evolutionary stage.

Acting?

[Jason]

On 6/2/2020 at 6:19 PM, Stradling said:

Did you ever hook up with sneakyflute?  

Lol! I was about to ask who the other transgender we had on this board was 

[Stradling]

16 minutes ago, Jason said:

Lol! I was about to ask who the other transgender we had on this board was 

I don’t think he was I think he was attracted to transgender women.  But I could be wrong.  

[Angels Never Die]

1 minute ago, Blarg said:

Acting?

Yes, I will turn into Jodie Foster.

[Angels Never Die]

4 hours ago, Vegas Halo Fan said:

I commend you for your courage. Many people in your situation, perhaps most, wouldn't take the personal risk of putting themselves out there. I appreciate you not only disclosing this, but also offering to educate. I went to a Ryan White Conference about a year ago, and it was an eye opener. I believed that I was pretty well educated on sexual and gender orientation, but I still had a lot to learn. It has become a major issue in dealing with the prison population.

Thank you. I like helping people learn if they're open to it. I'm by no means an expert on this stuff really though, I've just met many different people on the spectrum. 

[Vegas Halo Fan]

5 hours ago, Stradling said:

I don’t think he was I think he was attracted to transgender women.  But I could be wrong.  

He posted a photo of his girlfriend, who was still biologically male, and he asked everyone what they thought.

[Redondo]

The Forgotten Origins of the Modern Gay Rights Movement in WWI

In the winter of 1915, a German soldier died in a field hospital in Russia. We don’t know his name, but he helped revolutionize the way people advocated for gay rights.

One of World War I’s most enduring legacies is largely forgotten: It sparked the modern gay rights movement.

Gay soldiers who survived the bloodletting returned home convinced their governments owed them something – full citizenship. Especially in Germany, where gay rights already had a tenuous footing, they formed new organizations to advocate in public for their rights.

Though the movement that called itself “homosexual emancipation” began in the 19th century, my research and that of historian Jason Crouthamel shows that the war turned the 19th-century movement into gay rights as we know it today.