Now I dont see how because of the need, or no need, to shave.
How do you mean?
Just to add to this–trans girls who take blockers will never develop the broader shoulders or other skeletal changes associated with male puberty. My daughter, poor thing, is likely to develop breasts like mine and I’m sure she’ll wish they were at least a cup or two smaller.
Not all cismen have beards, or very much beard. In the Americas lack of a beard could be explained by a lot of Native ancestry. Faking shaving oneself wouldn’t be difficult - lather up, razor, clean up and just get a reputation for being fastidious about it. On top of that, some ciswomen actually do have facial hair to some degree and while nowadays that’s usually obsessively eliminated back in the old days not so much, and if not, could probably give some suggestion of stubble on a scantily bearded face.
There is, of course, a difference between a woman “passing” for a short period of time for ulterior motives not related to gender identity (Anne Bonny, Mary Read, and for a brief period Pancho Barnes not as a pirate but rather on a month-long adventure in Mexico where she acquired the nickname “Pancho”) and those who might today be defined as transgender (Parkhurst and Tipton). It does illustrate that “passing” is not entirely a matter of hormones and/or surgery.
The most I discuss online is that I do have some female physical parts, and I do produce estrogen naturally, at levels which swung widely but ranged from normal female to zero, but normally about half a normal female level.
At least to the best of my knowledge - since I went on hormones as part of the transition, it’s not possible for a test to tell how much of my estrogen is from my body and how much is from the pills. And I am not dropping the pills.
Yes you are very correct; that’s why I limited my discussion to “late teens”. The “blocker babies” as some call them (I call them “the lucky ones”) will have really awesome lives. With early GRS/SRS they will be indistinguishable from natal women by their early 20’s, with the only downside being needing to continue hormones and not being able to give birth.
Judging by my students, and my cohort at college, most young men these days aren’t capable of growing beards until the mid-twenties at the earliest, if at all. And a lot of blonde guys don’t really show stubble either. And I’m pretty certain none of the guys in my circle have native american ancestry, they’re just baby-faced.
I don’t get ‘trans panic after sex’ either. There are much, much bigger things a woman could withhold from me. Personally, I have to find the right time to tell a woman my various mental problems and the medications I’m on for them.
And the prostate exams.
On the other hand, some ciswomen are in a similar boat - either unable to conceive/give birth, or needing hormonal adjustment. One of my high school classmates had one of those hormonal imbalances that result in a fully bearded lady - she was looking at a lifetime of hormonal treatment, too, possible surgery, and severely diminished and/or absent fertility.
While pregnancy and childbirth are certainly significant they shouldn’t be what defines who is a woman and who isn’t.
See, this is more what it should be about - “Hey, before we go further I feel I need to tell you about some things I normally feel are private but you should know if we’re intimate or discussing a long term relationship.” Some things might be a dealbreaker - like infertility in one partner when the other partner has reproduction as a high priority in life - but it shouldn’t result in either panic or physical assault, and not blurting out highly personal information immediately shouldn’t be seen as deception or lying. Like I said, though, I think “lying” is used as an excuse to run away in a rude manner at least some of the time.
A lot of people have medical conditions, problems, non-obvious disabilities, maybe are carriers of a genetic problem, and so forth. At some point you need to let your intimates know, but people also need to have respect for other folks.
I would just like to add that the need for prostate exams in postoperative transwomen is debatable, since orchiectomy (removal of the testes) is in fact a treatment for prostate cancer. The incidence of prostate cancer in postoperative transwomen is fairly rare. That said, since every person of any gender after the age of 50 should probably have a yearly rectal examination, I would still do regular prostate exams. PSA testing is controversial for everyone and should be individualized for the patient.
Now that you have lived on both sides so to speak… do you have any observations about male and female behavior you feel free to talk about?
For example, in your opinion, why on average do women make less money than men?
Also what skills and talents do you seem to see more common in males than females or vise versa? Ex. Are women better organizers?
Do you have any insights on the statement “Men are like Waffles, Women are like Spaghetti”?
In general, what are some things men could learn from women? What are some things women could learn from men?
You do realize that Una is the same person she’s always been, right? She can undoubtedly speak about how she’s treated differently now that she fully presents as female, but she doesn’t have a brand new personality to match changes in her body and gender expression.
While I suspect that Una is quite gifted at sociological analyses of gender relations (transgender people tend to learn a lot about social attitudes toward gender, lessons often violently imposed), she wasn’t a man magically transformed one day into a woman.
I apologize.
I thought from her previous comments she WAS identified as a man and only recently started the hormone therapy and such to be fully female. She also answered me previously when I asked how much more womens clothing was than mens and she made it sound like she had gone from mens suits to womens. So I’m not sure she was transformed in a day from a man into a woman it sure did seem like at one time she DID identify as a man and then changed over fully to being a woman.
Really. I apologize if I have offended.
I went a little mamma bear on you. Gender identity (the gender we know ourselves to be) and gender expression (how we present ourselves to the world) are different. Una’s gender expression (and that of my daughter) has changed, but for many transgender people (my daughter included), gender identity doesn’t change. Rather, gender identity and gender expression align for the first time.
I’m afraid this is a little over my head.
If I may awkwardly blunder in on this conversation, I think I can explain . . .
For most people, the gender they are and the gender the world sees them as are the same. You’re (using the general “you” - I don’t know what gender you actually are) a male both in how you act, and in how you look. For transgendered people, the gender they are - how they think, feel, and just exist - and how they appear to the outside world don’t match up. On the inside, they’re women, but they look like men, or vice-versa. To be honest, I think this is where it gets hard for non-transgendered people to understand - as a person whose appearance and actual gender has always “matched up,” it’s hard for me to understand what it would be like to not match up. When a person changes genders, they’re not actually changing who they are inside, just what the outside world percieves them to be - they’re trying to coordinate the gender they actually are with what they look like. So for Una, superficial things like what she wears, how people smile at her, what she spends on haircuts, etc., have changed - but her thought process (like “spaghetti” vs “waffle”) was always female, whether she wore a tie or not.
I think I did throughout the thread…I apologize if that sounds like a brush-off, but I typed so many things before. But being in the company of women as a woman is truly a different world. Men (almost all of them) surely have no idea.
Bathrooms continue to be a huge difference. Having now used the men’s and the women’s at a hundred different places, I can say with maybe one exception the women’s rooms are MUCH cleaner than the men’s. I know the last time I said this other Doper women jumped in to say “but you haven’t seen this one bathroom…” I’m not saying women’s rooms can’t be disgusting. But compared to the men’s at the same location? No contest.
I’ve already run into and personally experienced being talked over in meetings, being ignored, having clients defer to my assistants rather than me, having clients ignore my expertise to listen to a man who knows much less. But NEVER by co-workers. Some of my male co-workers have taken time to apologize to me for how clients have treated me. Some of my female co-workers tell me “welcome to your new life.”
I’ve been sexually harassed at least a dozen times now, and actually had men’s hands laid upon me in an uncomfortable manner 3 or 4 times. Never by co-workers; my co-workers are really pretty awesome, and I’m proud I’ve worked for more than 2 decades at a company where I can count on one finger the number of times I’ve witnessed sexual discrimination against female professionals (and that was corrected right away).
I cannot say that I see any real difference at this juncture. I know my skills and talents have changed dramatically and almost scarily. For example, I used to be a wonderful multitasker - without peer. Now it’s very difficult for me. I rely a LOT more on my personal and business assistants and my team to help me. And it feels…better. Not having to always be the “lone wolf” who has to do everything.
I’m a MUCH better communicator on some levels. Before, I could easily talk to audiences. You could grab me and throw me cold in front of some whale of a client or 200 people, give me a topic off the fly, and I could confidently talk about it and do a damn good job. But with one person, face to face, I would falter. Now I can still speak to crowds just as well, but I’m also very personable, approachable, and easy to talk to on a one-one basis.
I always was before, but I’m much more protective of my employees. When clients start getting hot under the collar with them, I jump in immediately to calm everyone down and put myself in the line of fire. My youngest assistant is going on a business trip to India, and he told me that I’ve been doing so much to help him out and scout out his travel arrangements and ensure that he has security on-site and even upgrading his plane ticket out of my own (project) pocket, and generally looking out for him such that he feels really confident having his “work mom” look out for him. Whereas in other groups the managers would just about say “you’re going to India; see you later.”
Yes. That pithy comparisons of incredibly complex and multifaceted social structures, customs, and traditions to foodstuffs is best left on Facebook.
I wish men could be closer and show platonic affection more - basically, that they would be more supportive and less competitive. And I wish men would STOP WORRYING about other men thinking they’re “gay.”
I wish other women would be braver and bolder, and utterly reject the societal stereotype, reinforced by everyone and everything from their own mothers to commercials on TV, that their lives are defined by what men think about them.
Add into this the mess of being intersex - having body parts which are a mix of both - and you can feel alienated, like a permanent outsider, or even (to quote Jan Morris) like a mythological creature.
I knew my mind was female from single digit ages. How do I know? I just did. How does anyone know what gender they are outside of their body cues? You just do. But I had to live male due to the issues of being born way too long ago.
Gender dysphoria - having that brain/body disconnect can be hell. It certainly was for me. Some people have it mildly, and only have mild depression and confusion, mild unhappiness, mild uncertainty. But to be a transsexual - to have that serious dysphoria - is a whole new hell. I hold my sisters and pat their backs as they cry and scream and pound their fists and kick - or just basically collapse. I’m the Protector. I’m the “trans honey badger” of our community. I go to their homes late at night in scary neighborhoods to sit with them when they’re too drunk to be coherent and curled up under a blanket. I sit with them in bars until 2:00am when they’re too drunk to drive because they’ve been trying to drink the dysphoria away. I step in between my sisters and the “baggers” and “chasers” to make sure they aren’t taken advantage of - that they won’t get into some strange crossdresser’s or chaser’s car just so someone will hold them and tell them they’re pretty.
Transition helps, the hormones REALLY help, the surgery(ies) help. It’s very rare that I meet someone who says the gender dysphoria is truly cured. They can go from 50% “OK” to 99% “OK” and still have those occasional doubts, fears, and breakdowns.
Before I made the decision to transition, I was 10% “OK” with my body and my place in this world. Which is why almost killed myself. After hormones I shot up to 60-70% “OK”. After transition was essentially finished, I’d say I’m at about 85% “OK”. I want a couple more cosmetic surgeries, and then I might be 90% or more.
Just . . . wow. For a non-transgendered person, I think that really, truly understanding what gender dysphoria is like is impossible - it’s like trying to explain what the color red looks like to a blind person. You don’t notice the little things in your thought process, the details in how you feel and act and think, that are male or female unless you don’t match up. All I can say is that you really are an incredible person and an inspiration, and I hope that someday everybody will be able to stop trying to control other people’s lives and let everyone else work out their problems without acting as though they know better. High hopes, I know. 