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What is something you wish cis people knew? (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/mtf@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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What is something you learned or experienced from being trans that you wish you knew pre-transition, or that you wish cis people knew?

I'll go first: the temperature differences when going from testosterone-dominance to estrogen-dominance is not just real but significant, my body just puts out less heat and I feel colder much easier now even when otherwise maintaining a high metabolism, eating in excess, etc.

It may have just been my trans denial before, but I really wanted to believe that the difference was not that great and I was wrong.

What's something you wish people knew?

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[–] 11 points 1 year ago* (2 children)

Our point isn't that people can't behave in ways they like more that they don't have to adhere so strictly to gender roles, expression etc. They can still, of course, act in more 'conventional' ways but the point is that they should be able to choose that and if necessary choose to break that or merely change over time, nobody should be forced to behave or look a particular way nor feel they can only be those things and that is all forever.

So it's not always exactly gender non-conformity more that behaviour and expressions shouldn't be tied to gender, and roles shouldn't exist at all. Just be you, even if most of the time that matches what society currently sees as matching what they expect, but you don't always have to.

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  • [–] [S] 4 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

    yes, such a good point, even recognizing there is a choice of conforming or not is beyond some people's awareness (especially I think in more collective cultures, whereas individualism lends itself to people prioritizing their desires over social expectations).

    I do think a lot of gender norms and roles are arbitrary (like blue for boys and pink for girls, or women only in the home and men only at work), but I suspect humans do have what we might categorize as hard-wired gendered behavior as well (though with considerable overlap, the idea of strict differences without overlap is just not evidenced).

    Otherwise I'm not sure gender dysphoria makes much sense, since it seems to be a natural phenomenon rooted in the biology and found throughout human history and across cultures, and is even found to be genetic. That said, gender dysphoria is still worked out in a social and psychological context and is not pure biology either, so a lot of what you are saying here is relevant about how arbitrary social norms can be.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    Thanks! Interesting point about different cultures, that's why we think there needs to be a mix.

    We agree about the colours and where people should be. Ah yes, humans might be like that because of that. It's very interesting to us non-humans.

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