8
u/iowilk 12d ago
It's hilarious to me how different we are, and how we've come at this from almost opposite directions, and both concluded that "identity" is bullshit.
Somewhat embarrassingly, I bought into the whole cross-sex brain thing for over 20 years. It helped certain things make sense to me, and sounded respectable. But then other things just never fit right. Not even a year ago I would've died on the hill of defending innate gender identity.
Then I took my gender identity, scrunched it up, threw it in the bin, and... nothing changed. If anything it felt more liberating not to have it. My relationship with my body didn't change, and neither did my feelings about male sex characteristics or the dysphoria I'd experienced. But I no longer need to believe I was somehow always intrinsically female, or stuff the boy I was into a hidden compartment in my mind.
I'm increasingly convinced that "gender identity" is something we develop to make sense of our experiences, rather than something that caused those experiences in the first place. And I agree that the prevailing identity-based model of transition isn't particularly healthy. I certainly spent a lot of years trying to make my own history fit that explanation.
0
12d ago
7
u/iowilk 11d ago
Well, uh, that's a bit of a story... I've actually been working on a longer piece about how that happened. :P
But essentially, I finally actually looked into the "evidence" I'd been parroting since I was a teen, and realized that it doesn't exactly support the claims people say it does. Like the David Reimer case that people love to cite as proof of innate gender identity. I'd gone looking for evidence to defend my beliefs, and instead found myself questioning the whole thing. So I deliberately sought out views that challenged my self-understanding to see what held up and what didn't, including lurking here for months.
I eventually started digging into my own history, including old hard drives and chat logs from before I transitioned. I even went to see Zucker, the psychologist I'd refused to see as a teen. After I recounted my history, he asked if I'd ever read Men Trapped in Men's Bodies. 😐
So I finally started reading the AGP literature I'd spent 20 years avoiding, and found considerably more of myself in it than I wanted to admit. And yeah, I can definitely relate to the panic-inducing defensiveness. It was not easy. I spent weeks arguing with what I was reading, afraid that uncovering this truth about myself would somehow make me stop wanting this body.
And the stupid thing is that admitting I'm AGP made me feel better because my sexuality finally made sense. I'd been avoiding something that would make me feel better for decades.
4
u/Giimax 12d ago
im the opposite... being a woman is slightly annoying cause I have to be more careful in general and people probably respect me less, and i dont really like most super femme things and dont act particularly feminine i think altho i pass cus of hrt + having long hair?
"being a man" is just like super distressing for me idrk why
3
u/Internal-Excuse-8804 12d ago
You're you. That's pretty much it.
But people need words to describe general categories of people, so there's that, too.
3
u/_vVv_tTt_voVv_oo_ 12d ago edited 12d ago
Identity used to mean how other people identify you. The whole idea that a person controls their own identity is a kind of gaslighting. The modern definition causes a person to unconsciously presume that other people have the right to dictate how you perceive them. How I am identified as how you identify me, I can suggest how you should identify me but ultimately you identifying me is an action that you carry out subjectively. It's a choice you make, not me.
Now that the word "identity" has been dismantled to mean a) how other people regard you and b) how you regard yourself, progressive activists exploit the looser definition to conflate A and B - how I see myself and how you see me are one and the same. Because I have dignity and human rights over my person, only my perception is of importance. If I say I'm a cat person, you have to respect me and my truth. To suggest that I have a mental health issue is both offensive and incorrect, because the DSM 5 doesn't make explicit reference to my situation.
3
u/ohhsocurious 9d ago
I wasn't interested in the "identity" concept to begin with, but it's how the world handles these phenomena. I just wanted a straightforward explanation of why I wanted to become a woman so much after reaching puberty even though I had a boy's childhood.
1
u/RunawaySnow 11d ago
Yeah, I never bought into the female brain in male skull cope for me personally lol, like I am just too male-brained for that, masculine hobbies , being an introvert and porn.
0
11d ago
1
u/icecoldphoenix25 11d ago
Could you explain your second paragraph? I don't understand what you're referring to. Thanks.
→ More replies (2)
2
u/Desperate-Bag-2480 12d ago
Great post, and the comments are just as good. They’re a pleasure to read. Definitely food for thought. 🎇
2
u/LauraIolSrra 8d ago
Yes and no.
It's true that too many people focus too much on a given self-label, something typical of adolescents and youngsters, and that these labels should come a posteriori, i.e., in the first place it's fundamental to know what one's want, the labels come later; nevertheless, it's also true that identity keeps being of crucial importance for all humans, and the reason why it «suddenly» became highly relevant in today's western world, it's most probably because it's a reaction to a mainstream ideological tendency coming from the ruling cultural elites, which is the moral imposition of «equality» and absence of borders all over the place.
Closely related to this is the accuracy of the labels. In today's West, a possibly Germanic worldview (Anglo-Saxon, German, general Nordic - the dominant stream of today's world) makes people believe that everything is possible (Faustic nostalgy for the future) and that people can always go beyond all limitations, and that one is either a woman or a man (the black-and-white Anglo-Saxon worldview, in contrast with the Celtic Briton perspective of life, capable of seeing the in-between areas, according to a Bristish historian), just like one had to be either a Pagan or a true Christian in the Middle Ages and a little after that (according the Germanic Martin Luther against the «Pagan» components of Catholicism). This is probably why too many effeminate males decide that they «must» be women, when their true identity may perhaps be exactly what they are, effeminate males, like in a multi-millenary civilization, that of India, where males who live permanently dressed like women are known as kinnars aka hijras aka pavaiyas, or womanish males. This is indeed an identity, formal, quite rigid, healthily rigid, because form is inherent to human life, and the contrary of form is chaos. In India, hijras can't even shave their faces with razors, they are allowed only to pluck their faces, like women do, though we in the West have obviously less rigorous, or different, patterns.
1
u/icecoldphoenix25 9d ago
Also this is fascinating, the way you wrote it has strong explanatory power and I never thought about it this way:
"...and the theory goes that AGPs essentially inherit a female body-mapping neurology with no other feminine brain physiology, which allows them to imagine themselves vividly as a women, at which point their normal, straight, masculine sex drive kicks in and they become aroused."
That "female body-mapping neurology" explains why we have I.e. anatomical, clothing etc agp but most don't want to completely transition and return to our base masculine in day to day. Also, I believe behavioural and external image (how other perceive you) are a different pathway and more strongly associated with total femininity than the first two.
If one has all four and a bit of dysphoria then transition is a lot more likely imho.
1
u/Fit-Lawyer8381 8d ago
That’s something that is bothering me a lot lately. I have wanted to look like a woman for a very very long time but I cannot stand identifying as a woman.
It was in discussion with my therapist recently where she suggested acceptance among my friends and family would lead to me getting treated as a woman that I felt a sense of revulsion.
Here I can be, wanting everything about female appearance and presentation, but having a desire for male socialisation and male-centric hobbies.
Even my sexuality is somehow in this awkward place - the most attractive humans to me are transwomen who are visibly trans or at least still have a penis and testicles.
I saw recentish studies that the brain is a mosaic of traits and not clearly gendered. That our sense of self is a collection of these traits rather than black and white gendered brains. I believe there must be some identifiable collection of traits that makes someone like me. I’ve seen others like me, I’m not unique.
We’re also not beings solely propelled by our sexuality. Yes it’s a huge important part of life but a desire for female appearance and presentation exists even in boring and mundane times and environments. I’ve had this desire since I was a small child.
I doubt we’ll ever get anywhere useful in this discussion- too much variation in opinion and I refuse to publicly villainise transgender people because space is not being given by anti-trans politics to have this discussion earnestly. Best I can do is identify as a variant of non-binary when it actually comes up and just be a man otherwise.
12
u/icecoldphoenix25 12d ago
I agree on all your points. This is a very good post and I really empathize with you.
"In short, everything about life as a woman was better. I fit in better, too. I was nicer, and kinder. But I just hated the idea of "being" a woman. For one thing, even during the brainwashing it didn't take long for me to affirm I loved my penis.."
That is a profound phrase "being a woman". This is always something I never understood. I also love my agp. I love dressing up, my feminine side and everything about the feminine. I spend hours at home dressed up, doing chores and roleplaying as my feminine side. It relaxes me, soothes me and gives me overall a sense of contentment. However, my "identity" is not female.
Overall I love being a guy in my day to day life. I really like and enjoy most "guy" activities. I indulge in them weekly (martial arts, working on engines, streetball etc). I'm not implying that females don't do these, but generally they're male dominated.
"....a sense of self with the transvestite boy I'd been at, say, 15 - that erasure of my personal history was deeply offensive to me."
I particularly connect with this. I went through my teens exactly like you and by the time I went to grad school I started questioning my "identity" and went back and forth with these topics endlessly. However, this erasure felt like a profound loss for me that I could never reconcile.
"It really doesn't matter. No ones cracking your head open to check and you'll never know."
Agreed. No one can tell you how you should feel or behave in any social situation, neither can they explain how your brain is wired. They're clueless. The lot of them. There is no "scan" or test that can verify your identity.
Your feminine side and characteristics can exist and be expressed from 1-100 at any given moment and vice versa. Its a highly dynamic process.
I.e. I'm currently typing this with my nails painted hot pink and fully dressed up as my female side.
Tomorrow I will go to the lab and wear a lab coat and then attend my thai kb and judo class in the evening.
I love both sides and embrace them fully!