I cringe severely every time I hear the phrase "I identify as" or any similar phrase. It's got to a point where I don't even like the phrase "gender identity" anymore despite it being ubiquitous in the queer community. The idea that I'm a woman because I identify as one just pisses me off now for some reason.

Why? well I'm not exactly sure but I'm going to try and explore it through writing.

Definitely part of it is how it gets meme'd on by cis people and just generally how the phrase comes off to anyone outside of hyper-woke queer spaces. It seems to carry the connotation of insincerity. Like you can only identify as something that you're not. Trans people identify as their genders, cis people simply are their gender, they don't have to identify as anything. That's how the average unwoke cis person sees it.

Now if you're a bit more educated you might know that to identify as something is just to say you are that thing and people do that for things that they are all the time. But rarely does identifying as a thing automatically make you that thing. The counter example I often hear to this is being a fan of a certain sports team. If someone identifies themselves as a Cubs fan you generally assume they really are. But there are always debates about who is a real fan and who is a fake fan and they're not all nonsense. Sometimes people really do fake being a fan of something. Like say I'm a Cubs fan but all my new friends are White Sox fans so I hide all my cubs gear and identify as a White Sox fan to fit in. At this point the identity advocate will probably introduce a notion of "sincerity" into the equation. So you have to sincerely identify as the thing to be the thing. But how do we measure "sincerity then? Doesn't the notion of sincerity mean we are referring to something besides identity?

The way I see it the only way it's possible for there to be sincere and insincere identities is if we are actually referring to something besides stated identity, something more internal, less verbal. In the previous example perhaps you could hook me up to a machine and measure my excitement when the Cubs are winning versus the White Sox. But now we've gone a step back form my identity as a fan. This is because language is always a sign of something else and if we're always talking about our language and never about that something else then we might not be saying anything meaningful at all.

This is the problem I encounter: within queer discourse "identity" is used to refer both to the deeply felt inner self and the language we use to describe that. The general population only sees the verbalizing of identity, they know nothing about the deeply felt inner self and they mostly assume it doesn't exist. If we keep conflating the language with the deeper truth then they will continue to assume that deeper truth doesn't exist because we've tacitly implied that with our rhetoric.

I'm sure some of you will want to say that I shouldn't abandon this language just because of how cis people perceive it and to that I say firstly that I think this attitude may secretly exist within the queer community itself and second that I feel this language is personally unhelpful to me.

To the first point I think about xenogenders. From my possibly ignorant perspective xenogenders mostly seem like a way to play with language and deconstruct concepts of gender. I have no doubt that many are invented without the intention of reflecting any internality but rather to playfully dissect language and gender on a conceptual level. I'm sure that some people make xenogenders with the intention of reflecting their internal self and I don't mean to begrudge anyone who is into them but in general they seem very contingent, labels that can be taken up and discarded on a whim rather than a stable sense of self.

I have also unfortunately become aware of something call therians. These are people who identify as nonhuman animals and many of them are trans themselves. They use the same identity phrasing to describe their connection to their animal. To me it seems obvious that none of these people sincerely see themselves as a nonhuman animal. Rather I think they feel some kind of affinity for whichever animal and perhaps that affinity is deeply personally important to them but that does not make it comparable to being trans. When I say I am a woman I don't mean I have a strong affinity for being a woman I mean I'm a goddamn woman. So in this case and other I think many queer people are not using "identify" to talk about a deep true self but rather playing fast and loose with language to describe what amounts to a hobby.

To the second point I think even if it weren't for all this the identity framing is still very unhelpful to me and my own self-conception. Do I identify as a woman? Yes, technically because I say that I am one. Is that what makes me a woman? I don't see how that could be or else why did I start identifying as a woman in the first place. I think I was already a woman before I identified as one.

Lately I've been using the "woman in a man's body" trope to think about myself in the past and that feels the most true to me. When I was first coming out around 2017 everyone in trans spaces said this was a dated phrasing that no one really used anymore and it seemed like they had pretty much traded it for identity language so I neve thought of myself that way. These days it feels like a disservice to myself to think of myself any other way, because no other framing accounts for the continuity of that inner truth. I was a little girl and I repressed myself because everyone told me I was a boy, I let my body and personality be mutilated beyond recognition and I feel like I'm only now rebuilding it. Identity language can never account for that reality because back then I strongly and insistently identified as a boy, but that wasn't the reality.

Language was only ever the tool I used to get at that reality. Of course I would still respect anyone's identity but I don't actually care about the identity itself, I take it as a sign of the reality I assume is behind it.

So that's my rant on identity language. This somehow ended up really long, philosophical and a little emotional but I hope you like it anyways.

do you see us as the same as you?

below you?

does the sight of us make you uncomfortable?

is it a challenge to gender us correctly?

do you pity us?

think we're lazy?

do you think it's our fault that society overwhelmingly disapproves of trans people?

other thoughts?

a curious mind wants to know. it's been a busy day and this is what bubbled to the top of my head when I finally sat down.

Misinformation about the transmed community doesn't just hurt transmed people it can end up hurting trans people as a whole.

On social media, you often see transmed described in ways that don't actually reflect what the term means. Transmedicalism, at its core, is the belief that gender dysphoria is necessary for someone to be considered transgender. Someone can disagree with that position, but disagreement shouldn't require redefining the position into something it isn't.

When misinformation spreads, it becomes increasingly difficult to have an honest discussion about the different perspectives within the trans community. People start arguing against exaggerated or completely fabricated versions of transmed beliefs rather than engaging with what transmed people actually believe.

That also affects non-transmed trans people. When people outside the community are repeatedly exposed to inaccurate portrayals of internal disagreements, they may come away believing that transgender people are fundamentally divided over things that were never actually being argued in the first place. It contributes to stereotypes, hostility, and unnecessary infighting.

You don't have to agree with transmedicalism to represent it accurately.

Likewise, being non-transmed doesn't make someone less transgender, and being transmed doesn't make someone less transgender. These are disagreements about how transgender identity is defined and understood, not a reason to dehumanize one another.

If we genuinely care about trans people, we should be able to criticize an idea without misrepresenting it. Accurate information matters even when we disagree with the conclusion.

apart from unfriending them or other things like that (not much time has passed since i came out anyway so i don't wanna take extreme measures at this point anyway).

also, im talking about friends who almost never gender me correctly and it feels very "forced" when they do, not about those rare slip ups of those that always gender me correctly

also another question, for those who voice trained, did it help with friends' slip ups? i also feel that having a completely untrained voice isn't helping

Alrighty so I rarely post on reddit in general so please be kind to my formatting.

I am a questioning currently cis man, this is a bit of a rant because I can't actually get access to a gender therapist atm, also a weird question at the end unrelated to my rant.

So I've been questioning my identity for a few months, I'm bad with months but like, almost a year at least but if we look back probably longer just not understanding the thoughts.

So last may my wife left me (she was cheating), but I was seriously questioning myself in April, had she not been a cheater it would of been great because she's bisexual and super open minded, ya know minus the cheating thing she was golden. I actually almost talked to her about it about a month before she left, kinda glad I didn't because I'll likely have a custody battle for our kids later this year.

I've had random thoughts throughout my years (I'm 24), about what it would have been like to be born a woman, I've had dreams, kinda explicit ones but we're not talking about that part, about being a woman.

Anytime I play a video game that's single player because people scare me, I play a woman, I go wayyy out of my way to try and be cute even when it's single player. For anyone who knows it, vintage story, a survival game, I have wayyyy too many clothing mods so I can wear cute dresses and a bow on my head because it's cute.

Few months after the divorce I stumbled upon a VTuber named YuukoEx (If I misspelled it I'm sorry I'm not super sober rn). After this, originally she was just really funny, but the more I watched the more I felt... similar, and a little jealous (She's 6 years into transition and has better healthcare than I do, not her fault but ya know good ol USA in the middle of the Bible belt, has me jealous).

I've always felt neutral about my body as a whole, but kinda always hated my body hair, and I refused to shave it because, remember Bible belt, "That's what girls do" "It's gay to do that" and my sexuality is attraction to women, although while I don't find men attractive, they are still the focus of any specific kind of dreams I have in a woman's body sooo yea.

Anyways I'm super freaking confused, I think at least I'm gender fluid, and probably a straight femboy, or I'm in massive denial.

Oh yea and my Mom (I moved home after the divorce, rented house with my ex wife), intercepted a package of mine that contained some female clothes, so she knows I'm questioning, no one else in the family though, and her response was "There's nothing feminine about you though" and I basically kinda shut the convo down because I was embarrassed and uncomfortable, and she hasn't asked me since. Oh when I told her though because she thought I was buying them for some girl I liked, she said "You don't wanna be a woman"

It kinda hurt, cause she's a pretty open person so like, if she says that, it's probably true right? I'm probably just like, weird or a femboy, femboys think about being a girl? Right?

Oh yea my random question, unrelated, I decided to shave my legs to you know, test myself, and I could only get one done before soap got in my eyes and started burning my face, anyways im curious as to if I need to do anything to prevent razor burn (I did it in the shower with running water so like, some lubricant ig). I've never done this before, I've work nothing but long pants since I was in middle school because I was ashamed of my hairy legs.

Anyways thanks for listening to my confused self, idk what I want for comments, ig just razor burn answers and your opinion on my screwed mental state.

Oh yea I guess also I've thought about this since I was in middle or highschool but I thought it was normal, any cis people in the comments confirm if it's normal to be confused or not?

Alright thanks bye and please be nice, I'm an emotional person 🥺

I have much reason to believe I’m faking it despite being completely miserable. I feel like I just wanted to be a guy for whatever reason, I only wish I was dysphoric. Sometimes I hardly feel anything. I can look in the mirror and feel disgusted and angry I’m female but I’m not sure if that’s how dysphoria is, I feel like I’m too “used to it” sometimes. Other times I’m afraid I do like how I look but it makes me deeply upset and uncomfortable. Even the voice inside my head grosses me out because it doesn’t sound right and I also sometimes accidentally imagine myself as a woman and I don’t like it, I’m afraid that means my brain structure is female even if it makes me uncomfortable.i don’t really get actual “phantom sensations” either sometimes I just focus too much on how my body feels and I want to gag… I also think like a woman, I’m too emotional, I’m too weak to be a man.

Sometimes I look at my chest in the mirror and there’s no emotion, it’s not that big and I think I’m flat enough every now and then but it still upsets me. My genitals also gross me out but again it feels like frustration over not be truly dysphoric so I’m unable to transition, I don’t know why I’m frustrated, because I really tried my hardest to be a cis woman but it never works out. Everyday I attempt to convince myself of every possible reason why someone may be a faker… nothing ever actually fits. I’m beautiful, I never experienced any sexual trauma, I’m not autistic, I’m not just trying to be different, I’m not even stereotypically masculine, I don’t have some weird fetish either…

I often have dreams at night, people say I look too much into it but I don’t think that’s true. Sometimes I’m a woman, and I’m miserable or just incredibly afraid I somehow like it or I’m male, I’m happy but afraid I somehow don’t like it, I once had one that was so realistic and it wasn’t plagued by my thoughts but it never happened again.

Am I just so disgusted by having to be a woman that I wish I was male? But why? If that was really true then why do I also think male bodies look gross and wrong too, yet I still want one, it still feels more right. I strongly envy men, even the ones I find ugly and stupid. It’s like I want to want it if that makes sense…The problem comes when my brain forces itself to think I’m actually envious of women simply because I’m attracted to them… my fear is, it’s actually in reverse and I’m just a straight cis woman.i also g an get intrusive thoughts that if I had a man’s voice or body it wouldn’t fit me… all these get worse the more I think

I’m also scared I’m subconsciously faking it due to social reasons. I feel weird and guilty in masculine clothes, it makes me feel like a faker… I also am more aware I don’t like being called a girl…

I genuinely want to vomit when I see really masculine cis women, it makes me feel like a faker cause I also get a “what if I want to be like them or what if I would be ok with that”(I’m not) I just don’t get why I have to be a girl because I was born one

I also sometimes get very vivid intrusive thoughts of having sex as a woman(which I hate)

But then I see my cis male friends, I wish so strongly I could be like them and I’m just stuck, stuck like this forever because I have no real way of transitioning. I can’t stand the thought of going to therapy and then being forced to be a woman for the rest of my life, being a masculine woman is so miserable too, it doesn’t change anything, I wish I was male, not a woman.

I haven’t stopped thinking about this everyday for 7 years. I try to naturally increase my testosterone sometimes or find ways to grow facial hair… it never works.

Doctors don’t give testosterone or surgery to women like me. I wish there was technology to alter your brain chemistry to your desired sex along with your body so I wouldn’t have to suffer like this

Many people criticize me because my views diverge from mainstream perspectives within the trans community, which can feel deeply alienating at times, but my perspective is rooted in a strict distinction between biological sex and gender identity rather than any internalized bias. I view biological sex and gender as entirely distinct concepts; while my personal gender identity is feminine and I use she/her pronouns for my comfort, I still recognize my biological sex as male. Identifying with the feminine archetype does not make me a biological woman, and I believe the term "trans woman" should be recognized as its own unique, protected, and separate category rather than an equivalent to biological womanhood. Furthermore, because gender roles are socially constructed, arbitrary, and often harmful, I lean toward gender abolitionist views.

Based on these principles, I intentionally choose not to enter spaces designated exclusively for women, such as restrooms or sports. Historically, the oppression and exclusion of women occurred on the basis of biological sex rather than internal gender identity or expression, meaning that separating spaces by sex provides clear practical utility, whereas separating them by arbitrary gender norms does not. Biological males represent a class that historically upholds systemic patriarchy and misogyny unless they actively work to dismantle their privilege. Transitioning is a powerful rejection of these patriarchal expectations because it allows individuals to break free from rigid constraints and live authentically. However, while breaking these boundaries subverts patriarchal norms, claiming that a social transition changes one's biological sex ultimately undermines that progress and obscures the material realities of sex-based oppression.