If you're pre-op/non-op (i.e. no phallo or meta), then how do you frame sex to yourself and your partner? How do you ensure that you feel masculine and like a man during it? Is there a lens through which receiving PIV can be viewed as male?
It's the last day of Pride Month.
I did nothing to celebrate it this year.
The same as last year.
And the year before that.
Does that make me a bad transsexual?
I'd rather be proud of what I've done than what I am.
I don’t get it. From the outside it looks like Maladaptive Wallowing: the Subreddit. Endless doomposting about not passing, including by tranons who in other subreddits claim to pass. Cognitively dissonant views of themselves simultaneously as stylized cute uwu anime boymoders and as unpassable ogres.
I also don’t understand why someone who wants that kind of experience wouldn’t just go to 4chan proper instead of 4chan-lite. It’s like choosing Coke Zero over Coke Classic. Both will ruin your health, so you might as well have the full-taste version. Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t drink soda.
Perhaps it’s because 4chan is too brutal even for them. They know, deep down, that 4tran is a massive hugbox. They want to be told that they’re brainwormed BDD passoids. They want to be told that collecting and creating boymoder “art” is reasonable behavior. They don’t want to be told that actually they’re gigalateshit ngmi moidbrained permamanmoding nbaw hons for whom it is and always was over. Please excuse me; I need to go wash my hands after writing that line.
Perhaps it’s because /tttt/ users unabashedly call themselves and each other AGP, HSTS, MEF, AGAMP, or whatever new acronyms have emerged from the cauldron of the Church of J. Michael Bailey of Latter-day Blanchardians, and 4tranners don’t like that they perceive themselves reflected in that particular mirror.
They venture on occasion to this subreddit only to crawl back after their learned helplessness goes uncoddled. I fear shark plushies are to some of them as couches are to JD Vance: there’s no evidence, but it’s not entirely unbelievable.
Get out of bed, commit to womanmoding or detransitioning, burn your hoodie, and put your Blåhaj in a wood chipper.
If you’re a long-term NEET without a legitimate medical reason for being one, then I do not view your transition as a success. (It might become successful later, but it’s not currently a success.) Transition should make you more socially legible to others. Being socially legible creates access to gainful employment.
Minimum wage employment is supposed to be temporary, not a permanent career. If you have a reasonable job, then top surgery/vaginoplasty is affordable with insurance and budgeting. Vaginoplasty can be had for low single-digit thousands out-of-pocket cost these days in the US. That’s less than a month’s rent in some locations.
Getting called ma’am when you’re presenting full fem doesn’t mean you pass. Drag queens get called ma’am too. The same is true of being called miss when you’re in “boymode” (aka trying your hardest to get gendered female while pretending you’re not doing that because you’re wearing a men’s hoodie). The real test is getting gendered female without the subtle (or not-so-subtle) presentational hints: dressing like a casual cis woman who can’t be bothered putting in effort.
Also everyone knows about boymoders now after TADC revealed Jax to be one. They know boymoders are trans women. They know trans women want to be gendered female. Boymoding now gives practically zero plausible deniability.
My understanding is that social dysphoria is typically used to describe distress arising from being socially perceived as one’s natal sex, whether that’s pronouns, being grouped with other members of one’s natal sex, or something else. It’s typically contrasted with body/physical/anatomic dysphoria, which refers to people who experience distress from possessing their natal sex characteristics, in some cases rising to disgust or outright body horror and dissociation.
I transitioned, but neither of the above types of dysphoria fit the distress I had. I transitioned because—despite my best efforts—I couldn’t seem to satisfy the expectations placed on men by society. I was fine with being male in the abstract. I didn’t need to be regarded as female, referred to with she/her, or grouped with natal females. My body being male didn’t bother me. However, even when doing my best to be masculine I seemed effete to others. Men perceived that way are treated poorly.
I transitioned because I felt that I would thrive under the social and romantic treatment and expectations society reserves exclusively for women and which knew I couldn’t get as a man. If I had been able to get it as a man—being allowed to be soft, sensitive, receptive; being held, protected, and cherished by another man as his delicate prince—then I wouldn’t have transitioned. If I had to describe it as a type of dysphoria then I would probably call it social dysphoria, but to me it’s clearly not the phenomenon I described at the start of this post.
I transitioned in the DSM-IV era. I was diagnosed with gender identity disorder. The treatment for that was medical transition. I paid for that treatment out of pocket because insurance didn't cover it back then.
The GID criteria in DSM-IV were:
I wanted to become a woman (Criteria A) because remaining a man would have meant remaining stuck in an incompatible social role. I felt that the male gender role was inappropriate for me (Criteria B) because I was failing at it. I did not have any diagnosed concurrent physical intersex condition (Criteria C). I had clinically significant distress because my social and romantic life as a man was and had always been in the toilet (Criteria D).
(Note regarding Criteria B: I did not regard the social treatment and expectations women receive as a cultural advantage. I viewed them as more compatible with an innate disposition that had defeated my repeated attempts to conform to masculinity. It would be a tradeoff: I could be the soft one held and protected, but in exchange I faced being condescended to and taken even less seriously than I already was.)
Nothing about hating my body. Nothing about body/physical/anatomic dysphoria.
Does transmedicalism have a place for me and the reason I transitioned? I went through the medical pathway available to me. I submitted to the gatekeeping of the time. I committed to medical and social transition to the fullest extent possible. My life is greatly improved as a result. I have not developed any kind of reverse dysphoria.
If you had free rein to design a universal medical transition pathway with no alternatives available (not even DIY—I’m interested in what your ideal system would be without any pressure relief valves), then what would it look like?
Here’s a list of questions I think you could consider. It’s not meant to be exhaustive and you don’t have to answer all of them. (Some of the questions are intentionally provocative and should not be interpreted as representing my own views on access to medical transition.)
Feel free to explain the reasoning behind any of your decisions. (In fact, I encourage it! It would be boring if every reply were simply a list of yes/no answers.)