What is something you wish you knew sooner, or what is something that would have helped you earlier on in your journey?
Any general advice? Don't try x, or definitely look into y? Be aware of Z?
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Any general advice? Don't try x, or definitely look into y? Be aware of Z?
Cis person with many trans friends who experienced the same kind of problem, hope it's okay for me to chip in.
The advice I wish I could've given them is that it's okay if it takes time for you to understand how you want to present your gender, or if you go through a few identities before settling on one that feels right for you. One of my best friends, when I met her, she was masc presenting non-binary and using they/them pronouns, then she considered herself a binary trans woman for a while (and started medical transition), but that wasn't quite right yet, and now she identifies as a non binary woman. I remember each of these internal transitions caused her a lot of grief because it meant re-coming out to the world, and she questioned the validity of her own gender.
If an identity or a way of presenting to the world is a stepping stone to something new, it's not necessarily an "incorrect" label if it helps you along the way. And even if something is incorrect for you and doesn't speak to any version of you, that's chill, it doesn't diminish the significance of the version of you that you feel comfortable being and presenting to the world, no matter how long it takes to find the point you're comfortable in.
I had another friend who stuck with a name that she hated for like a year, because that was the name that she'd told everyone when she did a big coming out and she felt weird "retconning" that. When she eventually stopped torturing herself by sticking with a name she came to hate more than her dead name, she picked a new name and did a small "trial run" amongst her close friends for a few months, to be sure that this time, her name felt right. She told me that she jumped into the name and the personal style stuff too quickly, because she had started HRT and figured she'd had to come out soon anyway, so she needed to have a complete idea of the woman she'd be from the outset, which led to the premature name choice.
And speaking of style, one of my transmasc friends lived for most of his life identifying and presenting as a pretty archetypical butch lesbian. Shortly after coming out, he went through a phase of trying to be a super manly man, because it turned out that his gender presentation was already pretty spot on for where he wanted to be, he just wanted the world to change how it viewed him (in his words, "genderqueer soft boi, rather than spiky dyke"). He explained to me that from the start, he sort of already knew he didn't want to change much about himself, but he felt obliged to mark this as something different from the flavour of gender non-conforming he expressed before, as a lesbian.
The core theme here is feeling pressured to do or be stuff that isn't true to oneself, and I don't think I'd even call these stories "mistakes". A lot is going to change, and the world will look very different to future-you in ways that you can't currently imagine and that's not a bug, that's a feature. It was a rockier journey for some than others, but all of my trans friends are in a better place now than when they started, even if that wasn't what they expected. You'll be facing a lot of pressure from so many sources, whether that's the trans community, shitty transphobes or well intentioned cis folk, and it's not unreasonable to need time to properly process it all and figure out what you want.
Just try to be kind to yourself throughout it, even when the world makes you feel like you should be more than what you're able to be - especially then. You don't need a crystal clear understanding of The Plan (Tm); sometimes a vague direction away from or towards something is enough to get you going.
You are not the first cis person I've seen giving advice and and this is phenomenal advice, especially for not being personal experience! Thank you very much! I will keep all of this in mind.
I do wonder what brings those of you to check out these spaces. Do you come in from "everyrhing/all"? Or hang out here specifically?
Hey! Nice to see you again! I can't speak for the Artificer up there, but I started on .world, found my main spot in SFFA because it leans into my interests, but I kept seeing blahaj posts everywhere and generally do like the vibe. I've got an account on this instance because I have accounts on a lot of them and just hop around when I exhaust the new stuff in one of them (And kinda of because I still don't fully understand the fediverse. I'm not super technically minded). I don't curate my feed, I just keep it on All to give me a wide net for interesting stuff to read in the mornings.
I've spoken about this before, I'm a gender abolitionist, but I know that society isn't there. That means that some groups need the support that society at large doesn't give, so I try to speak up and help out where I can in my limited scope. In general, I think everyone should have the support they need in life to be happy. And I want people to be happy, so I do what I can and speak up when I can. And blahaj.zone just seems like an overall good place with nice people mostly just trying to have some fun and support each other. It's a great and wholesome support network here and it makes me happy it exists.
In this case, I came from everything/all, but I do tend to subscribe to/read some trans communities, because I think my life and I, as a person, am better for having exposure to trans experiences and trans people.
For as long as I have known that it was possible to be transgender, I have considered myself a trans ally. Unfortunately, for a long while, I was a bit of a wet fart in that respect, because I didn't really know how to be an ally, besides enough vague lip service to assuage my conscience. I try not to blame that past version of me too much, because I hadn't had much exposure to the world at that point, but bloody hell, I'm glad I outgrew that person. I want to keep growing.
And not just for the sake of being a supportive ally (or better yet, an accomplice). Understanding how different people relate to sexuality and gender has infinitely improved my own understanding of my gender, and how gender functions in the wider world. I have never felt more in touch with my gender and the truth of my womanhood than when I am in a truly queer space, where identity and expression can exist independently. It's liberating beyond belief and I cannot state how much my life has improved for the existence of trans people and transness more generally. Intersectional understanding has helped me to be a better feminist, a better disability advocate and a better person.
Also, trans memes are 🔥🔥🔥, so there's that too
Thank you so much for the honesty 🥲 I can't express how much it means to someone newly realized. I don't blame you for your past self, I don't think I really understood the idea of trans people even 10 years ago. I love, so much, hearing how it affects your own experience (I assume as a cishet, correct me if I'm wrong) it means a lot to me specifically that you do want to learn and grow.
It's honestly terrifying on this side at times. I don't know if I really knew that people like you existed, but, Holy shit! I'm glad you do! 🥹
Shit is difficult, I'm glad people not directly affected care! It really means a lot!
You are so awesome! 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
I'm bi, which is a pretty key part of the stuff I described above - over the course of coming to terms with my own queer identity over the years, I grew to understand on a much deeper level what the LGBTQ community means to me: there are so many sexualities and gender identities under this umbrella that I can't directly relate to, but the differences don't matter compared to what binds us together - I have a hell of a lot more common ground with trans people than I do with the cis-heteronormative mainstream.
I feel it's pretty important to be a visibly trans-supportive cis woman nowadays, because the political climate is scary as hell, and the vitriol spewers don't speak for women, and they don't speak for me. I have a disproportionate amount of power in the "discourse" just by shouting "fuck you, you don't speak for me" at TERFs and the like.
I may not be trans, but trans people are my people and I will fight to protect my people so we can discover together what is possible for ourselves. Things are scary, but my community grounds me.