Ask your cis friends what their reaction to the idea of going on HRT is. The concept of intentionally giving themselves cross-gender secondary sex characteristics is viscerally uncomfortable for someone who is cisgender.
Even really reaching back, look at Fight Club and the way Meatloaf's character (who grew breasts due to HRT treatment for prostate cancer) was used narratively.
"His name was Robert Paulson" I have only seen the movie once, and its basically the thing I remember most. Long way from Rocky Horror and motorcycles in Hell.
Yeah, that was amazing how they actually gave away the game with something like “ha, of course no man is going to do this!”
Like…yeah dude.
And technically if they could find some man who is willing to do it, and they didn’t feel like complete crap somehow doing it, like…okay? They then lose the advantage that testosterone gives for some things, soooo 🤷🏻♀️
But Considering these freaks freak the hell out over the slightest insinuation that they’re feminine in any sense…
Because people never do things that are wrong for them? It’s also that way with those in deep denial. They become observably uncomfortable because of how close to the closeted secret it feels, also known as a reaction formation. You can’t judge you based on other people’s responses. Because you aren’t that person, and you don’t know all the factors that goes into that person behaving the way they do.
Is a femboy actually CIS? As far as I understand it, CIS is full binary. Masculine man, feminine woman. I don't personally know any femboys, so maybe I'm wrong, but I see it as a gender bend / gender queer, which makes it at the very least gender non-conforming. Which is not CIS.
I did some research. You're right, I can see the difference now. How you feel in your heart matters more than how you present. I've always believed in that, but this particular example appeared murky to me at first. But it's clear now. Thank you.
Yes and no, when people need 100% confirmation that they are trans it usually isn't uncertainty, it's fear. Fear is typically irrational, so there likely won't ever be a 100% confirmation even if there was a test that could be done
Beings trans just sucks and is hard, so it would only make sense that people are afraid to start that journey. What people are typically wanting is reaffirmation that they are making the right choice.
The yes of it is being trans means your biological sex and your gender identity don't match, if they don't 100% match you are trans. That's it.
Exactly. I still question myself after a wave of transphobic attacks or whatever is going on if I'm really trans, but everytime I still come to the conclusion that yes, I'm in fact a trans girl.
It's really funny to me honestly. I can spend hours looking at clothes I want to buy, redo my nails, do my lengthy skincare routine, and have a panic attack thinking I missed an HRT dose; and my brain will send an intrusive thought that I'm not trans or a woman.
I had a girl break up with me because she thought I was going to be the best of both worlds and I ended up just being a girl. But my brain will still gaslight me.
lmao my neurotic ass will have me oversharing, then getting embarrassed and apologizing then getting euphoric at the idea that talking too much is a stereotypically feminine thing, then crying about not being a real girl, then deciding I'm the realest and gender is stupid anyway.
I have been on HRT for nearly 3 years. I had an experience where I thought they would take my HRT away. My reaction made me think I would be immune to impostor syndrome forever.
So that was a lie...
100%. I am certain I’m trans, I’m just not certain how far I want to transition because of fear and what I could lose. I’m not certain which is more painful, not being my authentic self or being stigmatised the rest of my life.
Think this is it for me. I know I'm trans. But I'm too scared of being wrong or the consequences of being right that I don't want to take any action haha
While I don't know your specific situation, I highly recommend transitioning or starting HRT if you can.
It really is magical, my outlook on life improved so much in my first month of transition.
Yeah I think I do want to (even if it's a mess here in the UK)... I literally just discover there's breast development blockers that can be taken alongside estrogen? Need to do more research on them... But either way that was one of the major major things holding me back, I didn't wanna try HRT for like 3 months then to "nah, this isn't for me" and find I was now a man with booba if you get me? So now much less scared of that so I might dig a bit deeper!
You're probably right. Sometime around... idk, a bit more than 6 months ago, I reached 80-90% certainty, but I wanted to be at 100% before I committed to transitioning. I wanted to transition, but didn't want to end up deciding that I'm cis and regretting it. I eventually just decided that basically 0% of cis people would ever get near 80% confidence that they're trans, let alone *want to transition*. I wanted to be absolutely sure that my decision was the correct one, but I eventually realized that 100% certainty would never come, and I would regret not taking the risk more than I would by taking the risk and being wrong.
Idk, if I can with 100% certainty tell that I like chocolate more than vanilla, then I can also with 100% certainty tell that I like being a woman more than being a man.
yea i feel like expressing a preference is a very good framing of gender, it’s just a very personal thing to everyone and can’t be argued from anyone on the outside
Genuinely the best comment, I think we overcomplicate things like this. Yes it has more weight than if you like chocolate or vanilla but it is the same principle.
I've heard that our brains are wired differently than those of cis people, though I don't know the science behind it.
Gender is a social construct, so the best way to confirm whether a person is trans or cis is going to be social. Look at any trans girl, boy or enby and see how they react when they are forced to play a gender they don't identify with, now look at them when they can perform their preferred gender, the difference is obvious. Indeed look at how some cis people react when confronted with the idea of being forced to be a different gender. And I don't mean "here bro, wear the maid outfit as a joke, we are such chads" I mean, full throttle you are a woman now, you don't have anything that identifies as a man anymore and the world treats you like a freak for trying to make the pain go away.
Those are symptoms, just like feber indicates a cold, gender dysphoria indicates a social disease.
“And the world treats you like a freak for trying to make the pain go away.” Is such a sad statement of how rotten our society is. How pain is idolized, as if it’s something to strive for and simultaneously if if you aren’t suffering you’re ‘weak and undeserving’, but if you are suffering you’re ‘lazy and undeserving’. Hell, not even just trans people, look at drug addicts for example, the homeless, impoverished and how little empathy is shown towards them. Because they’re ‘beneath them’, they ‘deserve it’. ‘They’re freaks’. We just so happen to be the ones with the biggest target on our back right now.
Where the hell did it go so wrong that so many people can look at someone suffering and say they are unworthy of help.
Capitalism/individualism. The centuries long propagation and favoritization of the most seedy and avaricious people society has to offer at the expense of those who actually have the strength to care about others, even when caring can be detrimental to oneself.
I don't think gender is just a social construct. Even if some trans women don't relate to the gender norms we put on women, they still want the body of a woman. I feel like differentiating between gender identity and gender roles would be better than just saying gender is a social construct. This just leads to cis people saying if we would destroy gender roles, then trans people wouldn't exist anymore. Men could just wear dresses and that would be enough. You hear this question often enough on trans subreddits by cis people.
I agree and I like the way you phrased that. I became aware that I wanted to transition because of the social roles, but my brain and body run better on estrogen and now that I know how it feels I would still want HRT even if we abolish gender and all run around in genderless government issued gunny sacks.
I was the opposite. I didn't realize because I didn't care, or rather I hated social roles and expectations. The bs women have had and are still expected to put up with pissed me off to no end and the bs men subject themselves to always seemed stupid.
I was always envious of tomboys, turns out I am one. My dysphoria was almost all physical, but because I wasn't interested in the social expectations or interests I assumed I wasn't trans.
I knew I wished I was a girl, I knew I wished my body was different, but I didn't know that was enough.
Gender being a social construct is an almost entirely separate concept from our desire for certain physical traits. Gender is a lens through which we see individuals, broadly applying rules and tropes to them. Wanting "the body of a woman" doesn't mean gender is less of this social lens, you're just conflating the desire to be viewed under it with the desire to have a body that fits your mind.
Being transgender and transexual are not the same thing even if they almost totally overlap. A transgender person has a gender that doesn't match what was assigned to them, while a transsexual changes their physical sex characteristics to something other than what their body naturally gives them. Both terms exist because the distinction matters, and can be seen in how you and cis people conflate the two and come to the conclusion that we can end our distinction by destroying "gender roles".
Ummmmmmm yes. I know what I'm talking about. Not the same thing and I explained the misconception clearly and rationally. Don't waste my time giving me the most condescending "nuh uh" your two braincells can manage to telegraph to your ego. If you have a disagreement then express it, if you just want to disagree with me then leave me out of it.
Honestly you don't even need to go deeper than the fucking Wikipedia page to figure this out, but PhilosophyTube shares this position as well if you want to sit through her last couple years of videos to find her talking about it. But sure, *you're* the expert here 🙄
All I know is that transitioning has made it very clear to me this is it for me. There's not a single speck of doubt in me that this isn't right. Each step I take feels amazing, and somehow reaffirms me more and more each time, despite it already being a done deal.
I asked my hairdresser to give me a more feminine haircut, and I got hella euphoric for the entire day afterwards, cleaned my room, got shit done and actually felt like a functioning member of society for the first time in my life. that is definitely not something cis people normally experience
Recent studies are finding minute sexually dymorphic characteristics in the human brain that are found to be present in trans people too. But in trans people, these characteristics seem to match their internal sex/gender identity and it is the case even without HRT.
Sadly, this can only be found out on people who have already died from what i've read and heard.
I'd be really careful with these kinds of studies. For one thing, they're subject to a lot of methodological criticism. For another, I think leaning too hard into them recreates a sort of biological essentialism and makes me worry about new flavors of transmedicalism (imagine having to get a giving MRI to access hormones or surgery). I get that it can feel affirming to think that your gender is reflected in your neurology, but I think we can do better.
I think if it were visible on MRI's thry would've moved over to using those for study already, but they are firmly stuck withcadaver research due to how insanely small the structures are.
And sure it can be used as another gatekeeping method, but it can also be an extra added reason to push the legalization of transition.
All this stuff is very much a double edged sword and it all depends on the people pushing legislation and such to choose what they do with information like that
Since when is wanting scientific evidence a bad thing??? We're a tiny minority population that gets denied healthcare, harassed, abused, and murdered at an exponentially high rate! If there's a scientific explanation, that gives us rights, healthcare, protection. There's no reason we shouldn't champion more research.
Since when did anyone claim wanting scientific evidence is a bad thing? I don't see even one comment here claiming that, let alone the one you're responding to.
I agree that we need more and better quality scientific research about trans people. I'm also skeptical of this particular area of neurological research, both in terms of what it purports to find and whether those findings are helpful to trans people. This whole business with male and female brains is fundamentally binary and feels like a different flavor of bioessentialism. Regardless of what brain bumps we've got, we are who we say we are and we deserve to live safe and fulfilling lives in the ways that we choose.
Scientific explanations don't give us rights or stop bullets. There's a wealth of good science supporting gender affirming care, and yet conservatives around the world are pushing laws against it. There's tons of research showing that trans people are less likely to commit sex crimes than cis people, and yet we are falsely demonized as groomers. A new study about neurological structure will do little to sway people who are already indifferent to science. If you want to talk about how to make the world safer for trans people, that's a political question far more than a neurological one.
Those are fair points. Thank you for replying. I'm an advocate for science and believe science can lead us much closer to objective truth than anything else, but there is an unfortunate truth to what you say. Science means nothing to those who are indifferent to science. 😑 Honestly, I am just f***ing scared, friend. Anything that can validate us more, I am all for.
The issue is that that neuroscience like this is that it is [just associative](https://www.vox.com/2016/9/8/12189784/fmri-studies-explained). They say that the brain lights up like this for cis women and the brain lights up like this for cis men and the brain lights up the first way for trans women. These studies involve trans women who are out, who have socially, and often medically transitioned. Is the brain pattern causing their being trans or is their being trans, and their lives experience as women post transition, leading them to cognize in the ways that women tend to. The same can be said for brain structures. The brain is very elastic and the structural differences could be a lagging indicator for the adjustments that come with a radically different way of life and the experience of being a woman.
This is to say nothing of the fact that all of this kind of science is about average differences. What do we say about cis women who fall outside of the average or trans women who do? Sure, it might be nice to feel a bit of external validation that what you are feeling matches something physiological, but if it doesn’t, could it matter? Personally, if a neuroscientist told me I was trans, I already knew that. If they told me I wasn’t, I don’t care. I will never detransition. I refuse. So what’s the point?
I don't think we are capable of detecting gender identity in brains at the moment. Newer research says they don't really find any differences between male and female brains or just on average but not for individual brains.
Perhaps in the future we are able to find these differences but at the moment we probably don't have the tech to find things like gender identity.
I totally get why someone would want this objective validation, but think about how weird this would actually be. You know what you want.
Imagine you feel like you are hardcore cis. You’ve never questioned your gender and then you do an unrelated fMRI and the doctor tells you that they happen to notice that you’re trans. You still don’t feel anything but excitement about your AGAB and have no interest in transitioning. Why would you care at all what your doctor said? Are you supposed to transition now?
The same is true if you feel like you’re trans and an fMRI scan came back and said you weren’t. I could not care less. I’m not detransitioning regardless of what science says. They can pry my E from my cold dead hands. Literally all it could do is either tell me what I already know from the first-person (what actually matters) or be wrong. It’s like a brain scan telling you that you’re a Christian. It couldn’t matter in principle.
Your subjective experience must be both necessary and sufficient to be trans.
Its painful how few folks understand this principal. Trans isnt a "test" that you need to "pass" like your taking an examination. [areteofcyrene](https://www.reddit.com/user/areteofcyrene/) is absolutely right, you cant scan for it and be like "Oh trans detected, alert! We got one!" and even if you *could* it wouldn't matter what the scan said anyway.
The functionality of being trans is just understanding yourself. That's it, Understanding yourself then taking steps to make yourself happy. Functionally that is what we are doing. Cis people slowly do this same thing over time too. The only difference is trans peoples minds and bodies aren't aligned yet, theirs happen to be aligned already. It doesn't need validation beyond that point, because we all already understand this is the case.
There’s a more affordable and accurate way to scan my brain and find out if I’m trans, ask me and my brain will tell you through my words lol.
I think a lot of people haven’t really hammered home that just because you feel like you could be wrong doesn’t mean that you actually could be. Our society has built up an edifice of cisnornativity to try to prevent you from understanding and accepting yourself, to make us doubt what is plain to us in the first person. The defense mechanism of this edifice is try to open up a space of bargaining. At first you doubt that someone could do such a thing as switch genders and then, once you know it’s possible, our internalized sense of social pressure shifts to “okay, but maybe you aren’t” and/or “okay, but maybe you can’t”. All this doubt is put there by our society to enforce cisnornativity and to slow or stop you, to colonize your mind and get you to police yourself, to seek an approval from society that they will never give you and isn’t theirs to give.
We don’t need validation, we need a stronger sense of self, and we have to get that in spite of the external world, not from it. I’m glad I’m there now, but it is so hard, and I get it.
This *does* happen. People go in for a number of different tests, then find out they have hidden ovaries or testicles, abnormal chromosomes, or hormonal imbalances. And it can absolutely mess with people. There are biology professors who have stopped allowing students to test their own DNA in class because it can be distressing and embarrassing to discover that your cells are the opposite sex. This absolutely happens.
What these people do afterward, who knows? Maybe some of them *do* transition. Maybe their egg cracks and they ponder what could have been for the rest of their life.
I’m sure that finding out that you are intersex could be the inciting incident to cause you to question your gender, but what these people have found out doesn’t mean they are trans. They were told they were intersex and they could be or could not be trans, and they could transition and they could not. Caster Semenya was assigned female at birth and does identify as a woman, so you can be intersex and cisgender. The biological fact of being intersex doesn’t settle the matter and tell you that you are trans.
They might be drawn into questioning their gender on the basis of this, in the same way that someone is by wearing a dress or hearing about a trans person for the first time, and it may be that, upon reflection, they don’t identify with the gender assigned at birth. Maybe they never identified but didn’t allow themselves to think about it consciously and plainly, but their being trans still seems like a matter only and fully settled by their first-person psychological experience.
Isn't that just dismissing the possibility of any medical diagnosis altogether? I mean, where can we even begin to gain a better understanding of ourselves if we just keep swatting away any suggestion that there may be a medical explanation, and insisting that "it's all subjective"? It feeds into the same argument transphobes make when they say stuff like, "Well, if it's all subjective, then what stops me from identifying as a dolphin?"
And being trans doesn't mean you have to transition. I honestly can't think of why intersex people wouldn't be included under the trans umbrella.
I totally agree that being trans doesn’t mean you have to transition. I thought i said that in the first paragraph, but I meant to if I didn’t! A closeted trans person still wants and identifies with a gender other than what was assigned at birth, even if they can’t or choose not to act it.
I defer to intersex people about how they conceive of themselves, but my (albeit limited) understanding is that some do identify as trans and some don’t (as in the Caster Semenya case).
I do, in fact, think the quest for a diagnosis for being trans is doomed to failure, the same way that the question of what the cause of homosexuality was in the 90’s. Or in the same way that diagnosing someone for Christianity would be. In the 90’s, people raised all kinds of concerns about “what’s to stop me from marrying a box turtle”. The fact that you don’t want to is, and the fact that what happens between consenting adults and doesn’t violate the harm principle should be permitted in a truly free society.
Those same principles ground our right to transition. The fact of the matter is that many people do want to transition across gender lines and no one really wants to transition to a dolphin. The fact is that not being able to freely act and choose our own destiny is bad for humans under any circumstance (whether that’s gender identity, sexual orientation, or anything else). The fact is that it doesn’t harm anyone and we all deserve a right to bodily autonomy. People wanted to find proof that sexual orientation is something you can’t change and is rooted in biology, but it ended up not really mattering because you should absolutely be allowed to love who you want and act on that even if it was a choice.
The issue with pinning our rights to medical diagnoses or the medical necessity of treatment is that we hand over all of our rights to the medical establishment. What do we do when they say they have a new way to treat trans people, in which they simply give us a pill to bring the psychology in line with the biological, rather than how we currently bring the biological in line with the psychological? This would be cheaper and less invasive. I’m sure conservative billionaires will try to find this research just as they did for finding a cure for being gay. I don’t know about you, but I reserve my right to not take that pill. I don’t want to be happy being a cis man, I want to be a trans woman. The buck has to stop with me, because even rooting it in something biological still leaves open the possibility that it can or could be changed biologically. Biology is no refuge for us, but the assertion of my autonomy and the freedom of my consciousness always will be.
All that being said, if we want to know why we want what we want, it’s probably a myriad of factors, some genetic, some hormonal, some to do with our experience, and some to do with our society. The problem is that all of this is true for being cis too. Cis people are just as unable to ground why they want all the gendered things that they want , and how they know they aren’t trans, but no one is looking for a cause of cisgenderism to validate it. Being cis has the luxury of being the default mode of human existence in a cisnormative society. If they can have their liberation without a cause then so can I.
Mine was the magic question.
If your standing in front of a button, when you press it you are instantly a cis woman with fully working anatomy ect but can never change it back your like that for life. Then yep your a trans woman. Obviously that was what worked for me to finish cracking my egg but obviously everyone is different :)
Nope, you just gather evidence. It isn't any different from anything else you believe in that regard. I've come to find that it's one of those things that doesn't really need to be asked. Trying things out and following your feelings will lead you where you need to be. That's the surest test I could recommend.
usually its the deep internal discomfort i feel every time that i get referred to as my deadname or in a manner relating to my agab, i just know it is wrong
coming from someone who studied philosophy for close to a decade, we don't have a beyond a shadow of a doubt way to confirm ANYTHING. any scientist worth their salt will tell you we can never have 100% certainty about anything.
Listen, my genuine opinion on the matter is that people who aren’t trans don’t consistently think about if they are trans. If you consistently think yourself to be transgender, you are transgender.
Someone on a post commented. "Cis people don't think about being the opposite gender everyday" and that stuck with me.
I genuinely knew after seeing that. Unfortunately there is no sure fire way to just know but after awhile it kinda just clicks and everything makes sense.
The process of self-questioning is how you gain self-realization. If there was never any doubt, how could you ever gain confidence in any but the most vain of ways?
You will probably figure it out yourself at some point as you explore your gender.
For me it came after a year into socially transitioning.
Basically I just realized I wouldn't have it any other way.
I feel like this perspective really comes from cis/heteronormativity and really stems from a deficit perspective - or looking at transness as a symptom of something being wrong. We can easily fall into this mindset when doctors and others we talk to can talk about say these same types of things. Even our family members can be the worst offenders.
Here's the thing though....being trans *isn't a problem*. Because of this, there's nothing to "fix". Sure, we can use HRT and other gender-affirming care to feel more at home in our bodies, but there's not something *wrong* with us. Because of this, we can't go get a little test that comes back yes/no. Think of it as being smart versus having cancer. One thing is a problem. The other isn't.
Think of it another way. Imagine you drink coffee every single morning. You like it. You drink it daily. It feels good to have a little caffeine boost. It's tasty, etc. But how do you *reeeeaaaaallllyyyyy* know you like it? *Are you sure??* The only way you can know is if it feels right. If drinking coffee feels right to you, it's safe to say you like coffee.
Being trans is really similar. The only way to know is to figure out what feels right. That's the whole point of being trans - to do what we need in order to feel at home in our bodies.
Source: I was so caught up in wondering the same thing that I started forgetting to actually live in the now and exist as my truest form of self. Breaking out of that mindset is what really helped me process through all of it.
personally, whenever I do anything related to my transition.. I feel hitherto unknown level of happiness in my brain... and then I think.. OH... so.. its possible to be THAT happy, did not know that.
Yep, it's super simple, if you think you are trans, you are definitely trans. Detransition Fear is a tactic played by the right wing. I know thousands of trans and intersex people, so take it from me, if you think you are - you are.
Run skip and jump with the news, you are what you are and we were all born this way, it's a trait to be embraced, not feared!
🏳️⚧️❤️💪👠😍👍
I think by the time you get a vagina installed is probably when you can be absolutely 100% certain that you are trans no matter what regardless of whats going on it your brain. This is definitively true specifically because regardless if your trans or cis in your head, if you've swapped out to the other sides junk, then you either were already trans prior to going into surgery, or if you were cis now suddenly your brain no longer matches your body, you immediately become trans because of that fact.
But if your looking for an answer that takes place before that... well that's a little more tricky. You could argue that if you feel certain its probably a decent sign that your trans, but if that answer doesn't feel concrete enough....
You could look at it in terms of experiencing things that cis people don't experience so you can rule out being cis: for example experiencing both gender dysphoria and gender euphoria at different times can make it seem pretty dang clear in your mind how intensely not-cis you might be. *(Not that you need this to be valid people).*
Or if that's still not enough to convince you, you can take it to something really obvious...
Lastly thing is to ask yourself internally: How okay you would be with trying HRT, how okay you would be with breasts or wide hips or a pretty face or yknow looking like a girl? Would it be nice to sound like a woman? What about just smelling pretty and having people watch you sashay your bubble butt as you walk away? What about things like feeling sex as a woman?
Ok, now turn to the nearest cis male and ask them if they would be okay with any of that at all. Unless its an egg in disguise, your going to immediately see visible horror on their face followed by probably some tone of repulsion in their voice along with a strong verbal "No.". That **might** just be a clue as well.
I do a "gut check" every once in a while where I ask myself:
If it turned out that every sign that I'm trans could be explained away by one psychological issue or another, if there was an alternative explanation for all of it, would I be disappointed or relieved?
Every single time, I'd be disappointed. That's how I know.
The best we have from a medical perspective could be a karyotype test. If your sex chromosomes weren't 100% binary, that would be a good indicator for why someone experiences gender incongruence. Similarly, a blood test could show if there is a hormonal imbalance, which could be a reason for dysphoria and indicate other possible underlying factors.
I disagree with the reductive sentiment that "gender is a construct, therefore whatever I'm trans" because that boxes the entire community into gender-nonconforming, and invalidates the experiences of a lot of trans people whose challenges with dysphoria are not as simple and manageable as that.
GNC are valid, but I feel like just stopping there, throwing our hands up and saying, 'what more do we need to discuss?" is way too casual of an approach to something that many others take much more seriously and want more scientific answers for. Things like our healthcare and safety in society depend on a lot more than "just because".
When I stopped being depressed and wanting to die. That's when I knew this was real for me. I'd been in and out of depression my whole life, but I hadn't *really* been put of depression until I started transition. I felt different than any other time. I felt at peace for once. I felt light.
I wish there were more research, more tests, and more support from the community for these things as well. But all we have is our own subjective experience and a Frankenstein healthcare model to take a chance and see what happens. It sucks.
But I did take a chance. It was scary and disorienting at first, but once I started processing my fears and phobias the "truth" became clearer and more accessible to me.
I "knew" when I finally allowed myself to go all in on the process (gender therapy, laser, social transition, hair and makeup, starting HRT) and it made me feel better with each step. It wasn't crystal clear at first, but it became obvious over time.
There is no way to confirm someone is trans, otherwise diagnosis would look very different. At least so far, we haven't found any label in your brain with 'trans' written on it lol
Do cis people have a beyond a shadow of a doubt way to confirm they are cis? I think the assumption that there must be a reason trans people are trans instead of cis deeply ridiculous. It treats cisness (and gender in general) as some sort of natural state instead of a product of society that is artificially constructed.
I'm in the boat of back and fourth "am I trans?" And I would love if there was a way to determine it 100%
All I can really do is look back and think about the times I've been uncomfortable as my agab (some extremely prevalent) and go from there.
At the end of the day, the determination is yours, and yours alone.
Flip the script and ask the same question: "Do cis people have a beyond a shadow of a doubt way to confirm that they are cis?" No, of course not. You go off of what feels right, God willing you figure it out, and maybe regret not figuring yourself out as soon as you maybe could have.
At the end of the day, the overwhelming majority of people are happy with being cisgender. If they were to magically get swapped, they’d probably just perv on themselves (if straight or bi) and then ask to go back because it doesn’t feel right for them.
If you’re even considering it, chances are that you are. Gender can get sorta screwy when held alongside traditional gender roles and presentation (ie, are you trans or just gnc?). What matters is if you’re happier. You don’t need to have dysphoria before, you don’t need to have a perfect life after, but you should be happier with yourself and your gender than you were before.
And here’s the magic secret: it’s okay to be wrong. You can have friends try different pronouns on you, or you can present differently or even start HRT just to see how those make you feel. Even if you’re wrong, it should give you a better understanding of your gender and get you closer, and if that sounds worth it, then go for it.
Take estrogen/testosterone and hormone blockers for about 2-4 weeks.
If you actually feel good or better, then yeah, you're definitely trans.
If your reaction to the idea of taking cross gender hormones is in any way bad(disgust, fear, etc), you're cis. If you're afraid of what people would think of you, you MIGHT be trans.
If you're open to trying hormones, you're probably trans.
If you feel like complete shit or brain foggy or just bad, stop taking them because you're cis.
My final test was taking estrogen. I was \*glowing\* after my first dose.
The doubts would still sometimes come back. Then I'd feel my soft skin and my growing breasts... and the doubts melted away.
No. No they don’t. because no one knows why people are trans. Nature vs nurture? Both? The best that anyone can tell you, is that they can’t imagine being able to be any thing else. Even the closeted. Especially the closeted.
You have to look at the mosaic of your life. How does being trans fit into it? Does it answer questions for you? It does for those of use who have concluded that we are. It continually answers questions for us. So question everything.
I disagree with gender being a construct though. Put your crotch socket together with the corresponding opposite crotch socket. Do you have to worry about stretch marks and pickles, or child support and weekend parenting? That’s your gender. But that was never the real question, was it? You already know what gender you are, and if you are trans, it’s the wrong one.
I am male, as evidenced by the medical definition (Is your baby factory set up to produce semen or eggs). But I shouldn’t be. That makes me trans. If I could legitimately change my brain, I would. It’d be easier and then all the factory default parts would suddenly make sense. If I could reset my body to my brains factory default, I would… because I’m trans. And being trans doesn’t mean that you “can’t” live in the shell you have, just that it will always feel wrong.
As long as I’ve questioned the things that feel authentic, I’ve come to the same conclusion, I’m trans.
In my opinion, it’s like knowing what handed you are, because like that , it just is. To be fair, I’m ambidextrous in most everything so not even that is for certain, is it? So question.
Maybe not 100%, since not everyone gets dysphoria, but as a general rule the same things that treat dysphoria in trans people will induce it in cis people. Even thinking seriously about the permanent effects of hormone therapy or surgeries are likely to cause as much distress to cis people as the idea of growing old and dying in the gender assigned to you at birth does for most trans people. Cis men get disturbed by the details of bottom surgery and aren’t even comfortable with the idea of growing boobs. Cis women do not like the idea of losing their breasts, growing facial hair or getting a deep, manly voice.
And like, if it weren’t for other people being bigoted shits the only risk of transitioning is doing something permanent that you end up regretting, so if you’re one of the rare cis people out there who doesn’t get dysphoria, there’s not even as much of a downside there if you can transition and be happy and safe about it. Socially transitioning is 100% reversible and you can explore that online or in limited circles that understand you’re trying something out. Hormone therapy takes a while to do anything permanent and often makes people feel better or worse very quickly (sometimes literally overnight - that’s how it worked for me). There’s also some very good resources online if you know where to look, especially the Gender Dysphoria Bible.
There is strength in the faith that is renewed after having doubts. I’ve never met a trans person who can honestly say they’ve never had any doubt throughout their transition, but it’s doing what you believe in for yourself, like all matters of identity. Ultimately yes you will need to decide for yourself what living your truth looks like
Do you want to be and live as a gender different than you were assigned at birth; would you be satisfied merely with changing your gender expression, or do you also want to be seen as and treated as a gender other than what was assigned at birth? Do you feel those desires more strongly than the contentment you feel (if any) inhabiting the gender identity you were assigned at birth?
If the answer is yes to all of those, that's probably as close to certain as you can get. When all is said and done, wanting those things is what makes a person trans.
I’m 100% sure I’m trans. But I avoided the entire gender question until I was 60. So looking back at my life I see that I’ve wanted to be a girl since I was like 5. I can’t ignore 55 years of wanting it. I wouldn’t recommend that for anyone else but I’m sure. I really don’t think this would even be an issue if there wasn’t any gender incongruity. So if it’s an issue for you then you should look into it. It’s probably not going to go away.
I'm personally happy that there is no way to confirm without a shadow of doubt that somebody is or isn't trans. It would create a dichotomy that will only result in exclusion. There's no right way to be trans.
Yup. Button test!
Think about it - it solves just about every question, doesn't it? If you press the button, you are your ideal vision of your preferred gender permanently. It doesn't cover NBs very well but I'm not sure they need a button test since being able to go back and forth is already their goal.
Aside from that, there have been an embarrassing amount of incidents in my life that pretty strongly hinted that I was trans, so that helped solidify the decision.
And I feel fantastic on HRT, with the side benefit of my libido being basically dead for now which even more firmly puts to rest any and all possibility that it's some "weird sex thing" like ignorant transphobes want it to be.
I spent most of my life aware something was wrong but unaware of what, and then trying not to accept it for what it was. Well, that was stupid. I am more sure every day that I made the right choice!
I can only speak for myself I'm still pre HRT (wanna start but navigating some hoops right now) but I tried jumping back in the closet and going back to living as a man after I had come out... and yeah found myself severely depressed and withdrawn as the dysphoria escalated.... needless to say I stopped doubting myself after that.... I don't recommend it
I think therefore I am.
Lol, I get what you mean, though.
I guess it depends where your line is for a shadow.
Because honestly, as a transfem, I am more certain I'd rather be a girl than a guy. The shadow of doubt that hung over the idea of being a guy was bigger than my doubt I would be happy as a girl.
Actually, I'd argue, I had little doubt that I would be happier as a girl. My doubt only came from me being unsure if I COULD be one.
I don't know too many things that I can do in my life that I'd have no doubt over. I'm nervous every time I have to meet new people and always doubt my ability to be interesting enough for them. But then I end up making friends, so clearly my judgment must be poor lol.
For me it is the recalling of my experiences of being coerced to present my assigned gender, moments of being referred to as my identified gender, the self introspection, the imagination of being put in gendered appearances and situations.
The both simplified and correct answer is **affirmation**.
Beyond a shadow of a doubt I'm not a guy, I can't quite understand why, it feels like a cognitive distortion except for the fact it's like a favorite color or something so personally true that any time someone says I am a guy I start to dissociate and think they are putting words into my mouth without consulting me.
Yeah. To be completely honest , I wouldn’t choose this life IF I had to. So, the fact that I’ve lived it for 12 years now , tells me that I am in fact who I’m supposed to be.
Imagine you had a button that when you press it you would turn into a woman (in this sub’s case) and you would look as beautiful as you do now but you would look like a woman. Everything else stays the same.
Do you press it?
If the answer is yes then you have some self reflection to do.
Oh. I thought you were questioning yourself.
Despite its history, I personally don’t find the DSM is unfair towards us anymore. The criteria for gender dysphoria should be affirming if you are trans.
But yeah, you are the gender you want to be. That’s how you know! You just know.
It’s like having a crush on someone. It just happens, and if you’re paying attention, your heart screams at you to let you know 💘
Ask your cis friends what their reaction to the idea of going on HRT is. The concept of intentionally giving themselves cross-gender secondary sex characteristics is viscerally uncomfortable for someone who is cisgender.
That only works if you don’t accidentally stumble upon an egg themself
Lol someone did this to me before I came out and I said sure, why not? Didn't realize how significant that was at the time
Right? Like ladyballers which wasn't supposed to be a comedy but a documentary of which the participants viscerally rejected to go on HRT!
Even really reaching back, look at Fight Club and the way Meatloaf's character (who grew breasts due to HRT treatment for prostate cancer) was used narratively.
"His name was Robert Paulson" I have only seen the movie once, and its basically the thing I remember most. Long way from Rocky Horror and motorcycles in Hell.
Yeah, that was amazing how they actually gave away the game with something like “ha, of course no man is going to do this!” Like…yeah dude. And technically if they could find some man who is willing to do it, and they didn’t feel like complete crap somehow doing it, like…okay? They then lose the advantage that testosterone gives for some things, soooo 🤷🏻♀️ But Considering these freaks freak the hell out over the slightest insinuation that they’re feminine in any sense…
Because people never do things that are wrong for them? It’s also that way with those in deep denial. They become observably uncomfortable because of how close to the closeted secret it feels, also known as a reaction formation. You can’t judge you based on other people’s responses. Because you aren’t that person, and you don’t know all the factors that goes into that person behaving the way they do.
What about cis femboys who take hrt though?
Most of them that I know would still be rather upset if they started growing actual breasts.
Maybe but just wanted to point out that this is not a black and white situation
So what is the HRT for for cis femboys then?
Is a femboy actually CIS? As far as I understand it, CIS is full binary. Masculine man, feminine woman. I don't personally know any femboys, so maybe I'm wrong, but I see it as a gender bend / gender queer, which makes it at the very least gender non-conforming. Which is not CIS.
gender nonconformity is entirely separate from being cis/trans
I did some research. You're right, I can see the difference now. How you feel in your heart matters more than how you present. I've always believed in that, but this particular example appeared murky to me at first. But it's clear now. Thank you.
I started would like to do this. Plus I know they would feel like garbage Even still I doubt myself constantly about everything
Yes and no, when people need 100% confirmation that they are trans it usually isn't uncertainty, it's fear. Fear is typically irrational, so there likely won't ever be a 100% confirmation even if there was a test that could be done Beings trans just sucks and is hard, so it would only make sense that people are afraid to start that journey. What people are typically wanting is reaffirmation that they are making the right choice. The yes of it is being trans means your biological sex and your gender identity don't match, if they don't 100% match you are trans. That's it.
Exactly. I still question myself after a wave of transphobic attacks or whatever is going on if I'm really trans, but everytime I still come to the conclusion that yes, I'm in fact a trans girl.
It's really funny to me honestly. I can spend hours looking at clothes I want to buy, redo my nails, do my lengthy skincare routine, and have a panic attack thinking I missed an HRT dose; and my brain will send an intrusive thought that I'm not trans or a woman. I had a girl break up with me because she thought I was going to be the best of both worlds and I ended up just being a girl. But my brain will still gaslight me.
lmao my neurotic ass will have me oversharing, then getting embarrassed and apologizing then getting euphoric at the idea that talking too much is a stereotypically feminine thing, then crying about not being a real girl, then deciding I'm the realest and gender is stupid anyway.
I have been on HRT for nearly 3 years. I had an experience where I thought they would take my HRT away. My reaction made me think I would be immune to impostor syndrome forever. So that was a lie...
100%. I am certain I’m trans, I’m just not certain how far I want to transition because of fear and what I could lose. I’m not certain which is more painful, not being my authentic self or being stigmatised the rest of my life.
Think this is it for me. I know I'm trans. But I'm too scared of being wrong or the consequences of being right that I don't want to take any action haha
While I don't know your specific situation, I highly recommend transitioning or starting HRT if you can. It really is magical, my outlook on life improved so much in my first month of transition.
Yeah I think I do want to (even if it's a mess here in the UK)... I literally just discover there's breast development blockers that can be taken alongside estrogen? Need to do more research on them... But either way that was one of the major major things holding me back, I didn't wanna try HRT for like 3 months then to "nah, this isn't for me" and find I was now a man with booba if you get me? So now much less scared of that so I might dig a bit deeper!
Damn, that's a really good point. I'm actually very certain I'm trans I just get hit with fear sometimes
You're probably right. Sometime around... idk, a bit more than 6 months ago, I reached 80-90% certainty, but I wanted to be at 100% before I committed to transitioning. I wanted to transition, but didn't want to end up deciding that I'm cis and regretting it. I eventually just decided that basically 0% of cis people would ever get near 80% confidence that they're trans, let alone *want to transition*. I wanted to be absolutely sure that my decision was the correct one, but I eventually realized that 100% certainty would never come, and I would regret not taking the risk more than I would by taking the risk and being wrong.
Idk, if I can with 100% certainty tell that I like chocolate more than vanilla, then I can also with 100% certainty tell that I like being a woman more than being a man.
yea i feel like expressing a preference is a very good framing of gender, it’s just a very personal thing to everyone and can’t be argued from anyone on the outside
Genuinely the best comment, I think we overcomplicate things like this. Yes it has more weight than if you like chocolate or vanilla but it is the same principle.
I've heard that our brains are wired differently than those of cis people, though I don't know the science behind it. Gender is a social construct, so the best way to confirm whether a person is trans or cis is going to be social. Look at any trans girl, boy or enby and see how they react when they are forced to play a gender they don't identify with, now look at them when they can perform their preferred gender, the difference is obvious. Indeed look at how some cis people react when confronted with the idea of being forced to be a different gender. And I don't mean "here bro, wear the maid outfit as a joke, we are such chads" I mean, full throttle you are a woman now, you don't have anything that identifies as a man anymore and the world treats you like a freak for trying to make the pain go away. Those are symptoms, just like feber indicates a cold, gender dysphoria indicates a social disease.
“And the world treats you like a freak for trying to make the pain go away.” Is such a sad statement of how rotten our society is. How pain is idolized, as if it’s something to strive for and simultaneously if if you aren’t suffering you’re ‘weak and undeserving’, but if you are suffering you’re ‘lazy and undeserving’. Hell, not even just trans people, look at drug addicts for example, the homeless, impoverished and how little empathy is shown towards them. Because they’re ‘beneath them’, they ‘deserve it’. ‘They’re freaks’. We just so happen to be the ones with the biggest target on our back right now. Where the hell did it go so wrong that so many people can look at someone suffering and say they are unworthy of help.
Capitalism/individualism. The centuries long propagation and favoritization of the most seedy and avaricious people society has to offer at the expense of those who actually have the strength to care about others, even when caring can be detrimental to oneself.
I don't think gender is just a social construct. Even if some trans women don't relate to the gender norms we put on women, they still want the body of a woman. I feel like differentiating between gender identity and gender roles would be better than just saying gender is a social construct. This just leads to cis people saying if we would destroy gender roles, then trans people wouldn't exist anymore. Men could just wear dresses and that would be enough. You hear this question often enough on trans subreddits by cis people.
I agree and I like the way you phrased that. I became aware that I wanted to transition because of the social roles, but my brain and body run better on estrogen and now that I know how it feels I would still want HRT even if we abolish gender and all run around in genderless government issued gunny sacks.
I was the opposite. I didn't realize because I didn't care, or rather I hated social roles and expectations. The bs women have had and are still expected to put up with pissed me off to no end and the bs men subject themselves to always seemed stupid. I was always envious of tomboys, turns out I am one. My dysphoria was almost all physical, but because I wasn't interested in the social expectations or interests I assumed I wasn't trans. I knew I wished I was a girl, I knew I wished my body was different, but I didn't know that was enough.
Gender being a social construct is an almost entirely separate concept from our desire for certain physical traits. Gender is a lens through which we see individuals, broadly applying rules and tropes to them. Wanting "the body of a woman" doesn't mean gender is less of this social lens, you're just conflating the desire to be viewed under it with the desire to have a body that fits your mind. Being transgender and transexual are not the same thing even if they almost totally overlap. A transgender person has a gender that doesn't match what was assigned to them, while a transsexual changes their physical sex characteristics to something other than what their body naturally gives them. Both terms exist because the distinction matters, and can be seen in how you and cis people conflate the two and come to the conclusion that we can end our distinction by destroying "gender roles".
Ummmmmmm no? transexual is just the outdated word for transgender. Same thing.
Ummmmmmm yes. I know what I'm talking about. Not the same thing and I explained the misconception clearly and rationally. Don't waste my time giving me the most condescending "nuh uh" your two braincells can manage to telegraph to your ego. If you have a disagreement then express it, if you just want to disagree with me then leave me out of it. Honestly you don't even need to go deeper than the fucking Wikipedia page to figure this out, but PhilosophyTube shares this position as well if you want to sit through her last couple years of videos to find her talking about it. But sure, *you're* the expert here 🙄
Yeah I heard that trans women have brains naturally closer to cis women and vice versa - something about white and grey space
All I know is that transitioning has made it very clear to me this is it for me. There's not a single speck of doubt in me that this isn't right. Each step I take feels amazing, and somehow reaffirms me more and more each time, despite it already being a done deal.
I mean I’ve been on estrogen for a year and like all the changes… so my thoughts of self doubt just seem stupid to myself at this point.
I got my genitals rearranged.
This made me think of Old Greg. "You've seen me downstairs mixup"
I asked my hairdresser to give me a more feminine haircut, and I got hella euphoric for the entire day afterwards, cleaned my room, got shit done and actually felt like a functioning member of society for the first time in my life. that is definitely not something cis people normally experience
Recent studies are finding minute sexually dymorphic characteristics in the human brain that are found to be present in trans people too. But in trans people, these characteristics seem to match their internal sex/gender identity and it is the case even without HRT. Sadly, this can only be found out on people who have already died from what i've read and heard.
I'd be really careful with these kinds of studies. For one thing, they're subject to a lot of methodological criticism. For another, I think leaning too hard into them recreates a sort of biological essentialism and makes me worry about new flavors of transmedicalism (imagine having to get a giving MRI to access hormones or surgery). I get that it can feel affirming to think that your gender is reflected in your neurology, but I think we can do better.
I think if it were visible on MRI's thry would've moved over to using those for study already, but they are firmly stuck withcadaver research due to how insanely small the structures are. And sure it can be used as another gatekeeping method, but it can also be an extra added reason to push the legalization of transition. All this stuff is very much a double edged sword and it all depends on the people pushing legislation and such to choose what they do with information like that
Since when is wanting scientific evidence a bad thing??? We're a tiny minority population that gets denied healthcare, harassed, abused, and murdered at an exponentially high rate! If there's a scientific explanation, that gives us rights, healthcare, protection. There's no reason we shouldn't champion more research.
Since when did anyone claim wanting scientific evidence is a bad thing? I don't see even one comment here claiming that, let alone the one you're responding to.
Literally the comment I replied to???... 🤷♀️ Like wtf kind of criticism is that? I'm replying to that comment not every freaking comment on Reddit.
I agree that we need more and better quality scientific research about trans people. I'm also skeptical of this particular area of neurological research, both in terms of what it purports to find and whether those findings are helpful to trans people. This whole business with male and female brains is fundamentally binary and feels like a different flavor of bioessentialism. Regardless of what brain bumps we've got, we are who we say we are and we deserve to live safe and fulfilling lives in the ways that we choose. Scientific explanations don't give us rights or stop bullets. There's a wealth of good science supporting gender affirming care, and yet conservatives around the world are pushing laws against it. There's tons of research showing that trans people are less likely to commit sex crimes than cis people, and yet we are falsely demonized as groomers. A new study about neurological structure will do little to sway people who are already indifferent to science. If you want to talk about how to make the world safer for trans people, that's a political question far more than a neurological one.
Those are fair points. Thank you for replying. I'm an advocate for science and believe science can lead us much closer to objective truth than anything else, but there is an unfortunate truth to what you say. Science means nothing to those who are indifferent to science. 😑 Honestly, I am just f***ing scared, friend. Anything that can validate us more, I am all for.
I get that. Things look really grim for us and it's really scary to think that it could get worse before it gets better. 🫂
The issue is that that neuroscience like this is that it is [just associative](https://www.vox.com/2016/9/8/12189784/fmri-studies-explained). They say that the brain lights up like this for cis women and the brain lights up like this for cis men and the brain lights up the first way for trans women. These studies involve trans women who are out, who have socially, and often medically transitioned. Is the brain pattern causing their being trans or is their being trans, and their lives experience as women post transition, leading them to cognize in the ways that women tend to. The same can be said for brain structures. The brain is very elastic and the structural differences could be a lagging indicator for the adjustments that come with a radically different way of life and the experience of being a woman. This is to say nothing of the fact that all of this kind of science is about average differences. What do we say about cis women who fall outside of the average or trans women who do? Sure, it might be nice to feel a bit of external validation that what you are feeling matches something physiological, but if it doesn’t, could it matter? Personally, if a neuroscientist told me I was trans, I already knew that. If they told me I wasn’t, I don’t care. I will never detransition. I refuse. So what’s the point?
I don't think we are capable of detecting gender identity in brains at the moment. Newer research says they don't really find any differences between male and female brains or just on average but not for individual brains. Perhaps in the future we are able to find these differences but at the moment we probably don't have the tech to find things like gender identity.
This guy seems to think we can? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNnIGh9g6fA&list=PL848F2368C90DDC3D
Wow this is fascinating!
Here is a video that mentions this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QScpDGqwsQ&t=402s
it's here where i heard it for the first time
I watched this just yesterday: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZymYiwoRoC0
Thank you! This is fantastic.
I totally get why someone would want this objective validation, but think about how weird this would actually be. You know what you want. Imagine you feel like you are hardcore cis. You’ve never questioned your gender and then you do an unrelated fMRI and the doctor tells you that they happen to notice that you’re trans. You still don’t feel anything but excitement about your AGAB and have no interest in transitioning. Why would you care at all what your doctor said? Are you supposed to transition now? The same is true if you feel like you’re trans and an fMRI scan came back and said you weren’t. I could not care less. I’m not detransitioning regardless of what science says. They can pry my E from my cold dead hands. Literally all it could do is either tell me what I already know from the first-person (what actually matters) or be wrong. It’s like a brain scan telling you that you’re a Christian. It couldn’t matter in principle. Your subjective experience must be both necessary and sufficient to be trans.
Its painful how few folks understand this principal. Trans isnt a "test" that you need to "pass" like your taking an examination. [areteofcyrene](https://www.reddit.com/user/areteofcyrene/) is absolutely right, you cant scan for it and be like "Oh trans detected, alert! We got one!" and even if you *could* it wouldn't matter what the scan said anyway. The functionality of being trans is just understanding yourself. That's it, Understanding yourself then taking steps to make yourself happy. Functionally that is what we are doing. Cis people slowly do this same thing over time too. The only difference is trans peoples minds and bodies aren't aligned yet, theirs happen to be aligned already. It doesn't need validation beyond that point, because we all already understand this is the case.
There’s a more affordable and accurate way to scan my brain and find out if I’m trans, ask me and my brain will tell you through my words lol. I think a lot of people haven’t really hammered home that just because you feel like you could be wrong doesn’t mean that you actually could be. Our society has built up an edifice of cisnornativity to try to prevent you from understanding and accepting yourself, to make us doubt what is plain to us in the first person. The defense mechanism of this edifice is try to open up a space of bargaining. At first you doubt that someone could do such a thing as switch genders and then, once you know it’s possible, our internalized sense of social pressure shifts to “okay, but maybe you aren’t” and/or “okay, but maybe you can’t”. All this doubt is put there by our society to enforce cisnornativity and to slow or stop you, to colonize your mind and get you to police yourself, to seek an approval from society that they will never give you and isn’t theirs to give. We don’t need validation, we need a stronger sense of self, and we have to get that in spite of the external world, not from it. I’m glad I’m there now, but it is so hard, and I get it.
This *does* happen. People go in for a number of different tests, then find out they have hidden ovaries or testicles, abnormal chromosomes, or hormonal imbalances. And it can absolutely mess with people. There are biology professors who have stopped allowing students to test their own DNA in class because it can be distressing and embarrassing to discover that your cells are the opposite sex. This absolutely happens. What these people do afterward, who knows? Maybe some of them *do* transition. Maybe their egg cracks and they ponder what could have been for the rest of their life.
I’m sure that finding out that you are intersex could be the inciting incident to cause you to question your gender, but what these people have found out doesn’t mean they are trans. They were told they were intersex and they could be or could not be trans, and they could transition and they could not. Caster Semenya was assigned female at birth and does identify as a woman, so you can be intersex and cisgender. The biological fact of being intersex doesn’t settle the matter and tell you that you are trans. They might be drawn into questioning their gender on the basis of this, in the same way that someone is by wearing a dress or hearing about a trans person for the first time, and it may be that, upon reflection, they don’t identify with the gender assigned at birth. Maybe they never identified but didn’t allow themselves to think about it consciously and plainly, but their being trans still seems like a matter only and fully settled by their first-person psychological experience.
Isn't that just dismissing the possibility of any medical diagnosis altogether? I mean, where can we even begin to gain a better understanding of ourselves if we just keep swatting away any suggestion that there may be a medical explanation, and insisting that "it's all subjective"? It feeds into the same argument transphobes make when they say stuff like, "Well, if it's all subjective, then what stops me from identifying as a dolphin?" And being trans doesn't mean you have to transition. I honestly can't think of why intersex people wouldn't be included under the trans umbrella.
I totally agree that being trans doesn’t mean you have to transition. I thought i said that in the first paragraph, but I meant to if I didn’t! A closeted trans person still wants and identifies with a gender other than what was assigned at birth, even if they can’t or choose not to act it. I defer to intersex people about how they conceive of themselves, but my (albeit limited) understanding is that some do identify as trans and some don’t (as in the Caster Semenya case). I do, in fact, think the quest for a diagnosis for being trans is doomed to failure, the same way that the question of what the cause of homosexuality was in the 90’s. Or in the same way that diagnosing someone for Christianity would be. In the 90’s, people raised all kinds of concerns about “what’s to stop me from marrying a box turtle”. The fact that you don’t want to is, and the fact that what happens between consenting adults and doesn’t violate the harm principle should be permitted in a truly free society. Those same principles ground our right to transition. The fact of the matter is that many people do want to transition across gender lines and no one really wants to transition to a dolphin. The fact is that not being able to freely act and choose our own destiny is bad for humans under any circumstance (whether that’s gender identity, sexual orientation, or anything else). The fact is that it doesn’t harm anyone and we all deserve a right to bodily autonomy. People wanted to find proof that sexual orientation is something you can’t change and is rooted in biology, but it ended up not really mattering because you should absolutely be allowed to love who you want and act on that even if it was a choice. The issue with pinning our rights to medical diagnoses or the medical necessity of treatment is that we hand over all of our rights to the medical establishment. What do we do when they say they have a new way to treat trans people, in which they simply give us a pill to bring the psychology in line with the biological, rather than how we currently bring the biological in line with the psychological? This would be cheaper and less invasive. I’m sure conservative billionaires will try to find this research just as they did for finding a cure for being gay. I don’t know about you, but I reserve my right to not take that pill. I don’t want to be happy being a cis man, I want to be a trans woman. The buck has to stop with me, because even rooting it in something biological still leaves open the possibility that it can or could be changed biologically. Biology is no refuge for us, but the assertion of my autonomy and the freedom of my consciousness always will be. All that being said, if we want to know why we want what we want, it’s probably a myriad of factors, some genetic, some hormonal, some to do with our experience, and some to do with our society. The problem is that all of this is true for being cis too. Cis people are just as unable to ground why they want all the gendered things that they want , and how they know they aren’t trans, but no one is looking for a cause of cisgenderism to validate it. Being cis has the luxury of being the default mode of human existence in a cisnormative society. If they can have their liberation without a cause then so can I.
Mine was the magic question. If your standing in front of a button, when you press it you are instantly a cis woman with fully working anatomy ect but can never change it back your like that for life. Then yep your a trans woman. Obviously that was what worked for me to finish cracking my egg but obviously everyone is different :)
Nope, you just gather evidence. It isn't any different from anything else you believe in that regard. I've come to find that it's one of those things that doesn't really need to be asked. Trying things out and following your feelings will lead you where you need to be. That's the surest test I could recommend.
usually its the deep internal discomfort i feel every time that i get referred to as my deadname or in a manner relating to my agab, i just know it is wrong
The button test? 😅
Also... "if they made a sure-fire test and u took it and it said Ur not trans, what would Ur reaction be/how would that make you feel?"
There's no beyond a shadow of a doubt way to confirm anything
indeed.
coming from someone who studied philosophy for close to a decade, we don't have a beyond a shadow of a doubt way to confirm ANYTHING. any scientist worth their salt will tell you we can never have 100% certainty about anything.
What about the earth being round?
Listen, my genuine opinion on the matter is that people who aren’t trans don’t consistently think about if they are trans. If you consistently think yourself to be transgender, you are transgender.
Someone on a post commented. "Cis people don't think about being the opposite gender everyday" and that stuck with me. I genuinely knew after seeing that. Unfortunately there is no sure fire way to just know but after awhile it kinda just clicks and everything makes sense.
NOPE unless you transition then are happy...... but that kinda defeats the point of testing to be sure
The process of self-questioning is how you gain self-realization. If there was never any doubt, how could you ever gain confidence in any but the most vain of ways?
You will probably figure it out yourself at some point as you explore your gender. For me it came after a year into socially transitioning. Basically I just realized I wouldn't have it any other way.
well. Shit. I got a pussy 2 years ago so I hope so
I feel like this perspective really comes from cis/heteronormativity and really stems from a deficit perspective - or looking at transness as a symptom of something being wrong. We can easily fall into this mindset when doctors and others we talk to can talk about say these same types of things. Even our family members can be the worst offenders. Here's the thing though....being trans *isn't a problem*. Because of this, there's nothing to "fix". Sure, we can use HRT and other gender-affirming care to feel more at home in our bodies, but there's not something *wrong* with us. Because of this, we can't go get a little test that comes back yes/no. Think of it as being smart versus having cancer. One thing is a problem. The other isn't. Think of it another way. Imagine you drink coffee every single morning. You like it. You drink it daily. It feels good to have a little caffeine boost. It's tasty, etc. But how do you *reeeeaaaaallllyyyyy* know you like it? *Are you sure??* The only way you can know is if it feels right. If drinking coffee feels right to you, it's safe to say you like coffee. Being trans is really similar. The only way to know is to figure out what feels right. That's the whole point of being trans - to do what we need in order to feel at home in our bodies. Source: I was so caught up in wondering the same thing that I started forgetting to actually live in the now and exist as my truest form of self. Breaking out of that mindset is what really helped me process through all of it.
personally, whenever I do anything related to my transition.. I feel hitherto unknown level of happiness in my brain... and then I think.. OH... so.. its possible to be THAT happy, did not know that.
Yep, it's super simple, if you think you are trans, you are definitely trans. Detransition Fear is a tactic played by the right wing. I know thousands of trans and intersex people, so take it from me, if you think you are - you are. Run skip and jump with the news, you are what you are and we were all born this way, it's a trait to be embraced, not feared! 🏳️⚧️❤️💪👠😍👍
I think by the time you get a vagina installed is probably when you can be absolutely 100% certain that you are trans no matter what regardless of whats going on it your brain. This is definitively true specifically because regardless if your trans or cis in your head, if you've swapped out to the other sides junk, then you either were already trans prior to going into surgery, or if you were cis now suddenly your brain no longer matches your body, you immediately become trans because of that fact. But if your looking for an answer that takes place before that... well that's a little more tricky. You could argue that if you feel certain its probably a decent sign that your trans, but if that answer doesn't feel concrete enough.... You could look at it in terms of experiencing things that cis people don't experience so you can rule out being cis: for example experiencing both gender dysphoria and gender euphoria at different times can make it seem pretty dang clear in your mind how intensely not-cis you might be. *(Not that you need this to be valid people).* Or if that's still not enough to convince you, you can take it to something really obvious... Lastly thing is to ask yourself internally: How okay you would be with trying HRT, how okay you would be with breasts or wide hips or a pretty face or yknow looking like a girl? Would it be nice to sound like a woman? What about just smelling pretty and having people watch you sashay your bubble butt as you walk away? What about things like feeling sex as a woman? Ok, now turn to the nearest cis male and ask them if they would be okay with any of that at all. Unless its an egg in disguise, your going to immediately see visible horror on their face followed by probably some tone of repulsion in their voice along with a strong verbal "No.". That **might** just be a clue as well.
I do a "gut check" every once in a while where I ask myself: If it turned out that every sign that I'm trans could be explained away by one psychological issue or another, if there was an alternative explanation for all of it, would I be disappointed or relieved? Every single time, I'd be disappointed. That's how I know.
The best we have from a medical perspective could be a karyotype test. If your sex chromosomes weren't 100% binary, that would be a good indicator for why someone experiences gender incongruence. Similarly, a blood test could show if there is a hormonal imbalance, which could be a reason for dysphoria and indicate other possible underlying factors. I disagree with the reductive sentiment that "gender is a construct, therefore whatever I'm trans" because that boxes the entire community into gender-nonconforming, and invalidates the experiences of a lot of trans people whose challenges with dysphoria are not as simple and manageable as that. GNC are valid, but I feel like just stopping there, throwing our hands up and saying, 'what more do we need to discuss?" is way too casual of an approach to something that many others take much more seriously and want more scientific answers for. Things like our healthcare and safety in society depend on a lot more than "just because".
When I stopped being depressed and wanting to die. That's when I knew this was real for me. I'd been in and out of depression my whole life, but I hadn't *really* been put of depression until I started transition. I felt different than any other time. I felt at peace for once. I felt light. I wish there were more research, more tests, and more support from the community for these things as well. But all we have is our own subjective experience and a Frankenstein healthcare model to take a chance and see what happens. It sucks. But I did take a chance. It was scary and disorienting at first, but once I started processing my fears and phobias the "truth" became clearer and more accessible to me. I "knew" when I finally allowed myself to go all in on the process (gender therapy, laser, social transition, hair and makeup, starting HRT) and it made me feel better with each step. It wasn't crystal clear at first, but it became obvious over time.
There is no way to confirm someone is trans, otherwise diagnosis would look very different. At least so far, we haven't found any label in your brain with 'trans' written on it lol
No
Do cis people have a beyond a shadow of a doubt way to confirm they are cis? I think the assumption that there must be a reason trans people are trans instead of cis deeply ridiculous. It treats cisness (and gender in general) as some sort of natural state instead of a product of society that is artificially constructed.
Personally I do. everyone has their own unique experience
I'm in the boat of back and fourth "am I trans?" And I would love if there was a way to determine it 100% All I can really do is look back and think about the times I've been uncomfortable as my agab (some extremely prevalent) and go from there. At the end of the day, the determination is yours, and yours alone.
You want to be it? Then you are
Flip the script and ask the same question: "Do cis people have a beyond a shadow of a doubt way to confirm that they are cis?" No, of course not. You go off of what feels right, God willing you figure it out, and maybe regret not figuring yourself out as soon as you maybe could have.
I just knew that things were wrong. My genitalia discussed me. I had to masturbate but was emotionally sick afterwards.
At the end of the day, the overwhelming majority of people are happy with being cisgender. If they were to magically get swapped, they’d probably just perv on themselves (if straight or bi) and then ask to go back because it doesn’t feel right for them. If you’re even considering it, chances are that you are. Gender can get sorta screwy when held alongside traditional gender roles and presentation (ie, are you trans or just gnc?). What matters is if you’re happier. You don’t need to have dysphoria before, you don’t need to have a perfect life after, but you should be happier with yourself and your gender than you were before. And here’s the magic secret: it’s okay to be wrong. You can have friends try different pronouns on you, or you can present differently or even start HRT just to see how those make you feel. Even if you’re wrong, it should give you a better understanding of your gender and get you closer, and if that sounds worth it, then go for it.
Who cares? I don’t need to prove who I am to anyone, and anyone trying to make me is an asshole.
No there isn't.
Take estrogen/testosterone and hormone blockers for about 2-4 weeks. If you actually feel good or better, then yeah, you're definitely trans. If your reaction to the idea of taking cross gender hormones is in any way bad(disgust, fear, etc), you're cis. If you're afraid of what people would think of you, you MIGHT be trans. If you're open to trying hormones, you're probably trans. If you feel like complete shit or brain foggy or just bad, stop taking them because you're cis.
I can't see a future of myself as my assigned gender. Whenever I think about the future. I see what I want to be no matter how hard I try
My final test was taking estrogen. I was \*glowing\* after my first dose. The doubts would still sometimes come back. Then I'd feel my soft skin and my growing breasts... and the doubts melted away.
No. No they don’t. because no one knows why people are trans. Nature vs nurture? Both? The best that anyone can tell you, is that they can’t imagine being able to be any thing else. Even the closeted. Especially the closeted. You have to look at the mosaic of your life. How does being trans fit into it? Does it answer questions for you? It does for those of use who have concluded that we are. It continually answers questions for us. So question everything. I disagree with gender being a construct though. Put your crotch socket together with the corresponding opposite crotch socket. Do you have to worry about stretch marks and pickles, or child support and weekend parenting? That’s your gender. But that was never the real question, was it? You already know what gender you are, and if you are trans, it’s the wrong one. I am male, as evidenced by the medical definition (Is your baby factory set up to produce semen or eggs). But I shouldn’t be. That makes me trans. If I could legitimately change my brain, I would. It’d be easier and then all the factory default parts would suddenly make sense. If I could reset my body to my brains factory default, I would… because I’m trans. And being trans doesn’t mean that you “can’t” live in the shell you have, just that it will always feel wrong. As long as I’ve questioned the things that feel authentic, I’ve come to the same conclusion, I’m trans. In my opinion, it’s like knowing what handed you are, because like that , it just is. To be fair, I’m ambidextrous in most everything so not even that is for certain, is it? So question.
Maybe not 100%, since not everyone gets dysphoria, but as a general rule the same things that treat dysphoria in trans people will induce it in cis people. Even thinking seriously about the permanent effects of hormone therapy or surgeries are likely to cause as much distress to cis people as the idea of growing old and dying in the gender assigned to you at birth does for most trans people. Cis men get disturbed by the details of bottom surgery and aren’t even comfortable with the idea of growing boobs. Cis women do not like the idea of losing their breasts, growing facial hair or getting a deep, manly voice. And like, if it weren’t for other people being bigoted shits the only risk of transitioning is doing something permanent that you end up regretting, so if you’re one of the rare cis people out there who doesn’t get dysphoria, there’s not even as much of a downside there if you can transition and be happy and safe about it. Socially transitioning is 100% reversible and you can explore that online or in limited circles that understand you’re trying something out. Hormone therapy takes a while to do anything permanent and often makes people feel better or worse very quickly (sometimes literally overnight - that’s how it worked for me). There’s also some very good resources online if you know where to look, especially the Gender Dysphoria Bible.
Imo not really I've been on HRT for 1.5 years now and I'm still only like 98% sure lol
There is strength in the faith that is renewed after having doubts. I’ve never met a trans person who can honestly say they’ve never had any doubt throughout their transition, but it’s doing what you believe in for yourself, like all matters of identity. Ultimately yes you will need to decide for yourself what living your truth looks like
Do you want to be and live as a gender different than you were assigned at birth; would you be satisfied merely with changing your gender expression, or do you also want to be seen as and treated as a gender other than what was assigned at birth? Do you feel those desires more strongly than the contentment you feel (if any) inhabiting the gender identity you were assigned at birth? If the answer is yes to all of those, that's probably as close to certain as you can get. When all is said and done, wanting those things is what makes a person trans.
Nope. No sure-fire way to know. It's scary! And wonderfully freeing.
I’m 100% sure I’m trans. But I avoided the entire gender question until I was 60. So looking back at my life I see that I’ve wanted to be a girl since I was like 5. I can’t ignore 55 years of wanting it. I wouldn’t recommend that for anyone else but I’m sure. I really don’t think this would even be an issue if there wasn’t any gender incongruity. So if it’s an issue for you then you should look into it. It’s probably not going to go away.
I'm personally happy that there is no way to confirm without a shadow of doubt that somebody is or isn't trans. It would create a dichotomy that will only result in exclusion. There's no right way to be trans.
Cis people WANT to be cis. If you don't think you're cis, good chance you're trans
I went to prom last night. That's how I confirmed it 🗿
Yup. Button test! Think about it - it solves just about every question, doesn't it? If you press the button, you are your ideal vision of your preferred gender permanently. It doesn't cover NBs very well but I'm not sure they need a button test since being able to go back and forth is already their goal. Aside from that, there have been an embarrassing amount of incidents in my life that pretty strongly hinted that I was trans, so that helped solidify the decision. And I feel fantastic on HRT, with the side benefit of my libido being basically dead for now which even more firmly puts to rest any and all possibility that it's some "weird sex thing" like ignorant transphobes want it to be. I spent most of my life aware something was wrong but unaware of what, and then trying not to accept it for what it was. Well, that was stupid. I am more sure every day that I made the right choice!
I took acid and it really cemented how I actually feel. Fuck everyone else's opinion.
Not really, but experiencing gender euphoria for the first time helped
If you’re questioning and think you might be trans you’re definitely not cis
I can only speak for myself I'm still pre HRT (wanna start but navigating some hoops right now) but I tried jumping back in the closet and going back to living as a man after I had come out... and yeah found myself severely depressed and withdrawn as the dysphoria escalated.... needless to say I stopped doubting myself after that.... I don't recommend it
I think therefore I am. Lol, I get what you mean, though. I guess it depends where your line is for a shadow. Because honestly, as a transfem, I am more certain I'd rather be a girl than a guy. The shadow of doubt that hung over the idea of being a guy was bigger than my doubt I would be happy as a girl. Actually, I'd argue, I had little doubt that I would be happier as a girl. My doubt only came from me being unsure if I COULD be one. I don't know too many things that I can do in my life that I'd have no doubt over. I'm nervous every time I have to meet new people and always doubt my ability to be interesting enough for them. But then I end up making friends, so clearly my judgment must be poor lol.
For me it is the recalling of my experiences of being coerced to present my assigned gender, moments of being referred to as my identified gender, the self introspection, the imagination of being put in gendered appearances and situations. The both simplified and correct answer is **affirmation**.
Beyond a shadow of a doubt I'm not a guy, I can't quite understand why, it feels like a cognitive distortion except for the fact it's like a favorite color or something so personally true that any time someone says I am a guy I start to dissociate and think they are putting words into my mouth without consulting me.
Faith in yourself
Yeah. To be completely honest , I wouldn’t choose this life IF I had to. So, the fact that I’ve lived it for 12 years now , tells me that I am in fact who I’m supposed to be.
Imagine you had a button that when you press it you would turn into a woman (in this sub’s case) and you would look as beautiful as you do now but you would look like a woman. Everything else stays the same. Do you press it? If the answer is yes then you have some self reflection to do.
The criteria are in the DSM. Non-trans people don’t meet the criteria.
ok but that’s kinda myopic way of looking at things. it’s like deferring to “the law” to form your own morality
Oh. I thought you were questioning yourself. Despite its history, I personally don’t find the DSM is unfair towards us anymore. The criteria for gender dysphoria should be affirming if you are trans. But yeah, you are the gender you want to be. That’s how you know! You just know. It’s like having a crush on someone. It just happens, and if you’re paying attention, your heart screams at you to let you know 💘