Thread 40952522

if there is a difference between sex and gender, why do you say that trans women are women?
what is a woman?

>>40952522 (OP)
sex is biological sex
gender is the sex you are perceived as by others

both are changeable. you can change your sex pretty significantly with hrt/surgery, you can change your gender by passing.

>>40952522 (OP)
>if there is a difference between sex and gender,
There isn't.
>why do you say that trans women are women?
Because we are human females
>what is a woman?
That's a big question.

>>40952552
>sex is biological sex
What does this mean tho?
I have a female nervous system attached to a male endocrine system so what the fuck am I?

>>40952552
how can surgery change your biological sex?
>>40952555
what are the differences between female and male nervous systems?

>>40952552
/thread pretty much
>>40952555
>What does this mean tho?
i would think anon is speaking generally, which is sort of a necessary contrivance/concession in these types of discussions since everything is so nebulous but the cisgender mind cannot comprehend that
also, though, i disagree with your position that sex and gender are the same; sex, i think, is your definite physical self, while gender is the social space you occupy in the minds of yourself and/or others, which is usually an extension of your sex but not necessarily
for example non-hormonally transitioned ftms of yore who were just running on internal female everything but yet were men in all aspects of life

>>40952555
>female nervous system
sure, whatever. there is probably some part of the CNS that is either a mosaic or imbalanced or whatever that causes gender dysphoria. you can even get philosophical about wanting to be female being a female trait, but at best its a relatively mild intersex condition of the brain. HRT has a much greater effect on the body (including the CNS) than this

>>40952569
>how can surgery change your biological sex
by replacing the primary sex organ with a less-functional version of its opposite

nullifies reproductive ability (neutral)
aesthetically female
sexually female

>>40952555
>what the fuck am I?
preop trannies (2-5+y HRT + penis) are a third sex and gender. you're biologically a tranny and pass as one
>why is tranny a sex
intersex anatomy, male primary sex characteristics (but with different functionality), female secondary sex characteristics. unique but mostly female endocrine patterns
>why is tranny a gender
based on the tranny sex, with a different social role than men and women.

>>40952569
>what are the differences between female and male nervous systems?
idc ask a neurologist.
I just know my nervous system craps out on testosterone and fucking loves estrogen

>>40952590
>while gender is the social space you occupy in the minds of yourself and/or others, which is usually an extension of your sex but not necessarily
Yeah see the issue I have with that is that transition didn't change me into a woman, I was always a woman, transition was just me accepting myself and fixing what was wrong with me. If I didn't do that, if I had have kept repressing, I'd still be a woman.
>for example non-hormonally transitioned ftms of yore who were just running on internal female everything but yet were men in all aspects of life
Yeah because they're men. Their brains are male brains which means they are wired to operate as men. So they did. Because that's what men do.
That's the point, trans women ARE women, trans men ARE men. Hormones don't change your gender, because you can't change your gender, HRT is just fixing your endocrine system because you got born with the wrong genitals.

>>40952599
>whatever that causes gender dysphoria.
We know what causes gender dysphoria. It's a hormonal disruption in the third trimester of pregnancy (when the brain develops). Using trans woman as the example, this leaves a female nervous system attached to an inactive male endocrine system. During puberty the testosteron kicks in an masculinizes the body but the brain has already developed female. Naturally this doesn't work very well, thus dysphoria.
In theory there are two ways to fix this:
1. We fix the nervous system to be more male. If this was possible it would fundamentally change the person, ie. ego death.
2. We fix the endocrine system to be more female. We've had the technology to do this for 6,000 years.

Therefore the I in the sentence I think therefore I am is female. I am female. That is simply a fact.

>>40952636
That's cope. Literally. 2000chars

>>40952552
>you can change your gender by passing.
i think this is such a brutal thing to accept. or rather i also think you can change your gender by not passing. trans women exist in a different gender space than cis women if they're clocky. but if you want your gender to be the same as cis women you need to pass. and i think that does something to your sense of self too its like that also changes you.

>>40952731
>I was always a woman
this is what i mean when i say >in the minds of yourself(!) and/or others, though. you do not necessarily need to transition to "become" a gender different from your sex, i think, at least insofar as personal truths are concerned. in my case, i don't feel like anything at all really (and i never did), but i do live as a woman now because transitioning gave me an appearance which is mostly associated with women. i personally think i'm enby, but i exist as a woman, which makes me a woman, in my own personal philosophy: i believe that everyone's relationship with their sex and/or gender is unique. for me, it is the world seeing my physical self which made me a woman (whether i "truly" am one or not), but for you, natural/innate womanhood was something you had to reconcile your physical self with.
i hope i'm making sense i feel like i may not be (sorry)
pace your other response i think i would say mostly the same thing, which is that i think you're right, but not *necessarily* right, because everybody's got different psychic stuff going on. trans women ARE women, dogmatically, but for someone like me, who is a woman bc that's just sort of how the world works, i don't really feel like i am a woman, in the same way that you are, or, like, most cis women probably are. i have no innate sense of that sort of thing. so i don't think it's totally an internal thing like that. i think there are a lot of different ways you can be different things (hence my separating sex and gender; i think it is just easier that way)

>>40952795
Can other girls see you as anything other than a girl now or can they only see you as a girl to them

Tard filled with lard

>>40952795
Sweetheart you can be enby. A third of all transgender people are. Don't slot yourself into woman just because you're not a man.
My point is that facts aren't subject to democracy. I don't pass, the world sees me as a man in a dress, and they're welcome to that. But that doesn't change reality. I'm not a man in a dress, I'm a woman and I dress like one.

>>40952799
i guess they only see me as a woman? the women i knew pre-transition might see me as some third gender or pseudo-woman (i have never asked), but the randos and ppl in my life i've met post-transition mostly don't know i'm trans, unless i've told them, so i imagine they just view me like any other woman. maybe weirder.
i've never really come out to anyone as enby, though, so if that's what you're asking i couldn't answer. i'm not sure if anyone would view me differently if i did, which is partly why i don't come out lol. i'll do that when i develop the confidence.

>>40952809
i think that your reality of being a woman on a basic and innate level can coexist with my reality that i am a woman by assimilation(???????? i don't know how to put this), though.
it is just the reality i live in that i am seen as a woman, whether i feel like it or not. and i don't have a problem with it!! i'm okay with that and i like my body now a lot more than i ever did before (which body is part of why people see me the way they do), so it doesn't feel as though i am denying myself some carnal truth or anything (although i o think it would be nice to be androgynous). it's just that i exist as a woman in a way that is less personal to me. i think my womanhood and yours are just as concrete as one another, but they manifest in different ways.

>>40952846
Maybe you're right, everyone's journey is different and I'm still learning.
The important thing is that you're happy and included in society in a way that is healthy for you.

>>40952869
>I'm still learning
me too friend!!!!! maybe in two years i will feel completely differently. this is just how my personal philosophy has developed at this point in my life, and i don't think that's a journey that ever ends, so to speak.
thanks for talkin :) i like having conversations like these

>>40952812
I'm wondering if they would treat me differently because of that?

>>40952893
<3

>>40952912
you mean, whether they would treat you authentically, like one of their cisgender girlfriends? i am assuming you are mtf, but i'm not sure that i completely understand; i'm sorry :(
i think it depends on a lot of factors, like whether you pass or not, what your personality is, the person to whom you are speaking (whether they view you as a "real" woman, or whether they even care about that; how they treat people in general, or whether their personality meshes well with yours, etc), and probably a bunch of other things that i haven't considered. i am pretty asocial and personally inept so i guess i don't know exactly what being treated "normally" or "differently" would look or seem or feel like. i do know, though, that i have been asked about my period (a thing i do not experience), so presumably that means i am treated as any other woman? but really i think that's just passing...i don't know what women's relationships with each other are like any better than i understand those of men. which is to say, "not very well".
plenty of tranners here do talk about having great friendships with women, though. i'm just not sure this is something i could really talk or advise about with my personal experience....hopefully this is at least a little helpful anyways :)

>>40953040
Yeah if they would see me as a romantic interest still or just automatically label me as a friend

sex = gender
trans people look like their birth sex and birth gender in three dimensions

>>40952552
>Perceived by others
That's not exactly something you have jurisdiction over though, is it? The only inalienable right we have is to think for ourselves. So calling yourself a woman when you're not perceived as one and relying on the state to force people to recognize it, isn't exactly fulfilling the premise.

If you ask me, gender seems to be an arbitrary collection of traits defined by social and cultural values, attributed as Internet to a particular sex. Though that begs the question, if the values are mutable, how do you know what they are, and if they are attributed to a sex you aren't, how can they be attributed to you?

But I don't really understand the premise. It seems zero gravity. The only solid points are dysphoria a symptom of depression so severe you dissociate and with gender having such a strong presence in the zeitgeist that's an understandable avenue of expression, autogynophilia, and the campest of twinks that are so enamored by men, they assume the attitudes of a woman to make themselves more attractive to their desired mates. But it's still so conceptual.

It makes more sense from the non binary perspective. As in the traits attributed to a sex are so arbitrary, there's no reason either sex can't assume them. Yes it's limited by biology, but that doesn't mean any act a trans person undertakes is necessarily irrational. It's just self expression.

But as I understand it, this is apparently offensive to suggest this.

Honestly though, I'm willing to concede that I don't know shit about shit. Wish I did get it though. Maybe it's one of those cognitive bias this that exists alongside my belief that men and women aren't so fundamentally different, despite everyone harping on that they are, at least before society conditions them into gender roles. Also don't that what I say too seriously. If believing I'm wrong helps you function, don't indulge my musings. I'd prefer happiness over being right.

trans women look male

i have the final say on whatever is or isn't a woman, simple as.

>>40954473
well...i mean most women are straight, so if you're a girl looking for a girlfriend, probably not......but that is another thing that depends on a lot of factors, also including your appearance and personality, and the preferences and personality of the woman to whom you're speaking. i've never dated women really so i don't exactly know how that goes, either..but there are very few absolutes in life. i guess the short answer to your question is "yes", and the long answer is also "yes" but with the caveat that the person/people we're talking about are the sort who would be interested in you, specifically.

>>40952522 (OP)
total frogposter death

>>40956256
most women are gynephilic-leaning bisexuals
compulsory heteronormativity is enforced by bisexual women as a form of in-group competition

>>40955900
you seem like a good person, nonny. i'm not sure i understand everything you're saying, exactly, but i will try to answer some things (i authored these >>40952590 >>40952795 >>40952846 posts if you would like to read them; i am phoneposting now so i am trying to be brief).
i don't know how people can just Know their gender, but i do think i understand that it must be the natural opposite to what i feel, which makes sense to me. i think you are totally right about gender (as it manifests in social roles) being super arbitrary and almost indefinable, but in speaking to others, i have come to understand that there is something very personal and innate that i guess most people feel, disconnected from those social roles. as plain and obvious to one as the number of fingers on their left hand.
as for your thoughts on the reasons for transitioning, i think you're a little misguided (lol), but you could add a fourth one there, which happens to apply to me: a desire to have a body more in line with that of the opposite sex, born of very physical dysphoria. you could probably even call it "sex dysphoria" because i don't really think "gender dysphoria" describes it at all. i'm not sure i totally get your use of the word "conceptual" here, so maybe you could explain that, if you'd like.
i think your thoughts about nonbinary people are pretty sound, but not necessarily reflective of every experience (eg mine). for a lot of enbies, there is an innate-gender-feeling(-or-lack-thereof) thing going on. it just doesn't always entail wanting to change one's body. it isn't only tomboys and femboys, who, as far as i am aware, aren't usually nonbinary at all. i'm not sure what about this you think would be offensive, but i also don't think i understand what you meant by
>Yes it's limited by biology[...]It's just self-expression.
so maybe that is why.

i still hit the character limit. oof. anyways idk if this helps at all. hopefully it does, at least a little :)

>>40956876
I appreciate you taking the time. The reference to limited by biology is general, like the idea I can't be a 7 foot tall space marine, because my biology limited me to my modest 5'9 self. The biological limitations just refers to the hard limits that can't be bypassed, at least for now. So I'm so going to need help changing that lightbulb. I'm very excited by the prospect of transhumanism though. But that likely won't eventuate completely in our lifetime, which is a shame. Though when I was a child the idea of a smart phone was sci-fi, and that managed to become a reality in my life time, so I'm chuffed with that. Self expression was just a short hand to say how our identity manifests.

You're right about the 4th one, which is ironic that I mention transhumanism as it's very much akin to that ideal. Your marble contained your statue, you just let it out.

The non binary thing though, feels like a misnomer. It's more to suggest that because there are no particular lines, mainly just how people impose them, choosing that spot on the continuum of identity is entirely up to how we rationalize it. Because there's no evidence beyond a doubt that says our identity is compelled to be constrained by our physical form.

Or at Yoda says, Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.

So an ideal of a binary feels constraining, because we are so much more complex than two sides of a coin.

>>40957454
>So I'm going to need help changing that lightbulb.
i'm not sure it needs to be changed. you are right about that. it's part of the reason my personal philosophy has developed the way it has. even if i don't feel like a woman, my physical existence pretty muc necessitates that i live as a woman. which is very luckily okay for me! even though if i had my way i'd be totally androgynous.
like i was saying in my earlier posts, though, i do not think that external existence is the only way to be whatever thing you are; i believe that gender sort of exists as a product of whatever you personally believe it does. which is a lightbulb i'm sure you would need help changing (although i would not be so bold as to tell you yours is really the wrong bulb at all), just because it's so hippy-dippy. but anyways, my being a woman because the world says so is the same level of real and true as Emily's being a woman because she has a visceral and innate understanding of her womanhood. which is probably a lot more difficult to understand, especially since i can't explain to you from personal experience what that even means.

(cut post because brevity is apparently impossible for me)

>>40958095
anyhow, i think some people are offended by the suggestion that there are limits to how we can physically exist because misunderstandings abound, on both sides wrt this issue. a lot of cis people are unwilling to accept unpassing trans people as the innate gender they are unable (or do not want, for any myriad personal reasons) to pass as, and a lot of trans people are unwilling to entertain suggestions and dialogue like this with cis people who they fear are not actually good-faith actors. so it's just a lot of seething everywhere lol. but i think these conversations are important to have because reality is complicated and confusing and hard to understand. i will not tell you your bulb needs changing because i don't think it's my place to tell you or anyone else what reality is, when a lot of that reality is based on philosophy. trans people can't even agree on what sex and gender are. and i think that's okay! as long as people can be happy and good to each other, i think that's what's truly important. i think you can appreciate that, based on the last paragraph of your original post. i have been rambling like a lunatic, evidently; i just touched the captcha box to check my character count and i'm at least two hundred over by now. i'm going to stop talking but to very shortly respond to the last few things you said: i think you would find a lot of nonbinary people completely agree with you. some of us were just yesterday talking about how there would prbably be a lot less binary trans people trying to fit themselves into these perfect boxes and stressing over proving that they are totally and irrefutably True Men/Women if there were more understanding and acceptance of identities and experiences beyond the binary, which also relates to the above talk about physical limitations...i said, very shortly.
sorry for going on so long. but if you read all that, thanks for caring :)

>>40958108
Course I read it, you took the time to write it and you're conversing in good faith, that's a rare joy these days. Though I'd point out one thing that I sort of feel bad about, the changing the lightbulb wasn't a euphemism. It was just a reference that because of physical limitations it's reasonable to fill them in with the external. Wrapped in a poor attempt at humor cause I am not as tall as I'd like.

Otherwise you a preaching to the choir about verbosity. I've been practicing for almost a year now at working towards brevity and I still waffle like I got stock in eggos.

I do appreciate you chatting with me about this, while I feel like the tangible answers are still out of reach, at least answers that appeal to my ground up method of quantifying reality. A lot of what you said makes sense and in a way resolves some of my lack of understanding as understandable.. if that makes sense. Plus it's nice to have someone sit down and let me pick their brain on it. So cheers.

>>40958219
cheers to you, nonny :) thanks for talkin. i do really love this stuff and i'm glad that it was worthwhile. i hope you'll find all the answers you're looking for eventually. picrel

trans women are men

>>40952569
Sex refers to multiple concepts. We just never notice because in the vast majority of people they are all aligned:

Genetic sex: the presence or absence of a Y chromosome
Gonadal sex: the presence of ovaries or testes
Genital sex: vulva vs. penis and scrotum
Endocrine sex: during and post-puberty, whether the endocrine system is dominated by estrogen and progesterone or testosterone
Sex of rearing: especially for people born with ambiguous genitals, were they raised as a boy or a girl?

These distinctions become important when talking about trans and intersex people. You cannot change your genetic or gonadal sex, but you can change your endocrine and genital sex. This is done to some people without their knowledge or consent: it used to be standard practice to lie to patients about it.

>>40960019
there are zero people who have xy chromosomes and look identical to females

>>40960044
google cais and swyer syndrome
also tonnes of trannies pass ur just deranged

>>40960044
I am one of them. One is greater than zero. Checkmate.

>>40960063
they have visible male features in real life that you choose to overlook in favor of ideology
I am aware of both of those conditions and have seen what they actually look like (like feminized males, which is what they are)

>>40960063
Even pais conditionally
>>40960080
I pass so hard I basically can't come out as trans. People will misinterpret what I said unless I'm really, really specific. Sometimes they'll forget I told them. It's bizarre.
Other people will immediately scan my face and my body for whatever clues they missed. Like they're mad they didn't clock me. This happens most often in queer spaces, among people who've met multiple trans women.
Not even trannies clock me.

>>40960105
anyone can say they pass on the internet

>>40960151
I'm not gonna meet you in real life and I'm not quite crazy enough to post face on 4chan so I guess we're at an impasse.
But I and >>40960063 will know you're wrong.

>>40956876
This is how I feel. I don't really get gender the way people use the word today. But I am so much more at home in my body now, and even my mind just works better on estrogen.
>>40952770
Yeah. Living through the transition was crazy.
The fun part is it's hard in the moment to tell where on the path you are. It's only in retrospect that I really see it.

>>40952552
This is a cope. You can never change your sex.

>>40961789
you cannot change your gender either
the internet is fully of unrestrained crazy people lying through their teeth because it makes them feel important

>>40960151
anybody can say "nobody passes" on the internet

>>40961859
>unrestrained crazy people lying through their teeth because it makes them feel important
aight, but enough about you

>>40961922
>I met MULTIPLE PEOPLE each with RARE 1:60000 GENETIC MUTATIONS and from my EXHAUSTIVE PERSONAL EXPERIENCE I can conclude that CHROMOSOMES SHAPE your BONES
The nerve of these people
>>40961789
>>40961859
See >>40960019

it's so bizarre talking to people like anon above
on the internet bc like i have lived and had so many experiences which prove a consequent so-many things to me and they just like. choose to not believe a word i'm saying. like i come on the internet just to lie............which is fair i guess lol but what is the point of even having a conversation or argument with someone if you're just going to be like "no, i don't believe you actually and you're lying and everything you said is wrong" and not provide any actual counterargument like who are you convincing? or is this fun? is it that they enjoy being obtuse?

>>40960300
>I and >> 40960063 will know you're wrong.
me three
>>40961770
>This is how I feel.
it is wild!! i do wish i had asked earlier how it feels to Know your gender because somehow i have literally never looked into the exact whys and wherefores before. it's a bit like the understanding that gravity slows down time which i know is true but don't actually get at all.