It's so exhausting hearing constant anti-trans rhetoric from all sorts of places that any support at all is nice to see. I am so tired of being a scapegoat and it's becoming terrifying because it doesn't seem to be slowing down. If anything, it seems like the world is becoming less tolerant. I frequently wonder where I can move -- if anywhere -- where my existence will not be questioned regularly.
(You may say: avoid social media, but... it's really everywhere. I don't use social media except for Hacker News.)
What do you think my reaction was, when I first heard of trans-people as a young teenager? Of course I laughed a bit and wondered why people think that genders are fictional and why a man would ever be able to be a woman.
But with time I got more curious, educated myself, thought about it, and I think I understand it pretty well now. Others just seem to hop on a bigoted bandwagon and don't even try to understand.
I think the most important part is educating others, discussing this topic. But this also requires the uninformed person the be open to change their mind. I've had 2 discussions I can remember, one with my SO and the other with my best friend. Both in a way used the same arguments as a bigot would use, just in a curious and innocent way, if you know what I mean. After talking to them they seemed to get what it's about.
I have yet to talk to a trans-person in real life about this topic, but so far I think I understand it well enough in a way that I can talk about it to others.
---
> I frequently wonder where I can move -- if anywhere -- where my existence will not be questioned regularly
As sad as it is to admit, I think that's not possible. That's not even a specific issue for you I guess, lots of people get questioned about their race, sexuality, class, even if they're generally somewhere with more acceptance. Focus on people who accept you, don't get pulled down too much by haters and be proud of yourself.
> If anything, it seems like the world is becoming less tolerant
I think a large part is that trans seems to be the new topic. Race and homosexuality has been talked about, of course still not everyone is on board or agrees, but everyone knows these topics and has probably made up their opinion. With transexuality I feel that lots of people just don't know what it really is, which doesn't mean that they wouldn't accept it if they knew it. That doesn't help you at all of course, and I hope that you will once feel like you've been accepted for who you are by our societies. But I think there's still a long way to go. Stick to good people, try to educate neutral people, ignore bad people as long as you can.
All of this is coming from a white cis-male, so all I can do is try to be empathic. I wish you all the strength you need, don't give up!
Nuance is really important. I mean, I even agree with some of the concerns from social conservatives about transitioning and self-identification and "social contagions" and such. We should try to understand as well as we can, and not push anything on people they may not have felt themselves. It's important to not tell someone they're trans, pushing an identity onto them. There are discussions to be had.
... At the same time, though, that's not the whole story, as some social conservatives would have one believe, and those are not a reason to dismiss trans people. I remember having "gender dysphoria" feelings from a young age. It wasn't about dresses, or barbies, or whatever. I was uncomfortable taking my shirt off to go swimming, assuming my chest was more like my mother's or sister's than my father's or brother's. My genitals just seemed foreign to me. It got worse through puberty as these "male" features became more real.
If you'd thrown me on a deserted island with no culture, I would've still had gender dysphoria.
How do we make life comfortable for people who share in my experience? How do we make puberty less traumatic and do as much as we can to help them feel "normal"? These are questions that social conservatives dismiss as not real problems, but they were real problems for me.
---
> What do you think my reaction was, when I first heard of trans-people as a young teenager?
When I was a teenager, there was no talk of trans people, anywhere. It was an unheard of topic. I still had the feelings I did.
When I first heard of them when I was a little older (~20), it was amazing to finally know I wasn't alone in the feelings I shared. I booked an appointment with a licensed mental health therapist the next month to talk about it. On the rise of awareness of trans people, I thought, "Good! They won't have to go through quite what I went through." Today, I worry they're worse off than it being unknown like it was for me.
What ended up making me feel notably better was estrogen. It was strange how well it worked, although I still had distress over my physical features until I was fully transitioned. Now that I am... my gender dysphoria is cured. I still enjoy the same hobbies, listen to the same music, read the same books, play the same video games, and even dress in a similar style. I just don't have distress over my physical features anymore. Like getting treated for any other medical issue, the treatment made the issues I experienced go away. Now the only time I feel distress is when I hear people calling for the death of trans people or blaming societal ills on us.
I don't know why I'm writing all of this, so I'm going to stop here.
---
> so all I can do is try to be empathic.
I really appreciate it. All of us do. It means a lot.
> I wish you all the strength you need, don't give up!
Thanks!
100%. We have to approach this topic not only by accepting it, but also by sincerely discussing certain aspects of it. No teen should undergo surgery because of peer-pressure. On the other hand, teens who are certain that they're trans should receive the help they deserve. Difficult to navigate, but doable.
> If you'd thrown me on a deserted island with no culture, I would've still had gender dysphoria
That's something I have always wondered, and I know that the question is hypothetical, so its up to you to answer - Let's say we live in a world where gender roles and norms don't exist. People visit the doctor they need to see, but socially, people just are who they are. Would gender dysphoria still be a thing?
> Today, I worry they're worse off than it being unknown like it was for me
I know what you mean, that in a way they have a bigger spotlight on them. On the other hand, we have way more knowledge about this topic and newer generations are more open about it, so I don't think its that bad.
> I don't know why I'm writing all of this, so I'm going to stop here.
Was really interesting for me to read about your experience, but I see that a site like HN is probably not the best site for such deeply personal things. Would be really interesting to hear more about your experience. Maybe another time.
Except when they let men compete in women's sports. So if I have to choose between the new lefty version of gender, or what we had before, I'm going to choose the old way because it didn't result in comically ridiculous outcomes like that.
Furthermore, using biological sex as the discriminator in sport doesn’t just create unnecessary conflict for intersex and trans players, it also excludes cis-gendered people who are talented, love sport, but just didn’t win the genetic lottery. Dividing leagues by metrics other than gender gives everybody more opportunity to participate. Again, going back to boxing, if the only metric were gender, most or all of the people outside heavyweight class wouldn’t be participating at all.
Finally, I would also argue that team sport is more interesting when greater varieties of people with different strengths and weaknesses can play together. If we designed video games the way we run most sport leagues, matches would be split up into tanks vs tanks, dps vs dps, support vs support. Congratulations, you’ve made things “more even” by separating everyone using superficial physical traits, and lost most of the interesting dynamics of pitting different strengths against different weaknesses.
For example, in a recent women's swimming competition, Lia Thomas, who is male, was permitted to compete on the basis of his gender identity claims.
Do you consider gender identity to be a reasonable method of categorization? Because that is the specific problematic issue here, not whether different attributes than sex could be used in general.
"For example, in a recent women's swimming competition, Lia Thomas, who is MALE, was permitted to compete on the basis of HIS gender identity claims"
At least address her with the correct pronouns, that's the least you could do in such a discussion.
I hope my comment is not interpreted as arrogant, my point is that even if we are discussing biological sex that is no reason to strip people from their preferred (social!) gender.
To rewrite your original comment, "Lia Thomas, who was born male, was permitted to compete on the basis of her gender identity claims" would be a fine and understandable statement, I think.
When talking about the person Lia Thomas, we are talking about a woman. She's Lia Thomas. Yes, she was assigned male at birth and her biological gender is male, but the person is female.
Again, I am maybe a bit petty, but I think this is exactly one of these important aspects when talking about transsexuality.
I'm not really disagreeing with what you're essentially saying, just trying to make a point about transsexuality.
Having said that, of course he's not a woman. No doctor in the world would disagree with me on that. You're deluded by some kind of ideology which puts even Idiocracy to shame. Snap out of it.
Source?
> don't understand why you're so offended
I'm not offended, why else would I mention multiple times that I'm being petty, but trying to make a point and start a conversation about transsexuality.
> Having said that, of course he's not a woman. No doctor in the world would disagree with me on that
Yet another person who doesn't understand the difference between sex and gender and instead decides to belittle me. Nothing I haven't experienced yet, still disappointing.
In a social situation involving a transgender person, it's considered polite to use pronouns that won't exacerbate any gender dysphoria they may feel. I would think that most of us have done this at some point, as a kindness.
However if we're discussing a controversial public figure, and the topic is sex versus gender identity, I feel it makes more sense to use pronouns that match up with material reality, for the sake of clarity.
Especially the part where diversity makes it more interesting in team sports.
But - What you describe doesn't really happen that often and its made a bigger issue than it really is. Yes, it happens. Yes, some do seem to maliciously abuse it. Yes, we should talk about it and really chew it through. As long as you really mean the first word you used, 'Except', then I am fine about your comment. If you use sports as an argument or excuse not to accept trans sexuality or changes to gender roles, norms etc., then I fully disagree.
We figured it out long ago, and there were no problems before the gender studies majors got involved. Biological males and biological females should compete separately whenever there are significant physical differences between the sexes that affect outcomes. "Gender identity" is utterly irrelevant in this context.