Ganked from meepettermu

[ng_moonmoth]

who posted this last week, motivated by Tuesday's being Transgender Day of Visibility.

Ask me a question. Anything you're curious about? Anything you don't understand but want to? There's one question on the list I feel strongly enough about to give you the answer for free; I think I'm comfortable answering all the others. Pick a number and comment or send a private message. If you'd like to ask me something not listed, I might not be able to answer but I won't be offended you asked.

I'm not engaging in gender critical discussions on feminism, transphobia, or hate, because ain't nobody got time for sadness.

I want to help people understand trans people better.

1. Has being trans been an obstacle in your life with friends, family, work, etc?
2. How long have you known?
3. What are your pronouns?
4. How did you pick your name?
5. What's your favorite dinosaur?
6. Why would you want to be a guy/girl?
7. What does AMAB or AFAB mean?
8. What do you feel like you missed out on most in your childhood (if you transitioned later)
9. What has been your favorite part of transitioning so far?
10. What worries you most as a trans person?
11. Does your family accept you?
12. How has transitioning changed your life?
13. What has surprised you most about transitioning?
14. What would have made it easier for you to come out?
15. What has been the hardest part of your transition so far?
16. How do you know you're trans?
17. How does it feel to transition?
18. How did you tell your family, friends, work, etc., tha?
19. Are you fully transitioned?
20. What's the hardest part of your experience as a trans person?
21. Why not just be a "feminine guy"/"masculine woman"?
22. How do you think your life would be different if you could have transitioned younger?
23. What is the best part about being trans?
24. Have you had any surgeries? Are you going to?

Please don't ask this of any trans person. Or anyone you suspect might be a trans person. It's only slightly less offensive than asking what's in their pants. (That one I'll actually tell you:. Right now I'm not wearing pants, so, "air". When I am wearing pants, the answer is "my legs, my crotch, and my torso up to my waist.") Not quite in the same league as asking what their crotch looks like. (I've got two answers for that one. If the asker doesn't strike me as the kind of person who can take a hint as to how out of line that question is, they'll get the cold and clinical "You aren't a doctor I have decided to have care for that part of my body, and we aren't having or planning sex with each other. And you just took yourself out of consideration for either role by that question." Someone who looks like they might actually get a clue may get "I'll show you mine if you show me yours.")

25. How can I make things better for you?
26. What are you most excited about in your transition?
27. What's non-binary?
28. What do you wish you could tell younger you, as a trans person?
29. What are you most excited for in your transition?
30. I want to ask another question / AMA

Comments

[verdande_mi]

Since we are new friends, I feel I should certainly ask 3, and how about 25 and 26 also :)

[ng_moonmoth]

For 3, my pronouns (xe/xyr/xyrs/xyrself) are in my profile. But they/them is appropriate anywhere my gender is not germane to the topic. (Example: "ng_moonmoth said they were going to the supermarket" vs. "ng_moonmoth is upset because there are no gender-neutral restroooms on the convention floor, and xe is uncomfortable enough in "men's" or "women's" room that xe goes up to xyr room instead.")

The thing I'd most appreciate for 25 is something you may well do already, which is to not presume my or anyone else's gender identity based on anything other that what they say it is. Also, someone displaying their pronouns is likely OK with your noting that, but, absent better gender-signaling presentation options, if you'd leave it at that and let them decide how much they wanted to say about their gender identity.

I personally go somewhat further in not presuming someone's gender, by using "they" for any person whose gender identity I do not know. This is my way of mitigating the gender stereotyping that all too often gets dragged along with the description. Even if someone looks like they have an estrogen-influenced body type, and is wearing woman-normative clothes, marking them as a woman and evaluating them by whatever behavior standards one associates with that marking strikes me as often inaccurate, sometimes unfair, and occasionally outright insensitive or abusive. So I don't do it or bring it into conversations unnecessarily.

Regarding 26, I continue to notice how much more open and energetic and approachable I am when I am not laboring under the burden of gender pretense. Apparently being authentic about who I am shows.

[aome]

Would you tell me how to pronounce your pronouns? :)

[ng_moonmoth]

That's the trickiest aspect. They work well in print for me, because "x" and "y" are the canonical letters used to represent unknowns in many mathematical contexts. But looking at how an initial "x" is pronounced in languages that use it gets to "z", which makes it sound like the "ze/zer/zers/zerself" family, and "sh" or "h", which confuses it with the normative pronouns.

The one I'm working with is the proper sound one hears for the Greek "chi" or the German "ch": a sound that isn't quite "kh", but starts with a softer sound than "k". Interestingly, that is the sound that the International Phonetic Alphabet represents as "x". So it would fit nicely. Continuing the IPA theme, I'm working using "eh" -- as found in many languages that haven't had the vowel shift English has for their "e" symbol. So, sort of "kheh"/"kheer"/"kheers"/"kheerself", with the appropriate adjustment to the "kh" part.

Someone else I talked with about this mentioned "zh" as a possible sound for the "x". It's certainly easier to say, so it might carry the day for me.

But, as I described elsewhere, unless my gender is actually germane to what's being discussed, "them"/"their"/"theirs"/"thenmself" avoids bringing in somewhere it doesn't really belong, and therefore suits me fine.

[aome]

Thank you!

[flowersforgraves]

5?

[ng_moonmoth]

Right off the top of my head, probably Ankylosaurus. There's something intriguing about wearing armor and carrying a mace you can whack anyone who's bothering you with. Somewhat prickly on the outside, but content to do one's own thing.

[shadaras]

4 and 5! :D

If there's anything you wanna share about 28, that's always a question I find interesting to hear answers to.

[ng_moonmoth]

Someone else asked 5 already. I answered it above.

4: My impression is that names generally come with gender baggage. Fashions may change over time, but people generally think of names as being associated with a specific gender, no matter how many genders one's culture may sanction. And for those names that more than one gender uses, each person's impression will likely wind up biased by their experience.

I opened my mind to a name that was consistent with my personal image, easy enough to pronounce and spell, and uncommon enough to not have too much experiential gender baggage. The first one I got was an invented name, but you wouldn't guess the spelling or pronunciation from the other, so I kept looking. A few months ago, another one popped up that hits all the targets. I've tried it out in public since, and it seems to work well.

That's the first name. I've also picked out two middle names that tie into my family of origin (and has an interesting connection with someone in spouse's family), and a last name that is a metaphorical translation into another language of my current last name. Those parts already suit me well.

For 28, I would say: "Be who you are. Do not subsume that into who people tell you you "must" or "should" be for the sake of other goals you value."

[chanter1944]

25? Alternately, 4 as applied to your journal name, please. I have no right to know your RL name.

[ng_moonmoth]

Answer to 25 coming; see further above. Also just above, 4 regarding how I arrived at a provisional out name -- without giving any clues about it.

Read the story by science-fiction author Jack Vance, which provided the inspiration for my handle and profile!name. Closet!me feels a lot like the character I referenced, who must obscure their identity behind a mask as they struggle to navigate a violent and barely comprehensible culture.

As far as my closet!name, I appreciate your consideration in the matter. I am going out as myself more and more, occasionally as out!name, but still wish to retain the illusion of control over who associates out!name or DW handle with my physical body.

[aome]

Oh, I'm nosy, and I also want to hear about stories other than my son's, so: 1, 2, 9, 14, and 28. You are NOT obligated to answer all of these, lol, but I'd be delighted to hear your answers to any of them. :)

This took a while for me to write

[ng_moonmoth]

I wanted to make sure I did my best to write down what fit me. You deserve no less.

1. Has being trans been an obstacle in your life with friends, family, work, etc?
Actually, it's more like friends, family, work, etc. have been obstacles: not to my being trans (which I am independent from those aspects of my life), but to my claiming and asserting my trans identity. Not being aware of my trans identity, I constructed and unconsciously concealed it beneath an episionormative facade through most of my life. Since coming out to myself, I have been slowly bringing my expression more and more often into alignment with my identity.

2. How long have you known?
When I was in grade school, I didn't understand what made something "boy stuff" or "girl stuff", or even why there was "boy stuff" and "girl stuff" -- and why it mattered so much whether one was a boy or a girl. But I didn't have the words to connect any of that with having a nonbinary identity: the words hadn't really been discovered yet, let alone be anything I would have heard in my world. Puberty didn't make it any easier, and that whole crushing and pairing up and sexual attraction thing just wasn't where I was at, either. But there was an episionormative identity I could fit into well enough that allowed me to not have to deal much with the things I didn't align with, and due to lack of evidence to the contrary, I believed that I was of that sort.

All of which broke down 7 1/2 or so years ago. In a series of visions, or waking dreams, or whatever you might call them, my "secret identity" revealed itself to my consciousness, showing me that my sexuality was independent of my, or my partner's, body configuration. Having experienced that, I soon worked out that my gender identity must necessarily be similarly unconstrained. And then everything started making sense.

9. What has been your favorite part of transitioning so far?
Some of it's a lot like the answer I gave for 26 above. But I think that openness and energy and approachability owes a lot to my living my life as who I am, instead of who I'm pretending to be.

14. What would have made it easier for you to come out?
Not being indoctrinated into gender-normative behaviors that didn't fit me by my parents and my culture as I was developing my identity. This would have given me the opportunity to explore it and define myself as I entered adulthood, and I would not have subjected to the emotional drain imposed by hiding my identity -- which I didn't recognize until I stopped hiding it.

The only person I have "come out to" -- and this is the only person "come out to" will ever fit for me -- is myself. Having crossed that threshold, I now "go out as" myself when I'm up for it and circumstances permit. Right now, I can comfortably disclose my nonbinary identity if I choose to, but whether I do so is my own decision. I do not bring the topic of gender, my own or generally, into conversations that do not involve gender.

Someone else has already asked about 28. You can find my answer above.

Re: This took a while for me to write

[aome]

Thank you so much for your thoughtful and honest responses. I especially appreciate your description of how you felt growing up non-binary (although you didn't have the words at the time) because, as someone with a definite gender identity, that's hard for me to picture.

It seems like you have reached a place where you are comfortable with who you are, the hell with anyone else, and I think that's awesome. I hope my son can achieve that level of confidence at some point.

Re: This took a while for me to write

[ng_moonmoth]

You're welcome. Glad I could help.

I also have a definite gender identity, which some nonbinary people do not. Some (genderfluid) cover a range of gender identities. Some agender people assert they have no gender identity; others have a gender identity which amounts to "that's a [some other gender] thing, so it's not part of my identity." My relationship to gendered things is pretty consistent; it just doesn't line up with anyone's cultural norms. What matters to me is how I feel about it and what it means to me. This isn't really much different from how anyone else defines their identity, just without the cultural default gender filters.

Also pretty much like anyone else, my presentation can span a range. I described this in a comment on another post by pointing out that Queensryche T-shirt/torn jeans/Doc Martens and lavender power pantsuit/stiletto heels/full makeup are both valid expressions for a woman, and there are women who might wear both at different times -- and recognize that the C-suite getup is just as out of place at a metal concert as the metal outfit is in the executive boardroom.

I'm still moving toward that place you mentioned. I am comfortable with who I am (my gender counselor agrees), but I haven't arrived at the "hell with anyone else" spot -- I'm revealing who I am slowly and carefully in a effort to retain relationships I value as I transition more and more from concealed to disclosed. And it seems to be working. I would also like to see your son comfortable with who he is, and am really glad you are helping him find that out.

Re: This took a while for me to write

[aome]

I also have a definite gender identity

I am really sorry. I really put my foot in it for that one. >_< Thank you for educating me. *bangs head*

Re: This took a while for me to write

[ng_moonmoth]

Please! Nothing at all to be that sorry for -- let alone (even metaphorically) physically punishing yourself for. Much better for both of us to simply apologize and move on.

Not only that, but your misunderstanding is quite commonplace. Trying to figure out someone's relationship with gender is tricky when that relationship doesn't match up with the ones you're used to -- and prone to error, because you're operating only on what you see and trying to locate something in your personal framework, and it aligns poorly, if at all, with that framework.

You're already well ahead of the game by having decided to use your son's transition as motivation to become more gender-aware. Which means you're moving in the direction of having an informed conversation with someone who doesn't fit gender stereotypes, and allowing them to tell you what it is rather than guessing. And that's what really matters for folks like me. Hoping you continue to improve your understanding.