Trans/Genderqueer/Agender/Questioning Thread

best of luck phil. very happy for you that you have such a supportive partner

As a friend of mine likes to say, the demand for certainty greatly outstrips the supply. There's no way to know exactly how your future would play out if you made the full transition to presenting yourself as a woman full time.

You can closely observe your past and your present, both in terms of what you've tried and done and how you felt when you did them. When it comes to facing the future, you can only examine your present hopes and fears. Your therapist should be able to help you identify your hopes and fears so you can look at them in greater depth and detail, and develop strategies for achieving as much as possible in the way of realizing hoped for and diminishing feared outcomes.

In many ways it all comes down to whether you want to exchange one set of problems for which you've tried many solutions, which solutions don't seem to be working well for you, for another set of problems for which you may find better solutions.

I, too, wish you the best of luck and am happy you have a supportive partner.

It's a wild ride right now Phil, I'm sure. I can only offer support and express admiration for how courageous you are by sharing it in this way, and the way you go about it. Also, you seem blessed with a very understanding and supportive partner, which is fantastic. To have her on your side, because she loves the person you are, is invaluable. God speed.

strength at you

Phil, this is great news. Congrats on making it this far. Do you have any thoughts about your name? I talk with some of my trans/uncertain/questioning students about this a lot, and it’s another hugely important step for many of them.

<3 Phil // I know how hard it can be to get to this point; congratulations on being able to explore yr identity more directly! Seeing a gender therapist and looking into a support group both seem like positive steps. I would echo emil.y and VegemiteGrrl's posts to say that you shouldn't feel like you have to figure everything out at once or already feel certain about how to proceed. If you decide later that you want to talk about yr gender with yr family, I'd strongly suggest talking first to the relatives you expect to be supportive, but that's not something you have to rush into: take everything at the pace that feels most natural to you.

xp

don't have anything to offer other than I wish you the very best in this experience and commend your courage

Phil, concurring that having a partner who has actively supported you finding yourself in the past is a wonderful boon here. Your frustration sounds like you want to have an immediate end-point to work towards, that you definitely want to fit a binary - is that largely an effect of the long-time suppression? Was there enough "missing" when you presented as female with/around your wife before, that you want to have an answer to resolve? Rather than going back to that support, and exploring further in a genderqueer space (in what might be a more welcoming time and society than before)?

^ not necessarily questions to answer to us here!

TY all for your words of encouragement! It really means a lot to me, especially since there are only like 2 people IRL right now I can talk to. I definitely have given some consideration to names, even if it's only necessary for occasionally presenting in public, but it's hard to name yourself. There's a lot tied up in that. And I do tend to think in pretty binary terms despite knowing a lot of nonbinary/genderqueer people. Maybe it's generational, maybe there's another reason, I'm not sure. I'm both dreading and eagerly anticipating this therapist appointment. Last time I went through any sort of therapy -- for grief counseling -- it was really rough for me. I'm not good at opening up.

Best of luck Phil. It's scary. I haven't ever gotten to a point where I can actually deal with my gender issues. I have a lot of other problems people would rather talk about instead. I guess I've sort of accepted the fact that gender dysphoria is always going to be part of my life.

So I finally had a couple of therapy appointments. The first one was with a psychotherapist who was more of a generalist -- he had worked with gender questioning people before but more on anxiety-related issues. He then referred me to
this practice on Cleveland's west side with a number of therapists whose specialty is gender issues and sexual health.

I met this week with a therapist there who seems super cool. I had taken some anti-anxiety meds before going but he put me at ease, telling me he's worked with people all along the gender spectrum from age 6 to 60, including people who have fully transitioned very late in life. He also said he considers his job to be not to lead but to walk alongside, which was good. We've got another session booked next week, and for now he's not going to try to diagnose any kind of dysphoria or anything before a couple more, just listing himself as treating me for bipolar I until we figure out where I am.

that’s really good to hear Phil
<3

<3 i kept meaning to respond to your posts but didn't feel like my advice would be at all adequate, but i'm extremely psyched for you phil

good on you for addressing the problem instead of ignoring it; wishing you a better 2018.

I'm glad you're getting some (nonprescriptive) support!

When I met with the therapist that first time, we talked about my how my confusion and anxiety right now lead me to avoid doing anything that could be publicly construed as feminine/androgynous/queer unless I'm presenting as female; and we discussed small things I could do. The specific thing we landed on was hair styling -- I tried to grow out my natural hair last year and it was disastrous, so I got it cut short/traditionally "masculine" again. I told the therapist I would really like to ask my stylist for a gender-neutral/unisex cut next time and he thought that was a great idea. But when I got my hair cut this past weekend I chickened out over it and asked for basically the same cut.

What I did do was get up the nerve to do something else that codes among a lot of people as feminine/queer and color my hair. And not just to color the grey -- I did this:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DURYQIzVMAAq72x.jpg

I'm nervous as hell over how people are going to react! But I like it!

i love the hair!

Looks good!

👍👍👍

yeah it looks good phil!

phil i'm so happy that you seemed to have found a good therapist. good luck on all the good work you are doing

also i dig your hair a lot

ditto all that and also thumbs up for baby steps--progress is progress!

damn, phil. looking good. keep going to that stylist. they have the touch!

good hair!

next step: SPACE DERN

xp yeah, my stylist is named Daisy and she is the best. She couldn't believe I was serious at first, then by the time she finished last night she was taking pics for future reference.

Yo I have been following this thread intently from afar. Phil, I am so fucking proud of and happy for you and your new hair RULES not just bcz it looks rad but bcz of how meaningful/norm-pushing it is. like it def reads "rad queer" to me imo (but I also live in the area of Philly that is basically the trans/radical queer/activist capital of the universe so)

https://apnews.com/02e14dcaba1f44af8202d390794f8717/Not-just-boy-and-girl;-more-teens-identify-as-transgender?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=AP

Far more U.S. teens than previously thought are transgender or identify themselves using other nontraditional gender terms, with many rejecting the idea that girl and boy are the only options, new research suggests.

The study looked at students in ninth and 11th grade and estimated that nearly 3 percent are transgender or gender nonconforming, meaning they don’t always self-identify as the sex they were assigned at birth. That includes kids who refer to themselves using neutral pronouns like “them” instead of “he” or “she.”

Thanks, Stevie! That's a big part of why I did it, to push some boundaries without necessarily putting myself SO far out into the nonbinary/trans space just yet that I'd feel unsafe in public. Honestly, a couple of weeks in, I almost forget that it's there until I look in a mirror. I know I get second glances from people but I'm teaching myself to be in the "Your problem, not mine" mindset.

I also went to my last therapist appointment presenting entirely as female and it was so FUCKING amazing to be someplace where not a single person, from the receptionist to the people in the waiting room to my therapist, treated me as anything but perfectly normal. (I also went out publicly this weekend presenting as binary female, to the library, lol.)

In my experience, cultivating the "your problem, not mine" mindset is probably one of the hardest but most thoroughly helpful aspects of transitioning or presenting differently. I'm glad you've been having encouraging experiences lately!

I also went to my last therapist appointment presenting entirely as female and it was so FUCKING amazing to be someplace where not a single person, from the receptionist to the people in the waiting room to my therapist, treated me as anything but perfectly normal. (I also went out publicly this weekend presenting as binary female, to the library, lol.)

― Millennial Whoop, wanna fight about it? (Phil D.), Monday, February 5, 2018 6:55 AM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is so great phil <3. i can echo that experience being p fucking amazing

this makes me v happy Phil <3

Very cool indeed. :-)

:D yayyyy!

YYYEESSSSSSSS

https://thenewinquiry.com/up-for-debate/

'Reflections from the TERF wars about dismantling bigotry on the left'

Argh one of my friends - who has had to deal with a partner’s transition where both have been beastly to one another - has gone full TERF. It gives me the horrors! Thing is, I know she’d be OK with trans women if she wasn’t in constant conflict with one, so her position seems fundamentally selfish/dishonest even considering her ex’s appalling behaviour.

there's a startling amount of acceptance of terf ideas in the scene that revolves around one of my careers and it... well, ofc, it makes me feel not like a person

"startling amount" = i feel like i'm overstating things, i've noticed it maybe three times but it feels world-destroying every time

Ugh, that sucks. My friend is being tedious and making li’l old cis me feel deeply uncomfortable, but that is as nothing compared to what my nb/trans friends would feel like if they had to read 2000 angry words on FB agreeing with that arsehole Janice Turner who writes for The Times.

Honestly, I really wish that ppl would spend even half the energy and time and words on addressing the transphobia and the gender essentialism of Cis Men (and all the benefits that Cis Men derive from these things) that they did on “terfs”.

Who benefits from the terf wars? And they amount of attention they get in the narratives around both feminism and around trans and non-binary people? (Bcz it sure isn’t trans and non-binary people, it sure isn’t women, or the intersections between those groups.)

Who benefits from casting transphobia and gender essentialism as a problem exclusively of ~feminists~? Why do we even need a separate word for “female transphobe”? When was the last time you saw a cis man getting called out for transphobia, at all, let alone with the amount of air time and attention? When are cis men even queried on their views on trans ppl, let alone dragged for them? Why don’t *those* questions get asked?

This used to be a meaningful term for addressing a specific thing. It’s pretty much stopped being one, and started being a deflection. It’s a way of locating the problem *over there*. Those women, those feminists, those terfs. And never interrogating cis men or cis male violence.

i hardly think isolating the terf problem is some kind of distraction from the transphobia of cis men?

it's also like... so important to not feel active hostility in spaces you inhabit? i don't inhabit a lot of spaces with cis men. i inhabit a lot of spaces with feminists

i do not think "never interrogating cis men or cis male violence" is remotely accurate

xps. if you're referring to the post that j made it specifically addresses that:

"Trans womanhood continues to be treated as a topic of playful debate for the chattering classes in places like Sydney, New York, and London. The stakes are high—Mike Pence is now a heartbeat away from the Oval Office, “bathroom bills” are cropping up across the U.S., and Trump appointees are busy rolling back any gains won under the Obama administration. We cannot lay primary responsibility for this state of affairs at the feet of anti-trans feminists—their influence is not so great. But the damage they do is real: Not only do they open space for liberals and leftists to opt out of trans solidarity, but they also provide rhetorical cover and ammunition for right-wing attacks."

in the city i live in i know of two feminist spaces/services that exclude trans women. doesn't seem like a minor detail to confront terfs.

Maybe you should try inhabiting more spaces full of cis men, then.

Because when I am afraid for my physical safety for ~presenting wrong~, or I am being bullied out of a space I need to be in *for my job* (as happened to me within the past 6 months) it is 100% not terfs that are doing it to me.

But it's really hard to get anyone to care about transphobia unless it's somehow ~to do with~ feminists.

I have too many dogs in this fight, and as far as I can see you have none, so this is not the time or the place.

But just try and think about what you *see* and try and think about who it serves. Cos it ain't us.

Maybe you should try inhabiting more spaces full of cis men, then.

... ok

this is really not what i come to this thread or this board for so see y'all later

well clearly everyone who’s been organizing against bathroom bills is only getting mad at TERFs right? they’re everywhere in american government after all

🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄

Here in Canada terfs and evangelical christians have teamed up and are uneasy allies in their anti-trans activities. High profile transwomen here are most obviously targetted by both groups (rather than Joe Public cis-men) and terf websites etc highly suspected of receiving funding from US organisations pushing an anti-trans agenda.