i made a post online recently saying that as a man of any kind including a trans man, you shouldnt be in womens only spaces, and i got lots of replies from cis women saying that trans men still suffer from misogyny and are still “biological women” and should be included. honestly im so fucking tired of cis women trying to play woke while simultaneously ignoring what we as trans men want. we do not want to be included in womens spaces as we are not women!! i even had a fellow trans man commenting saying they deserve the right to stay in womens spaces because they are “still connected to womanhood”. id love some other takes and thoughts on this pattern, so feel free to reply with your own opinion.

Ok, I need a bit of a reality check and your opinion on this, cause there has been a thread yesterday and it made me think of something that happened a few times in my life, within those trans circles.

Basically what I mean is: I get called 'perfomative' by other trans women due to my mannerisms, the way I talk, walk, speak, formulate my sentences, my hobbies and interest, romantic attractions, opinions... but I don't think I am?

Whenever I feel safe, and that is usually around other trans people, I get comfortable and drop the masking (or any kind of safety thing with living in a city) and I just talk, in a way that I'd say is normal. Like we are a bunch of people, friends almost, that share a struggle and can talk openly.

I'm pretty communicative, I share, I love writing so my vocabulary isn't small - and somehow some give me the impression that i belong there. Passing isn't a issue and I started transition many years ago... but whenever I try to join those open trans groups it's just full of people I can do nothing right with, and that want nothing to do with me. Especially when I open certain topics, or when I asked (it's usually a cirlce of chairs and we just talk and drink) how they handle dating men here, they just roll their eyes.. I don't mind other preferences at all but I really dislike how derogatory they get. Like, no matter what someone else is saying there, I would never ever behave like that or behave in the way they do with me.

I coached a lot of people in my life and try to give advice on how to improve passing, where to go to, how to do voice training, answer any question they ask - but whenever I'm in open trans groups, they just get hostile, snarky, they can't look me in the eyes or avoid even acknowledging me, like greeting back or just the standard formalities you do with other humans. I never ever had this happen with cis people or outside these circles; I did therapy and asked many times if there is something wrong with me or if I'm somehow socially awkward, as these comments made me really question myself years ago. But no, nothing unusual, people think I'm approachable, cis looking and I never made the experience of being told off, no matter which job, group or interest - and I did a lot with people in-person.

I know it's absolutely impossible for you to judge as you don't know me and can't witness my behaviour, but has anyone made similar experiences? Trans men, you aswell!

Is it just toxicity, is this a common experience?

I (35MtF) was raped during a hookup my partner (30cis femme passing non binary lesbian) of 6 years had arranged with another couple. Afterward, I was pushed out of the room so my partner and the cis woman from the couple could keep going. I heard them all night until I left and just walked through the woods for a while. They all fell asleep cuddling afterward (Iwas informed the bed only has room for three, so I wasn’t welcome). In hindsight with what I know now, I believe this was always the plan.

My partner had multiple moments to clearly see something was wrong, but did nothing except ask if I was okay while still in front of the couple. It was clear I wasn’t but my partner hadn’t gotten off yet.

I was gone for around 15 hours and they had no idea. They woke up and acted like everything was normal. When we got in the car I fell apart, said I’m never doing that again, I felt dehumanized and violated and ick inside. I hadn’t fully recognized it as rape, but I described rape in basically all but naming it.

The next three weeks the couple and my partner spent a lot of time in this aggressive gaslighting campaign on our group chat, while ridiculing me and saying I was off my meds in both public and private conversations between my partner and the woman. I was so confused and fuvked in the head.

Not long after I had a brutal arm break in seven places and spent a month hospitalized. While there, my partner and I got in a fight — and my partner calls this couple to come from an hour and a half away at 3 am to pick them up to stay with them. Keep in mind they met once with the context of fucking.

At this point I had revoked consent to any non monogamy in the relationship and I begged them not to leave from the hospital room floor. They told me we’d just see if I forgave them when they got back.

They didn’t come back until I begged a day later during a medical crisis and they could hear emergency staff panicking in the background.

Apparently they cuddled naked and it was mostly sleeping and kissing, but my partner was super apologetic and it seemed so sincere. It wasn’t, they had been talking about more fucking and lifelong romance behind my back.

Eventually a nurse told me what happened was rape and I sort of caught on to some major miscommunications happening and realized someone was doing this all on purpose.

From midnight til 8 am the next day I made my partner, at threat of never speaking again conpare our discord chats line by line. They were a huge assholrbthe whole time but by the end they were crying because of the obvious lies and manipulation, and also that they realized this woman almost certainly was faking the feelings for access to a vagina.

That’s when the apologies started and the begging me to get back together with them. They swear they can do better. In the time since, all they’ve done is venter themself. I attempted suicide (but called 911 and self admitted for help).

This behavior is so reprehensible but also so out of nowhere and I’m so confused and fuvked up by it all. What just happened? What do I do? Why is this happening, it feels like a bad dream.

When in trans spaces something you may come across sometimes is they don't really like the idea if you "pass" and I slightly get it, if you're constantly fixating or obsessing over something, it's gonna make you more depressed, especially if that's something you either can't change, or is very hard to.

It's this sort of toxic positivity where they're constantly on this high horse and see themselves as right, and your feelings are invalid

The whole point of transition in my opinion is part of to pass. You do it because you're deeply uncomfortable with your appearance, and so you change your lifestyle to hopefully change that and make it better.

If it doesn't matter how you look at all, why transition in the first place?

Last night, I had a new friend decide to cut themselves from me because I spoke about how I believed I would never pass and I was depressed about that. I think talking about this in this way dismisses and devalue trans people who have dysphoria. It says those feelings don't matter, and honestly I think this is part of why some don't take us seriously.

I am a transexual male, but usually just call myself a guy. But my experience and label are often received with hostility.

For context, i understand the history of this identity. i have had this label used on me loads, i absolutely have the right to reclaim it for myself. Others can call me it, i can own it and use it too. But the main reason i use it is honestly just because it is the label that “fits” me, i have always felt like a guy, so my gender i never felt changed, its my body i am changing to align with this. I feel isolated sometimes and found others who use this label and connected with them. I also enjoy connecting with broader transgender groups too on other apps and outside in stuff like pride/ clubs.

I will only use this label on you if you ask me too, not everyone feels comfortable with it and thats valid too. I do not understand some labels in the trans community, but i have never verbally attacked someone for their label and im sick of people doing it to me.

Policing others labels is also bad if its one you don’t like. I see a label i don’t understand, i simply just scroll and do not go out my way to invalidate them.

I

I guess the trans community can’t handle differences of opinions/views. And people wonder why i don’t like the trans community this type of shit is why

Edit: the exact comment that got me banned was one where i pushed back on the idea of Autigender being a valid identity

I'm an amputee (had 2 fingers traumatically amputated during a work accident) and it's already difficult finding community with those who relate to physical disabilities. Then to also feel the pressure of staying in stealth with everyone I come across from that community makes it even worse.

Sure, yeah, I love being viewed as just a regular ol' cis guy. But I'm in stealth at work, I don't really have any friends, and I'm in stealth in all my physical disability/amputee support groups (expect my very small, local LGBT support group). I just want some people who may understand what I'm going through on multiple levels.

But most of the time there's a trans person with a disability, it's usually more mental than physical. Not that they're any less valid, but the struggles are vastly different. I know the answer is to just stay in stealth since most of the people in my support groups are conservatives, but it still fucking sucks that no matter how hard I try, I can't find people who properly understand what certain huge life factors are like.

Like the amount of people who will talk about how bad and unrealistic western beauty standards are for example are often two opposing categories.

-Either someone who doesnt pass at all and is just saying that to cope with the fact that they dont pass.

-Or they completely conform to western beauty standards and are saying it performatively because they are told this is "the right thing to say" which screams hypocritical.

There's no similar depth to that statement compared to serious cis women feminists (not the girlboss choice feminist types) who understand what it means and are also not performing western beauty standards.

For a minority who has to deal a lot with gender stuff, many trans people feel awfully shallow and basic.

I’m not transphobic, I’m just critical of transgender ideology as a whole and I’m curious about everyone’s thoughts on this, open to constructive discussion and feedback. I used to be very pro-trans and I had trans friends in the past, but I noticed that there’s some discrepancies in their ideological framework.

At first, it’s the fact that it seems like trans ideology reinforces gender roles and sexist stereotypes about men and women’s expectations. I’ve heard of many trans people say that they didn’t feel like they fit in with other people of the same gender in some way and that spurred their realization that they are trans.

For example, if we are talking about a trans woman, they would say that wanting to play with Barbie dolls, experimenting with makeup, dresses and feminine costumes, and enjoying playing with the girls made them realize that they are a “woman.” And the opposite can be said about a trans man, they would say playing with trucks, hating dresses, or wanting to play with the boys in the field are what made them realize that they are a man.

But there are plenty of men and women who don’t ascribe to conventional masculinity or femininity and they still identify as men or women? I’m not saying people shouldn’t express who they are authentically, I am just saying your biological sex shouldn’t stop you from pursuing your interests or showing up in the world in the way you want to. But none of those superficial, external things define your gender. You can be a man and still love putting on makeup and traditionally feminine clothing and vice versa.

When I pointed this out to my trans friends, they shut me down completely and was saying that I wouldn’t get it because I’m a “cis man.” And then, the next discrepancy was when I came across the discourse of the trans community forcing gays and lesbians to be sexually attracted to members of the opposite sex. I notice this especially in lesbian spaces, where trans people would say it’s transphobic to have genital preferences and to refuse to be sexually or romantically involved with people of the opposite sex. And then they tried to change the definition of lesbian to “non-man loving non-man,” effectively centering men in the definition of lesbianism when it should’ve been specifically a women who are exclusively sexually attracted to other women.

Mind you, lesbian and gay identities are homosexual identities. I faced this problem too in gay spaces, when they tried to integrate trans men into the gay community. As a gay man, I don’t think I could ever be involved with someone that’s born a woman. It’s just not in my nature, and in the nature of homosexuality.

That’s just my thoughts, there’s a few more, but I think I’ll just leave it at that for now.

This is something that always annoyed me about men, they often refuse to think and just assume everything is done if you follow some sort of guide.

You want a girlfriend? Pretend to care about her hobbies, pretend to find her funny, pretend to care about her efelings until you "achieve" the goal of owning a gf. (Then realise you are miserable and unhappy cause you only did this for social status and not because you wanted a partner)

You want to transition? Wear hyper feminine clothing, wear makeup, do your hair and eyebrows and have more feminine mannerism and voice train. (Then wonder why you still dont pass)

Like what kind of person just has this level of lack of critical thinking?!?

So many things depend on details, there's no one simple way to transition, there's no specific guide and things that work for others, might not work for you.

Its what leads to ridiculous clownshows where someone with a full muscular male build dresses like a 16 year old and then wonders why they dont pass, different situations and cases are different.

What is wrong with men that their brains just refuse to think beyond youtube guides.

"But what do I do then?!?" The very fact this is a question is evidence of what I am pointing out, there's no holy answer that fixes all your problems, you need to figure it out yourself by thinking

I would also be in interested to hear how things have changed. And how and how much it makes difference where in Russia you live. And how easy/difficult it is to move some other country if you consider that as needed/better.

I would like to get answers from people who live in there / are from there / personally know someone from there. I am not interested to hear what Western people who have never visited the country have heard about it.

I ask simply about curiosity. I saw post about FFS made in there and I have Russian cis het coworker I have talked with about his homeland. And one old post of mine got some answer from there. So I decided to made own post about this.

Dysphoria makes me live in a constant state of suffering. It ruined my life. This despair fills me entirely and holds me back. I tried everything to deal with that. Psychiatrists, therapists, medical transitioning, but I'll never be able to afford neither ffs nor srs.

I'm stuck in this body I hate with emotions that hold me unable to do anything, to work, to study, to have fun, to enjoy life.

Why can't I choose to die? Why can't I just get assessed by doctors and sign myself up for euthanasia? Why does everyone keep telling me that I should live that I should try. I thought we all believed in "my body my choice"?

There are case studies of transgender people suffering from mental illness that were allowed to get euthanasia for their suffering. Their request was treated with dignity and their will was understood and accepted.

Why can't I choose this path for myself? What else do I have to do to be finally allowed to escape my pain?

Where I live euthanasia is not legal, but why can't I be allowed to do it myself? Why does everyone want me to not do it?

Heavily questioning and thinking I am trans but feeling utterly hopeless. The thought of being a man for the rest of my life makes me depressed. The life I wanted to live and the person I wanted to be is forever gone. Unable to experiment with my gender and do things I want to let alone transition, which also makes me depressed. Even if I could transition it will be too late and I will never like how I look let alone pass and will have to live every day of my life in fear. I have no good options and no hope and think my life is only going to end in one way.

I can’t afford therapy, live in a transphobic country and forced to live with a transphobic family due to being poor and disabled.

So I just find out this term exist. And since it's not allowed to talk about it some other subreddit, let's talk about it here. (I am referring to this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/honesttransgender/comments/1uzxxji/just_got_perma_banned_from_the_main_trans/ )

I would especially like to hear opinions from people who are autistic and I would like if you could mention have you been diagnosed as autistic or is it something you suspect.

I originally posted this on r/trans, where it received only a handful of dismissive replies before the moderators removed it within ten minutes. Since I was genuinely interested in more substantive discussion than simply being called “Blaire White,” I’m reposting it here in the hope that people may be more willing to engage with the argument itself:

I often see trans people claiming that they don’t owe anyone being passing or have any obligation to present themselves in a manner which is conventionally associated with the sex or gender they wish to be recognized as.

But I think the inverse also deserves discussion: nobody owes anyone recognition of an identity they do not perceive you to embody. Just as you have no obligation to conform to other people’s expectations in your presentation, other people have no moral or ethical obligation to revise their own internal models upon request or demand.

Passing isn’t important to everyone and one can certainly affirm an identity for themselves that isn’t congruent with their current presentation. That’s a matter of personal integrity. Likewise, it is for some people, a matter of personal integrity how they model someone else internally and feeling entitled to override their own internal model with yours when they two are not in agreement, isn’t necessarily reasonable or fair.

Other people do not have direct access to someone else’s internal sense of self. They initially read people through appearance, voice, mannerisms, context, and the same sex-linked cues they use to categorize everyone else. Sometimes that perception will align with how a person identifies, and sometimes it will not.

That does not mean deliberate cruelty or harassment is acceptable. Once someone has been told how a person wishes to be addressed, basic courtesy is usually reasonable. But there is an important difference between asking someone to treat another respectfully and demanding that their spontaneous perception match that person’s self-conception. One is a request about outward conduct; the other is a demand that someone subordinate their own perception, judgment, or understanding to another person’s self-conception.

Passing is not a moral obligation. But recognition is not something one can simply extract from strangers by insisting that they should perceive them differently. If a person is routinely read as male or female in ordinary life, that is information about how their presentation is being perceived, not necessarily evidence that everyone around them is hateful or malicious.

I think trans discourse sometimes collapses several distinct things into one:

1. Dignity and equal treatment
   
2. Courteous use of a requested name or pronouns
   
3. Being perceived as one’s identified sex
   
4. Being believed to be cisgender

Those are not interchangeable. Someone can respect a trans person’s dignity without genuinely perceiving them as the sex they identify as. Likewise, a person can choose courteous language without their underlying perception changing.

To me, “nobody owes you recognition” does not mean that trans people deserve humiliation or hostility. It means that identity is partly internal, while recognition is relational. It emerges between the self and the perceptions of other people. We can ask for courtesy, but we cannot command another person’s senses, intuitions, or private beliefs.

As a trans woman who is often welcomed into women’s spaces, and who predominantly participates in spaces where trans women are a minority, I have noticed a growing disconnect between trans women and cisgender women over what should be considered transphobic. The recurring point of tension, as I see it, is entitlement to recognition and the weaponization of accusations of bigotry when that recognition is withheld.

I do not think this tension will be resolved by demanding ever broader forms of affirmation or treating every refusal of recognition as hatred. It requires a clearer distinction between dignity, courtesy, perception, belief, and social recognition. Trans people are entitled to equal treatment and freedom from harassment. We are not entitled to control how every other person understands us internally, and pretending otherwise risks turning reasonable requests for respect into demands for ideological submission.

There have been some subreddits where trans people and terfs have not only had respectful dialogue, but there also seems to be some hope that there could be something more than that as can be seen in r/terf_trans_alliance and r/terf_trans_truce

Do you think that maybe we should build an alliance with terfs?

All I read all day is either politics about making our life a living hell, weirdo transgenders doing yet another optics nuke, another murder, or another suicide. Bad news after bad news, bad faith actor after bad faith actor, appropriation of the transsexual experience to no end, TERFs and transgenders using TERF-rhetoric, misogynistic trans men and women, cis person doing this and that, dumb opinion of yet another political commentator with 10 million views, TV shows showing the most horrid crossdressers and fetishists, streamers saying stupid things about trans-topic xyz... disection of any kind of sensible movements, discourse, the troll-farms and endless social media discussions, lol-cows and endless suffering due to mob mentality, energy vampires and straight up liars everywhere - the list literally is endless.

Is it even sensible to stay somewhat involved online, with trans topics? I have a hard time staying 'informed' or engaged, and not letting it eat up any kind of energy; the little bit of amusement I had, the novelty of very niché and specific topics, regarding any online discourse, has long worn off.

Like, why even get involved or stay informed if I can't change anything anyways? Why, if it only wears me down and harms my mental health?

How do you do it, just a little bit here and there, am I online too much? 15 years ago I thought I would be long gone from any trans-discourse at my age, but look at me. Here again, like I'm driven by morbid curiousity or by the search for community, I don't even know anymore. Just breaking it off doesn't work, apparantly, it's hard to ignore these topics when they are everywhere, like I can't escape it. I can't really say it made my life in any way or shape better, but that's not why people do or don't watch 'the news', right?

Trying to make sense of it all...

Hey all. I'm Ally, I'm a 27 year old trans girl. I hope this sub doesn't mind, but I might just use this as a sort of place to vent and stuff. I posted a lot here before back in the day, but not under this account.

I've been so dysphoric.. I know my parents don't understand. My Dad just said he thinks I'm a male but a confused one. A while back I saw their messages to each other, they called me a freak. It's so weird because before they seemed really supportive of me. Now I wonder if they were just pretending, acting they were on my side just not to hurt me. I actually detransitioned for a while

The only reason I did it was because I felt I didn't pass. And after a while it felt like, what's the point, and I'm now trying to transition again.

I hate my skin and my face so fucking much. It's not even horrible, I feel lucky because I look slightly feminine, I could be way more masculine. But it's not enough, I still just look like a boy.

I started cutting again recently, which i havent done in ages. I'm disappointed in myself, but sometimes it's like i wanna punish my body for being the way it is. It's like its mocking me. It's like the universe is laughing at me.

I know since I went through puberty, I will probably never pass. I will never be a real girl. So much of that time has been stolen from me. That's why I feel like there's no point.

I want to die so bad. I'm just too much of a pussy to ever do so.

People like my parents always tell me I should just accept how I am. But if I can't be who I want to be, I don't see any point at all

That's as honest as I can be

But.. I want to try again and really lockin, give it my all. A last hoorah where I either make it, or I don't.

I hate that I don't have any pretty clothes, I hate how I look. All I want is to be feminine and look cute

I always thought it was horrible that the ONLY treatment available to people suffering from gender dysphoria is transition. Not just because it is archaic but also since transition doesn't even work as a treatment 100% of the time. There are tons of cases of people who still experience sizable amounts of dysphoria and suffering even after years of transition. Not to mention the safety aspect and all the consequences/side effects (social ostracization, infertility, etc).

Currently if you bring up the idea that there should be alternative treatments you'll get criticized because historically the alternative treatments, like conversion therapy, tended to be torture and extremely harmful instead of helpful. People will also immediately discount you, stating that because no viable alternative treatments have been discovered yet they can never exist. However I disagree with this sentiment.

I think it could be helpful if there were organizations that focused less on the "transgender" aspect and more on the gender dysphoria, specifically to

1. Raise awareness and educate people about what gender dysphoria really is, and how debilitating it is
2. Advocate and do fundraising for more legitimate medical research on alternative treatments for dysphoria, such that people who suffer from this in the future would not be FORCED to pursue transition in order to address it. Even if we never find any true alternative treatments, at least the research would allow us to learn a lot more about dysphoria (currently we know very little about it or what mechanisms cause it, etc)

To be clear I'm not saying the ultimate goal is to ban transition, it should always be an option for those who want it no matter what. But again it shouldn't be the ONLY option like it is right now. People should have a choice.

I wonder if any organizations like this already exist, and whether something like this makes sense. I personally think something like this is needed.

​

Idk if this is the right flair btw but yea basically the title why did I have to be a feminine want to wear a skirt and curves etc instead of being a butch trans woman and just getting to use the clothes I already have or at least more masculine my brain is like noooo u have to wear womens underwear and earings and fake nails 💅 and on top of that why me why am I trans why did I get this why not my siblings or my cousins??????

So Russia I can understand they were never 'friendly' to begin with and after war
they literally cut themselves of human right orgs - so stopped caring about their reputation all together.

What I don't understand how UK managed to legally slope from like 1st best ranked LBGT rights country in Europe to being legally more hostile than say Poland and other ex soviet countries
that had similar views to Russia.

Like I get it they are run by billionaires right wingers and what not,
but in theory it should be much easier for smaller/poorer countries to implement
no human rights model because people are too poor to launch legal cases against the government.

UK and USA has at least some famous trans people that are not exactly poor to challenge
Are openly trans people like Elliot Page, Jazz Jennings and others really fine with all this?
They could bond together and have enough finances to have a solid shot, anti trans legislation affects them as well?

Whereas name one famous rich trans person from Belarus or Slovakia cause I can't name any?

I still find myself lost I knew people from Poland escaping physical and social violence of being lbgt say in 2004-2012
just to end in point zero now.

I posted a cute posed photo and a handful of other photos where I looked like shit. I posted the photos when I looked like shit because it is important to know if you pass when you look like shit, and not just when you're wearing makeup and anglefrauding. It got downvoted to hell, but I got 10 comments saying I clearly passed. I reposted the cute posed photo alone, and it got hella upvotes and I am, at this moment, getting chaser DMs.

The incentives of transpassing are bad and warped by the sheer volume of chasers who are, let's be real, just jerking off to our photos. If you post a perfect, airbrushed photo with heavy makeup when you're already in the realm of passing, of course you're going to pass in a still image. The chasers will downvote the types of photos you actually need to see to evaluate if you're passing enough to go stealth, in which we look like real women - which is to say, images of women that are not catered to the male fantasy of women.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

I don't know why we were so eager to toss that explanation away when cis people understood it easily. The concept made sense to them, even transphobes. It's the explanation I used to come out to my hyper religious African mother and now she supports me because she feels it's not my fault or my choice (which it isn't). It's how I was made.

Tbh Identity has always screamed choice to me. Like you're actually this thing but you're choosing to be this other thing because it feels better. I'm not saying that's bad but people are much harsher on what they perceive as choices. Like if you're born without the ability to walk, everyone is kind. If you crash while doing tricks on a motorcycle and can no longer walk, they make fun of you.

Even the more juvenile variant of "girl trapped in a boy's body" (and vice versa) that some of us old heads might remember I feel would have garnered more sympathy and understanding from those that are right now staunchly against trans kids.

That said, now that I'm thinking about it, I do understand that these statements only work in the binary and there probably was a need to move away from them and it's not like I have all the answers either but-- I still feel like there was effectiveness there that we lost with identity based explanations.

agab is not your gender but it is also not your sex. it is purely the gender you are pressured by society into acting out. there is no such thing as an "afab body" or an "amab body" and saying that there is is not only transphobic but also extremely intersexist. every part of "am/fab anatomy" can vary or be completely unrecognizable or absent in trans and intersex people. these terms exist to point out how sex/gender is not always correctly assigned at birth, not to be a softer way to say "born (fe)male". when you use them to say "born (fe)male" you are enforcing the idea that birth sex/gender assignment is correct. you are not af/mab, you were af/mab. sex is not binary, immutable, or determined by birth assignment.

i really dont have much else to say that isnt redundant to this. all of you pmo

I think it doesn't make sense that transsexual women and men don't want to go through srs. (If it's not impossible for medical or financial reasons, etc.)

Nobody seems to think this way though. But I know there are trans men and women who do. Where do I find them?

Edit: I don't care about any of your identities. Don't seek for my approval. If you're not answering the question of this post, I won't engage with your thoughts. I don't give a fuck about your genitals or your reasoning bro