CJ "siege" BellwetherMar 5

Does anyone have a screepcap or link saved of the interaction about a decade ago when a trans girl on reddit asked an adult cis man how often he thought about being a girl and his answer was something like "I dont think ive ever thought about that".

That interaction broke so many people and i wish i had properly secured it for posterity. My brain remembers the guys handle had Panda in it iirc.

Show threadCJ "siege" BellwetherMar 5
obligatory "man who secretly thinks about being a woman" is not a type of man thats a trans woman in the closet and "woman who secretly thinks about being a man" is not a type of woman, thats a trans man in the closet.
Show threadCJ "siege" BellwetherMar 5
this comes up a lot for me because interacting with people on the verge of figuring things out have specific complexities of the world they've built up to project/hide who they are that tends to be the same shape as everyone else in that situation so its very familiar and knowable but theres always a bit of a game of cat and mouse of trying to side step that projection to speak to the real person on the other side.
Show threadErosdiscordiaMar 5
@siege
I kind of want to hang an appendix onto this idea, that some of us pre-transition transes get ourselves into a position where we NEVER think of potentially being the gender we actually are.

Like, I never considered that I was a guy. I've got no memories or wanting to be one, or the thought crossing my mind that I wasn't actually a girl.

What I DO have, are memories of obsessively thinking of myself as a girl, in a "How do I live with being a woman? How do I do girl right?" kind of endless-angst way. As if any lapse in my vigilance would make all my gender evaporate, which would of course be terribly dangerous.

I posit that's another incredibly sad tell.

I think being an enby made it complicated too. Back in the day at least, there wasn't any alternative third thing to long to be.
Show threadCJ "siege" BellwetherMar 5

@valentine yeah, like i tend to think of three general categories of trans people coming to realisation:

1. those who boldly as a child walkup to their parents and say "Hey actually im X" - this to me is like a cryptid. I cannot fathom magical formulation exists that allows the trans kid to take everything theyve been told by parents/teachers/peers and say No you're all wrong.

2. those who pubertal changes are so stark it crushes them so heavily that they figure it out.

Show threadCJ "siege" BellwetherMar 5

@valentine 2 continued: figures it out in early teen years, normally has terrible time trying to negotiate situation with parents, posts always tend to include crying in showers.

3. those who accept what they're told by parents/teachers, that they are their agab, and therefore self learn to crush any internal gender need feelings and build a cage around it, cage becomes more complex as life continues, puberty leads to more intense crushing of needs, mental health cracks begin from closet life

Show threadErosdiscordiaMar 5
@siege
Yeah, this third one!

I always tell people that I was in a closet WITHIN another closet.
Show threadErosdiscordiaMar 5
@siege
I think you're spot on with these categories.

I've felt for some time that there needs to be much more frank and open discussion of "how to tell if you might be trans."

I know people will scream because any one piece of evidence or clue doesn't "mean anything", and folks are especially overprotective of clues that might overlap with just being a gender-nonconforming woman.

But I'm also at the point where I don't care if people get upset, I'd love a long list of "things I didn't know were a sign I was trans" for all genders, to be floating around the internet. And people with like 5 of them could be "hmm!" and people with 50 of them could have a good cry and a life change. 💜
Show threadJuniper 🏳️‍⚧️🌲Mar 6
@valentine @siege The GDB was kind of that for me, and I've seen a few other lists floating around (mostly transfem focused, though I don't know if that is a tendency for which lists exist or just my own identity steering what I see).
Show threadErosdiscordiaMar 6
@eruonna @siege What is the GDB?
Show threadJuniper 🏳️‍⚧️🌲Mar 6

@valentine @siege The Gender Dysphoria Bible

https://gdb.fyi

That's Gender Dysphoria, FYI

A resource for those questioning their gender, already on a gender journey, or simply wanting to learn more about what it is to be transgender.

That's Gender Dysphoria, FYI
Show threadMux2000 (exfoliating)Mar 6
@eruonna
Thank you for about an hour and a half of cathartic crying my eyes out. Never felt so seen in my life.
@valentine @siege
Show threadJuniper 🏳️‍⚧️🌲

@Mux

It was basically a whole weekend for me, when I first read it (and read it again, and again, and again...)

@valentine @siege

Mar 6 at 9:00pmWeb
Show threadMux2000 (exfoliating)Mar 6
@eruonna
I'm already six months into HRT. I can't imagine what reading that during my egg cracking days would have felt like.
@valentine @siege
Show threadJuniper 🏳️‍⚧️🌲Mar 6

@Mux

I sometimes say it singlehandedly cracked my egg, though that is not completely correct. It did a lot of the work of getting me from "yeah, I'm probably some kind of gender weirdo" to "holy shit, I need to transition yesterday!"

@valentine @siege

Show threadMux2000 (exfoliating)Mar 6
@eruonna
Stop it or I'm gonna start crying again.
@valentine @siege
Show threadErosdiscordiaMar 6
@eruonna @Mux @siege
I didn't have a document like this in 2016 when my overt journey started. What I did get super lucky and find was an incredible little group of non-binary Tumblr/Discord friends, who shared with me some of the same insights that are on that site. 💜

They took me from May/Pulse nightclub/"I should probably make an effort to find out if I am actually some kind of LGBT after all" to July/"holy shit I want to be a guy"/how to get my hands on T as fast as possible.

What a rush.