transgenderpolls

[transgenderpolls]

Trans people: Think of an outfit, makeup, accessories etc that would be ideal for expressing your current gender identity (and sexuality if you want) and fit your taste/style.

[transgenderpolls]

*all of this is implied to be up until the point of the child expressing a preference for a binary gender, if they do so. NO part of this poll implies that you would make a child be gender-neutral when they don't want to be

**this is distinct from just letting them choose their own clothing and toys/activities. this refers to how you'd dress them when they're too young to do it themselves, etc

[transgenderpolls]

i don't have a stake in the discourse or whatever but i do wanna warn you that, as an intersex cis girl, most people don't take it very well when i have to explain. lots of people's first response is still "oh so you're not a real girl huh" :(

I mean it would literally only come up if the choice was to either claim im intersex or come out as trans, like an atypical aspect of my body being discovered, which did happen to me when I was pre-t and trying to be stealth. And the guys who i had to lie to 100% would have just seen me as a girl if I was honest. The alternative didnt make them fully respect me, but it was definitely preferable for me and it was a lot closer to being seen as a cis man.

Point is that id only make any claims of that nature if having my social status as a seemingly cis man is on the line anyway, so like, its truly a last resort anyway

[transgenderpolls]

Same anon you just replied to - it’s not actually the CONVERSATION that’s harming intersex people. I want trans people and intersex people to be as safe as possible. The harm I and other intersex people are trying to tell you right now is that the general belief that perisex people are more accepting of intersex people than cis folks are of trans folks is untrue, and rooted in deeply intersexist ideas that you clearly have not unpacked. Please actually listen to intersex voices, and work to understand what we are trying to tell you, because this space is deeply valuable to intersex trans people, just as it is to perisex trans folks.

I literally dont believe that intersex people as a group are more accepted. Thats not what ive been saying at all. Im talking about a very specific scenario in which i get made to explain my body, and the fact that the people *im* around who would be at all likely to ask, in the place that *I* live, are more likely to respond favorably as *i* consider it, if they think my body is like this naturally rather than that I got transgender hormones and surgery to make it this way. And i can make this prediction NOT due to misinformed generalizing beliefs but rather personal individualized experience. Does that make sense?

[transgenderpolls]

some of you are very convinced that all bigoted people are bigoted in the exact same way and that there can't be regional or even just individual differences lol

[transgenderpolls]

Different anon! Just wanted to drop by and say that gynecomastia by itself isn't an intersex variation, but it is a common intersex trait that pops up in multiple variations. It can happen on its own isolated, which wouldn't be intersex, but it does still happen very frequently with intersex people.

It's also still not good for a perisex person to use an intersex trait to deflect from their transness. Sure, to YOU it might feel safer, but it does genuinely harm actual people (intersex and not) with gynecomastia when you claim you have it/experience the side effects of living with it gives you.

Before we found out we were intersex and when we were early into our transition we were given the advice to tell people we had gynecomastia if anyone ever asked (we didn't, but multiple people told us to)

Once we found out we were intersex we got into the community more and found out that intersex people and people with non intersex gynecomastia really don't like when people claim they have it to deflect from their transmasc status, and that and it often makes them feel unsafe around that person or like their own actual struggles are being trivialized/attention is being taken away from people who Actually have it.

No one can stop you from you claiming you have/had gynecomastia but it would be really nice if you actually looked into the community and got the opinions of people who actually have it and have been hurt by perisex people in your same position.

I personally don't hate you or have any contempt for you, and I do understand your situation, but I do think you need to maybe look a little more into the intersex and adjacent communities and really understand why people would be upset at you for claiming to have a variation/trait that you just don't have.

Would you claim to be any other type of minority you're not apart of to 'feel safer'? No? Then why do you feel it's fine to do that with intersex and adjacent people..? Just something to think about!

(genuine, not mad, not upset)

okay real question: HOW does/would it harm anyone? the hypothetical situation we're talking about, as a reminder, is this:

me: *post top surgery* someone: *notices my chest is much flatter than it was, or gets wind that the surgery i had was on my chest, or sees the scars after the fact, etc* woah what's the deal there??? me: oh i had breast growth due to gynecomastia but got it removed bc it made me insecure

or

me: *exists with my sexually ambiguous body* someone: *happens to see it when i didn't intend for them to* woah what's the deal there??? me: uhh i'm intersex

because in the version of events where i answer that i'm trans, that absolutely puts me in danger. that stands a very real, present and physical chance of harming ME. what about the above situations, where i say it was gynecomastia or that i'm intersex, could hurt any intersex person more than *i* could be harmed by being openly trans to people that i don't know very well?

i have looked into it. i have never seen a legitimate answer to that question. i have gotten people off my back by making that claim in the past. the institutional connection between transphobia and intersexism, and the inability to quantify which is "worse," is not what i'm talking about whatsoever, but rather the individual experiences and individual people that know personally and what i know their responses would be.

also... i mean, yeah, if there were a situation where claiming to be trans when they're not actually WOULD make someone safer than being honest about something else, like genuinely safer re: their physical body and livelihood, why should i have a problem with that? like if it was the reverse, and if it was a guy who looked like me and had my same body parts but just naturally rather than by transitioning, and if he was in a situation where it would be more respected if it was the latter, no, that would not bother me at all. it would only be bad if he started actively playing the role of a trans man and potentially misrepresenting facts of transness. but for a one-and-done fib to get someone off his back? who cares? ultimately i'd say we have more in common than we are different, anyway, and that all either of us are doing is playing the system.

[transgenderpolls]

You shouldn't do that (referencing the calling yourself a cis man with gynecomastia).

Intersex people have been asking for the longest time not to call yourself intersex (which that is) / imply that because 1. It won't make you safer and 2. It doesn't actually do anything for you.

It's also based in intersexuality still being disordered and necessarily needs to be changed.

it's very contentious whether or not gynecomstatia is considered intersex, though? like i'm not saying that it's definitively not, but basically no sources will say that it is. it's also, like, a very common condition. i've known several cis men who have it to varying degrees, some to the point of elective surgery, and none of them considered themselves intersex or even said they experienced anything particularly bad other than some personal insecurity due to it.

i wouldn't go around saying "i'm intersex" straight up but if it had to be the answer to a question where i'd otherwise have to come out as trans, i would, because where i am, that genuinely would be safer as an explanation for my ambiguous body. idk where you get the notion that it wouldn't becuase i can guarantee you it would. in the case of specifically claiming to have gynecomastia (or rather answering potential questions with that claim), not only would people be unlikely to even think that means i'm intersex, but even the most conservative cis people would continue to see me as a man who just had some breast tissue that i got rid of - a decision they'd see as normal and reasonable. if these same people find out i'm trans, they most likely start thinking of me as someone who "used to be a girl" and probably worse.

also i'm sorry but i have to say that i feel like your message comes at this from a place of pure concepts & ideals and not any actual application of them in the real world. the last bit especially. because the implication there seems to be "if you tell someone that you got your gynecomastia removed, they'll think that gynecomastia is BAD and that it HAS to be removed and that no one is allowed to just live with it." which makes me think... well do you tell this to all the cis men with gynecomastia who DO get their breasts removed by their own choice? and furthermore, do you say this about trans men getting top surgery? because functionally these things really aren't different at all. we live in a society where breasts are associated almost exclusively with women, so men with breasts often feel dysphoric about them and want to get rid of them. someone's personal choice, cis or trans - or the existence of the option of elective surgery - means nothing about what that person thinks other people should do. if some rando gets that impression, that's their own fault.

tldr: please be realistic lol

[transgenderpolls]

you may know, as i've already announced, that i'm getting top surgery in a couple months. though also for several years now i have felt no need to bind, for the main reason that in spite of whatever physical dysphoria i might feel, it doesn't impact my passing whatsoever. i'm sure that anyone particularly observant (or those who are attracted to me and thus motivated to look at my body) may have wondered about my silhouette, and that they'd likely have come to the conclusion either that 1) (if they know what it is) i have gynecomastia, or 2) i'm just chubbier than my face and limbs make me seem. honestly this fact does not bother me and on my less dysphoric days i not only don't mind it but even kind of like embodying the sort of guy who just has a chest like that. however one thing that i have been thinking about, as my top surgery draws closer, is whether it will be noticeable that the whole shape of my chest has changed - and thus whether i may ironically become more visibly trans because of surgery. and the thing is i'm almost entirely stealth. basically only those who knew me pre-transition and those who've had sexual relationships with me know that i'm not a cis man. i'm gonna get it no matter what, but i guess i just wanted to share that this has been on my mind as a vague worry, in case any of my followers have had similar worries or relevent experiences, idk. i suppose i'm not TOO worried anyway bc if it came down to it i really wouldn't mind just claiming that i'm a cis man with gynecomastia and that i just now got surgery for it or something. once again, just floating my thoughts.

[transgenderpolls]

*already as in prior to getting multiple names. so this may refer to a given name that you still use, OR a chosen name that you took as your legal name if it wasn't until later that you started using multiple names. it only does NOT refer to a given name that you don't ever actually use socially.

note from submitter: i changed my name legally several years ago to a name i no longer resonate with, and now my gender identity has changed and i use multiple names, i'm wondering how other people who have multiple names have gotten it legally changed to try and figure out what to do