When you were born, was your gender not readily apparent and so your parents had to chose to raise you as a girl or boy? Once you hit puberty and started growing breasts, did they talk at all about you actually being female?
What would you recommend to parents who have a child whose gender is ambiguous?
Looking at you, you’re obviously a woman. My heart breaks for all that you’ve been through just for being born you.
If your friend is transitioning to female, the first thing you can do is start referring to them by the proper pronouns, even among third parties. It’s not only respectful behind their backs as it may be, but it will help you get used to their new outward gender.
The second thing is to treat them as their new gender wherever appropriate (hedging, because they might not be 100% our).
Third, be patient. Very patient. Going through transition and dealing with gender dysphoria is a lot like suffering from a serious illness with a long recovery time. If they are on hormones, they will suffer from some mood swings for a short time, but they really should even out within a couple of months. If not, there may be other things at play, such as another physical condition, lack of hormone uptake, perhaps hormone dosage problems. or even a coincident psychological trauma or disorder.
If they are a true friend and you are theirs, then also be patient when they may ask you innumerable questions about being a girl, clothes, makeup, nails, hair, etc. They may try too hard to be a girl, and be irritating. They may keep asking you how they look, do they look female, etc. It can be a trial for friends, but in the end, they will remember, and with luck can be there for you when your chips are down.
A lot of babies are born with genitalia which looks “odd” or which is not fully developed. In the 1960’s they didn’t know nearly as much as they do now, and very often a “wait and see” approach was done. And if no one wants to re-broach the issue because it’s “icky,”…and if later on you have no health insurance and never, ever see the doctor for a physical until you get out of high school, well…you fall through the cracks.
My father, my family, when we had one was under tremendous pressure to produce a son. We had one of those families where you don’t talk about stuff. We didn’t even hug. You know, one of those. When I told him that I felt like a girl, and asked what it meant when I wanted to be a girl and wear girl clothes and play with them, he beat me, severely, and frequently, and then grounded me. The thought that his “little boy” might be a “freak” would have shamed him in front of his overbearing and abusive father, so he tried to beat the girl out of me. And thus, at a very early age, I learned the value of silence. Hiding. Deception. I may not have known what I was back then, but I worked it out how to make the beatings stop.
Don’t most kids?
When my family shattered and I lived with my mother, she worked 2, 3, 4 jobs so we wouldn’t have to sleep in the halls. We were latchkey kids, I did not see my mother much, and I noted in an earlier post how I hid the changes which happened to my body. Because they were terrifying to me. I mean, I actually was convinced at one point that if anyone saw I had breasts, or looked in my trousers, that I would be locked away in an insane asylum! Like, you know, “he’s so crazy, he grew tits! Thorazine, stat!” Sound stupid? Sure it is! That’s part of the weirdness which can take root in you when you’re a young teen on your own dealing with issues like this. And it’s one reason my community now works so hard to reach out to youth to tell them “it’s OK. You’re not crazy. You’re not a freak. We’ve been through it. You will find your proper path, and whichever it is, someone will help you.”
Nowadays it’s not nearly as much of a problem in the US. OB-GYNs and physicians are much, much more conversant on intersex and genetic disorders, and it’s not very often that someone truly falls between the cracks. There are support groups and communities and the internet, and the world is a very different place than the 1960’s. Thank God.
Jesus Una!
I’m sorry you had to go through all that 
Cool thread - I know I’m learning something but then again I’m not very sharp so teaching me a thing or two ain’t exactly climbing Everest.
Una Persson, thank you for offering us this opportunity! I have two questions if you please:
If you go down your prioritized list of the most important things you wish cis people could understand, know, hear, or otherwise get, what are the top few?
Do you happen to know some good books or writers that would help out those of us who are cis and who want to learn more? What do you think of Kate Bornstein (the Gender Outlaw series, the Gender Workbook) or Leslie Feinberg?
Thanks!
I will be sort of repeating some things, but I’ll make a list in no particular order.
We are for real. We have no ulterior motive. We aren’t going through this to inconvenience others. We’re doing it because we were driven to it, despite all efforts to not go through it. And we go through this to survive.
We are not sex fiends or perverts. In fact, many transwomen lose a lot of their sexual desire being mega-loaded with estradiol. Some of us have no interest in sex whatsoever. Your children are almost certainly much safer from molestation from us than the average American. And we do not give a crap what you are doing in the stall next to us in the bathroom.
We are not drag queens. We are not gay dudes that want to play dress-up. We are not crossdressers. Our clothes do not turn us on, any more than any other woman is turned on by her own clothes. Crossdressers are MEN by definition. When a crossdresser goes home, the wig and makeup and clothes come off, and they go about their lives. We don’t have that option. Crossdressers worry about whether their new nail polish will look good at the clubs. We worry about whether we’re going to be fired, or when our parents will speak to us again.
We want only the most basic courtesy. Use the proper pronouns. You can get our name wrong, our religion, our career, our race - but use the proper pronouns. Transwomen of color tell me that being called “he” or “him” hurts them a lot worse than “nigger” or “dirty Mexican.” Don’t stare. Don’t ask us personal questions you wouldn’t ask anyone else. Even in the community itself, it’s sometimes considered poor form to ask a lot of questions.
We’re trying. We might not have the dress down. We might have some male mannerisms. Maybe the makeup isn’t 100%. Almost certainly, our voices are funny, because they are the hardest thing to change. But we’re trying, and many of us are so desperately poor, due to job discrimination, that we can’t afford professional makeup/clothing and fashion help.
Kate is a little strident and I think her works are not that relevant to the cisgender world. Likewise, Julia Serano, while I love her, is a fire-breathing transfeminist who takes no prisoners.
These two books aren’t bad.
Transgender Explained For Those Who Are Not
Hey Una!
I don’t have any questions but I did want to let you know how happy I am that you have found peace and the confidence to start this thread.
What were the legal aspects like? Have you changed things legally, and how did it go? Were you officially married to Fierra as a male or female? And, if the former, did changing your legal status create any problems in that arena?
Oh, and you mentioned a deep male voice. Did your voice change significantly even though you didn’t go through male puberty? In other words, is it really all that low?
And, of course, thanks again for doing this. I hope you get something out of it, too.
Beautiful thread!
thanks. I learned about a subject I knew very little about.
Una, when you were growing up (and maybe a bit beyond the teenage years, too,) did you know anyone else who was transgender? (is that the correct word to use here?) Or even know of anyone else? Or did you feel like you were the only one?
Fascinating thread, by the way.
From my surmise, “the dope” is comprised of mostly educated, well adjusted people that aren’t offended by the unusual when presented.
I have no questions atm though…
I think most have been answered via internet porn. 
Hi, Una! Thanks so much for making this thread! A few people have already asked what cis people should know/do, but is there any kind of political action that would be easy to take? Signing petitions, writing my congresspeople, and maybe showing up at the occasional rally is totally within the scope of what I’d be willing to do.
I’m a little lucky in that I live in a bigoted state.
You see, back in 2002 the Kansas Supreme Court heard the case In re Estate of Gardiner, where a Kansas man married a post-op transwoman, they had a happy life together, he died and left her everything. The man’s estranged son came in and challenged the marriage, as the estate was substantial and he didn’t like the fact that his dad married a transsexual, and won. The Kansas Supreme Court basically set in place an “original equipment” policy, which means “you are and will forever be, for the purpose of marriage, whatever your original birth certificate says you are.” So any transsexual woman born in Kansas is considered to be a man, no matter what.
However, Kansas is a fairly progressive state in that it will give you tax ID status, drivers licenses, CCW permits, and all other IDs in whatever gender you transition to. Likewise, the Federal Government will give you the same for passports, Social Security records, etc.
So in Kansas, a transsexual lesbian can marry her cisgender lesbian partner, and a transman gay can marry his cisgender gay partner.
Intersex people are different (duh). We used to be able to get our birth certificates changed via the courts if our medical status changed, but Kansas ended all birth certificate changes, even for purely medical reasons, under the Brownback Administration. They are on record as even ignoring court orders to issue birth certificates, and no one has taken them to a higher court.
In short, I’m legally married transsexual lesbian who has all state, federal, and other IDs saying “female.” Since I don’t use my birth certificate for anything, and likely never will, I don’t give a crap what it says on it. 
I had a high soprano voice after puberty. I destroyed my voice on purpose to make it low to hide who I was. Even still, for the first couple of years at work, sometimes people would snap their head and say “huh, you sounded like a girl there for a bit.” In the car on the way to work I practiced and practiced to destroy my pretty voice.
Sadly, your voice really only changes one direction - low. Sending it higher takes years of practice, and never really works that well. I have an ex-opera singer who volunteers her time to help me out, since I’m a community activist and they want me to sound as good as possible when I’m in front of an audience, being interviewed locally, etc.
Thank you hajaro!
I get asked this a lot by teens nowadays, and it gives me a chance to tell them about days of olde…
I thought I was the only one for years and years. Living in a small town, pre-internet and only one library to have easy access to, I had no information at all to help me understand what was going on. I’m a researcher, and I did my best, but was limited by what the library had in it. I remember going to the library one day and asking a reference librarian for help - an austere grey-haired woman with spectacles. I asked her for any books or articles about boys who think they might be girls.
I remember well her drawing herself up to her full octogenarian height, and proclaiming loudly “YOUNG man, we do NOT carry PORNOGRAPHY in this library!”
I remember when I was in the hospital for my diabetes, at age 12, I tried to spend some of my time there looking up information about people like me. Again, I received an icy response. It made me feel like I was something dirty - pornographic - to be hidden away - and it forced me even further inside myself.
The first time I ever met a transgender person was at University, and only for a few minutes, and they were a real cast-iron bitch. The first time I ever interacted positively with another transgender person was with someone on the SDMB, in about 2000. And the first time I met someone else locally who was trans was 2012. This experience isn’t unique by any means - one of my best friends, who is also an intersex transwoman (who has had extensive surgery, and now is a woman in every way except fertility) got her SRS in 2010, not even knowing another transperson in the entire metro area.
For reasons like those, I’ve spent a lot of time rallying the community, building solidarity, building assistance networks, and making a true Community.
That’s a tough one - most all transgender political issues are local ones. I think…that since a lot of the controversy in the next few years will be related to mainstreaming transkids in schools, showing up at school board meetings, PTA meetings, and city council meetings to say “what’s the big deal?”
So many of my people are underemployed or unemployed. The courts are more and more finding that transgender discrimination is actually sex discrimination. One of my best friends who I love dearly is a fire-breathing trial attorney - and also a transsexual woman, and she is itching for each transgender work discrimination case she can get, because she’s confident she will win each one. And she does, so far.
So if the work issue has progress, the next issue is keeping them in school and higher education. And here, bullying is the problem, and I don’t mean by just the students. There are myriad cases of parents bullying the parents of transkids, or even the transkids themselves. And bullying and intimidation by teachers, educators, and education administration officials is rampant. Most schools will not allow transkids to even dress as their proper gender, will not use the proper pronouns, will not allow name changes, etc. Let alone allowing them to use the proper bathrooms. The reaction to this is poor academic performance, or dropping out.
Stop the bullying and allow transkids to present as their proper gender in all ways in school, and they will start graduating high school in higher numbers. Then they go on to college, then they get an education, then they form part of a rising tide of better-educated and more financially successful Americans.
Una, I’m so glad you found a life, a spouse, and a job you can love. You are one very lucky person.
For the rest of you, I offer a suggestion of support which I was surprised I had it in me to say when I was speaking up for a trans friend in the process of making the switch:
Jo was a very guy-looking guy and there were some in our group who were totally freaked out by her switch. Two guys in particular couldn’t handle Jo’s change and came to me for advice. Why me? Probably because I was the head of our band of volunteers at the time and because I seemed to take the switch so calmly.
One of the afraid two (both macho types) asked me if Jo would be leaving the team. I said “No, her abilities haven’t changed.” To which he replied, “but it’s just not right!” I said look “It wasn’t right for Jo before, it is now. Look D__, Jo’s being transgender does not affect your sexuality one bit. You are still 100% male and always will be.” Which, amazingly he accepted.
I still have no idea where that bit of insight came from (thank you Og?) but it was apparently the answer he wanted to hear. If needed, use it. I have used it again since. It is always effective.
Sorry if this is a duplicate question (going to bed when I noticed this thread, will read it all later).
As someone who has had experience of living in both the male and female social roles what benefits and drawbacks to being each gender have you personally experienced? I think why most threads on gender descend into such bitterness and mutual recriminations is that most people have never really had an insight into what day to day life is as the opposite gender while transsexual people do have that insight.
If that was phrased poorly I apologise, had a long day!
btw you’re from the UK? Or was that first pic taken on a visit?
Well said, and this brings up an excellent point - I cannot believe the number of people who think that by us merely existing, we are inconveniencing others, and Society as a whole, to an unacceptable level.
“She” takes just as much effort to say as “he,” and we don’t need special elevators or hovercraft. When people say we “foist themselves” on others by existing, or “make others uncomfortable” by being in the same restaurant as them, they’re no different than the folks in the 1950’s who protested that “Negroes” were using the same drinking fountains and riding on the same buses.
First off, I want to say that I think you’re doing a really good thing for your community here on the boards also - the Dope is heavily indexed by Google spiders, and I can easily see this thread being a useful information source to people down the line, or even a point of hope to someone who is looking for anyone “like them” out in the world.
I am a librarian - what can I do/purchase/work on to help make my library be a safe space for kids who are questioning or intersex or simply curious? I’m in SC, (bible belt) so there’s a huge culture of repression and avoidance.