I'm 26, 3.5 years on T, from low dose for first two years to full dose the last year, and a few months on injections now. I've had top surgery. My likely pure-O mind is asking completely reasonable questions about whether 1) transness is a real thing scientifically proven, or whether it is something we help each other out with regarding the make-believe and 2) whether I am personally one of those people who is "internally a man".
I've bolded bits so you can skim, even if everything seems too much.
If you do not feel ready to, or want to give very simple answers in the comments that I have already heard, please just don't engage with this post.
I have already established I likely started transitioning because of inequality between the sexes. I don't think anyone can debate that this is a reasonable conclusion that some cis females also draw: this body is weaker (physically) than cis men's, this body has the ability to dehumanize me with pregnancy, that is not often under my control, and it generally the biology taunts me with all sorts of inconveniences.
The societal aspects certainly play into it, no doubt, but I looked up "how to get more testosterone as a female" at 13yo specifically for 1) safety 2) self-respect and 3) practical purposes (not in order of importance). The biological aspects of the body are in the way of my self-actualisation and feeling "fully human", in a sense that can not be mitigated by social progress alone, and in cis women might at any point be taken away - by being made to exist for another being's benefit and pleasure, not your own.
I perceive myself as existing for my own pleasure, and perhaps to think or something, or make someone else's situation better in a way that does not take anything away from me but gives me, also, something. That, to me, is being alive.
The last bit led to me thinking that this must be gender dysphoria: after all, it had nothing to do with the kind of clothes I wore (aiming for what is normal and stylish and looks good, not a particular gendered expression). Only with the biological aspects. And from that, something I often hear is that:
> but you also don't like how it looks, and that has no right or wrong answer, that isn't to do with sexism!
....except it could be. A female "look" could be a shorthand and a symbol, for everything I feel this deep seated FOMO about.
So I am not sure that there is also underlying actual dysphoria, or if it is all an amalgamation of what kind of a life I picked apart and decided would be "overall better" for my future, career, physical well being, the expectations I am able to meet or even entertain from others (none, really), the risk profile, physical inconveniences and my sense of being a full person.
I don't want to detransition, and the conservatives' newfound essentialist nonsense of "accepting femaleness/womanhood" feels like misery just loves company, and loves cheating other people out of their piece of the pie, depriving me of pleasure, freedom, resources, respect and THAT is why the TERFs want it to end for me so bad. They would love company in a suffering they can not escape from.
I keep getting dismissed on either ethical grounds, as "oh god that's horrible, how could you think these things about women?" or based on "if you're not really a trans man, don't do this!!" and other kneejerk reactions, or getting told to "get help for the pure-O and stfu".
And for the record, I do not think cis women, or even TERFy women for that matter should or deserve to suffer. I kind of just find they inevitably do, not even because of society, and I struggle to understand the feminist point about "is" vs "ought" when it comes to the physical and biological - those things don't lend itself to much correction, even in the best of societies. Yes, the levels of respect and kindness both experience should be the same... but the levels of pain from giving birth literally can not. The risks of getting an UTI from sex, or the damage a pregnancy does to a human body, those literally can not be changed. They have been for eons, and they will continue to be. At least, we can never societally unmake the fact that one would be giving away resources and nutrients, and share the body with another being, and that they naturally experience mood fluctuations from hormones.
I also do not think life is a peachy ride as a guy, far from it. Let alone a trans guy's life. I have lived it for some time now, so I would know, and I'm involved in a couple of men's initiatives, including being against conscription and circumcision. The men and women who speak up against those things are good people, and when the loneliness stuff gets brought up, that is not recognised enough.
Men's bodies and inner emotionally complex beings are simply not appreciated enough. That is something I see and believe, and I don't think that makes me a bad person. So I certainly don't take the transmisandrist arguments about "giving up female beauty" or any of that nonsense seriously, and don't need to be convinced of that.
This fight feels more my own than feminist ones, but I am not sure this is not because well... who would not want to be on the side that wins, even in a small, marginal win of no pregnancy?
The tendency to think deeper isn't in itself a flaw in my eyes, and it's not super ultra special enough to be considered a disorder either, but nevertheless I have that diagnosis. For example, I am a financial crime investigator. And oftentimes, when in some people's eyes I "overthink", more often than not, I have been right about something that others were being sloppy about, and found out about something suspicious going on. I have avoided death from sloppily prescribed medicines by reading the leaflet carefully. I have avoided burning the house down, because if not for due diligence, my ADHD absolutely would have rendered that my lived reality.
I feel like sometimes, people are being sloppy about their internal identities, and it feels almost like a lot are threatened by a deeper analysis, especially coming from another trans (maybe?) person. However, I am not asking for those who are not ready to delve into it to open themselves up. This is clearly not your area, so please just don't engage; perhaps there are others who are willing?
Besides the simpler answers, I'm also anticipating a response about my personality or "oh wow ur insufferable". I've heard that too, and I don't care. I am only here to discuss the gender identity stuff specifically, so please keep ad hominems and value judgements to yourself.
I don't think I can live without coherent proof that somewhere inside, there is a man. But I also can not just believe it when it is told to me and not backed up. How would someone on the outside know I am not just telling them what they want to hear because I've thought through all the possible responses?!
I don't have many feelings day to day, except for frustration, fear of detransitioning and giving up the good stuff, and pleasure from good food, sex, a good story or achievement, sometimes being in nature. But I have a lot of thoughts.
I've thought about it from a neurological perspective, but there is no definitive proof, at least not as much as there is proof that says "it's autism and you couldn't handle that as a woman = sexism is the cause".
Even if there are trans brains, i am not convinced mine would be one of them, as I do enjoy a great deal of feminine things, just not the shitty ones that can harm your body permanently, or are derived from biology.
I've had scans done on my abdomen, so I know there isn't any hidden gonads or intersex conditions, my medical history doesn't allude to anything like that. I'm not very man-like in build to start with, so nothing there lends itself to any sort of legitimacy of an "internally male" sense of self.
I don't know if I ever had genuine dysphoria. Most of my pre-transition life breezed by, telling myself to not think about things, and the first parts of transition as well. I always felt like I should have more dysphoria, but I just looked objective reality in the face, probably dissociated, and decided it was simply "not a great start" and needed to be "fixed", so that's what I did.
It could be dissociative dysphoria, or it could be absence of dysphoria and an actual choice I made. I can't tell.
There were some inklings of male identity in rare, warm feelings, but I now think they were a figment of just idolizing a less analytical, more innocent and less anxious childhood that I could have had, were I raised as a boy.
I don't feel euphoria now, very much, it's just more normal. It doesn't cause me distress that the body has changed, but I don't feel much either way.
Sometimes I wish the scars on chest would go away, but overall, my chest is just ok. I never connected with what was there much, more so it made me feel like I would be put in an unfavourable position in life, that they didn't look good in men's clothing, and what I have now just feels like the default. Not everything has changed yet, but it's just fine. It's just the body, it feels fine to move around in, the future changes feel like they will solidify a future I imagine for myself.
Previously, I would feel some shame about how I am seen, feel ridiculous or stumpy, perhaps some disconnect from it and sense that it does not fit to represent my mind, and an inability to extend empathy to myself, but not much else. Sometimes I see a guy in the mirror, and I feel that empathy is now deserved.
But that could be a function of just not extending empathy to women, because that could be too unjust and painful - kind of joking here, but I think to myself - who put a soul and brain that yearns for freedom inside someone so ill-fit to be in control of their life and body, purely physically? That sounds sad, and torturous.
I don't think I hate women, I love a great deal of them, but saying that I don't or that I support their causes passionately and their rights are my rights (and they often aren't, like with surrogacy) makes me recoil in the thought that if that is true, i could be one of them and if everything could be truly equal, maybe I could have gone without transitioning, and I am not a man after all - proof that I am NOT a man. I could be of course, but a "trans man who simply cares about women" sounds like the whole thing about albino zebras and white horses... sure, but it could be just another cis women who simply wants equality, and that's the much likelier option than those things existing simultaneously.
I struggle to understand my wife, who is trans, but then I remember that most of the nastier effects of (cis) womanhood are not available to her, and I am secretly glad. She may not be entirely glad for it, but I am glad she does not get to inflict pain on herself or be inflicted upon. She does that anyway, and any more is too much to see in a loved one. She gets to build a career in a male field in a male body for now, and I think that will be better for her self esteem, and the rest can be remedied as she grows into her female self, as we can not speed it up anyway.
I've also heard that one should be doing these things based on feelings, but I can't seem to and never seem to be able to figure those out for the life of me. It's like I only react to the world, i seek pleasure, and I seek to avoid pain, and that's the kind of creature I am, and that's what has led me here.
How do you seek any truths behind that?
