RE: Transgender: Ask Me Anything - What questions might Steemit users have but been afraid to ask?
@sykochica I've said it before and I'll say it again. There isn't anyone on this site who's mind is wired up the same as mine. Except for you.
I'm a cisgendered straight male who has never had any questions about whether or not my plumbing and wiring were a match.
Yet our mutual proclivity for discourse and the way we both use the language is identical to the point that I stand amazed every day as I read through your content, and try to recognize it as not somehow being my own. The thoughts are the same, the way ideas are deconstructed, analyzed and put back together is also identical. I've just come to accept the fact that when this happens it means there really is such a thing as "like mindedness" that goes well beyond the superficial.
Strange to hold up a mirror and see someone so different on the outside and so similar on the inside despite literally having no shared experiences beyond steemit. I will one day write a paper on this.
So I know that no one else will broach this topic with you. But literally, what is it like to be transgendered? You say "the gender you present" is part of a feedback loop. But if I shaved, wore a dress, put on makeup. Hell even if I went full out and "replaced the plumbing" as it were, I still could not hold the new identity beyond the one I was born with. You seem to do this effortlessly.
But I guess what I'm asking about is the question of the uncanny divide (which BTW applies to humans as well as machines), how do you cross this? How do you interact with cis-women? How do cis-women react to you? How do you deal with it when they react badly?
While I know many argue over whether feelings of being gay or transgender are 'embedded' from the start or 'learned/chosen' from my own experience I subscribe to the former. At first this translated as a feeling of 'being off' when socializing (friends, family, etc.) and later molded into a much clearer picture as I learned of the concepts of transgender. This was the first time I felt that internal reaction of YES, that's it!
To respond to the first part of your question:
First we have to assume that that these transgender feelings are embedded from the start of a human. Now think of these feminine feelings as a periodic wave. When I came in contact with society which treated me as male, I was presented with a 180 degree phase shifted periodic wave, that cancels out (destructive interference) my wave. This is what generates my feelings of being off. When I socially transitioned and was then treated as female by society, instead the wave grew (constructive interference), which for me felt correct.
My point is that for you, the destructive/constructive effects would be reversed. You would feel correct by being male and perceived as male, which would only feel off if were you to present as a woman. The thing to cross is purely dealing with the fear of negative reactions from society. I've been lucky to have a fully supportive family (even though discussions for understanding have been necessary,) friends and little to no social backlash. Many others are not this lucky.
I don't feel that I've changed much as a in 'essence' since I've transitioned (outside sharing more.) The female friends I had before, while getting a little closer, remained a similar relationship as before. I will admit that there were a few additional topics, like clothes, facials, etc... were added, but these were minor in the full scope.
Most women react/treat me as if I'm just another woman. It helps me by being relatively passable, which has it's own rabbit hole of discussion. I am also always aware of how others 'could' perceive me, and can usually avoid or prevent potential issues.
I've not had any bad reactions luckily. The closest has been a friend from high school that I could tell was torn with what he'd always thought and accepting that I'd transitioned. He didn't say or do anything mean or wrong, but I could tell.
Outside of this is a period online troll or a real life person realize I'm transgender from some queue or another and give me the 'eye' or a scoff. But these really just bounce off of me and go on, they're going to feel the way they feel regardless of me.
@sykochica I wish I had a basis for comparison. But this was helpful and thanks. So the answer to how you crossed the uncanny valley, was just that you were close enough to begin with that you already crossed it?
Closest thing I can come to the experience would be when I was 14 and my girlfriend dressed me up as a hooker for halloween. I didn't feel anything different about who I was and mostly it was just to humor her. We had a lot of fun and no one ever made mention of it afterwards.
But to my mind, this isn't anywhere near the same is it? When you present as male, you don't feel male. You might or might not have the plumbing, but in your seat of consciousness where it matters, you look in and find your homunculus is a female?
Was there ever a time you felt both or neither genders? Have you ever met people who simply refuse to be one or the other? Sorry i guess I'm just intrigued from an experiential perspective. I can understand feeling out of phase. But like I said when I cross dressed for halloween it meant nothing to me. It was just live action role play. However this is much deeper and I'm trying to understand how that works since gender is such a vital part of identity in general, yet I've met people who refuse the entire concept of gender.
I love this, but I'm about to fall over tired. I promise I will get back to this tomorrow.
I forgot to mention that i have met non binary, gender fluid and androgynous people. Many have similar issues in common with transgender people.
First, yes! To me 'essence' = homunculus!
[These are MY answers and don't necessarily speak for all trans or non-binary/gender-fluid people]
Prior to beginning to come out in my early 30s, I had kind of given up on the idea of intimacy and focused more on my intellectualism and developing personal philosophy. This was my closest to feeling 'neither' gender since I had accepted the idea of being single, found social gratification with friends (even if not intimate) and defined myself outside of gender lines. I was my soul, passions and ideas...all of which are essentially gender irrelevant in the traditional sense.
I'm not sure how much other feel this way, but I tend to think of myself more since coming out as what has been called 'Two-Spirit.' While I still feel and choose to present female, I do still have and understand a male perspective to a degree. In some countries this is revered due to the insight and knowledge from both sides of things. But much as we travel up and down through Maslow's Hierchy of Needs, my male/female needs and proportions flow as well.
While I can't deny biological sex, I've wondered how much effect society has in actually defining gender. It's nearly impossible to seperate especially with it being so deeply rooted into out languages. He/she pronouns are use countless times a day, when really a gender neutral term like they/them could easily be used, but why? Why do many languages like french, spanish and italian have a masculine/feminine applied to everything. (It is la bibliotèque not le bibliothèque) What sense does it really make to apply gender to inanimate objects? This is really a hard one to separate since for many people conscious concepts require a word, and those words have un-noticed implications. I get the concept of 'gender role' in the evolutionary biology/psychology sense, but it really doesn't explain why it's still held to tightly or embedded in our vocabulary.
Great question!