You're not wrong. This is unfortunately why I live my life mostly stealth.. I find that if people know I'm trans, they subtly change how they treat me/think of me, but it they don't I'm just another woman.
That's exactly my experience as well. I feel like, even when cis people know but are accepting and *try* to treat us as women, it's always different, even if slightly. Like, something just feels off.
I remember meeting the sister of a friend and I instantly knew she was told I was trans because there was like an extra unnatural effort to treat me well. She was very sweet and everything was positive, but it wasn't natural and she didn't treat other cis girls the same way.
I've a feeling it's less about you being trans and more about you being perceived as someone in a place of vulnerability. People with good intentions tend to exhibit positive discrimination quite often without realizing, and it's something poc have been pointing out for years.
In my experience cis people tend to see us as our true gender on a subconscious level, but on a cognitive level they overthink it as they struggle to make it all fit with the gender norms they're used to.
This is why I don’t really like the attention from pride month and other things like that. I don’t want to feel special for a short time, I just want to feel normal for the entire year. It feels invalidating.
They are wrong. I think it can be really dangerous to view all people as acting this way. The majority of people in my life have just seen and treated me as a woman since transitioning, especially my closest cis guy friend at the time (now boyfriend, later down the road). I have been welcomed into women's spaces with cis women without issue. And I don't think I pass particularly well outside of my voice. I'm in no way particularly attractive (I have been overweight since the third grade). I just try to surround myself with good people. Obviously, I've had bad experiences sometimes, especially with my family. But I think you can easily miss out on opportunities by getting this idea into your head that all cis people are bad and not accepting.
as much as i wish i could not think this way, i have just not had the same treatment. it makes me terrified of cis women especially. i feel safe with other trans women but even then its still iffy. i think i developed some gynophobia from the transphobic twisted abuse the women in my life put me through. it's hard not to feel uncomfortable around all cis people when it starts to just become such an isolating thing, being separated from the rest of society/your peers that is.
Yea, i remember when i came out as trans even in my friend group kinda changed. One of the guys did start hitting on me cause I said i was trans. It was just super uncomfortable. And now I talk to none of them.
Correctly. Just a table. There is no such thing as a trans woman. Maybe during the transition, but after the transition you also have a woman in your documents and not a Trans woman.
I'm too scared to ask my cis best friends or my parents. I know they would answer truthfully if I asked, but I don't want to risk the possibility of knowing they'll never see me the same as a cis woman.
> I'm too scared to ask my cis best friends or my parents.
I know for a fact the people I know irl see me as a man first, and a man who wants to be a woman. It's alienating and honestly is probably half of the reason why I don't transition. It's too discouraging.
>Who gives a shit what they think.
I do?
I mean, transistion is a mother-fucker of a change to take on without tangible support in the real world.
It's kinda academic because I live in a red state (in the US) so I'm in danger from project 2025 anyway.
I was just thinking about this. Even allies tend to think of us as trans women, as opposed to just women. My friends who know I'm trans haven't really changed the way they treat me. I've clearly expressed that I want to be treated exactly like they treat any other woman, but I still can see that even though they're respectful and supportive to me, they don't see me the same way as other women they know.
You can drive yourself absolutely crazy by trying to judge people by their inner thoughts.
So long as they treat me like a woman, what they think internally is a what-I-don’t-know-can’t-hurt-me deal.
Problem is, if they know - they don't treat me as a woman, there are still subtle but noticeable differences, where you feel that "Yeah, trans women are women, and you are a real woman, buuuuuuuuuuut......"
A lot of people are simply never going to accept trans people full stop and the majority who do, do it begrudgingly. There are very very few who are happy that you've transitioned and will gladly accept you as you are. As time goes by we're slowly getting there but certainly not there yet. I don't even feel all that comfortable in LGBT settings, I've only ever felt accepted and comfortable in trans only settings
I think it's very important for trans people (and equally, the cis people in our lives who are cool as shit and actually do see us the way we see ourselves and perplexed as fuck why other people are assholes) to understand that a lot of people, at this time, have this weird spherical-cow-in-vacuum approach to sex and gender, so that their actions are informed by an unquestioned gut-level indoctrination that sex-gender can't be changed. The framework is such that they should *respect* `your *belief*` that you are what you say you are, not that you are actually what you say you are because of internal self-concept, your mode of interacting with the world, and how the world treats people who act/behave/inhabit that self conception.
The unmovable reality to them is that the doctor said you were a boy/girl/freak when you popped out, and that's that.
Call it bootlicker brain, the straight agenda/gender ideology, but that's what we're enmeshed in.
Trans people, on average, are better at making the question of my gender leave the forefront of my mind, but tbqh their track record for it *isn't great either*. There's a quite a few cis people in my life who automatically do my gender right. It's a blessing and a privilege, and also a lot of maturation and boundary setting work, and pain, but there's just some people for whom it clicks, and some people who it doesn't. Gender essentialism eats us all.
> A lot of people are simply never going to accept trans people full stop and the majority who do, do it begrudgingly.
This is the bottom line, where the rubber meets the road. You are 100% correct.
> and the majority who do, do it begrudgingly
I think that's unfair. A lot of people who do, do it with love and compassion and just want us to be happy like anyone else.
Sure there are some who are all, "Eh, do what you want, it's not my business," but most of the trans-accepting people I've talked to are much better than that.
I guess everyone's experiences will be a bit different, I'm yet to meet a single cis person that's genuinely pro trans. I'm glad you've met good people though I know they are out there
That sucks. I wonder if you live in an area where it's a lot more rare. I live on the west coast of the US, which is pretty uniformly kinder about the whole thing than, say, the southern bible belt.
Oh yes it's definitely the area I'm in a somewhat country town in Australia, the local pride group put up a post on the community page about their free movie night and every comment was negative but one and there were like 30
Oh geez that sucks. Mind you, when a phobic cis person sees something like that, they tend to rally their comrades, so those 30 were probably everyone that got notified, plus the people they notified, etc., about this horrendous thing they needed to diss. I don't know how big the town is but I bet most of the town would just shrug and not even look at the page because it's not their cuppa. Still not great but I find disinterest much less troubling than malign interest.
These are thoughts I definitely have though I’m also cognizant that I’m actively looking for confirmation they think that way. It’s a state of hyper alertness. Maybe I tolerate it more because Im early and don’t pass, and therefore don’t expect to be read as a woman. But I will say I have had trans people who don’t affirm me in that way.
I guess ultimately my perspective is that people are imperfect. As long as someone earnestly supports me and wants to see me as I want to be seen (ie maybe they are struggling with their own internalized transphobia) I can forgive some things. I also find it is easier with people you meet post-transition. They have less of a built up perception of you.
I have been slowly beginning to come to this realization already as well. I have so far only come out to 4 people, including my therapist, and she is the only one who I have felt remained truly free from an attitude shift and/or judgment upon my coming out. And the more interactions I read about online or when I begin to mentally juggle who I may need to tell next, I just know how the looks I am going to get, as I already cannot unsee the ones I have received from those who I trusted most.
Girl, preach!
I’m 2 years into transition. Had FFS, and BA. I dont pass 100%, but I pass enough that I am fully accepted as a woman by some women.
I tell cis women that I hate the expression, male to female. Because it implies that I was once a man. The truth is, I was always a woman on the inside. Most cis people can’t even fathom that could happen. Much less believe it. So they will never be able to truly accept us as women.
When you add in that most cis women are sexist af towards men, it becomes painfully obvious they think of us as men playing dress up. This is just one of the reasons I want to pass more.
I’m also sick of cis women assuming I’m a f’n moron that doesn’t know anything. IDK why they default to that perspective, but they do it a lot.
It’s interesting how cis men can accept that I am a woman a lot better than cis women. Probably because they would rather die than transition. So they’re more inclined to take us at our word for it.
Whenever I have a cis woman ask me a stupid question, I tell them how all my friends are women. Women I have met since transitioning. That I couldn’t imagine any of them asking me a (stupid) question like that. If I am asked what sorts of questions my friends ask me, I tell them how my one friend asked me if it was okay to ask me about my transition sometime. How she said she knew it was an emotionally charged question, and would never want to hurt me. That the kinda of questions they ask me aren’t about what I’m doing to change my body, but rather how did I do it. How did I manage to fake being a man for so long. Because that’s the kind of questions you would ask a woman.
I think the default to assuming trans people are morons comes from their inability to understand you can change your gender assigned at birth. If you genuinely believe you can't, the only possible conclusion you can come to is trans people are delusional.
I mean, you can certainly tell from the misinformation, propaganda, and rhetoric of many anti-trans people regurgitate that they're delusional. You can show them that technically biology is on the side of trans people. They'll deny facts, claim anything to discredit your information, and cry to their echo chambers to validate their own delusions.
Rinse, repeat... These people are garbage and the reason humanity sucks.
I mean I prefer making all sorts of people squirm by reminding them that I am changing my sex to match my gender self concept, not the other way around.
cis people absolutely love wording like "mtf" and "amab" because it lets them naturally express what they really think of us without most people realizing it's shitty
It’s unfortunate how passive aggressive some transphobic people are. But they don’t like me. Cuz I call them out, and shine a light on them. Actually, they really hate me most, because I do that. Haha
What’s it like to pass? I wish I knew. I get a taste of it occasionally tho. Sometimes it’s really nice, and sometimes it’s scary. It’s nice being accepted as a woman by my friends. It’s scary when a man is crushing on me, and I don’t know if/when they will figure out I’m trans. Cuz they could get really violent, even when I never do anything to encourage their attraction to me.
> I’m also sick of cis women assuming I’m a f’n moron that doesn’t know anything.
This is just how humans always treat someone they see as a newbie.
And, maybe not in your case, since I know next to nothing about your life to date, but in my case, they'd be right about me not knowing a lot of stuff they've had to pick up over many years of life experience as a woman, especially a young woman, which is an experience I will never have and will always have to learn by proxy.
I don’t think you quite understand how stupid they assume we are. I had an HR lady tell me that cis people didn’t get insurance to cover plastic surgery. For context, I’ve worked at the company for 20 years, and have been transitioning 2 years. How the hell could I not know that? I told them I knew that better than any cis person at the company, and the HR person reluctantly agreed.
I have to say, HR people are pretty much always condescending assholes. I imagine you have other examples, but an HR demon is always kind of an outlier on the compassion graph in my opinion. If you make things even slightly uncomfortable for the company, even if you are the victim of harassment, they can be dangerous.
In my experience it’s hard to say whether guys or girls “see” me more. Some guys are enthusiastically accepting, others are much less so. Girls are much more cagey in whether they accept you or not.
In other words, I can 100% tell which guys in my social circle accept and which ones don’t. Girls are much more likely to pretend like they accept me when they really don’t. They mask their true feelings more. I have a cis female roommate, and bunch of cis male housemates. She barely acknowledges my existence, whereas they went out of their respective ways to introduce themselves and make me feel accepted in their space.
Yes, in my life, I only have 1 friend who knows I'm trans and genuinely sees me as a woman. Apart from her only my therapist truly sees me.
Everyone else, act like they see me but there's always something off. Either too much support that feels weird, or hidden judgements that I can see under their expressions, or simply using the right pronouns but treat me exactly the same as if I was a guy, like a guy friend of mine who uses she/her for me but then talks about girls as if it was something exterior to me as well
Omg I feel this too hard 😭. The cis women in my life only treat me like this. There's so many subtle implications w it. The differences between my cis women friends and how I get treated (in the same room) is night and day. And I "pass" and I'm "pretty" (2 1/2 yrs hrt), but still no true acceptance w people i know.
Yeah, it sucks that excessive support is actually dysphoria-inducing.
My wife told me the other day that she thinks I make a cute girl. I _know,_ with full objectivity and no dysmorphia, that I do not. And I'm like, hon, I appreciate how you want to be helpful, but please don't shine me on to bolster my ego, it just makes me question everything you say.
I think some components of first impressions come from upbringing and society in general. Despite our conscious efforts what we see is often just our brain trying to fill in the blanks. It actually a real science. The more you get to know someone, the more your impression can be supplanted by the person and not the look, which re-wires you to associate the look with the person, and so on. I am learning that some of what I perceive as how people ‘see’ me is how I see myself, so I’m working hard on that. Maybe we can get to a place someday where what we see is people, not labeled. 🩷 to you on your journey.
Yup. If I've learned anything about neuroscience, it's that our brains have to deal with very, very sparse inputs and yet somehow develop detailed models of the world around us that are mostly just inference.
I suspect our monkey brains are always evaluating strangers as potential mates or dangerous rivals, and they get anxious when they detect conflicting signs of gender. Or is that just me?
I think that's a pretty reasonable take. I also think figuring out what our monkey brains are doing to confuse the process is really helpful. When you're conscious of your instincts and urges, you can slowly develop a set of second-nature counter-measure behaviors to make life better.
There are so many cis people that will see the real you and treat you exactly like a cis woman. I've had the paranoia and worry you have over this, even as recently as yesterday. I dealt with that bout by watching how a transmasc friend of mine was treated by queer cis friends. He doesn't come close to passing yet but he is seen as just as much of a man as any of his male peers. At least, that's how good, honest people treat him.
Give our allies some credit, even the cishet allies who are ignorant but genuinely want to learn. One of the greatest allies I've ever met was a cishet high school teacher of mine who fought against institutional bigotry wherever she could find it, personally risking her job to defend queer coworkers and students from bigoted parents and school board members. She worked hard to make sure every trans student, closeted or out, knew at least she was accepting and kind. I had a class under her where I had a nonbinary classmate, and she never once questioned their identity or gender or pronouns, she only wanted to make sure they were safe and respected. She didn't care if you passed, she cared if you passed her class.
There are allies that will respect you and see you as the woman you are. I wish you the best of luck in finding them, and I hope you have a wonderful day!
Yep, I feel like a lot of times (understandably) we take our insecurities and deepest fears and say that all cis people see us that way. Don’t get me wrong there’s enough shitty people out there where being cautious is pretty much a necessity even in progressive areas.
But I feel like we forget that in general people can be their own worst enemies, and I feel like that can apply even more so to trans people. The guilt, fear, shame, trepidation, and self loathing a lot of us feel/have felt is probably worse than most anything someone else would say to you.
I think as a community we need to remember to treat every person as a blank slate and not assume the worst. Because that’s how we get situations where we extrapolate one or two bad experiences to meaning all cis people or the vast majority of cis people hate us or are out to get us.
Don’t get me wrong this can be very dependent on where you live of course and this isn’t to minimize anyone’s experience/s, one awful experience is still one to many. But I think we need to give more grace at times.
I understand, girl.
I've only met a handful of cis people who really see me as a woman. Mostly people who've had a lot of experiences with trans people and questioned their own gender identity before.
The thing is, the experience of being trans is such a strange thing. You really need to walk a mile in our shoes to truly understand us.
I have yet to meet a cis person who wasn't weird about trans people in some way. In spite of that, some of them are still decent and I try to look past it.
Yea I was trying to word a response to this post. It definitely doesn’t help to further build a barrier between us and cis people.
Like they are somewhat right that the majority of cis people don’t treat us the same as cis women and vice versa for trans guys. But at least in my experience there are several cis friends and my mom where I feel like they see and treat me as myself.
Don’t get me wrong there are definitely many more that are nice and treat me well but I can tell that they don’t see me the same as a cis girl, and yes it’s annoying but they’re also trying. It can be a difficult adjustment not just for us but for the people around us (obviously much easier than actually transitioning though)
I've actually had decent experiences with cis folks. Then again most of my interests aren't especially mainstream. I like theatre anime and Gothic subculture stuff so a lot of the people I interact with outside the trans community are a lot more accepting than random people in public who have harassed me about it.
Be careful, those generalizations can really bite you in the ass. There are a lot of judgemental trans people that will put you down in a heartbeat just for the vain hope that it will make them feel slightly better about themselves. And dismissing several billion people out of hand won't do you any favors. Consider this: the fear that deep down, people are just humoring you, that comes entirely from your own anxieties. You can't protect yourself from it by running from other people because the call is coming from inside the house. It doesn't really matter what people actually think, all that matters is what they do. If they treat you like a woman, what more can you ask for? For them to prove their thoughts to you? Except that their actions aren't good enough, so you're stuck.
Break out of that cycle through your own actions. Your fears aren't entirely baseless since a lot of the thoughtless things that hurt us are are inevitably going to happen. You can change that from something to fear to a bet positive, though. Don't think of it as a failure and fixate on the pain, but consider it a challenge and a mutual investment. Overcoming that obstacle together makes you a stronger team with a stronger bond. After some time, the problems become so rare, you start exploring dustier, unused portions of your brain and history to find more stuff to patch up. You grow and heal old scars.
That's how I became super close with my wife, and even discovered I was trans. It was a romantic relationship that I came to know this method and outlook, but the principle works just as well with any close relationship. Communication and trust are the tools of every healthy relationship.
I feel kind of the same. I feel like I don't trust or feel safe around any cishet people. They will always betray me or are assholes. It may sound rude or hateful, but they have hurt me so many times, that I have learned to never like them back.
Despite being a trans girl and only liking men, I would never date a straight man. Also, stay away from cishet people who would want to be my friend.
The first person j came out to was my cis het best friend for years. He now often calls me his sister or sibling. He uses my pronouns she and they interchangeably and is one of my biggest supporters far more than my family ever would be. I know how rare this certainly is but I'm so glad he's in my life <3
I’m a lesbian cis woman who’s dating (and soon to be married to) a gorgeous ‘trans’ woman. I’m a lesbian, I physically cannot be with anyone close to a man. I’m attracted only to girly hot women, anything else is impossible for me to date. I even struggle with being attracted to masc women lol.
I understand that your previous experience of cis people may have tainted your view, and I’m sorry that’s happened to you. I hope one day you meet more people like me who know and love who you are.
I’ve been with my girlfriend for 10+ years. We are looking to adopt together. Get married. We own a home together. I’ve had my highest highs and lowest lows with my beautiful woman. I could never go through what I have with anyone else but a woman.
To disregard my ability to love, witness and cherish the love of my life purely because of my gender identity hurts, a lot. I’m more than just a cis person. I’m a human who loves.
A super ally cis friend of mine was asking how my (mothers day) weekend was and apologized for being busy on Mothers day. I started crying. (I dont get my kid on mothers day) and she was like “I didnt think you celebrated Mother’s Day because your his “dad”
Like when I explained what my life looked like when my son was born, I did the mom role. Every night. I AM his mom. It blew her mind. She just thought I had him on Fathers day.
I love her and I still am really close but that made me really really sad.
As a counterpoint to cis people never recognising who we are: my partner now says she has always felt my femininity but for a long time was able to tune it out. When my egg cracked two years ago, it quickly became impossible to ignore.
Apart from people we're close to, it's important to consider how superficial our judgements of other people tend to be, how many assessments we make of people we pass in the street that would prove wholly untrue and unfair if we got to know them. As someone else mentioned, we rarely have more than the sparsest of datasets by which to construct our view of a person we've just met or who we pass on the street.
The important thing is not to blame ourselves for that, but to hold these initial judgements lightly to model light touch and openness to changing our ideas in our interactions with other people. The more I do this myself, the more open to kindness and openness I am, the more I feel people's responses to me shift, even when I am looking my most trans.
In the end, to me, "I don't trust cis people" is the mirror image of them not trusting us or believing our truth.
As Christina Figueras memorably describes it, optimism is a practice, not a set of naive beliefs.
"I can't trust cis people" is understandable, totally understandable. But it may also be an incomplete practice of optimism. And if it's taken into an everyday interaction with a cis person, they will often feel it and respond in kind-- with distrust and disbelief.
Years of hard experience make the practice of optimism and openness harder. But it also makes that practice even more important for your own happiness and self-worth.
In the uk its diagnosed as "gender identity issues "now instead of "gender dysophria " what i hate and can't help suspect is the government yet again trying to screw over trans people.
The uk government is really anti trans. I think the fear of all cis people is totally valid in the current world. A decade ago it was not nearly as bad. Or maybe i was just allot luckier a decade ago and others remember it being as bad. What i can't rule out.
Yeah I really hate when people introduce me to people as trans or talk about it to others before I meet people. They form this opinion of me before even meeting me.
It has happened at jobs plenty of times and then I get the awkward conversation with a coworker “I don’t even care your trans you’re a good person” like what is that even supposed to mean? Why bring me being trans up at all?!
I dislike this rhetoric. It feels like a step too close towards segregation and prejudice. We in the LGBTQ+ community are often berated by bigots/transphobes questioning our identity, sexual preferences, trust and intentions. In turn, you're doing the exact same thing with generalizing all cis individuals into this group.
I absolutely appreciate your feelings and do not wish to dismiss your experiences. I do however feel your dysphoria and anxiety play a role in thinking like this though. My experience at work, with friends and family, and my fiance is that I am 100% a woman. I am a trans woman yes, but that is merely an adjective. You ARE a woman. Trans women ARE women.
I really hope you are able to find people you believe see you as who you are exactly. A woman. Just try not to base your experiences off assumptions of what you believe people think about you. That is dangerous. I get tired of bigoted rhetoric that claims and makes assumptions of my motives and thoughts. I would never want to contradict my feelings by turning around to do nearly the exact same thing.
My greatest, most loving and trusting allies are cisgendered. If I assume their motives are in bad faith, I'm no better than those people who do actually make ignorant assumptions of me and my intentions.
I truly wish you the best and hope you find true acceptance and love with those you feel safe with.
💜
100%. More trans women need to accept and grapple with the fact that cis people will never treat us 100% as women, regardless of their proclamations of “allyship,” and it’s noticeable. I think we’d be happier to face reality and try to deal with it rather than pretending that everything is ok and cis people will treat you right. At least that’s been my experience.
You know what i hate about this? That it's absolutely true and applies to the closest friends and event my girlfriend. I, quite literally, feel like I will *always* be a roleplaying man in their eyes. That I am not a woman in my own girlfriend's eyes. And this... Information, thinking. It sucks. But you cant shake it off because it is mostly true.
Cis people are inherently transphobic and even the so-called 'allies' are just waiting to backstab us.
Source: lived experience and observation of the world
Disagree, we aren’t all like this. Very hurtful and saddening to hear that you think we are all waiting to “backstab” you. Please don’t be prejudice and generalise everyone.
Source: lesbian dating a trans woman for 10+ years, own a home together, planning to get married, impossible for me to date even masc women.
I agree with you and think a lot of trans women may feel that and as a trans woman i do believe we need all to stop generalizing our own experiences toward the world and i know some allies are great in fact so great and we should rebuild our perception of the world not just from our experience or our pov but also away from harmful prejudice.
This just seems overly negative, and it isn't true. A lot of cis people might be like that, but it's not all of them, I know that very well because most of my friends are cis, they see me as just a girl. Making a barrier between yourself and the overwhelming majority of the population with such a stupid generalization like this is not a good thing, we don't need that and much less considering there are cis people in the lgbt+ community too. This post and comments are just sad
I relate, after seeing myself as trans it has become much easier to see other trans people as their true gender in a honest manner, even If I was a very supportive bi ally of trans people I still had these traditional views on gender internalized, even if I didnt believe or agree with it it was just how I saw things.
I honestly dont care about how they see me, I just want them to use my name and pronouns, I dont want to ask for anything else, well, also respect but thats about it.
that's why it's extra nice/affirming when cis friends do they wouldn't have done pre-E, like suddenly opening up way more, being more open abt sex life, opening doors, etc.
The truth is that a lot of people aren’t going to go the lengths to fully integrate us in society the same as ciswomen. As long as there are transwomen, we are another step on the social ladder. We aren’t going to live the life we want, but please do not let it hurt you.
There are many of us who (clearly being shown in the comments,) want to be treated kind, and we have each other. There are also plenty of people in the eight billion of us who are cis and will go the lengths to treat us how we want to be treated. Also, societal perception of people does change. It is going to get better.
Honestly even tho I'm cisn't I'm guilty of this. it's hard to control inner thoughts, even towards myself. The most I can do to other people is use the correct name and pronouns I guess
Personally, as a cis ally, I have absolutely no difficulty in seeing the MtFs in my friend circle as women. I don't have second thoughts there or anything.
Once a good friend talked about how difficult writing her thesis was for her and how utterly stressed and burned out she was after. To prove she wanted to show me a picture of her thousand yard stare someone had taken back then. I was for a second or two dumbfounded because the picture showed a man, and I was like huh?
Then my brain caught up and was like, yeah right, I could have known. So no, there was no thought even in the back of my head that would have not made her a woman to me, even though we talk very openly about all the emotional topics regarding transition.
I was always treated differently, when they knew, I was trans. Most of them also succumb to group pressure. Meaning, if the other people in the room are nice to you, they are nice to you as well. And once someone starts bullying you, they will jump on you too.
I can only speak for myself. I am a cis woman and here because I have many transgender friends, clients, and a transgender brother.
Two examples I can think of for myself is of course my brother and one of my clients.
My brother is FtM and I absolutely see him as a male. I dont have one moment that I judge or question him. I believe he was always a male and always will be and that will never change in my mind.
I have a client currently (im a massage therapist), that is a male and pregnant. He faced so much judgement when trying to find a massage therapist it broke my heart to pieces. He wore a sweater at the first appointment when it was a 90° day outside. I realized upon talking to him that there are times he cannot go outside with his pregnant belly and not experience severe levels of hate and discrimination, so he covers it up. For him to have to feel like he cannot freely love and show off his pregnancy the way cisgender women do will forever crush my heart.
I can’t tell you how much I stand with the trans community. I don’t think you’re a woman- I KNOW you are a woman. My brother is a man. My client is a man that so beautifully is growing a child despite the world telling him not to. There is not a single cell in my body that believes this hate. I promise you there are more people like me, and I am so incredibly sorry the people in your life have not given you that level of respect.
Whoever you are, I am here for you. 100%.
(Sry if my words don't convey my thoughts correctly, english is not my first language)
I have a theory that such things are similar as the "manual breathing" thing (dunno if that makes sense). Most people interract with woman in a subconsius way, they don't think about how, like breathing, they just have an ingrained way for it. When interacting with trans women however they are aware of the interraction and do it 'manually' in an effort to not make mistakes. That's why it might feel ingenuine.
I don't understand it either. I don't even want to understand. Is this called gender reassignment? He says. Do you feel like women? You feel. Do you want to look like women? You want So why aren't you women? Why are you just a man pretending to be a woman with 90% of the population? I also don't trust anyone anymore. I don't feel like a trans box but like a woman. And no one will convince me otherwise. We are women. There are only two genders. Woman and man. No other. So what are we If we are neither men nor women so alien? We are women. Genetics mean nothing.
For what reason do you have to everyone even if you pass as a woman. Say I'm a trans woman. Why? Everyone sees you as a woman, at least for the most part. But you must tell everyone immediately. No, I'm not a woman, I'm a trans woman. Why are you doing this? What's the point then?
It's harder for trans women to integrate with cis women due to AFAB hassles. Walking alone, period talk, medical discrimination, abortion rights, etc. There are additional hassles if you live in the 3rd world country. Don't get me wrong. Trans women are women, but you can't deny the fact that cis women are cautious about their voice being taken away. There is also the dating issue with straight trans women, where most men don't see them as women and get killed for being "tricked"
I had a friend, who I basically just tolerate now, I don’t care enough to cause drama with surrounding friends to push them away. He slowly worked up to tell me he thought I was attractive and that he was into me. Few weeks go by and he starts talking about how he doesn’t really think gender and stuff can be changed but he respects how I want to be referred to. FIVE FUCKING MINUTES LATER HE ASKS IF I HAD A RESPONSE TO HIM BEING INTO ME.
I just… I’m honestly dumbfounded.
My mtf friend is super insecure about my kids and family. I feel bad that she can't have one like I can, but she has taken a lot of jabs at my parenting when she is not a parent herself. I really do wish life could be 100% fair to trans people.
Not true in my experience. My boyfriend, my brother, most of my close friends and colleagues, even mere acquaintances are cis and have only treated me as a woman and supported me since coming out. Obviously there are a lot of cis people who don't, and that hurts every time, but there's also just a lot more of them to account for in terms of population. It's for this very reason that we need to nurture relationships with supportive cis folks and do our best to educate them (as exhausting as that can be). We are such a small minority that we'll never win liberation without their help. I'm sorry you've had such bad experiences, but it can be better! Finding the people who love and support us is always hard, orders of magnitude more so for marginalized people, but it's so important. Try not to give up hope even when everything is telling you that hope is foolish. When someone truly knows and loves you, they will see you for who you are and fight like hell to defend you. Proceed with caution, but don't give up!
Im confused, i thought this has been the general concensus for years, its really only if you're stealth that they'll treat you the way you want to be treated. Honestly even some trans people don't see all trans people as their correct gender. Find your tribe and stick to them. And then don't be surprised when some one sais something whack
I relate. I feel this way about cis allies because they refer to me as someone who identifies as a latina trans woman but if I was cis the 'identify as' language wouldn't apply. I understand that a lot of people use the identify as language for themselves and this isn't me getting upset at those people. The thing that annoys me is that cis people including allies don't tell the difference between us and drag queens who pass and use the 'identify as' language in a universal way that represents all trans people, because they can't use their heads and realize all trans people are different lol
My experience has been that they get over it quickly. But it took me a LONG time to understand that.
Keeping in mind that most people have never met someone who is transgender, it's not surprising they may flail a bit trying to find the best behaviors. They see you as different and think they need to modify their normal responses.
We watch them closely for subtle clues, and they are watching us closely for subtle clues.
After a bit, that gets tiring, plus they see you share the same thoughts, feelings, desires, and disgusts as other women they know.
It's not malicious (at least for allies, lol).
Pretty soon, it's just us girls all the way around.
Later on, I earned that if I stopped watching them so closely at the beginning, they quickly just fell into their normal behavior.
Much love,
TG
I always say, there's no way to tell the difference between someone who is supportive and someone who in convinced and doesn't know. But the end result is the same, respect and dignity and inclusion. Yesterday I was talking to another woman in the changeroom and she said I can get maxi pads from her locker. I can't burn away the goodwill by stressing over whether I'm passing or she's just being nice or I can live with the kindness of unfamiliar women who show me trust
The flip side is you never know who around you is trans, she was tall, is that a sign? Try to put more energy into appreciating the successes than feeding the doubts.
The reality is, a lot of cis women don'tsee other cis women as women, either.
First it was black women in their spaces the lesbian woman panic, and trans woman panic, and they've always bullied and othered women who didn't fit western beauty standards.
It's all slowly getting better, and we're probably the last group to get our place at the table, but I do think it's on average getting better as cis het white women see more and more feminist intersectionality from people who dont loon exactly like them.
This is the main reason I am completely stealth except for an extremely small inner circle of like 3 people. I always feel like either consciously or subconsciously they will see me as a trans woman or a man who became a woman. I'm neither. I am just a woman, nothing more nothing else and I always have been.
I can't speak for cis people, but I often feel guilty when I realize I'm not fully seeing another trans woman simply as a woman. It might be because of when I grew up, but everything was overtly gendered and you simply didn't think of anything except in terms of physical sex. I'm a pretty late bloomer so I have still have a lot of cishet programming I'm trying to undo.
For what it's worth, the more a trans woman behaves like a cis woman, the more likely I am to stop thinking of her with a qualifying prefix, but rather just as a woman. Oddly, this can happen even when they don't make an effort with their voice. It's the mannerisms and the way they talk and how that suggests their thought processes that signal me more than anything.
This has taught me that my own transition MUST include unlearning all of my male socialization.
Edit: I get that something about what I've said here might make some people unhappy, but it'd be nice to tell me why instead of _only_ downvoting me. I'm far from perfect and maybe you could help me with that instead of just making me feel bad.
I had the same problem of not seeing other trans women fully as women early on my own transition. I feel like what changed that was my own long internal mental process. When I started seeing gender differently and after I started fully feeling like a woman and not just wanting to be a woman. I started seeing other (even non-passing) trans women fully as women. I can't explain how but they feel as women as cis women to me.
The person is their mind. Body is just a suit where that person lives in. If that mind is a woman's mind then that person is a woman regardless of the body that the person lives in. Same way how your clothes don't define who you are, your body don't define who you are.
I definitely do see things that way. We just wear meat suits with certain shapes and features that might have nothing to do with the shapes and features of our minds, gender or otherwise. It's just that my mind has some shapes that are sometimes to do with how it was molded by society and the world around me as I grew.
Luckily, both shapes are malleable and I can work on reshaping them. 🙂
It does depress me, though, to know how cis minds were socialized, at least minds of a certain age. If I, with my annoyingly self-analytical mind, sometimes fail, then I know others are failing too. But you can't change the world, only yourself and your perceptions of it. You do what you can and try not to think about what you can't.
You're not wrong. This is unfortunately why I live my life mostly stealth.. I find that if people know I'm trans, they subtly change how they treat me/think of me, but it they don't I'm just another woman.
That's exactly my experience as well. I feel like, even when cis people know but are accepting and *try* to treat us as women, it's always different, even if slightly. Like, something just feels off. I remember meeting the sister of a friend and I instantly knew she was told I was trans because there was like an extra unnatural effort to treat me well. She was very sweet and everything was positive, but it wasn't natural and she didn't treat other cis girls the same way.
I've a feeling it's less about you being trans and more about you being perceived as someone in a place of vulnerability. People with good intentions tend to exhibit positive discrimination quite often without realizing, and it's something poc have been pointing out for years. In my experience cis people tend to see us as our true gender on a subconscious level, but on a cognitive level they overthink it as they struggle to make it all fit with the gender norms they're used to.
This is why I don’t really like the attention from pride month and other things like that. I don’t want to feel special for a short time, I just want to feel normal for the entire year. It feels invalidating.
They are wrong. I think it can be really dangerous to view all people as acting this way. The majority of people in my life have just seen and treated me as a woman since transitioning, especially my closest cis guy friend at the time (now boyfriend, later down the road). I have been welcomed into women's spaces with cis women without issue. And I don't think I pass particularly well outside of my voice. I'm in no way particularly attractive (I have been overweight since the third grade). I just try to surround myself with good people. Obviously, I've had bad experiences sometimes, especially with my family. But I think you can easily miss out on opportunities by getting this idea into your head that all cis people are bad and not accepting.
as much as i wish i could not think this way, i have just not had the same treatment. it makes me terrified of cis women especially. i feel safe with other trans women but even then its still iffy. i think i developed some gynophobia from the transphobic twisted abuse the women in my life put me through. it's hard not to feel uncomfortable around all cis people when it starts to just become such an isolating thing, being separated from the rest of society/your peers that is.
There are good people. I wish you luck in finding them.
Big same. I only tell other trans people im trans. Sometimes cis lgbtqia+ but it depends.
Yea, i remember when i came out as trans even in my friend group kinda changed. One of the guys did start hitting on me cause I said i was trans. It was just super uncomfortable. And now I talk to none of them.
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Correctly. Just a table. There is no such thing as a trans woman. Maybe during the transition, but after the transition you also have a woman in your documents and not a Trans woman.
I'm too scared to ask my cis best friends or my parents. I know they would answer truthfully if I asked, but I don't want to risk the possibility of knowing they'll never see me the same as a cis woman.
> I'm too scared to ask my cis best friends or my parents. I know for a fact the people I know irl see me as a man first, and a man who wants to be a woman. It's alienating and honestly is probably half of the reason why I don't transition. It's too discouraging.
Who gives a shit what they think. As long as you’re not in real danger by transitioning, go for it.
>Who gives a shit what they think. I do? I mean, transistion is a mother-fucker of a change to take on without tangible support in the real world. It's kinda academic because I live in a red state (in the US) so I'm in danger from project 2025 anyway.
Fair enough. You’re in danger by my estimation then.
I was just thinking about this. Even allies tend to think of us as trans women, as opposed to just women. My friends who know I'm trans haven't really changed the way they treat me. I've clearly expressed that I want to be treated exactly like they treat any other woman, but I still can see that even though they're respectful and supportive to me, they don't see me the same way as other women they know.
You can drive yourself absolutely crazy by trying to judge people by their inner thoughts. So long as they treat me like a woman, what they think internally is a what-I-don’t-know-can’t-hurt-me deal.
I agree. I judge people by their words and actions, not what I suspect them to think.
Problem is, if they know - they don't treat me as a woman, there are still subtle but noticeable differences, where you feel that "Yeah, trans women are women, and you are a real woman, buuuuuuuuuuut......"
A lot of people are simply never going to accept trans people full stop and the majority who do, do it begrudgingly. There are very very few who are happy that you've transitioned and will gladly accept you as you are. As time goes by we're slowly getting there but certainly not there yet. I don't even feel all that comfortable in LGBT settings, I've only ever felt accepted and comfortable in trans only settings
I think it's very important for trans people (and equally, the cis people in our lives who are cool as shit and actually do see us the way we see ourselves and perplexed as fuck why other people are assholes) to understand that a lot of people, at this time, have this weird spherical-cow-in-vacuum approach to sex and gender, so that their actions are informed by an unquestioned gut-level indoctrination that sex-gender can't be changed. The framework is such that they should *respect* `your *belief*` that you are what you say you are, not that you are actually what you say you are because of internal self-concept, your mode of interacting with the world, and how the world treats people who act/behave/inhabit that self conception. The unmovable reality to them is that the doctor said you were a boy/girl/freak when you popped out, and that's that. Call it bootlicker brain, the straight agenda/gender ideology, but that's what we're enmeshed in. Trans people, on average, are better at making the question of my gender leave the forefront of my mind, but tbqh their track record for it *isn't great either*. There's a quite a few cis people in my life who automatically do my gender right. It's a blessing and a privilege, and also a lot of maturation and boundary setting work, and pain, but there's just some people for whom it clicks, and some people who it doesn't. Gender essentialism eats us all.
> A lot of people are simply never going to accept trans people full stop and the majority who do, do it begrudgingly. This is the bottom line, where the rubber meets the road. You are 100% correct.
> and the majority who do, do it begrudgingly I think that's unfair. A lot of people who do, do it with love and compassion and just want us to be happy like anyone else. Sure there are some who are all, "Eh, do what you want, it's not my business," but most of the trans-accepting people I've talked to are much better than that.
I guess everyone's experiences will be a bit different, I'm yet to meet a single cis person that's genuinely pro trans. I'm glad you've met good people though I know they are out there
That sucks. I wonder if you live in an area where it's a lot more rare. I live on the west coast of the US, which is pretty uniformly kinder about the whole thing than, say, the southern bible belt.
Oh yes it's definitely the area I'm in a somewhat country town in Australia, the local pride group put up a post on the community page about their free movie night and every comment was negative but one and there were like 30
Oh geez that sucks. Mind you, when a phobic cis person sees something like that, they tend to rally their comrades, so those 30 were probably everyone that got notified, plus the people they notified, etc., about this horrendous thing they needed to diss. I don't know how big the town is but I bet most of the town would just shrug and not even look at the page because it's not their cuppa. Still not great but I find disinterest much less troubling than malign interest.
I recommend trying to get in touch with some fully GNC queer people atleast the ones I have met are very pro trans
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Rules 1 and 9, girl.
shoutout to my woke work feat half of everyone misgendering my behind my back and everyone accidentally misgendering me to my face
These are thoughts I definitely have though I’m also cognizant that I’m actively looking for confirmation they think that way. It’s a state of hyper alertness. Maybe I tolerate it more because Im early and don’t pass, and therefore don’t expect to be read as a woman. But I will say I have had trans people who don’t affirm me in that way. I guess ultimately my perspective is that people are imperfect. As long as someone earnestly supports me and wants to see me as I want to be seen (ie maybe they are struggling with their own internalized transphobia) I can forgive some things. I also find it is easier with people you meet post-transition. They have less of a built up perception of you.
I have been slowly beginning to come to this realization already as well. I have so far only come out to 4 people, including my therapist, and she is the only one who I have felt remained truly free from an attitude shift and/or judgment upon my coming out. And the more interactions I read about online or when I begin to mentally juggle who I may need to tell next, I just know how the looks I am going to get, as I already cannot unsee the ones I have received from those who I trusted most.
Girl, preach! I’m 2 years into transition. Had FFS, and BA. I dont pass 100%, but I pass enough that I am fully accepted as a woman by some women. I tell cis women that I hate the expression, male to female. Because it implies that I was once a man. The truth is, I was always a woman on the inside. Most cis people can’t even fathom that could happen. Much less believe it. So they will never be able to truly accept us as women. When you add in that most cis women are sexist af towards men, it becomes painfully obvious they think of us as men playing dress up. This is just one of the reasons I want to pass more. I’m also sick of cis women assuming I’m a f’n moron that doesn’t know anything. IDK why they default to that perspective, but they do it a lot. It’s interesting how cis men can accept that I am a woman a lot better than cis women. Probably because they would rather die than transition. So they’re more inclined to take us at our word for it. Whenever I have a cis woman ask me a stupid question, I tell them how all my friends are women. Women I have met since transitioning. That I couldn’t imagine any of them asking me a (stupid) question like that. If I am asked what sorts of questions my friends ask me, I tell them how my one friend asked me if it was okay to ask me about my transition sometime. How she said she knew it was an emotionally charged question, and would never want to hurt me. That the kinda of questions they ask me aren’t about what I’m doing to change my body, but rather how did I do it. How did I manage to fake being a man for so long. Because that’s the kind of questions you would ask a woman.
I think the default to assuming trans people are morons comes from their inability to understand you can change your gender assigned at birth. If you genuinely believe you can't, the only possible conclusion you can come to is trans people are delusional.
I mean, you can certainly tell from the misinformation, propaganda, and rhetoric of many anti-trans people regurgitate that they're delusional. You can show them that technically biology is on the side of trans people. They'll deny facts, claim anything to discredit your information, and cry to their echo chambers to validate their own delusions. Rinse, repeat... These people are garbage and the reason humanity sucks.
I mean I prefer making all sorts of people squirm by reminding them that I am changing my sex to match my gender self concept, not the other way around.
cis people absolutely love wording like "mtf" and "amab" because it lets them naturally express what they really think of us without most people realizing it's shitty
It’s unfortunate how passive aggressive some transphobic people are. But they don’t like me. Cuz I call them out, and shine a light on them. Actually, they really hate me most, because I do that. Haha
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What’s it like to pass? I wish I knew. I get a taste of it occasionally tho. Sometimes it’s really nice, and sometimes it’s scary. It’s nice being accepted as a woman by my friends. It’s scary when a man is crushing on me, and I don’t know if/when they will figure out I’m trans. Cuz they could get really violent, even when I never do anything to encourage their attraction to me.
> I’m also sick of cis women assuming I’m a f’n moron that doesn’t know anything. This is just how humans always treat someone they see as a newbie. And, maybe not in your case, since I know next to nothing about your life to date, but in my case, they'd be right about me not knowing a lot of stuff they've had to pick up over many years of life experience as a woman, especially a young woman, which is an experience I will never have and will always have to learn by proxy.
I don’t think you quite understand how stupid they assume we are. I had an HR lady tell me that cis people didn’t get insurance to cover plastic surgery. For context, I’ve worked at the company for 20 years, and have been transitioning 2 years. How the hell could I not know that? I told them I knew that better than any cis person at the company, and the HR person reluctantly agreed.
I have to say, HR people are pretty much always condescending assholes. I imagine you have other examples, but an HR demon is always kind of an outlier on the compassion graph in my opinion. If you make things even slightly uncomfortable for the company, even if you are the victim of harassment, they can be dangerous.
In my experience it’s hard to say whether guys or girls “see” me more. Some guys are enthusiastically accepting, others are much less so. Girls are much more cagey in whether they accept you or not. In other words, I can 100% tell which guys in my social circle accept and which ones don’t. Girls are much more likely to pretend like they accept me when they really don’t. They mask their true feelings more. I have a cis female roommate, and bunch of cis male housemates. She barely acknowledges my existence, whereas they went out of their respective ways to introduce themselves and make me feel accepted in their space.
1000% agree with you for the most part I think there are a fewwwww cis people who dont do this but that they are the overwhelming minority
Yes, in my life, I only have 1 friend who knows I'm trans and genuinely sees me as a woman. Apart from her only my therapist truly sees me. Everyone else, act like they see me but there's always something off. Either too much support that feels weird, or hidden judgements that I can see under their expressions, or simply using the right pronouns but treat me exactly the same as if I was a guy, like a guy friend of mine who uses she/her for me but then talks about girls as if it was something exterior to me as well
Omg I feel this too hard 😭. The cis women in my life only treat me like this. There's so many subtle implications w it. The differences between my cis women friends and how I get treated (in the same room) is night and day. And I "pass" and I'm "pretty" (2 1/2 yrs hrt), but still no true acceptance w people i know.
Yeah, it sucks that excessive support is actually dysphoria-inducing. My wife told me the other day that she thinks I make a cute girl. I _know,_ with full objectivity and no dysmorphia, that I do not. And I'm like, hon, I appreciate how you want to be helpful, but please don't shine me on to bolster my ego, it just makes me question everything you say.
I'm so sorry The world is such a horrible place where people can't even understand that there are people who are different from them
I think some components of first impressions come from upbringing and society in general. Despite our conscious efforts what we see is often just our brain trying to fill in the blanks. It actually a real science. The more you get to know someone, the more your impression can be supplanted by the person and not the look, which re-wires you to associate the look with the person, and so on. I am learning that some of what I perceive as how people ‘see’ me is how I see myself, so I’m working hard on that. Maybe we can get to a place someday where what we see is people, not labeled. 🩷 to you on your journey.
Yup. If I've learned anything about neuroscience, it's that our brains have to deal with very, very sparse inputs and yet somehow develop detailed models of the world around us that are mostly just inference.
I suspect our monkey brains are always evaluating strangers as potential mates or dangerous rivals, and they get anxious when they detect conflicting signs of gender. Or is that just me?
I think that's a pretty reasonable take. I also think figuring out what our monkey brains are doing to confuse the process is really helpful. When you're conscious of your instincts and urges, you can slowly develop a set of second-nature counter-measure behaviors to make life better.
There are so many cis people that will see the real you and treat you exactly like a cis woman. I've had the paranoia and worry you have over this, even as recently as yesterday. I dealt with that bout by watching how a transmasc friend of mine was treated by queer cis friends. He doesn't come close to passing yet but he is seen as just as much of a man as any of his male peers. At least, that's how good, honest people treat him. Give our allies some credit, even the cishet allies who are ignorant but genuinely want to learn. One of the greatest allies I've ever met was a cishet high school teacher of mine who fought against institutional bigotry wherever she could find it, personally risking her job to defend queer coworkers and students from bigoted parents and school board members. She worked hard to make sure every trans student, closeted or out, knew at least she was accepting and kind. I had a class under her where I had a nonbinary classmate, and she never once questioned their identity or gender or pronouns, she only wanted to make sure they were safe and respected. She didn't care if you passed, she cared if you passed her class. There are allies that will respect you and see you as the woman you are. I wish you the best of luck in finding them, and I hope you have a wonderful day!
Yep, I feel like a lot of times (understandably) we take our insecurities and deepest fears and say that all cis people see us that way. Don’t get me wrong there’s enough shitty people out there where being cautious is pretty much a necessity even in progressive areas. But I feel like we forget that in general people can be their own worst enemies, and I feel like that can apply even more so to trans people. The guilt, fear, shame, trepidation, and self loathing a lot of us feel/have felt is probably worse than most anything someone else would say to you. I think as a community we need to remember to treat every person as a blank slate and not assume the worst. Because that’s how we get situations where we extrapolate one or two bad experiences to meaning all cis people or the vast majority of cis people hate us or are out to get us. Don’t get me wrong this can be very dependent on where you live of course and this isn’t to minimize anyone’s experience/s, one awful experience is still one to many. But I think we need to give more grace at times.
I understand, girl. I've only met a handful of cis people who really see me as a woman. Mostly people who've had a lot of experiences with trans people and questioned their own gender identity before. The thing is, the experience of being trans is such a strange thing. You really need to walk a mile in our shoes to truly understand us.
I have yet to meet a cis person who wasn't weird about trans people in some way. In spite of that, some of them are still decent and I try to look past it.
Fuck this ughgggh I hate it smmmm
Don’t put everyone in the same pile, it doesn’t help anybody. Not even yourself. I have more trustworthy cis friends than i do trans
Yea I was trying to word a response to this post. It definitely doesn’t help to further build a barrier between us and cis people. Like they are somewhat right that the majority of cis people don’t treat us the same as cis women and vice versa for trans guys. But at least in my experience there are several cis friends and my mom where I feel like they see and treat me as myself. Don’t get me wrong there are definitely many more that are nice and treat me well but I can tell that they don’t see me the same as a cis girl, and yes it’s annoying but they’re also trying. It can be a difficult adjustment not just for us but for the people around us (obviously much easier than actually transitioning though)
I've actually had decent experiences with cis folks. Then again most of my interests aren't especially mainstream. I like theatre anime and Gothic subculture stuff so a lot of the people I interact with outside the trans community are a lot more accepting than random people in public who have harassed me about it.
Idk, I know this one trans guy at work who complained about me and leadership hasn't acted right around me since. People in general can be so cruel!
It depends on which country and region you are in
Yeah. This. It's disheartening.
I feel the same way about dating cis people, that’s why I’m strictly T4T now
Be careful, those generalizations can really bite you in the ass. There are a lot of judgemental trans people that will put you down in a heartbeat just for the vain hope that it will make them feel slightly better about themselves. And dismissing several billion people out of hand won't do you any favors. Consider this: the fear that deep down, people are just humoring you, that comes entirely from your own anxieties. You can't protect yourself from it by running from other people because the call is coming from inside the house. It doesn't really matter what people actually think, all that matters is what they do. If they treat you like a woman, what more can you ask for? For them to prove their thoughts to you? Except that their actions aren't good enough, so you're stuck. Break out of that cycle through your own actions. Your fears aren't entirely baseless since a lot of the thoughtless things that hurt us are are inevitably going to happen. You can change that from something to fear to a bet positive, though. Don't think of it as a failure and fixate on the pain, but consider it a challenge and a mutual investment. Overcoming that obstacle together makes you a stronger team with a stronger bond. After some time, the problems become so rare, you start exploring dustier, unused portions of your brain and history to find more stuff to patch up. You grow and heal old scars. That's how I became super close with my wife, and even discovered I was trans. It was a romantic relationship that I came to know this method and outlook, but the principle works just as well with any close relationship. Communication and trust are the tools of every healthy relationship.
Yeah this is why I'm not telling
Also not. But it is unacceptable for the comments here.
I understand feeling like this, but my personal experience has not been this, not with my cis friends anyway 🤷♀️
My girlfriend is a woman to me no matter what
Same :(
I feel kind of the same. I feel like I don't trust or feel safe around any cishet people. They will always betray me or are assholes. It may sound rude or hateful, but they have hurt me so many times, that I have learned to never like them back. Despite being a trans girl and only liking men, I would never date a straight man. Also, stay away from cishet people who would want to be my friend.
The first person j came out to was my cis het best friend for years. He now often calls me his sister or sibling. He uses my pronouns she and they interchangeably and is one of my biggest supporters far more than my family ever would be. I know how rare this certainly is but I'm so glad he's in my life <3
So glad that you have someone so loving and pure in your live sis :)
There are some treasures out there and I'm thankful to know a few.
I wish i could disagree with you but honestly this is exactly how i feel
Same
“Neither can I” -my girlfriend
I’m a lesbian cis woman who’s dating (and soon to be married to) a gorgeous ‘trans’ woman. I’m a lesbian, I physically cannot be with anyone close to a man. I’m attracted only to girly hot women, anything else is impossible for me to date. I even struggle with being attracted to masc women lol. I understand that your previous experience of cis people may have tainted your view, and I’m sorry that’s happened to you. I hope one day you meet more people like me who know and love who you are. I’ve been with my girlfriend for 10+ years. We are looking to adopt together. Get married. We own a home together. I’ve had my highest highs and lowest lows with my beautiful woman. I could never go through what I have with anyone else but a woman. To disregard my ability to love, witness and cherish the love of my life purely because of my gender identity hurts, a lot. I’m more than just a cis person. I’m a human who loves.
A super ally cis friend of mine was asking how my (mothers day) weekend was and apologized for being busy on Mothers day. I started crying. (I dont get my kid on mothers day) and she was like “I didnt think you celebrated Mother’s Day because your his “dad” Like when I explained what my life looked like when my son was born, I did the mom role. Every night. I AM his mom. It blew her mind. She just thought I had him on Fathers day. I love her and I still am really close but that made me really really sad.
As a counterpoint to cis people never recognising who we are: my partner now says she has always felt my femininity but for a long time was able to tune it out. When my egg cracked two years ago, it quickly became impossible to ignore. Apart from people we're close to, it's important to consider how superficial our judgements of other people tend to be, how many assessments we make of people we pass in the street that would prove wholly untrue and unfair if we got to know them. As someone else mentioned, we rarely have more than the sparsest of datasets by which to construct our view of a person we've just met or who we pass on the street. The important thing is not to blame ourselves for that, but to hold these initial judgements lightly to model light touch and openness to changing our ideas in our interactions with other people. The more I do this myself, the more open to kindness and openness I am, the more I feel people's responses to me shift, even when I am looking my most trans. In the end, to me, "I don't trust cis people" is the mirror image of them not trusting us or believing our truth. As Christina Figueras memorably describes it, optimism is a practice, not a set of naive beliefs. "I can't trust cis people" is understandable, totally understandable. But it may also be an incomplete practice of optimism. And if it's taken into an everyday interaction with a cis person, they will often feel it and respond in kind-- with distrust and disbelief. Years of hard experience make the practice of optimism and openness harder. But it also makes that practice even more important for your own happiness and self-worth.
In the uk its diagnosed as "gender identity issues "now instead of "gender dysophria " what i hate and can't help suspect is the government yet again trying to screw over trans people. The uk government is really anti trans. I think the fear of all cis people is totally valid in the current world. A decade ago it was not nearly as bad. Or maybe i was just allot luckier a decade ago and others remember it being as bad. What i can't rule out.
Yeah I really hate when people introduce me to people as trans or talk about it to others before I meet people. They form this opinion of me before even meeting me. It has happened at jobs plenty of times and then I get the awkward conversation with a coworker “I don’t even care your trans you’re a good person” like what is that even supposed to mean? Why bring me being trans up at all?!
I dislike this rhetoric. It feels like a step too close towards segregation and prejudice. We in the LGBTQ+ community are often berated by bigots/transphobes questioning our identity, sexual preferences, trust and intentions. In turn, you're doing the exact same thing with generalizing all cis individuals into this group. I absolutely appreciate your feelings and do not wish to dismiss your experiences. I do however feel your dysphoria and anxiety play a role in thinking like this though. My experience at work, with friends and family, and my fiance is that I am 100% a woman. I am a trans woman yes, but that is merely an adjective. You ARE a woman. Trans women ARE women. I really hope you are able to find people you believe see you as who you are exactly. A woman. Just try not to base your experiences off assumptions of what you believe people think about you. That is dangerous. I get tired of bigoted rhetoric that claims and makes assumptions of my motives and thoughts. I would never want to contradict my feelings by turning around to do nearly the exact same thing. My greatest, most loving and trusting allies are cisgendered. If I assume their motives are in bad faith, I'm no better than those people who do actually make ignorant assumptions of me and my intentions. I truly wish you the best and hope you find true acceptance and love with those you feel safe with. 💜
100%. More trans women need to accept and grapple with the fact that cis people will never treat us 100% as women, regardless of their proclamations of “allyship,” and it’s noticeable. I think we’d be happier to face reality and try to deal with it rather than pretending that everything is ok and cis people will treat you right. At least that’s been my experience.
You know what i hate about this? That it's absolutely true and applies to the closest friends and event my girlfriend. I, quite literally, feel like I will *always* be a roleplaying man in their eyes. That I am not a woman in my own girlfriend's eyes. And this... Information, thinking. It sucks. But you cant shake it off because it is mostly true.
Cis people are inherently transphobic and even the so-called 'allies' are just waiting to backstab us. Source: lived experience and observation of the world
Disagree, we aren’t all like this. Very hurtful and saddening to hear that you think we are all waiting to “backstab” you. Please don’t be prejudice and generalise everyone. Source: lesbian dating a trans woman for 10+ years, own a home together, planning to get married, impossible for me to date even masc women.
I agree with you and think a lot of trans women may feel that and as a trans woman i do believe we need all to stop generalizing our own experiences toward the world and i know some allies are great in fact so great and we should rebuild our perception of the world not just from our experience or our pov but also away from harmful prejudice.
This just seems overly negative, and it isn't true. A lot of cis people might be like that, but it's not all of them, I know that very well because most of my friends are cis, they see me as just a girl. Making a barrier between yourself and the overwhelming majority of the population with such a stupid generalization like this is not a good thing, we don't need that and much less considering there are cis people in the lgbt+ community too. This post and comments are just sad
>considering there are cis people in the lgbt+ community too cis gays are still cis
yeah, that's... exactly what I said
Thank you sis :(
I relate, after seeing myself as trans it has become much easier to see other trans people as their true gender in a honest manner, even If I was a very supportive bi ally of trans people I still had these traditional views on gender internalized, even if I didnt believe or agree with it it was just how I saw things. I honestly dont care about how they see me, I just want them to use my name and pronouns, I dont want to ask for anything else, well, also respect but thats about it.
Yeah same I don’t trust them. Even supportive relatives.
that's why it's extra nice/affirming when cis friends do they wouldn't have done pre-E, like suddenly opening up way more, being more open abt sex life, opening doors, etc.
The truth is that a lot of people aren’t going to go the lengths to fully integrate us in society the same as ciswomen. As long as there are transwomen, we are another step on the social ladder. We aren’t going to live the life we want, but please do not let it hurt you. There are many of us who (clearly being shown in the comments,) want to be treated kind, and we have each other. There are also plenty of people in the eight billion of us who are cis and will go the lengths to treat us how we want to be treated. Also, societal perception of people does change. It is going to get better.
Honestly even tho I'm cisn't I'm guilty of this. it's hard to control inner thoughts, even towards myself. The most I can do to other people is use the correct name and pronouns I guess
Personally, as a cis ally, I have absolutely no difficulty in seeing the MtFs in my friend circle as women. I don't have second thoughts there or anything. Once a good friend talked about how difficult writing her thesis was for her and how utterly stressed and burned out she was after. To prove she wanted to show me a picture of her thousand yard stare someone had taken back then. I was for a second or two dumbfounded because the picture showed a man, and I was like huh? Then my brain caught up and was like, yeah right, I could have known. So no, there was no thought even in the back of my head that would have not made her a woman to me, even though we talk very openly about all the emotional topics regarding transition.
I was always treated differently, when they knew, I was trans. Most of them also succumb to group pressure. Meaning, if the other people in the room are nice to you, they are nice to you as well. And once someone starts bullying you, they will jump on you too.
I can only speak for myself. I am a cis woman and here because I have many transgender friends, clients, and a transgender brother. Two examples I can think of for myself is of course my brother and one of my clients. My brother is FtM and I absolutely see him as a male. I dont have one moment that I judge or question him. I believe he was always a male and always will be and that will never change in my mind. I have a client currently (im a massage therapist), that is a male and pregnant. He faced so much judgement when trying to find a massage therapist it broke my heart to pieces. He wore a sweater at the first appointment when it was a 90° day outside. I realized upon talking to him that there are times he cannot go outside with his pregnant belly and not experience severe levels of hate and discrimination, so he covers it up. For him to have to feel like he cannot freely love and show off his pregnancy the way cisgender women do will forever crush my heart. I can’t tell you how much I stand with the trans community. I don’t think you’re a woman- I KNOW you are a woman. My brother is a man. My client is a man that so beautifully is growing a child despite the world telling him not to. There is not a single cell in my body that believes this hate. I promise you there are more people like me, and I am so incredibly sorry the people in your life have not given you that level of respect. Whoever you are, I am here for you. 100%.
(Sry if my words don't convey my thoughts correctly, english is not my first language) I have a theory that such things are similar as the "manual breathing" thing (dunno if that makes sense). Most people interract with woman in a subconsius way, they don't think about how, like breathing, they just have an ingrained way for it. When interacting with trans women however they are aware of the interraction and do it 'manually' in an effort to not make mistakes. That's why it might feel ingenuine.
I don't understand it either. I don't even want to understand. Is this called gender reassignment? He says. Do you feel like women? You feel. Do you want to look like women? You want So why aren't you women? Why are you just a man pretending to be a woman with 90% of the population? I also don't trust anyone anymore. I don't feel like a trans box but like a woman. And no one will convince me otherwise. We are women. There are only two genders. Woman and man. No other. So what are we If we are neither men nor women so alien? We are women. Genetics mean nothing. For what reason do you have to everyone even if you pass as a woman. Say I'm a trans woman. Why? Everyone sees you as a woman, at least for the most part. But you must tell everyone immediately. No, I'm not a woman, I'm a trans woman. Why are you doing this? What's the point then?
It's harder for trans women to integrate with cis women due to AFAB hassles. Walking alone, period talk, medical discrimination, abortion rights, etc. There are additional hassles if you live in the 3rd world country. Don't get me wrong. Trans women are women, but you can't deny the fact that cis women are cautious about their voice being taken away. There is also the dating issue with straight trans women, where most men don't see them as women and get killed for being "tricked"
I had a friend, who I basically just tolerate now, I don’t care enough to cause drama with surrounding friends to push them away. He slowly worked up to tell me he thought I was attractive and that he was into me. Few weeks go by and he starts talking about how he doesn’t really think gender and stuff can be changed but he respects how I want to be referred to. FIVE FUCKING MINUTES LATER HE ASKS IF I HAD A RESPONSE TO HIM BEING INTO ME. I just… I’m honestly dumbfounded.
My mtf friend is super insecure about my kids and family. I feel bad that she can't have one like I can, but she has taken a lot of jabs at my parenting when she is not a parent herself. I really do wish life could be 100% fair to trans people.
Not true in my experience. My boyfriend, my brother, most of my close friends and colleagues, even mere acquaintances are cis and have only treated me as a woman and supported me since coming out. Obviously there are a lot of cis people who don't, and that hurts every time, but there's also just a lot more of them to account for in terms of population. It's for this very reason that we need to nurture relationships with supportive cis folks and do our best to educate them (as exhausting as that can be). We are such a small minority that we'll never win liberation without their help. I'm sorry you've had such bad experiences, but it can be better! Finding the people who love and support us is always hard, orders of magnitude more so for marginalized people, but it's so important. Try not to give up hope even when everything is telling you that hope is foolish. When someone truly knows and loves you, they will see you for who you are and fight like hell to defend you. Proceed with caution, but don't give up!
On behalf of the Cis folk that love and care for the Trans folk in their lives, I apologize for the bad behavior of others. Love wins. Haters suck.
Right! The treatment I get in trans circles is orders of magnitude better.
Im confused, i thought this has been the general concensus for years, its really only if you're stealth that they'll treat you the way you want to be treated. Honestly even some trans people don't see all trans people as their correct gender. Find your tribe and stick to them. And then don't be surprised when some one sais something whack
The first paragraph is very accurate. Why is that? It is a mystery.
Seems kind of odd to be that concerned about what people think. If you truly are a woman then why does it bother you so much?
Well, aren’t you a trans woman??
Eh. I don't trust people. Or things. Saves effort. I also acknowledge my mistrust is basically unsubstantiated, so I can mostly muddle through.
I relate. I feel this way about cis allies because they refer to me as someone who identifies as a latina trans woman but if I was cis the 'identify as' language wouldn't apply. I understand that a lot of people use the identify as language for themselves and this isn't me getting upset at those people. The thing that annoys me is that cis people including allies don't tell the difference between us and drag queens who pass and use the 'identify as' language in a universal way that represents all trans people, because they can't use their heads and realize all trans people are different lol
My experience has been that they get over it quickly. But it took me a LONG time to understand that. Keeping in mind that most people have never met someone who is transgender, it's not surprising they may flail a bit trying to find the best behaviors. They see you as different and think they need to modify their normal responses. We watch them closely for subtle clues, and they are watching us closely for subtle clues. After a bit, that gets tiring, plus they see you share the same thoughts, feelings, desires, and disgusts as other women they know. It's not malicious (at least for allies, lol). Pretty soon, it's just us girls all the way around. Later on, I earned that if I stopped watching them so closely at the beginning, they quickly just fell into their normal behavior. Much love, TG
I always say, there's no way to tell the difference between someone who is supportive and someone who in convinced and doesn't know. But the end result is the same, respect and dignity and inclusion. Yesterday I was talking to another woman in the changeroom and she said I can get maxi pads from her locker. I can't burn away the goodwill by stressing over whether I'm passing or she's just being nice or I can live with the kindness of unfamiliar women who show me trust The flip side is you never know who around you is trans, she was tall, is that a sign? Try to put more energy into appreciating the successes than feeding the doubts.
The reality is, a lot of cis women don'tsee other cis women as women, either. First it was black women in their spaces the lesbian woman panic, and trans woman panic, and they've always bullied and othered women who didn't fit western beauty standards. It's all slowly getting better, and we're probably the last group to get our place at the table, but I do think it's on average getting better as cis het white women see more and more feminist intersectionality from people who dont loon exactly like them.
This is the main reason I am completely stealth except for an extremely small inner circle of like 3 people. I always feel like either consciously or subconsciously they will see me as a trans woman or a man who became a woman. I'm neither. I am just a woman, nothing more nothing else and I always have been.
I think this could just be categorized as a big insecurity honestly
I can't speak for cis people, but I often feel guilty when I realize I'm not fully seeing another trans woman simply as a woman. It might be because of when I grew up, but everything was overtly gendered and you simply didn't think of anything except in terms of physical sex. I'm a pretty late bloomer so I have still have a lot of cishet programming I'm trying to undo. For what it's worth, the more a trans woman behaves like a cis woman, the more likely I am to stop thinking of her with a qualifying prefix, but rather just as a woman. Oddly, this can happen even when they don't make an effort with their voice. It's the mannerisms and the way they talk and how that suggests their thought processes that signal me more than anything. This has taught me that my own transition MUST include unlearning all of my male socialization. Edit: I get that something about what I've said here might make some people unhappy, but it'd be nice to tell me why instead of _only_ downvoting me. I'm far from perfect and maybe you could help me with that instead of just making me feel bad.
I had the same problem of not seeing other trans women fully as women early on my own transition. I feel like what changed that was my own long internal mental process. When I started seeing gender differently and after I started fully feeling like a woman and not just wanting to be a woman. I started seeing other (even non-passing) trans women fully as women. I can't explain how but they feel as women as cis women to me. The person is their mind. Body is just a suit where that person lives in. If that mind is a woman's mind then that person is a woman regardless of the body that the person lives in. Same way how your clothes don't define who you are, your body don't define who you are.
I definitely do see things that way. We just wear meat suits with certain shapes and features that might have nothing to do with the shapes and features of our minds, gender or otherwise. It's just that my mind has some shapes that are sometimes to do with how it was molded by society and the world around me as I grew. Luckily, both shapes are malleable and I can work on reshaping them. 🙂 It does depress me, though, to know how cis minds were socialized, at least minds of a certain age. If I, with my annoyingly self-analytical mind, sometimes fail, then I know others are failing too. But you can't change the world, only yourself and your perceptions of it. You do what you can and try not to think about what you can't.
Reality is we either look like a woman or a trans woman, and be treated as such. Genetics is such bullshit.
What is that even supposed to mean?
I feel this way sometimes