Sharing our peak trans experiences

submitted by zerosis from self.LGBDropTheT

I was thinking, it would be interesting to have a kind of ongoing record for this kind of thing. It seems like many of us have a moment, or series of moments, that led to our questioning and eventual refusal of TRA rhetoric and ideology. For me, it was most definitely when a series of friendships and a marriage were ruined because my lesbian friend admitted that she didn't want to have sex with anyone who has or has ever had a penis. This small issue exploded into a whirlwind of drama, and made me realize that I agreed with the friend that was cast out of our friend group (and divorced) for advocating for her own sexual agency. I used to be supportive of the trans movement, but I've seen just how puritanical their goals are, and it honestly terrifies me. I've grown resentful of our one friend, who is a trans man and is very open about the idea that not dating a trans person is transphobic. Our circle of friends has never recovered a year later, and my friends are basically my family, because I was essentially disowned for being gay. If I was honest about my feelings on the matter, I would probably be disowned again, as my friends are all on the road to being 'hyper woke' about trans issues, and for my own survival I just can't go through that a second time. I've withdrawn from and tried to avoid the problem couple, but this shit just keeps finding ways to fuck up my life. I'm just growing more and more resentful by the day, seeing what's happening to Rowling and those standing up for her.

I'm basically watching my own community fall apart over this issue, and morph into something unrecognizable. I was wondering if anyone else's life has been this negatively affected, and what your stories are?

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[–][deleted] 48 insightful - 1 fun48 insightful - 0 fun49 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Oof where to start.

Being trans identified for a few years and not having an answer for "why can I say I 'feel' like a guy when I'm not actually male?"

Realizing that hating your sexed body parts doesn't mean you're really the opposite sex.

Having a trans friend and hearing her describe her internalized misogyny and overall discomfort with being forced into femininity while trying to pass it as being "male brained."

Hearing other trans identified women say things like "I didn't want to be a girl who liked girls, I wanted to be a boy who liked girls" and thinking, "but isn't that just internalized homophobia? That doesn't make you trans."

Thinking "but that doesn't make you trans" in response to basically every reason a trans person gave for being dysphoric, including my own reasons.

Factoring in all of the above and not being able to find a single trans person who didn't base their dysphoria on gender stereotypes, internalized homophobia, or internalized misogyny/misandry.

Being thrown under the bus constantly as a bisexual because according to them, I had no reason to not date a trans person.

Learning that Marsha P Johnson was not a trans woman, but a drag queen, and subsequently learning about all of the other instances where TRAs try to erase LGB history.

Seeing JKR get torn apart for stating facts.

Seeing Allison Bailey's crowdfunding page to sue Stonewall get deplatformed and defunded within hours because she tried to speak out against the treatment she received.

Seeing how TRAs have to CONSTANTLY draw a false equivalence between blackness and transness.

[–]fuck_reddit 19 insightful - 1 fun19 insightful - 0 fun20 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

This is what I think doesn't get addressed often. Like gay guys that aren't in lockstep with the LGBT hegemony are accused of "internalized homophobia" (I assume lesbians face this same issue, but I haven't frequented too many lesbian spaces), when in reality, this above is actual internalized homophobia, you know, like hating yourself for being gay so much you'd rather change your gender than be gay, not like, wanting to be masculine and have a masculine bf...

[–]bellatrixbells 9 insightful - 5 fun9 insightful - 4 fun10 insightful - 5 fun -  (0 children)

I think yours is my favourite username on here so far.

[–]bastetkat 36 insightful - 1 fun36 insightful - 0 fun37 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

My first peak trans moment was when I started becoming curious of “TERFs” and why we were supposed to hate them. I’ve always heard they were bad people and just as bad as “nazis” without going into much details, but then I came across a radfem blog on Tumblr. I spent several minutes scrolling through her blog trying to figure out how they were “evil”, yet I only found posts that I agreed with. They were all related to defending and protecting women’s rights, homosexuality, etc. And of course, there were many posts exposing the hypocrisy, homophobia, misogyny, and the overall inconsistencies within the trans movement and ideology. It really opened my eyes since I used to be a sheep who always blindly believed others without questioning them. There were many moments where I peaked trans, but the one that made go “full terf” was when I read Autostraddle’s article on “how to have lesbian sex with transwomen”. Hetero sex is now “gay”?? Hell no. That’s when I decided to create a Twitter account for the first time and started getting into arguments with TRAs lol. Thank god I woke up. Now I love doing my own research and developing my own opinions.

So to the TRAs who tell others to “do your own research”... Thank you :)

[–]zerosis[S] 26 insightful - 1 fun26 insightful - 0 fun27 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I used to hear about the dreaded 'TERFS' for years before I found out my beliefs basically line up with theirs. It was definitely a weird experience, coming to that realization.

[–]JulienMayfair 33 insightful - 1 fun33 insightful - 0 fun34 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I had one minor peak a few years ago on the r/ainbow subreddit when someone was complaining about hearing the word 'trnny' (or can we use that on saidit?) on the radio. The thing is, it was in reference to someone talking about a *car's transmission*, not a trans person. I pointed out that words only have meaning in context and that among people who work on cars, tranny is common slang for transmission. It's also used for transformers in electronics. But no, this person said that *no one should use that word anymore in any context because it was what trans people were called when people were beating them to death.

That was my first moment of: These people are nuts. They think people are talking about them when they aren't even thinking about them at all.

Then, in 2018, I was doing some local volunteer working for the Democratic Party, including poll greeting, and ended up working alongside a very large transwoman. What occurred to me during this experience was there was nothing about this person that seemed like a woman at all. In manner, behavior, speech, body language, ways of interaction with others, he seemed like nothing other than a man in an ill-fitting dress. He would go up to potential voters, looming over them and obviously creeping them out. I don't think he was helping us at all. That's what first sent me over to start reading Gender Critical where I started learning about the treatment of lesbians, child transition, women's sports, etc....

[–]Movellon 29 insightful - 2 fun29 insightful - 1 fun30 insightful - 2 fun -  (4 children)

I can’t believe that her lesbian partner actually divorced her because she’s a.... lesbian!

That’s some serious mess up stuff.

[–]zerosis[S] 16 insightful - 1 fun16 insightful - 0 fun17 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Yeah, and now people are demonizing anyone that still stays in contact with her. It's fucked up. Ugh

[–]fuckupaddamsBisexual Terve 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Fun day to be in a cult I guess

[–]Jamiethiel2018 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

What do you think of a Transwidow/ TransWidower thread for LGB partners & expartners? It seems a remarkable lonely place to be. There is a Transwidowvoices.org now, but while it doesn't exclude LGB, it does center heterosexual relationship experiences.

[–]zerosis[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It sounds like a good idea, I don't personally know anyone that's going through that, but I can't imagine how difficult it would be for me personally.

[–]julesburm1891 25 insightful - 5 fun25 insightful - 4 fun26 insightful - 5 fun -  (0 children)

The moment that started me questioning: I was bowling with a group of friends that included a transwoman. I’m a woman who’s ran and lifted weights around five times a week for the past 13 years. I played rugby in college and served in the Guard. I’m fairly strong. The transwoman in the group is one of the most sedentary people I’ve met. Anyways, both the transwoman and myself were bowling with 12 pound balls. I was pretty consistently hitting around 20 mph when I bowled and they were hitting around 23 mph. After one turn, the transwoman said, “I used to be so much better at this when I had a different body. It’s hard bowling as a woman.” At this point, I was a huge ally to the trans community. But, that stopped me cold. I couldn’t believe that they genuinely thought they had a brand new woman’s body with zero relation to the male body they were born in. Even more, I couldn’t understand how they couldn’t see the blatant disparity between what their body could do versus what a woman’s body could do.

The moment that completely peaked me: one of my friends (a woman) married a transwoman and I was a bridesmaid. The reading they used was from Hodges v. Obergefell. I was standing up there trying to wrap my head around the fact that they were reading from the court decision that legalized same-sex marriage in the US when they weren’t a same-sex couple. I tried to brush it off. Then I went to sign my friend’s marriage license. In that moment, I learned that her spouse was still legally a male. The fact that two people decided to have a legally heterosexual marriage and act like they were were oppressed for it peaked me.

[–]LiterallyawomanTERF IRL 25 insightful - 1 fun25 insightful - 0 fun26 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

There’s a good friend of mine that I refuse to see if certain friends of theirs will be around (not an issue with COVID-19 haha) because they’re energy vampires who only stop talking about themselves to gossip and virtue signal-shame others.

What’s funny is since my friend stopped working with them due to the virus shutting down work, they’ve started to distance themselves from this group as well, and opened up to me that they are mentally fatigued from all the identity politics. It’s like these people actually don’t have an identity or hobbies or self outside being woke and argumentative.

Everything is a competition and constant language censorship and policing. Particularly watching the self appointed “queen” gay guy of the group argue with the non-binary genderfluid transman at what should have been a fun and friendly gathering is what peaked my friend.

Now that they distance themselves from these narcissists they’re improving in other ways, lost 20#, really active, and genuinely more positive it’s been so great to bond with them more and see them become their best self while shedding the drama.

So you could say it’s been a positive experience though I know for my friend it’s been upsetting to realize their old friend group was toxic and they fell into them by having poor boundaries and being the group’s (believe it or not) token straight ally.

This revolution is really separating the kids from adults or dare I say the boys from the men haha

[–]bellatrixbells 14 insightful - 3 fun14 insightful - 2 fun15 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

"I am a non binary trans man" is one of the most nonsensical claims a person can make. Like, if you're non-binary, how do you at the same identify WITHIN THAT BINARY ??? Also is it just me or are there way more women identifying as NB than men, who just go full "i'M a WoMaN jUsT LiKe yOu TeRf, now tell me how to make fake menstrual blood so that I can validate myself".

[–]indeepshadowsBi woman 25 insightful - 1 fun25 insightful - 0 fun26 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

First off, sorry this happened to you, OP. It's not easy to wake up and realise you're surrounded by toxic people. I hope it all ends well for you and that you'll find a more reasonable group!

My peak trans moment was when JK Rowling published her essay on why she feels the way she does about trans activism. But I think I have to open up about my own background to properly emphasise why her words had such an impact on me.

I've always been gender-nonconforming, and when I was a child, I was very very uncomfortable in my body. Looking back, I know this came from my family, which was very patriarchal. My mother would do all the "women's" work in the house, making me her little assistant, and my brother was always roped into helping my father. I looked at my house-slave of a mother, thinking being like her would be my future, so I prayed to God (not being the atheist I am today, heh) I would never become a woman. Well. Such prayers didn't work.

Fast-forward to my late teens, I discover FTMs on the internet. I was convinced that very minute I was one of them, but this was the early 00s, so resources about transitioning were scarce. I met a local teen on the internet who confessed she was starting her transition into a man, and we met up and befriended each other very quickly. I can't stress enough how pivotal hanging out with him was, as to this day I believe he was a legit transsexual, and when I compared myself to him, it became obvious I was not. I watched him go through the process, simultaneously finding peace with my own womanhood... but I was still on shaky grounds with my bisexuality, which had manifested early on.

Fast forward to 2020, when I'm a 30+ woman at peace with my own brand of womanhood and comfortable with my sexuality, and suddenly the world goes fucking mad one evening as JK Rowling tweets something that looks innocuous to me. I try to ignore it, but it's difficult when my friends are freaking out and showing a side to them I had never seen before. Then JK publishes her essay, and I read it with an open mind, and... just agree with almost everything. Especially what she says about gender non-conforming and gay youth transitioning hits me so hard. I'd seen the trend and wondered about it, but I didn't think it was any of my business.

Anyway, I was thrown into research mode and eventually found LGBDropTheT, and was faced with evidence of how far trans activism had gone. I feel like I'm still in the process of forming my opinions on some of the things, but it's been a hell of a wake up. If I had been born fifteen years later, I'd probably be transitioning now; making a huge fucking mistake.

I wish I could tell teens that's there's nothing wrong with being your own brand of man or woman. You don't have to fit the mold. You don't have to be straight. Variety is beautiful.

[–]zerosis[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I relate so hard to your point about JK Rowling's essay. After reading through it and expecting something horrible, from what was described to me, I found myself completely and fully agreeing with everything she had to say and the reasonable and empathetic way she presented it all. I really do feel like the world has gone a little crazy (at least the hyper-woke world). This whole thing is so surreal, I was basically a full-on TRA just last year. I'm still coming to terms with the fact that I'm considered the bad guy in woke circles now.

[–]indeepshadowsBi woman 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Things are surreal, indeed. I totally relate to your experience. The extent to which my online friends freaked out made me delete a Twitter account and leave another website completely. It feels like every bad faith argument they make against JK Rowling hits me, too, and I know they'd probably go apeshit if they knew I was in agreement with her. I've next to no ability to lie, so I'm just avoiding everyone, lest they find out I'm gender critical.

I've been pretty ignorant about the TRA movement before now; I've figured trans stuff isn't any of my business, so it's been easy to look past. But now... I hate to be one of those people who only wake up when something affects them directly, but here we are.

[–]haveanicedaytoo💗💜💙 16 insightful - 8 fun16 insightful - 7 fun17 insightful - 8 fun -  (0 children)

I don't know how many of you know this but the terms truscum/tucute were either coined by, or at least popularized by a woman on Tumblr called "idislikecispeople" and she was a female-born person who identified as an MTF woman. Yes, I'm typing that correctly, a vagina-human, identifying as a penis-man who identifies as a woman. She and her disciples insisted that you don't need dysphoria to be trans.

So knowing this background of insanity, I could never take the transgender movement seriously to begin with. But I never thought it would leak over into real life this hard.

Fuck... IGTG I'll continue this later. Sorry.

[–]fuck_reddit 18 insightful - 1 fun18 insightful - 0 fun19 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

I remember that I'd formed some early thoughts on the TRA entrenchment, but it wasn't really real for me until ~10 months ago when a gay guy asked me if I would sleep with a trans guy. I said "no" and he started pressing me on why. I didn't feel like I needed to defend myself beyond "I'm gay" but he pushed and apparently his willingness to was a sign that I should be willing to as well. I eventually had to brush it off as "oh I'm a platinum star gay, and I like to bottom so I need a guy with a dick lmao." It really annoyed me that a fellow gay guy would push another gay guy to have sex with someone with a vagina...

[–]lairacunda 13 insightful - 8 fun13 insightful - 7 fun14 insightful - 8 fun -  (0 children)

Well we have handmaidens, I guess you have handvalets.

[–]bellatrixbells 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

So basically a literal stranger walked up to you in a gay bar and tried to mob you into het sex... ? Wow.

[–]fuck_reddit 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

No this was a guy in my dorm in college. He's into me and isn't great at hiding it, but he's also passive aggressive. But yeah, he was shocked that I, a gay man, wasn't interested in het sex...

[–]bellatrixbells 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Oh ! Ok, at least I guess ? Still weird, but yeah, wow.

[–]mostlyharmfulllBiology is real! 13 insightful - 1 fun13 insightful - 0 fun14 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

My moment was kind of the saving one for me. Otherwise, I might have been pulled into this cult. I was actually considering coming out as trans back then. But one day, reddit suddenly recommend a sub to me. At first, I only clicked because I misread the name and wanted to see what it was. It was a support group for special kinds of porn addiction. And reading some of the stories actually lead to an "Oh shit, that is just like me"-moment. After realizing that it was just a fetish made me feel disgusted. I went cold turkey not only on fetish porn, but on porn in general and can´t say I miss anything in my life. But I also couldn´t stop asking myself how I could have ended up like this in the first place, since I saw myself as a pretty critical person. I started to look around and stumbled on subs like r/itsafetish and this one. I guess you can imagine the rest.

[–]xanditAGAB (Assigned Gay at Birth) 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

This is a good idea, to record these stories...what helped peak me was actually the peak stories at gender critical lol

Anyway, I've been out of the community for awhile, due to events in my life. Saw they added the T and said that's weird but I'm on the left so I guess this is where lgb is going. I was all for trans bathroom rights, etc. I would read slate often but about three years ago I noticed that the queer stuff had become very prominent, and there was some bizarre articles in the lgbt series... stuff I just couldn't believe. In the comments of some weird trans article someone wrote gender critical and I looked it up and found the reddit sub. I read it for days, the peak stories, the linked articles.. Then I found the cotton ceiling one, about the guy wanting to be hired by the lesbian porn maker. Read more on cotton ceiling and couldn't believe what was happening to lesbians...that was probably the peak, that plus the who concept of girl dick lol...followed links to Magdalen and posey and megan and also conservatives talking about it. Eventually found drop the t. Once there, it would be a year+ of constant re-peaking as they pushed past gender into redefining sex, and thusly our sexuality, rewrote history I am old enough to remember, widened the trans umbrella until only the pope could be considered non lgbtq++++ I hate seeing injustice, and watching men claim womanhood and then use it to push women out of their spaces, straight women both in pants and out trying to invade gay men's spaces, seeing LGB youth told they had no history, no part in their own liberation, that they are required to give trans people a try in the bedroom because of some sjw academics decided to redefine sexuality to gender, and guilt trip us with terms like being inclusive...IN THE BEDROOM!! All injustice in my eyes. And rage inducing. I really fear for LGB youth... It was getting better for them and now this.

[–]OPPRESSED_REPTILIANIntersex male | GNC | Don't call me "a gay", "twink" or "queen" 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun -  (5 children)

And here I was hoping this sub wouldn't become GenderCritical 2.0 post-banwave.

[–]zerosis[S] 17 insightful - 1 fun17 insightful - 0 fun18 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Sorry 'bout it, I guess. I have to ask though, why are you here? Genuinely curious, no shade. I'm not completely on board with GC because it seemed a little too extremist and man-hate-y for me.

[–]OPPRESSED_REPTILIANIntersex male | GNC | Don't call me "a gay", "twink" or "queen" 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Because this is (was?) a LGB sub, not a radical feminist sub. Radfems are not just anti-man but also anti-mentally ill and anti-intersex. As well as bordering as cultlike and psuedoscientific as TRAs.

[–]arc-en-ciel 13 insightful - 3 fun13 insightful - 2 fun14 insightful - 3 fun -  (2 children)

Uhh... But what about the women in GC who literally are mentally ill? Like, I have anxiety and have had thoughts of suicide before, which is literally mental illness, and luckily I've got help with it. I have family members with bipolar and OCD, and have supported a friend with an eating disorder. I'm very much for people getting help and therapy for mental illness, which doesn't conflict with my gender critical viewpoint. The only thing I'm not for is people rushing into surgery/hormone treatments for gender dysphoria without getting proper therapy first, for the mental health of the patient. With most mental health problems you should at least try to address the underlying issues first. The reason some people detransition is because they realise that instead of getting therapy for self esteem issues, depression, etc, that they were convinced that transition would solve their problems. To not get proper therapy before transition is unethical.

And what do you mean by anti-intersex? Most of the time the only times intersex is mentioned in GC is people saying they're tired of intersex people being used as pawns for TRAs. The only stance GC really tends to have on intersex people is that they generally have some combination of male and female sex attributes, and therefore aren't a third sex, more of a combination. That is scientifically sound unless you'd like to show me the third gamete humans can have.

I do think sometimes even r/gc could get into its own sort of echo chamber, but I don't think it's cultlike as TRAs. I've never seen someone on GC say "Oh, don't look at [trans sub]! That's a form of self harm!" to discourage people from reading any kind of opposing view. I've haven't seen GC rewriting Stonewall history, but trans subs will actively remove interviews with Marsha P Johnson that contradict their narrative. There's a reason that there were more GC that QT in the now banned debate subreddit, because GC was generally able to actually provide sources instead of just parroting whatever they'd heard in their subreddit.

Each side has their flaws but I would highly recommend you spend more time lurking on the s/gendercritical subsaidit if you actually want to know what it's about.

[–]OPPRESSED_REPTILIANIntersex male | GNC | Don't call me "a gay", "twink" or "queen" 5 insightful - 3 fun5 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 3 fun -  (1 child)

They get shit on by other GC people. I've seen it. And while anxiety and suicidal thoughts might be met with sympathy, other mental illnesses not so much. Specifically "cluster B personality disorders" (Diagnosises that are primarily given to women, might I add) which they accuse everyone they don't like (mostly TRAs) of having. Plus, I've seen a lot of "You're mentally ill/he's mentally ill, get help!" in response to someone doing something bad. GC tend to think that mental illness and bad person are generally the same thing.

GC are anti-intersex because, like TRAs, they speak for us instead of letting us have our own voices. They tell people what we are and aren't, and they get it wrong. They say that sex is defined solely by chromosomes for intersex people, which it isn't. They consider XX females (NOT TRANS. Rare disorder where an XX individual develops physically female) and XY males to be their "chromosomal" sex even though these people develop physically as the other sex, and will never "pass" for the sex GC thinks they are. GC also claims that there are no outliers and that people with ambigious genitalia and/or severe intersex disorders don't exist. They basically go around telling everyone that all intersex people are like me - that is, definitely male/female people with hormonal differences and "mild" conditions.

Plus I've existed as an intersex guy around GC and been accused of "TRYING TO MAKE WOMENS SPACES ABOUT INTERSEX PEOPLE!!111" when I literally just mentioned it. A lot of GC people seem to think that intersex people are the same as TRAs and are trying to "invade" them.

I've lurked on /r/gendercritical for years before it's deletion. I saw a lot of radfem circles on tumblr before my account got nuked. I'm not a newbie to gendercritical, I've been around them for years and I've progressively seen them get worse and worse.

[–]Jamiethiel2018 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I can't speak for anyone but me. Yes, I've seen some of what you describe and it is out of line. I won't make excuses for that. It's inexcusable. I much prefer the mom's chat as they are clear that people with DSDS have repeatedly asked not to be used in this debate. I hear you on that indeed. I mildly disagree on your point about mental illness. In all my reading, Radical Femenism does not, so far as I can tell, take the position as stated above. of course radfems are not a hive mind, and many take pains to distance themselves from people who are GC.

What do you think of adding to the rules that people with DSDs may not be used in this same manner? Perhaps we could direct people to MRKHvoice's blog? https://mrkhvoice.com/index.php/2019/08/12/what-is-intersex/